Kluane Lake, YT, Canada - RV, biker & cyclists heaven

Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com…

(Gallery at bottom of post)

Prologue – Peru, September 2005, Jon Slade ‘blog e-mail’ to home…

Firstly, an overlooked incident from the time of my last missive, whilst on mountaineering “manoeuvres” (no Jon, you are not and never have been in the army, Cub Scouts yes) in the Peruvian Andes. We’d been warned about thefts in our particular valley (Ishinca) and on the basis that we made up the only two tents in the whole area had become particularly vigilent, or so we thought.

The last night, knackered after 4 days of climbing, as we plunged into the sanctuary of our sleeping bags the tent, suddenly but briefly, almost collapsed on top of us under some great weight…followed by the sound of the outer tent being unzippped…what the %$&*!?

Anthony (the Belgian, connoisseur of fine food and wine), head torch on, bravely opened his side of the inner tent, where the “incident” had occurred only to be confronted by the demonic glow of 2 orange eyes peering back at him – a Bull!. WHAT THE &%$*! Astonishingly it had opened the outer tent with ITS HORN! The beast, with a young apprentice in tow then grabbed in its mouth the rubbish bag from the tent’s lobby and marched away at speed. Urgently, we gathered up any food that we had in the tent and tossed it out – this consisted of 2 oranges, thrown as far as we could muster (in our state, about 5 feet). However these ‘decoy’ oranges then became a source of worry – what if the animals thought we were trying to feed them? they might come back for more…!

Time passed, and to our huge relief they seemed to move off into the darkness (the animals, not the oranges). Phew. We (who am I in this story again? am I an orange?) then made some vague attempts at sleep, now feeling guilty for the way we had, the day before, mocked the local bulls from afar as they charged one-another and locked horns. Quite an escape, goodness knows how much the big one weighed! And those horns!

But…BANG! %&$* they were back! But we have no food! Unless…they’re after…US! Right this is serious (it wasn’t before?) ice axes ready. C’mon! I’ll ‘ave the lot of you! Ok Steven Seagall, calm down – would I actually do it? Would I?

You may be either pleased or disappointed (shame on you!) to know I didn’t need to, they sloped off after rummaging through the fire pit and rejecting one of the oranges. We both slept with our axes at our sides for the rest of the night though!

Incidentally, together these bovine-raiders ate the entire rubbish bag, plastic included – we didn’t find a trace! Our local guide and friend in the other tent found the whole thing quite hysterical, especially, for some reason, the oranges. Was it a bull or a very big cow? We’ll never now. I am, however, kind of glad I didn’t have to explain to the local police why some poor farmers pride and joy had an ice axe wedged between those spooky eyes…would I have?

Cottonwood RV Park, YT, Canada - it won

Eve of American Independence Day, July the 4th 2009

‘Blue Peter’ has a lot to answer for…

Northway Junction, Alaska, USA.  Population maybe 70 people.  50 miles from the Canadian border.   After a good, but hot morning’s ride (around 60 miles) I stopped to stay the night at an RV park, which seemed to have mostly semi-permanent residents, although on that particular day looked fairly unoccupied, owing I presumed to it being the occasion in question.  I was asked to pitch my tent right at bottom of site next to the forest.

I had a ‘cook your own’ steak at a bar a mile or so’s walk down the road and was ready for bed.  Back in the tent, after maybe 10 mins asleep and “what was that?” I thought, startled, as something RAN INTO THE SIDE OF THE TENT making a ‘huffing’ sound, which bears are known to do…OMG….

…I summoned up the courage to lean close and look out (to help air-flow into the tent on hot nights I sleep with the bottom half of the porch open)… only to see…4 long, muscled, blonde furry legs with huge paws run past, right outside!…and to make matters worse, above the noise of the nearby quarry I heard a guttural, growling, purring sound…there and then I convinced myself that I had not a bear but a MOUNTAIN LION  stalking my tent!!!!!

So many many things went through my mind.  “Was I right in thinking that the especially harsh winter meant it was desparate and turning to – rare – human prey?”, “Would anyone come?”, “If I shouted would it aggravate my tormentor into a frenzy?” and “Would I make it through the night?”….????

After what seemed like a hopeless eternity I decided, almost impossibly, I’d wait until morning and hope that some people might arrive – even though there was a small wooden ‘outhouse’ (with a door) 20 metres away, at close range I thought the animal would be too quick for me to (bear) spray it, plus, I didn’t even know if the spray would work on cats!   Did ursine and feline genetics both react the same way to the highly pressurised ‘expulsion’?  Would I jet myself in the face in a panic?

