On To the Cassiar, August 5th, 2014

RV parks in the morning are noisy places, but we're so exhausted from the 100 miles yesterday that we sleep until 9:30.  Our morning ride involves hills and long, flat sections.  The wind is blowing lightly, sometimes a headwind, sometimes a tailwind.  It's just under 25 miles when we start seeing signs for the junction with the Cassiar Highway.  Yay!  To make things even better, there's a restaurant/RV park/motel just before the junction, and it's open!  Since no other cyclist had told us about it, we had assumed it was closed like most of the other former establishments on this highway.  It's called Nugget City, and they serve food, baked goods, and ice cream.  The guy running the place is rather funny and advertises all the food to us.  We end up enjoying a large blueberry muffin and some ice cream.  A kilometer or so down the road, we turn south on the Cassiar Highway.  Immediately we are climbing a steep hill with a full-on headwind.  So continues the rest of our day.  Notable stops along the way include entering British Columbia (for good this time), lunch in the shade (it's super hot out today), and a stop at Blue Lake to fill up water.

 The area we're riding through was recently subject to a huge forest fire.  All the spruce trees are crisp and burnt.  In some places, they look striped, the inner bark creating a stark contrast with the charred outer bark.  It would look desolate if it weren't for the fireweed, which forms a dense, pink carpet among the trees.  And the smells!  The wind carries us the smell of chopped wood, fishiness from the lakes, wet burnt wood from the forest, and summer flowers.  It's really quite beautiful.  Thankfully there's much less traffic than the Alaska Highway, so it's easy to ride side by side and chat.  

Late in the day we enter back into green forest and reach our first campground.  60 miles.  We decide to push on, but the headwind has really picked up and it's tough going even though the road has flattened out.  At 70 miles we come upon a rest area where some RVs appear to be camped.  Exhausted, we stop and set up as well.

The Century! August 4th, 2014

We wake up to the loud chattering of squirrels.  It seems nowhere around here is quiet in the morning.  As we leave our campsite, the morning air is still.  Deep, thick, quiet forests fill the valleys alongside us.

Occasionally we see a lake tucked away behind the greenery.  The water is always clear and perfectly calm.  After about five miles, a light headwind picks up, but it's barely noticeable after yesterday's ride.  Above us, there's a high layer of clouds, and a giant rainbow forms in a circle around the sun.  Beautiful!  We leave the Yukon and enter British Columbia for a bit.  A sign says, "Welcome to Super, Natural British Columbia."  As we ride, there's no sign of civilization except for a wooden fence and a sign that says "horses at large."  Just as we are starting to think about lunch, a familiar car drives by.  Could it be?  It looks like our friends who gave us the ride from McCarthy, Jim, Janet, Dan, and Nannette, and indeed it is!  They stop just up the road to say hi, and we make plans to meet at a pullout just nine miles farther.  The next "pullout" is the old town of Swift River.  Once there were shops and a motel, but now it's deserted and run down.  When we arrive, Dan and Nannette are super excited about the rocks they've found in the area.  The rock shop that used to be here must have left some of their specimens!  They've prepared a bag of snacks for us for later, as well as PB&Js, which we eat with our regular lunch.  It's wonderful to hear their travel stories.  How funny and how nice to see them again.

Since this morning I've been thinking about getting to Big Creek campsite down the road, but it's pretty far.  Biking there would put us at about 100 miles for the day.  The only way biking another 60 miles from our lunch spot will be feasible is with a tailwind and some nice long downhill.  Lucky for us, that's exactly what the afternoon had in store. 

As we eat lunch, it begins to rain and the wind really picks up.  It's a tailwind!

