Bike to Alaska

 Chapter 17: The Robert Campbell Highway July 7, Monday: 54 miles (4933)   The only letter I got in Watson Lake was from good old reliable Edie. I bought some flares to scare bears, an inner tube, and $13 worth of food, treating myself to cottage cheese and canned pineapple, and even a half pound of cherries - an unheard-of extravagance.  The pavement ended a few miles out of town, and in the first 40 or so miles of dirt road, I got two flat tires. The first turned out to be just the failure of a previous patch, but the second was a legitimate snakebite flat, from pinching the tube against the rim. The Robert Campbell is narrower and less-well-maintained than the Cassiar; bumpy and lots of both embedded and loose stones, but thankfully also has less traffic. I saw maybe 2 dozen vehicles in 6 hours, including only one big truck, and one tour bus - odd to see, way out here. Less traffic was good, because it seems, if such a thing is possible, to be even dustier than th...

     July 3, Thursday: 70 miles (4706)  Slow start this morning. I cooked potatoes and pancakes, and got going at 11:00. Very mixed road conditions; mostly not as good as yesterday. Had a few stretches of calcium chlorided road, and one stretch of freshly graded surface, but most of the day it was bumpy, dusty, and lots of loose rocks and gravel. No flat tires, but two broken spokes. There also seemed to be slightly more traffic today, a few more trucks. I had a tremendous 19-mile hill coming up from Stikine Canyon to the top of Gnat Pass. Elevation profile of today's 70 mile ride. The dip is Stikine Canyon, the high point is Gnat Pass. As I was climbing the steepest part, it was sweltering hot, the sun blazing down on my back. Then as I got to the more gradual grades, it started pouring down rain and hail - pea-sized pellets stinging me. It turned the road into a twin river, and I'm sure it was awful for the bike to be ridden through such stuff - I could feel the sa...

 Chapter 15: The Dirt Road! The start of British Columbia Rte 37, known as the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. The first ten miles were beautiful, brand-new blacktop!   June 28, Saturday: 55 miles (4394) I got a real treat while I was writing this morning; a family of grouse passed right by my tent, apparently completely unaware of my presence. The mother sat nearby, clucking softly, while the 4 chicks walked around picking bugs off the plants around my tent.  In New Hazelton, I caught up with the 5 bikers from Missoula that I had met in Glacier and again in Jasper. It was good to spend a little time with them - I feel better about sharing the same route now. They showed some respect for the distance I've already come, which they didn't much do in our previous meetings. One of them said "He's already gone farther than our whole trip will be!" They were impressed with my modifications to the bike, (bike-stand, extra spokes, tied-together shift cable) and the fact that i...

    Chapter 14: June 20-27 Solid = paved. Yellow dots = gravel.  Red = Al-Can.  Blue = the route that I took. There were (are) two ways to get to Alaska by road: the Alaska/Canada Highway ("Al-Can"), or the Stewart-Cassiar and Campbell-Klondike highways. They were both almost entirely gravel road then, but the Al-Can was more heavily traveled, especially by trucks, so I opted for the longer scenic route. That meant I had a little over 500 miles of pavement left before the real adventure began.   June 20, Friday: 62 miles (3927) "MAIL! Yahoo!  I knew there was a reason things were so screwed up yesterday. I got letters from Kate, Don, Dottie, the Lindvigs in North Dakota, and someone in Havre Montana, the latter two with newspaper clippings about my trip. I met yet another  biker who's going to Alaska, and it turns out he knows one of my friends at the Wilderness School! He's riding fast and hard, so I don't have to worry about catching up with him. Rai...