(nonetheless, I removed the safety catch from the spray, held it to my chest and tried to stay more quiet and more still than I think I have ever before…for…HOURS)

Time seemed to stand still.  The digits on my watch seemed held, as if in treacle.  At about 2.30am after 3.5 hours of trying to not move and maintain, agonisingly, some sense of calm, the noise of the quarry finally stopped and I figured, horrifyingly that the breathing and the purring were coming from 2 SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS…there were 2 OF THEM!

(a mother teaching a cub…HOW TO HUNT!!!!???)

At that point I certainly thought there’s NO WAY I could make it to the outhouse. My mobile phone was in the tent’s porch, behind a zipped-up mosquito net and I contemplated a 911 call but worried that opening the zip might aggravate them and if that didn’t, speaking on the phone might (I’d also had no coverage on my phone for weeks).  Dead-end.

I then remembered (only then?) my gps-tracking device (SPOT) – which was also behind the zipped-up net – has an ‘emergency beacon’ button (which sends my location to a 24 hour call centre in Texas who then co-ordinate with local rescue services anywhere in the world to evacuate the holder of the device).

No time to be a hero I decided – I didn’t fancy getting mauled or…worse.

I slowly and gently opened the mosquito net, got the device and pressed the button and as quietly and quickly as I could, pushed it out of the already half open front of the tent, hoping that my hands wouldn’t get eaten in the process, and that the batteries would last as I tried desparately to remember if I’d pitched the tent under a tree (which could block the line of sight to the satellite)…please work!

I waited another 2 hours, hoping that every car in the distance would come to me and be the local police, alerted by the call centre. Nothing came. Maybe there were trees in the way so no signal had been received. Maybe, on a night like 4th July eve and bearing in mind that the nearest major police station was 50 miles away, no officers were available.

So, after nearly 6 hours, I decided I was on my own.  I listened, again.  I didn’t think I could hear the breathing.  I grabbed the clothes at hand (it gets chilly before 9am), the gps device, took a deep breath and popped my head out the front of the tent and then back in.  Nothing.  Then, bear spray in hand I made it to the outhouse.

Again I listened.  I could still hear something like the growling / purring but from the (pungent) wooden hut could see nothing.

Was it / they in the trees of the forest…or…could I… actually…have been…mistaken?

Then, from behind the half ajar door of the outhouse I saw a woman arriving at the trailer next to me.  She didn’t get pounced-on and didn’t seem alarmed…

At the back of my mind I remembered seeing a dog by one of the trailers at the top of the site before I went to bed. Why hadn’t it smelt or heard something and raised the alarm?

I cancelled the rescue message on the device (SPOT) and walked over to the woman and asked had she been here last night – she had but I’d not heard her arrive over the noise of the quarry.  Had she noticed any ‘strange animals’ around camp last night? Well, she said, there’s the big, blonde dog that hangs around sometimes…

I made the connection.  Oh, the, shame!

(of course I didn’t have to tell anyone this story…and if I hadn’t no one would ever have known…)

Northway Junction, AK, US - Camera-shy 'Goldie'

I’d only seen the animals legs.  After listening again the growling / purring turned out to be…a BIRD CALL!  Then, 10 minutes later after a walk to find a payphone I met, by my tent ‘Goldie’, a huge blonde wolf of a dog, sneezing from all the pollen spores in the air, with legs that looked like…a lion.  He was lovely.

Now we’re buddies and he even joined me later as I went for a wee by the edge of the woods, cocking his leg to scent the same tree as me.

Suffice to say the gps unit worked and the call centre had spoken to my ‘emergency contacts’ and were just about to get some State Troopers (police) to drive to the campsite when they received the ‘cancel’ message, thinking and telling my mum and dad that I’d probably pressed the button by mistake and on realising had cancelled it.

So I spent over 6 hours seriously, seriously (seriously!) fearing for my life to be followed by a not an insubstantial amount of embarrassment.

Duped by a big hairy sneezing dog and a bird.

To make me feel a bit better one of the locals said later that day that with all the pieces added together (as above) he’d have thought exactly the same.  I also met a big burly Harley Davidson motorbiker afterwards who said he’d spent a terrifying night, on his ride to Alaska, in his tent, convinced a bear was outside.  It turned out to be an oversize Alsatian (a brown German Shepherd).

On an even more serious note, I found out a day or so later that there really WAS a Mountain Lion spotted in the same valley recently.  Alaska is hardcore.  Still feel embarrassed though.  Whats that Bryan Ferry song? “Imagination…”, well, it seems mine was running wiiiii-ld!