We bike over rolling hills until we reach the Continental Divide.  The Alaska Highway crosses it at one of its lowest points.  We've just biked up from the Yukon watershed, which drains into the Bering Sea, and now we're about to enter the Liard watershed, which drains into the Beaufort Sea.  After the divide, we start an amazing downhill. The trees are blowing over in our tailwind as we race down.  I feel like they're cheering me on.  Go, go!  We pass Rancheria Falls Recreation Area and the run-down but still functional restaurant/motel at Rancheria, still going at high speed.  A bit down the road, we meet Xavier, a touring cyclist from France who started in Vancouver and is going to Anchorage.  He has an awesome recumbent bike with a dynamo hub.  We exchange road information then part ways.  Unfortunately our amazing downhill comes to an end, but we decide to keep pushing ourselves, sticking to our goal of reaching the campsite.  We must pedal over some steep and buggy hills, but we make it!  Our longest day yet!  Legs are sore, but spirits are high. 

Danny's odometer: 100.01 miles.  The mileage upon arrival read 99.6, so he rode around the campsite until reaching 100.

Danny's Writings, August 2-3, 2014

Hills and Headwinds, August 3, 2014

After we packed up, I met Tam in front of the bakery.  She was talking with Fred from Montana, and I joined in.  So we got a late start, around 10:15, but hoped to make up time as we went.  The road had other ideas. Steep rolling hills and a fierce, unrelenting headwind made progress slow and frustrating.  We still did our best to appreciate the surrounding beauty; Teslin Lake was so nice!  

We also saw a bear while riding: I was riding behind Tam on a downhill when I saw a small brown bear walk obliviously into the road a few hundred feet ahead of us.  Our system, so as to be specific about where an animal is and not to scare the other person, is to say what it is then point at it.  This only works, however, if the person in front sees the animal first.  I waited a few moments for Tam to see it, but when she kept cruising without any sign, I just yelled, "Bear! Look up!"  She had been reading a sign next to the road.  The bear skedaddled as soon as it heard us, but it was a somewhat exciting moment nonetheless.

By the time we reached Teslin, thirty miles in, we were exhausted.  This was the location of the last store we would see for about 300 miles, so to supplement our lunch and not use our food for the next few days, we bought some fruit. And a lemon-meringue pie.  The pie didn't help our biking progress, but it was a nice treat.  We biked for a few more hours after lunch, still into the wind (which was actually a nice cool breeze when we were stopped), and ended up stopping around 7.  We hoped to camp on the fringes of a rest area, but this rest area had a secret camping spot not marked on our government map!  We were rather happy about that and enjoyed sitting at a picnic table while having our dinner of couscous, various veggies, olive oil, and sesame sticks.  And dessert, the double-bagged chocolate with peanut butter.  Then a few minutes at the adjacent river to wash clothes, then bed.

The Chocolate Disaster, August 2, 2014

We said goodbye to Jeremie and Shannon this morning and headed out of Whitehorse, excited to be back on the road on a warm day under a clear blue sky.  We had talked about upping our daily mileage from 60ish to 70ish, so we picked up the pace shortly after leaving.  Unfortunately the mild yet constant headwind slowed us down, but we still made pretty good time.  We did stop for a few minutes at one point to eat wild raspberries!  They're always so sweet when wild.  Soon the low-bush cranberries should fruit, and hopefully we are still far enough north to find and eat some after the first frost; that's when they lose their tartness.  Anyway, Jeremie had sent us off with some freshly caught and home-smoked salmon, and we both enjoyed it with lunch as an hors-d'oeuvre to our tortillas and cheese.  Neither of us, as vegetarians, has an issue with eating home-caught and prepared salmon.  And it was delicious!

After lunch, we biked awhile more only to run out of water.  The place we had expected to get some said they didn't have any, so we went looking for a stream or lake.  A few uncomfortable miles later, we found a nice brook and took full advantage to quench our building thirst.  One of the nice things about Wrangell-St. Elias, the last national park we spent time in, was that all the water could be drunk straight out of streams.  The abundant glaciers there act as giant purifiers.  I've drunk straight out of streams frequently in remote areas of the Sierras as well, but this time, since we couldn't see the headwaters of our stream and weren't sure of the water quality, we made sure to purify the water.

Up the road, we met Joe and Cory, two cyclists coming from Victoria and Banff, respectively.  

