From: raster@mystix.cs.uoregon.edu (Radek Aster)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.rides
Subject: Anchorage,AK to Eugene,OR tour:story:long
Date: 13 Nov 92 18:06:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.1992Nov13.180619.22221
Organization: University of Oregon Computer and Information Sciences Dept.

Howdy,

I have always complained that there were not enough touring stories posted to
the net. This summer I completed a Anchorage to Eugene,OR bike tour and wrote
a story about it, which I have included for your reading pleasure.

So enjoy,
Radek

P.S. If anyone is interested, I did a Raleigh,NC to Eugene,OR tour last year
for which I also wrote a story. I'll be happy to post it or email.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The TRIP II - Anchorage, AK to Eugene, OR
-----------------------------------------

SILLY STATISTICS             June 26 to September 9
                             3700 miles
                             4 US states, 3 Canadian Provinces

We knew we would be in for the adventure of our lives when on arriving in
Anchorage, AK, we were welcomed by rain and 50 degree temperatures. Four hours
earlier, when we had left Eugene, OR, the "ambient air temperature" (paah paah
..) was near 90 and climbing. The roads in Anchorage, unlike most American
cities of its size, were built with the bicyclist in mind. The highways leading
from the airport to the downtown area have wide shoulders making cycling
easier. Believe me after a 4 hour flight, a little relief goes a long way. We
spent 2 days in Anchorage, marveling at the high prices and wondering whether
they would get any worse as we traveled into the interior of Alaska and Canada.
In the Anchorage REI Kathy bought herself a head-net. I laughed at her saying
that the last time I had been in Alaska, despite what people had told me, I
hadn't seen a single one of the helicopter sized insects. This would not be the
first time that I would be proven wrong. In fact as soon as we reached the
limits of the man made city, the mosquitos made their appearance, IN FORCE.
Flying syringes.

We headed north towards Denali National Park. The rain cleared up after the
first day, affording us a beautiful view of Mnt. McKinley. The park itself was
crowded with RVs. We could have avoided the crowds had we decided to enter the
wilderness proper, but since we didn't want to deal with stashing our bikes and
livelihoods, we decided to leave. From the park there is a road, the Denali
highway, which leads east towards the Richardson highway. Before the Parks
highway, which links Anchorage with Fairbanks, was constructed, the Denali Hwy.
was the only way into the park. To this day it is not paved and consequently
there is almost no traffic of it. Despite the rough surface and tough riding,
the 130 miles we spent on the Denali hwy. were by far the best riding we did
during the whole trip. The scenery along the road is much like what one would
see in the Denali NP, minus the crowds. The area bordering the road and
extending from it in all directions belongs to the BLM. Hence one can camp
anywhere one wants.

On reaching the Richardson highway, the trip south to Gakona junction and 
northeast to Tok was pretty uneventful except for one day we spent camping in
the woods near Sourdough Creek. The whole area is covered by muskeg, a marshy,
swampy, mossy stuff - ideal breeding for mosquitos. We set up our tent, quickly
setting aside any ideas about cooking dinner. We spent the evening eating
peanut butter and jam sandwiches, inside the tent, watching the mosquitos
covering the tent. I made an interesting observation. If you bring your finger
within half an inch of a mosquito sitting on the tent screen door, it will
sense you (either by smell of the heat from your finger) and stick its nozzle
through the screen in an attempt to get at your finger. One can almost hear it
saying: "Ahh ... I know they're there. Only a liiiiiitle further...." The next
day, I bought a head net too.