Dot Lake, AK, US - Shampoo Advert for Moose

The rest of this part of the ride (after a few lovely days in Fairbanks catching up with friends and resupplying) commenced with unrelenting, seemingly endless rain, soaking me to my skin, followed by day after day after day of hot weather regularly in the high 20s (celcius) and recently pushing high 3os.  I’ve had a shredded tyre, no bike shops for the entire way (thanks again Josh & Nicole for helping me source the second-hand spare in Delta Junction), a totally unfazed bull moose submerging himself in a lake to next to my tent, been I’m sure on the verge of heatstroke at times, the pleasure of misty early morning starts alongside glassy lakes, improving fitness and knees, more resupply options and fewer of the huge climbs (for now!).  More and more lovely people along the way have wanted to help, provide somewhere to stay in future and have a nice chat.  Sometimes the days have been hard (the heat has been just intense at times and I’m currently demonstrating a particularly fetching ‘rainbow tan’ where I’ve had my sleeves rolled to varying heights on varying days).  But, I’ve had music (Charles_96 my MP3 holds over 6,700 songs and has a little set of speakers!), I’m reading more and I think, starting to get into the ‘swing of things’…maybe!

And of course, I made it across Alaska!  Into Canada! Yukon!  I passed the settlement of Snag (the coldest place in North America at -63c, where Vostok, Antarctica holds the record at -89.2!), was allowed to take my bear-spray over the border (was previously told it would not be possible) and 2 days ago, after a month of cycling in a vacuum in terms of other touring cyclists going my way I met 4, together, Ward, Jacky, Adam and Tim and we’ve been cycling together for the last few days which has been great  I even met Ward and Jacky as I left the Dalton last month, when they were cycling to the Artic Circle!  Small world.

Whitehorse is nice, if a little surreal after having had much smaller towns for a few weeks.  The campsite we’re on is chilled and the mosquitoes (which have recently been awful) are so so.  I plan to head with Ward and Jacky (From the Benches of the World) for a while but we’ll keep in touch with Adam and Tim as they continue their ride to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina in support of Autism awareness (Adventure for Autism).

(I’m camping at a mixture of RV Parks, campgrounds, lay-bys / pull-outs and in Dot Lake the back garden of the Postmaster!)

Oh, and I get wound up on a regular basis whenever there is a dog nearby: “Jon, watch out for that Mountain Lion!”.  Seriously, I continue to be careful and am happy to be here   Onwards.  I hope you’re all doing well.

(Postscript: in my childhood of the 1980s Blue Peter had a dog, called…’Goldie’)

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Seward Glacier Cruise - ITS A HUMPBACK WHALE!

Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com…

(Gallery at bottom of post)

With my legs somewhat rested, bike (Charles) stored in Fairbanks (thanks John) I set off in the middle of June for a 2 week driving tour of Southern Alaska a friend from Liverpool / New Jersey, Lee.  A CAR! NO PEDALLING!

To give you an idea of the sheer vastness that is Alaska, we cover 2000 miles…and only see maybe an eighth of the country!  But it was a great 2 weeks (thanks Lee) and needed after the previous 2 of hard cycling.

First stop Anchorage for some local wildlife AKA nightlife – if you ever go to ‘Darwin’s Theory’ bar on a Friday night, prepare yourself for a rootin’ tootin’ raucous time.  Lets just say that whilst we didn’t get any saloon brawls, the frontier spirit is alive and well in Alaska!

Denali Nat Pk - "Did someone say 'Gentle Ben'? I LOVE Gentle Ben! He's a bear's bear!"

We then head south and begin our ‘Grande Fjord-tour’, making Seward where we take a fantastic ‘Glacier Cruise’ spotting Orca and Humpback whales just off the boat.  Amazing.  We also do a quick walk up to see ‘Exit Glacier’ and the ‘Harding Icefield’ at 3500 feet and I get my first photo of a Grizzly (with cub) who are about 400 feet (and moving closer!) above us as we walk along the trail.  Really special.

Next stop Ninilchik toward Homer on the Kenai Penninsular and Lee’s first night in his ‘SAS Black Ops’ tent.  That night (well it was 10pm but still daylight!) we saw our first Bald Headed Eagle about 20 feet away atop a tree – it didn’t move and the 2 of us just stood there staring.  Wow.

Now Homer, specifically the ‘Spit’ (connected by an isthmus – oooh la-dee-da!) allowed us to attempt to make the biggest fire in history on the beach campsite.  At the point that the not insubstantial tree trunk caught and the grasses by the tents did too (the flames of the fire licking 10 feet across the beach in the wind) we decided to call it a night but not before some lovely camp-cooked food.  No salmonella but hair was removed from respective fingers whilst extracting food from the ‘furnace’ (who needs utensils when you have twigs and hands!  Ray Mears / Bear Grylls would be proud).

If you want to see Eagles this is the place – we saw mid-air battles for food and until a few years ago the Eagle Lady would bring hundreds to a spot just feet from our tent.