We enjoyed talking with them and sharing our favorite places they would soon reach.  We learned that Joe had met two of the cyclists we had biked with in Alaska!  The northlands bike touring scene is a small world.  They informed us that there was a bakery about 20 miles up the road, so we set our sights on that and arrived a little while later having done almost 80 miles, our longest day yet.  

We sat down at a picnic table, and I opened my bear canister to retrieve my dinner food. Uh oh... The giant bag of bulk chocolate chips, our dessert for the next few days, had somehow been punctured.  The chocolate had melted in the heat of the day, oozed out of its confinement in the bag, and was now sitting freely in a puddle on the bottom of my bear can.  Tam helped me lick clean the other bear can contents that had chocolate on them: a pre-dinner dessert!  We scraped and cleaned the rest out later.  Lesson learned: double-bag the chocolate.

Exploring the Capital of the Yukon

After hanging out at Alpine Bakery (this is a stop you cannot miss if you are ever in Whitehorse) and enjoying the farmer's market yesterday, we decided we liked the town so much that we had to stay another day.  It was about time for a rest day anyway.  We made delicious pancakes this morning, then spent some time biking along the Yukon, exploring the shops on Main Street, and visiting local bike shops. 

Fireweed by the gorgeous clear blue Yukon River

In the afternoon we visited the dam and learned a lot about salmon. Whitehorse has the longest wooden fish ladder in the world: 366m long! Although the salmon were not jumping up the ladder, we saw them pooling at the bottom.  Huge and powerful fish who have traveled upstream almost 3,000km to get here!

The spillway at the dam and part of the fish ladder. 

Can you see the giant shadowy salmon?

But what has made our stay in Whitehorse so special is getting to know our warmshowers host, Jeremie.  He has been more than welcoming, opening his home (and hot tub!) to us. It's been wonderful having such a comfortable place to stay and getting to know Jeremie, his son Finn, and partner Shannon. Thanks so much for everything!
Tomorrow we're planning on getting back on the road.  We'll post some new stories as soon as we find more free wifi.

Whitehorse

Made it to Whitehorse!  We're hanging out now with a couple of other cyclists, and we're hoping to stay with a Warmshowers host tonight.

Matt and Sarah

A wonderful place

Best falafel ever at the farmer's market. His shirt says, "make falafel not kerfuffle."

Trying out the owner's recumbent bike at the bakery

July 30: Water Everywhere

Last night, July 29, we ended up staying in Haines Junction to hang out with Berel and Chris, our German friends who rolled into the bakery just as we were about to leave.  Gabriella and Joelle went off to camp, and us and the guys camped in a different spot.  The girls somehow found the only spot in town that had a no camping sign and put their tent right next to it, and we shook our heads.  We had a great time talking and laughing with Berel and Chris late into the night, and it was too bad that today we had to say goodbye.  Next time in Germany!

Though Haines Junction does not have a grocery store, it does have a community pool with public swim from 7:30-9 every morning, so Tam and I woke up early and went to check that out.  For $4, we were able to swim in the pool and take hot showers!  Again, it's the little things. The subsequent ride was cold and wet; it had rained all night and all morning and continued to rain while we rode.  I would look down at my odometer and find that I had only traveled a tenth of a mile since I last checked.  One of those days.  We stopped about 20 miles in at the truck stop in Otter Falls, where we warmed up and had a nice lunch with Uschi and Christoph, two really thoughtful German folks who spend their summers here in Canada.  They do kayak touring and are on the road driving for a few weeks to check out some of the more northern lakes.  They generously paid for our pancakes before we had a chance to pay, and the stimulating, spiritual conversation gave us food for thought for many miles down the road (and will continue to ruminate).  If you're reading this, thanks guys!

A bit after Otter Falls, it stopped raining and we made good time.  Around 7:30, we camped by a side road near a big patch of small but sweet wild strawberries (!), and as we were eating dinner, another cyclist rolled up.  Max, from Salt Lake City, was planning on taking the side road a few kilometers to the campground, but we convinced him to stay and hang out with us.  

The rain held off throughout dinner, and we shared stories, food, and road beta (information - he's heading in the opposite direction).  Currently it's raining again, which seems to be the norm everywhere we've been, but we press on.  