On reaching Tok, we were officially on the Alaska Hwy. The Alaska (military)
highway was constructed during WW II as an overland route from the lower 48
states to Alaska. It's 1500 miles long and stretches from Dawson Creek, B.C.
to Delta Junction in Alaska. It was constructed in an incredible time of 9
months by, mostly, U.S. conscientious objectors. These troops may have escaped
the ravages of war, but what they endured instead some considered even worse.
This being the 50th anniversary of the opening of the road, we learned quite a
bit about it. The cold, the flooding, the permafrost and the mosquitos made
life quite miserable for the builders. During the winter, heavy equipment was
kept running all the time, lest the engines freeze. A frozen supply truck
engine meant a ride back to a warm base camp for the driver. So many drivers
intentionally drove their trucks into ditches and gladly took KP as punishment.
Of course commanders quickly caught onto this and restarting the engines and
getting the trucks out of the ditch became a prerequiste to KP. Permafrost made
road building a nightmare. Once the upper layer of insulating soil was removed,
the permafrost would thaw out, creating a bottom-less swamp in which bulldozers
quickly became stuck. The solution was to lay down "corduroy", a layer of logs
to add additional insulation, onto which a layer of gravel was laid. Then of
course there were the mosquitos to keep life interesting for the troops. Note
that back then they didn't have the fancy insect repellents that we have today.

The density of settlements between Tok and Dawson Creek, would be small, and
therefore so would the availability of food. Settlements with grocery stores
would often be 300 miles apart so a little more concern for food would be
called for. Since I was pulling a trailer, we had plenty of space and could
cram about six or seven days worth of food in it. When we did find a grocery
store, we went hog wild. In order to break the monotony of pasta and granola,
we would cook lentils and rice and other food items I had previously thought
were impossible to cook on a small camper's stove. I have to add that I became
quite the expert pancake chef.

In Tok we read about a lady who, with her husband and two small children, spent
the winter in a army surplus tent, because they didn't manage to build a cabin
in time for the winter. She wrote a series of books about her adventures titled
"A tent in Tok". From Tok to the Canadian border was about 2 days.

On entering the Yukon territory, the road surface abruptly changed from smooth
asphalt to "chip seal" which can be likened to gravel onto which glue has been
dumped and allowed to harden. Canadian businesses have no problem accepting
U.S. currency but not vice-versa. Canadians claim that the Americans are paying
Canadians back for not maintaining the highway properly. The twenty miles from
the border to the customs station in Beaver Creek had some of the steepest and
annoying little hills we saw on the whole trip. Canada's way of welcoming
bicyclists I guess.

The Yukon territory is one of the last places on the north American continent
that has resisted human influence. The whole territory is practically
wilderness. Most of the inhabitants, it appeared, reside in the capital of
Whitehorse with a population of around 20,000. We rode through the Kluane
National Park and around Kluane Lake in northern Yukon. Unlike most American
national parks, one cannot drive a car into Kluane National Park. There is a
visitors center in Haines Junction, but the only way into the park is via
trail. Even though we had some heavy rain while riding through the area, the
few glimpses that we did get of the mountains made us realize that we would
have to visit this area again.

In Watson Lake, we met two Canadian cyclists headed for Victoria. We spent a
few nights with them. Wayne kept us laughing the whole day. He was a farmer in
Victoria and rides whenever and wherever he can. Being Chinese-Canadian he
seemed to think that mosquitos preferred the "sweet Asian blood". Kathy
certainly agrees with this observation. His way of dealing with the pests was
"Don't stop. Keep moving. Head down, ass up." In Watson Lake we also heard
about a couple on a tandem riding from Fairbanks, AK, to Tierra del Fuego in
Argentina. Apparently they had broken a wheel and spent ten days in Watson Lake
waiting for a replacement.

The settlement of Liard, is the site of the Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park,
a natural hot spring about a mile's walk from the road. I have observed that
the further one has to walk to a hot spring the fewer human visitors it has to
endure. This was certainly the case here. There are two pools, one about half a
mile further than the first. Needless to say, the second pool was almost
deserted when we were there, and oh ..... how refreshing the water. Across the
road from the hot springs in the famous Trapper Ray's Lodge and Cafe. Ray is an
aging hippy who traps for a living and claims to be one of the few people who
was seen the elusive fur spiders. He had a few specimens pinned to the wall of
his cafe. They appeared to be puffs of wool with pipe cleaners for legs, but
then I'm no zoologist. He claimed that the proper biological name for it was
"Under-toilet Seaterus".