“You buy gifts I give you photo” she said with a cheeky smile which belied her senior years.  Whilst I’m not sure I could really make use of a 16 piece Russian Doll, a ladle, postcards of Lake Baikal, an Ushanka, a vodka Urn, faux Faberge eggs nor a pink shirt with tassles, she was quite a fascinating character, Nina in Nikolaevsk and certainly made us very welcome in her cafe.  Lee, how exactly did I end up wearing the pink shirt?

(if you hadn’t already guessed, there are quite a few Russian settlements in this area)

A quick trip to ‘Hope’ (cute, quaint, quiet), a stop to check out the ‘running of the Salmon’ on the Kenai river (HUNDREDS of people fishing on one stretch) and we make it over the other-wordly Glenn Highway (huge chasm-like valleys shrouded in thick pea-soup mist which no doubt hid dinosaurs).  And then came the rain, for nearly a week!

Valdez - Columbia Glacier Kayaking, cold, wet but there are ICEBERGS!

Valdez.  I really really like Valdez (yes, of the oil spill).  Mountains 7000 feet high veer up straight from the edge of the Fjords, no messing, none of this beach rubbish, just, up, straight up.  Apparently this is the place in the world for Heli-skiing with slopes of 60-70 degrees holding snow due its uniquely damp-make-up, a consequence of the juxtaposition of sea and and huge beasts of mountains.

Oh, and for such a little town (maybe 3000, which for Alaska is quite big) it has a really really good nightlife in an ‘edge of the world’ kind of way, a case in point being the response I got from one of the locals when I saw a mass of people on the floor in the dim distance of the dancefloor: “Are they playing Twister?”, “No, they’re just dancing”.  Cool.

(the record in one year for snow on the Pass above the town is just under 90 feet, yes FEET!)

Icebergs, Harper Seals, Sea Otters, more Eagles.  In a dual-kayak.  Rain.  Paddle.  Rain.  Yup, kayaked around Icebergs off the Columbia Glacier.  Bit wet (read ‘soddingly sodden’) but great.  If I do it again I either need a bigger kayak or shorter legs though!

A quick (goodness that Chevvy Impala could shift) scoot across the unpaved (sorry hire car company) Denali Highway spying Moose and we make Denali National Park.  Thats Denali AKA Mount Mckinley, North America’s highest mountain at around 20,000 feet which is a good few thousand feet higher than anything in the ‘lower 48′ (states).

Denali (“the high one” in Athabascan) has a brutal reputation as its so tall and so far north.  Temperatures regularly dip below -50c in winter, something rarely encountered in the Himalaya.  The first team to climb it in winter (most do it in May-June) estimated that with windchill they once got caught out in a storm at -100c.  To be ‘holed-up’ in a snow-cave for 2-3 weeks to ‘wait-out’ a storm is not unknown.  Finally, its got the tallest rock face in the world, some 14,000 feet (climbed in the 60s in a feat years ahead of its time) and unlike the Himalaya which ‘start’ (as far as climbing is concerned) a mile or two up, the base is at 700 feet.  Ouch.

Denali Nat Pk - MOUNT MCKINLEY (aka Denali) SIGHTED! (tallest moontin in N America at ~20,000 feet)

Bears, bears, bears, bears, bears.  Lots of bears.  Daddy bears, mummy bears and little baby bears.  We must see 10 in a day from our bus through the national park.  They are clearly on commission however, since they know how to perform for the camera.  Great though.  We also spy a Lynx (very rare apparently – no picture, too quick), Caribou, Dall Sheep and Fox.  No wolves

And on the 3rd day (in ‘Denali’) we see the mountain (it was cloudy and raining before).  Even from a distance its huge.  I like it.

Back to Fairbanks (I’m starting to feel like a bit of a local there now) and on the way hear the news about M Jackson.

I’ve just cleaned Charles and am in the process of packing up ready for tomorrow…when I head SW toward Canada, first stop, Tok.

I hope you’re all well – thanks every so much for your continued support and comments and sorry that I haven’t had a chance to reply to them all

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Ooh look at 'im with 'is arty stuff - who does 'e think 'e is? David bleedin' Bailey?!

Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com…

(Video approx half way down & Gallery at bottom of post)

So, the 27^th of May 2009, a hotel room in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, USA on the Arctic Ocean Coast, 250 miles INSIDE the Arctic Circle, 240 miles south by mostly dirt road to the next Service Station (Coldfoot) and potential re-supply. Between here and there is the ‘North Slope’ of Arctic tundra, the 4,700 foot Atigun Pass, snow-bound and avalanche prone. Oh, and some bears. And after those 240 miles services are sporadic for the next 260. And I’m GOING TO DO IT BY BICYCLE! Alone. WHAT!?