Lakes and Teleportation, July 28-29

July 27: We started off the day in fine fashion with couscous and olive oil; we had let the couscous hydrate overnight in a peanut butter jar.  The morning fog quickly cleared up and the valley we biked through was nice, but it was tough to focus on that because of a stiff headwind.  Some lollipops helped; an RV pulled alongside us as we were riding and gave us two of them!  It's the little things that make each day unique and special.  

We made it to Burwash Landing, our first town, in good time, the headwind notwithstanding.  There isn't much there except a museum, which we thoroughly enjoyed.  The exhibits were well done and had interesting facts on native animals and people.  Did you know that moose can reach submerged vegetation up to 20 feet below the surface of a pond?  I didn't.  

A few miles up the road we came to Destruction Bay, which is so vividly named for a windstorm that came through and destroyed the town some years ago.  It's not really a town, just one motel with a little gas station, store, and restaurant.  We had been crossing our fingers that they would have chips, salsa, bread, and peanut butter, and they did!  We spent a few hours eating a satisfyingly large lunch of chips and salsa with cheese, and PB&J sandwiches, and using the Wi-Fi to update the blog and check email.  On our way out, we ran into Berel and Chris, the Germans we had met the day before.

 We talked for a bit then headed out, promising to keep an eye out for them when we found a good campsite.  Unfortunately, it seems we went farther than they did, because we haven't seen them again.  We couldn't seem to stop riding; the wind stopped blowing, and the road, winding around the west shore of giant, turquoise Lake Kluane, was incredibly scenic.

 We ended up camping right on the shore, where we made a fire with some driftwood and used it to heat up water for beans and mashed potatoes, as well as to warm ourselves after going for a very quick swim in the frigid lake.  Then, to top it all off, we enjoyed chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter, all warm and melty from the fire. What a wonderful day!

July 28: The same headwind from yesterday did not let up, so the miles came slowly.  We were apprehensive of the highest point on the highway, but we stopped at one point and figured out that we were actually at that highest point!  A long downhill lay ahead, but the rain clouds were threatening.  We donned our rain gear and headed downhill.  And what a downhill!  It lasted over six miles, and though we froze during it because of the cold rain and wind, when we reached the bottom the sun was out, flowers lined the road, which had become smoothly paved, and the headwind had turned into a tailwind!  It was as if we had teleported.  We were flabbergasted, happily surprised.  We spent the next few hours in Haines Junction eating pizza, shopping for food for the next few days, and talking with two cyclists, Gabriella and Joelle, from Quebec.  

They enjoyed their pizza too!  Off to Whitehorse- we will be there in two days and will hopefully take a day there to rest and recuperate.

Tam's Journal, July 24-27

July 24: In the morning, we wake up in the bus, eat more than our fill of chocolate chip pancakes, do laundry, and clean up as best as we can.  Afterwards we both spend time talking to Jay and his wife, Debbie, along with their friend Bob, who lives down the road.

They're a wonderful resource of entertaining stories and advice.  It's 3:15 when we finally set off.  We wind up and down over gradual hills with lakes, clear streams, and rounded green mountains that break up the spruce-birch forest.  Around Tok the road flattens out, and it's like a runway. The good road, an amazing tailwind, and pancake fuel make the ride go by quickly.  When we arrive in Tok, I can't believe we've gone 60 miles.

July 25: We wake up and bike 1.8 miles back the way we came, to Sourdough Campground.  We can't pass up all-you-can-eat pancakes for $10!  Together we consume a total of 45 good ol' sourdough pancakes.  The lady working there also makes us veggie sausage and hot chocolate.  While we're eating, we meet three guys from New Zealand: Sam, Sam, and Cam.  They've been driving around having adventures in an old green van with a lego man as mascot on the front.