The bike, Charles, is in a box and needs to be rebuilt by me in the hotel room. I’ll need to wild camp on the tundra / mountains / valleys, carry 2 weeks worth of food. At this time of year (spring) temperatures can still go below -10c. And then there are the infamous arctic winds.

If there is such a thing as being ‘out of ones comfort zone’ then I know for an absolute fact that I’m out of it about 10 times over. I think the phrase is ‘I’m bricking it’. I can’t remember when I was last so, well, scared.

Why exactly did I want to do this?

At the airport I make a friend in Noel, a gas-pipeline inspector (the only reason that Prudhoe Bay is settled and has a ‘road’ from here to Fairbanks 500 miles south is because of Oil & Gas discovered some decades ago). Thank you Noel for all your help and support, the conversation and your kindness.

Well, suffice to say rebuilding Charles also gives a much needed focus / distraction (…oh, I’m starting to remember…I LOVE bikes…don’t I?) and a HUGE feeling of self satisfaction at actually having planned this whole trip and getting here (the kit alone has taken many months of fastidious planning, to make sure I get the right balance of weight, strength, ease of use / repair). Since December 2008 (and on and off for some years, yes years, before), I haven’t thought about much else but the planning: finances, arrangements for my company whilst I’m on ‘sabbatical’, kit, bike, property conversion and getting my head around it all. I’d dare say that I’ve been obsessed in that time whilst on a few occasions I’ve woken in what can only be described as blind panic (alone…awwww!) and thought that I just can’t do this, its too big, too ambitious. But I kept going. Stubborn bugger.

In my training (you can always do more, as I’m soon to find out…!), I carried about 85 lbs or 30-ish kgs. And I could feel it. Now I didn’t get a chance to weigh Charles on that (fated?) day but I’m convinced, on the basis that I could lift him in training fairly easily, knowing what I can lift from a similar angle in a gym and that I could hardly get him off the ground with all my strength in Prudhoe, that he had to be 150 lbs or 65-ish kgs, upwards, easily. 2 weeks worth of food on a 6000 calorie a day diet is a LOT of food! 60 litres worth of ‘volume’ were in panniers of food alone.

After a tyre dip in the Arctic Ocean (still frozen!) I’m off. And there might have been the odd little tear. Joy started creeping in though, slowly, but it did. I’m here. Now. Here.

The first couple of days I take it easy and do ~30 mile days, on gentle inclines. I’m ‘taking it all in’ but at the same time, I’m not. I’m a rabbit in headlights, awed, overwhelmed, running on some kind of auto-pilot. Whilst I’ve done all of the ‘bits’ (biking, bike touring, camping, backpacking, snow camping) before, I’ve never done them together. Nor with so much time invested beforehand. And there’s the thing. Expectation, fear of ‘failure’ whatever that is. I may have started pedaling but can I actually do this? And what is ‘this’? How far? I think, writing now, I’m learning…

Upset number 1: first morning out alone, having camped next to a river, getting ready to cook breakfast (¾ litre of porridge!) my stove (Primus Omnifuel) is missing a part. I must have lost it when packing away after cooking dinner last night. After initially telling myself to ‘keep calm’ I struggle to fight against the brutally matched emotional tornado of wanting to scream expletives into the wind and the overwhelming urge to burst into tears. Somehow I do neither. The words, opportunity, hope, chance and try seem to keep me going. I have no idea where I get this from!

3 hours. I search for 3 hours, telling myself I’ll find it, this little grey metal piece on a huge area of GRAVEL! I could have trodden it in to the ground, it could have been blown. A bear could be hiding it for a laugh.

I don’t find it. I contemplate giving up, after 1 day, hailing a passing truck (one of a few dozen a day passing up to Prudhoe to supply) but somehow, and I really have no idea how (and as I write this I’m quite torn-up, reliving it), I don’t. Absurdly, my mind kicks into ‘contingency planning’ (once a project manager always a bloody project manager!).

Seeing as I’m carrying enough food to stock a small army, I determine there and then that I could survive until Coldfoot (210 miles away) for 6-7 days, just, on cold food if I double-up and then try and re-supply there (although officially there is no general store but I reckon I could try and convince the truck café to help me out…). And the weirdest, weirdest thing is that I actually am uplifted by not having to go through the whole rigmarole of setting up the stove, getting water, cooking, cleaning up and packing away! Eating straight out of packets (lots and lots of Granola bars!) means quicker to bed and longer in bed. I think that rationale (that no hot food is ‘ok’), when its -10c at night, around freezing in the day and I’ve got the prospect of 6-7 days of ‘nuts’, tells you that my mental state was in part at least, well, a bit nuts!

(if you’re wondering what 6000 cals a day actually looks like – 2500 is the recommended for a bloke – its something like this: Breakfast of porridge ¾ litre with dried milk, few hand-fulls of nuts, dried fruit, sachets of sugar; Lunch of ½ litre of soup, whole packet a crackers, 6 processed cheese slices, 3 granola bars; Dinner of 3x helping of pasta, rice, noodles or mash with dried meat, packet sauce maybe some garlic & other spices, cocoa with half bar of chocolate, sweet crackers, gatorade; Snacks: 8 granola bars, trail mix, 4 litres of gatorade)

My friend the road

After setting off again out onto the North Slope (tundra before the Brooks Mountain Range to the south) in brutal northerly winds, sleet on my back I see a trucker, J.T. pulled into a road for the pipeline (more of the pipeline later) oblique to the wind. The hood on his Kenworth rig is up – I go over and say sorry I don’t have anything to offer in the way of spares (!) but would he mind if I shelter behind his truck while I eat and does he have any hot water? Yes, no problem to #1 but no, sorry to #2. Oh but hang on. “I do have this” he says. A portable spot welding torch. “You can try this if you want, but I need to swap out my alternator so will have to leave you to it”. Again, I have no idea where this comes from but, behind his truck, having warmed my posterior for a moment in the well of the trucks’ still-warm wheel rims, I get out a pan from a pannier, get a few suitably sized and shaped rocks, build a little stand, put the pan on top, filled with water and for a few minutes hold a spot-welding torch underneath, moving it around, trying not to sear a hole through the aluminum. The pan doesn’t melt. The water boils. I have some soup. As you do. The small shards of hot rock that splinter off and shoot onto my hands as I’m heating were a little concerning but the idea of some soup (the ‘instant’ type) keeps me going. I can’t think of the last time I had a more surreal moment. Thanks J.T. for the chat and tips about no-go (bear) areas for camping.

One thing he also suggests is pulling up to the security gate at the pipeline ‘Pump Stations’ which are every 50 miles or so – officially they’re not accessible to the public seeing as they’re an integral part of one of the USA’s major major (I’m talking major, did I make that clear?) sources of income i.e. the oil pipeline (for which this road, the Dalton Highway, was built) and are under major (got it?) ‘lock-down’ FBI-grade security. But, crazy Brit man on a bike (I’m the first of the season apparently, most wait until its warmer in…July!) might hold some sway and my last minute purchase of a Thermos (oh providence!) before I left may mean I could get ½ litre of hot water from the gates, every 50 miles. Initially that’s every 2-3 days. It keeps warm for maybe 6 hours. But, it’s something. I manage it twice, thanks to a very kind security guard. Thank you

Now, bears. Polar are a possibility for the first day or so, but Grizzlies and then further south Brown are ‘likely’. There is a Grizzly roaming Prudhoe Bay’s hotel carparks apparently. Hmmm. And where exactly did I start from? Did it have the words ‘park’, ‘hotel’ and ‘car’ in it? Anyway. Further south both J.T. and Kevin, a road construction chap, warn me of the stretch between ‘Ice Cut’ and ‘Oil Spill Hill’ – after a longish day (at that point) of 35 miles I push across and camp the other side of Oil Spill Hill, alone, as most nights. Having my bear spray – mace under fire extinguisher-type pressure – close at hand on the bike and bear-bell ringing (they ‘don’t dig loud noises apparently’ although opinions on this are divided) became commonplace.

During the ride I was stopped twice by truckers telling me there was a Grizzly on the road ahead. The first time I saw nothing. The second, ah, yes. Something (intuition? 6^th sense? fear?) made me turn to my right…O…M…G! 20 feet. GRIZZLY, just there, right, there, at the side of the road. And me, no one else. I kid you not. One of the most intense and surreal (topping the welding torch moment) moments of my life. Ever. He (a male according to locals at Coldfoot) was looking straight at me, back arching looking ready to move, somewhere. To ME? Now they’re super fast and even on a bike (especially one this heavy) could outrun me being capable of 35mph and quickly. I could do 15 mph on flats for a few minutes maybe bursts of 20 mph but my legs would blow up after that. Split second decision. Pedal, hard, hope he wasn’t interested / that with my accouterments I look ‘big’ (yeah right, to a 7 foot, 400 lb coil of muscle, sinew, fur and teeth!). I dare to look back after a minute and he’s…not…there (in all honesty if he had laid chase I’d have had to dump the bike grab the spray and try desperately to keep it together to dose him if he kept coming). Something in me says he was eyeing me up, deciding what to do. Luckily for me, it was to stay put. Afterwards, a local card joked (which I found really funny in a dark kind of way) that because I was moving so slowly the bear probably thought “this guys being pretty laid back, must be quite tough”…as IF! And no, I didn’t stop for a photo!