We share stories over breakfast and talk a bit of politics with the pancake chef.  All of this amounts to a true, sourdough, Alaskan roadhouse breakfast, the perfect way to say goodbye to this fascinating state.  Afterwards we go food shopping and fly out of town propelled by yet another tailwind.  About 57 miles up the road, we stop at a free campground in the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge.  The campsite is beautiful, and just when we thought our night couldn't get any better, we have the pleasure to meet some other travelers down by the lake.  Two are cyclists on a round-the-world trip, and two are from Switzerland exploring Canada and Alaska in a van.  As we talk, we are entertained by a mother duck and her twenty adorable ducklings out on the lake.

July 26: At 8:40 or so, we meet our new biking friends Billy and Nolwenn for breakfast by the lake.  We share with them the last of our pancakes, and they share Japanese Green Tea and oatmeal with fresh raspberries.  It's a delicious way to start the day.  It's already 10:30 or so when we begin to ride.  Our road takes us through more spruce forest and lots of hills.  The clouds are hanging low, so there's not much to see besides the occasional lake.  Our first bit of civilization is the Tetlin NWR Visitor Center.  We find it thoughtfully designed, just like the campsites and displays also associated with the park.  We fill up water and eat lunch. Just seven miles up the road, we reach the Alaska-Canada border.  Only U.S. Customs is here.  They have a huge building with a yard for the dogs, and the road passing through is watched by large, gray cameras from every angle.  There's no Canadian Customs here.  It's 20 miles down the road, just outside the town of Beaver Creek.  Those 20 miles are on bumpy chipseal, but the road flattens out quite a bit, and the sun finally comes out through the clouds.  On the way, we see multiple cool birds and meet two cyclists on a tandem bike.  They have plans to travel up to Deadhorse, where we started.
At the Canadian border crossing is a large, red maple leaf and a small, brown building.  I'm sure there are cameras, but they aren't large enough for me to notice them.  A nice guy checks out our passports and asks a few questions.  In a couple minutes, we're through.

Once in Beaver Creek, we make a couple of stops.  #1 to purchase and eat an amazing peanut butter cookie, #2 to purchase a grapefruit, and #3 to get a map and information on the road from the visitor's center. We decide to head to the first campground, 10 miles out of town.  At this point, we've been warned multiple times about the construction on this road, and we're not sure to expect.  What we find is a combination of gravel, mud, and rocks, but for the most part it's not too bad, and we make fairly good time.  At the end of the day, we're both happy to find a cute campsite with a big picnic table and a view of the lake.

July 27: When we emerge from our tent, the sky is cloudy but there's no rain. Yay!  We ride for a bit on bumpy gravel then get to a section where we must ride in a pilot car for 3 km or so.  After this, there's only a bit more gravel, then we hit chipseal.  Never have I been so happy to ride on chipseal.  We ride through more forests and lakes.  In one of these lakes, we see two regal trumpeter swans and three of their gray, fuzzy cygnets.  It's a treat to see them so close.  Cruising along, we notice two cyclists coming up behind us.  It's Chris and Berel, both studying medicine in Germany and biking around Alaska and Canada on their holiday.  They're friendly guys, and talking with them makes the miles fly by.  When they stop at an RV campground to get coffee, we keep riding.  For lunch, we stop at a "rest area," really a pullout with a bathroom and a small deck over a lake with some info boards on it.  The boards explain how this valley is, and has been for years, an important migration corridor for birds and other wildlife.  Even ancient tribes in the region used this corridor between the mountains to travel.  Now we are too!  After lunch, we start talking to a young couple from France who have been driving around Alaska.  They share water and cookies with us!  Back on the road, their red van passes us and stops.  We think they might be waiting to say something to us, but then we realize that there's a mama black bear and her two adorable cubs on the other side of the road.  I'm apprehensive about being so close, but the mama bear ignores us as we bike slowly past.  On a road with very little traffic, suddenly there are several cars and multiple RVs all stopped to take pictures.  Down the road, the construction we thought was over, isn't.  I'm convinced we are riding Canada's version of the Dalton Highway.  Even though the road isn't great, we make good time due to a generous tailwind (we've been so lucky with these recently!) When it gets late, we set up camp in an open yard next to a ramshackle auto shop.  Its owner looks like he's lived here for 50 years and hasn't showered once, but says that it's fine for us to stay here for the night.