(on another hill ’62 mile’ incidentally the temperature at night went down to below -10c, I need my down jacket in my sleeping bag with me, I get a foot of snow overnight and when eating – outside, away from tent due to bear-risk – I have to get up every 5 minutes and run around to keep warm and wear neoprene overshoes and waterproof socks to wade through the snow)

And there it was, the Atigun Pass. 4,700 foot. Dirt road. Getting there had been a struggle, 6 days, with one of those days covering just 10 miles into gusting 40 mph headwinds around Toolik (even downhill I had to pedal otherwise I would literally be stopped in my tracks, seriously!) but the day before, whilst tough had worked out well, getting me to the foot of the pass in a hard push (which included briefly swollen lips and tongue following an accidental minute dash of bear spray in my lunch after a tiny amount remained on my hands from an earlier test spray – wow that stuff is hot! Yes, I felt very very silly as I washed my mouth out in a river).

“You’ll be pushing up that” everyone had told me. Now I might not be quite the climber (bike) I was in my twenties (I’m 34) and admittedly I was riding a small tank (sorry Charles, I love you really) but there was no way on earth I was not going to give it absolutely everything to try and pedal to the top. The chap who pulled alongside me in his pickup as I pedaled the start, telling me that in 20 minutes they were dynamiting some snow banks above the pass so I “needed to be clear by then”, also helped. As did the ‘Avalanche Risk Next 5 Miles DO NOT STOP’ signs. Gulp.

The emotions of the last few days and the psychological hurdle of clearing the pass (it would get warmer as I got further south and the wind should start dropping) made me give it everything. I don’t remember working so physically hard for such a sustained period (half an hour) but…I did it, Tommy, I did it I did not stop, I did not stop pedaling. I bloody well did it.

(for sprocket and ratio fans I was running a 22 at the front and a wimps cog of a 34 at the back and I may have dropped below 2 mph but I didn’t really look at the speedo as I was wrenching with all my worth in my arms, chest, back and neck to get traction, switching between ‘tram lines’ constantly to get onto something close to hard-pack dirt from the trails of the truck tyres)

I bloody well did it

(I didn’t have a heart rate monitor on but if I had I’m sure I was pushing into the 190s which even at my relatively young age is not healthy and I may even have touched, possibly exceeded my all time – dangerous, don’t repeat this kids – max of 204 when crossing the finish line in a running race a couple of years ago)

(Re Video: allow to buffer – maybe press pause – if having problems with continuous playback…)

The highway (the Dalton) may be in the middle of no where (where else in the world is there nothing but wilderness for 1000 MILES either side of you) but I must just say something about the, beautiful (sorry, gushing) kindness and generosity of the people I met. Esther at the Arctic Caribou Inn, Prudhoe Bay, thanks for all your help; the kindly tour guide who ‘may’ have helped me get my bike onto the bus to allow me to do a tyre-dip in a high security area; Noel of course; Terry the motorbiker from Florida who was so encouraging on my first day and reminded me of my dad, “Enjoy it” he said; Tommy Cate, of course, the motorbiker from Kentucky with whom I shared some wonderful laughter on my tough tough headwind day, thank you Tommy (btw, did you know I have a Geology degree..?); the other motorbikers who brought me food and water; Lou for the food, water, bike chat and encouragement; Erin for the lovely breakfast; Greg and Kelli and friends in Fairbanks for your support; Kathe and Rocco (cool car!) for the common understanding of ‘why’; Nelly et Claude pour tout; John in Fairbanks for coming to find me as I approached Fairbanks city limits (thanks to SPOT!) and everyone else, truckers (J.T.), motorbikers always giving me a high five / thumbs-up sign, the airline pilots at Coldfoot and Yoda for leading the way.

Mileage. Well. First things first as great as SPOT is (and it is fab and used by a lot of the motorbikers) it only pulses a max of every 10 mins which means that sometimes it misses curves – which you can see if you zoom in on Hybrid view. The upshot of this is that it invariably comes up slightly short but its still a great tool. I have Suunto T6 with roadbike pod (modded to fit an mtb) which tracks mileage at the wheel and using mileposts on the road proves to be accurate to within a few tens of feet per mile which is absolutely amazing.

Day 1: 28 miles (wild camp)

Day 2: 33 miles (to get to 62 mile hill carpark)

Day 3: 38 miles (wild camp)

Day 4: 33 miles (not sure on this one – wild camp)

Day 5: 10 miles (plus 5 to get to Galbraith camp site and lake-side)

Day 6: 28 miles (plus 5 to get from Galbraith – wild camp)

Day 7: 78 miles (includes the Atigun, an immense day on few hard painkillers for knees but got me to Coldfoot and a hot meal)

Day 8: rest! (Coldfoot – no internet!)

Day 9: 62 miles (a LOT of climbing to get to Arctic Circle campsite)

Day 10: 67 miles (again, a lot of climbing to get to Yukon River and a hot meal)

Day 11: 34 miles (getting seriously tired now, taking cat naps in the afternoon – wild camp)

Day 12: 34 miles (more cat naps – Colorado Creek Trailhead)

Day 13: 73 miles (last big push to Fairbanks)

Awww, doggie! (not a wolf)

Why so hard? Well, think of it this way. If you’ve gone almost a week without much (on some days any) hot food, the incentive of getting to Coldfoot, over the pass and onto a downhill ‘trend’ (plus the fact that it got 25c warmer in the space of those 78 miles from around -5c before) is pretty substantial. Whilst I got given (!) a gas stove (thanks again Mike) in Coldfoot it would only last so long with no re-supply until Fairbanks (my stove ran on petrol or diesel which I could have got but remember it broke!) and even though I’d resigned myself to cold food initially, it wears you down not having regular hot food, emotionally if nothing else. Also some of the (rudimentary) campsites above, basically the non- ‘wild camp’ ones had ‘drop toilets’ (work it out!) in a wooden or concrete shed (but these are spaced dozens of miles apart in the north especially) which at the time seemed the height of luxury and at the back of my mind was also a potential safe-house if there was a bear or later, wolf, incident in the night. So, warmth, warm food, people, wanting to enjoy it but also give myself a chance of finishing by balancing all of the above and not running out of anything (supplies, physically or emotionally). That’s why

I’ll never forget that bear. I saw some stunning wildlife: herds of caribou running across the road, moose (sorry no pics, was near the bear-zone), beaver, eagle (soaring, beautiful and rare north of the pass apparently); chipmunks, dozens of incredibly tame gambolling rabbits and lots of mosquitoes south of Coldfoot (ouch I had a few itchy nights!). I’ve travelled from frozen ocean across arctic plains, past frozen lakes, had snow, sleet, rain, howling crosswinds, tail winds and headwinds, slept by calming rivers snug in my bag listening to music from my solar-charged mp3 trying to keep my eyes open to take it all in, climbed snow-bound passes, done climb after climb after climb until I thought my knees would crack, descended with an enormous grin down the best I’ve ever done (‘Rollercoaster’ – 10 MILES! dirt road!), got out of shape on one descent, locked up at 30 mph, fishtailed but held it to avoid a boulder, hit 42.3 mph downhill (into a slight headwind!) on another occasion and lived, man, really effing lived. And done something part of me thought might not be possible, alone (but not alone, in so many ways of course).

And made myself proud. Whatever happens next. And before you ask, I’m still thinking Off to Anchorage in a day or so for a couple of weeks off bike with fellow partner in crime, Lee (mini-yoda).

(btw right click on the entries in the ‘Where am I?’ page to look at ‘Altitude profile’, sheesh!)

Postnote:

Good kit: Charles, astonishing bit of kit, just amazing. Had to clean the gears a couple of times and adjust brake pads as a I wore them down so much stopping all that weigh (my belly) and had one loose front pannier rack but that was after 20 miles of hard downhills off the Atigun. Tent, fabulous, sturdy as you like, proper bit of gear. Thermos, godsend. Neoprene overshoes (thanks Phil) although now ripped to shreds. Waterproof socks & gloves (Sealskinz). Gore jackets and fleeces (no I’m not sponsored!) of which I’ve got 3, a shell, windproof fleece and microfleece. Bib-leggings, classic, from the Scottish wonders that are Endura (no, not sponsored!). Solar panel, great but need to work out how to use it properly. SPOT – for me its not so visible (what it can do) but apparently its caused a bit of a stir amongst some of you!

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Kay and I are very proud of what Jonathan is doing. We do not ask “why?”. We know. If you know the answer to “why?” you do not need to ask and you understand. If you need to ask “why?” you will not understand the answer.

Jonathan rang last night – midnight UK time Thursday 4 June 2009. He is camping at Coldfoot with a nice warm diner to hole up in.  He is tired, and resting for a day, but upbeat and elated by his experiences.  Half way to Fairbanks and over the crest of the Brooks Range is excellent progress.

I will keep any relevant news posted on this site either directly or via Jason.

PS. Where does Jonathan get this from? Maybe in part from us. Feel free to visit my website http://www.rogersladephoto.co.uk. I work in Antarctica each winter. And I have just bought a large motorbike.

So, “keep on trucking Jonathan”.

In other riding news, it looks like Jon has taken a 7 mile detour around Gailbraith Lake.  After getting to a dead-end, he had to go back the way he came.  We’re looking forward to hearing what really happened Jon!

The next town that Jon is due to go through is Wiseman, AK.  Hopefully he’ll find public internet access there.  At his current pace he should be in Wiseman in 2-3 days.