In Dawson Creek we met Derek and Lee, the tandem couple. Bucking the bicycle
industry trend, they had a custom tandem built so that Lee, who is 5' 5", could
be the captain and Derek, who is 6' 3", could be the stoker. They too were
pulling a trailer, so the four of us became fast buddies. Derek endeared
himself to me when, reaching to his waist and squeezing his small "spare tire"
between his fingers, he proclaimed that he's ridden "1600 miles and still he
has a gut". I showed him my tire and told him that we've ridden 2000 miles.
These were our kind of people. Leaving before 10 o'clock was to them also
unheard of. In fact Lee didn't get out of the tent before 9 o'clock. For them a
long day was 50 miles. Needless to say, we would have loved to travel with them
some more, but Derek wanted to cross the Canadian prairie and we wanted to head
South into Jasper and Banff National Parks.

From Grande Prairie, where we said goodbye to Derek and Lee, we headed south
along the Big Horn highway to Grande Cache. To Grande Cache it's 90 miles of
gravel and some of the fiercest headwinds we encountered on the whole trip. On
top of this we were climbing into the Canadian Rockies so the evening
temperatures would often go down into the upper 30's. On reaching Grande Cache
we got our first view of the Canadian Rockies and the first day of "full-on"
tail winds. We covered the 60 miles from Grande Cache to the junction of the
Big Horn highway and the Trans-Canada highway in four hours, quite the record
if you consider that I was hauling 300 pounds of gear and Kathy 200.

We entered Jasper National Park two days later. It's hard to describe but the
Canadian rockies have to be seen. The Icefields parkway which leads from Jasper
to Lake Louise is one of the prettiest roads that I have cycled on.  Numerous
glacier fed streams cross the parkway, and the water tastes heavenly. Not to
mention that because of the glacier silt suspended in the water, the deeper
rivers and lakes took on a turquoise colour. In Jasper we met two more fellow
cyclists, Amy and Caroline from Santa Cruz. The border between Jasper NP and
Banff NP is at the top of Sunwapta Pass, also the location of the world famous
Icefields. One can climb up onto them but after riding up the pass, we opted to
sit and watch instead. Thankful that she had completed the climb, Amy would
thank the Goddess of creation, providing the gawking tourists with quite a show
of folksy religious fervour. The ride down from Sunwapta Pass past the Weeping
Wall is one of the picture postcard rides - thousand foot tall cliffs of nearly
vertical moss covered granite with a view of the Sunwapta River valley beyond.

We took our time in the three Canadian National Parks, Jasper, Banff and
Kootenay. Our average speed had dropped to about 40 miles per day, but just
remembering the taste of the water makes me think that even that speed was too
fast. In one of the campgrounds I saw a little black bear, or rather it saw me
and decided to put as much distance between itself and that human.  Initially I
though it was a dog, but my extensive knowledge of dogs convinced me that most
dogs aren't three feet off the ground at their shoulders and don't usually eat
berries. Needless to say that night we re-established our practice of hanging
our food high in the trees.

Our last day in Canada began rather uneventfully but by the next morning, the
temperature had dropped to 30 degree farenheit and the snow line was 200 feet
above us. This completed the five basic weather factors to be encountered by
any seasoned bicycle tourist : rain, snow, hail, wind and heat. Our route again
took us through Missoula, Montana, home of the Missoula Bayern Brewery and
bicycle mecca. From there we followed the Bikecentennial route though northern
Idaho and central Oregon back to Eugene. At the top of Ochoco Pass we met a
cyclist from Portland, Oregon who was concerned that at age 29 his knees
weren't what they used to be and maybe he was too old for this kind of travel.
He was much relieved to discover that we were 28 years young and the hill he
had just climbed was in fact quite steep and not a figment of his aging
imagination.

In eastern Oregon we encountered rain, but the last day, into Eugene, Oregon
welcomed us with clear skies, a warm day and a slight tail wind.

Lessons learned? Rain isn't that bad. A storm will not last forever, and the
sun WILL eventually come out again. Bears are not a threat to humans, contrary
to popular belief. Squirrels are more of a threat because they will steal any
and all food they can lay their little paws on. One can also live without a
shower, although a sponge bath in a river does tend to improve one's
disposition. Rain gear is good armour against mosquitos, because they can't get
their nozzles through nylon. The larger the RV, the smaller the dog that it
contains. There are only a few necessities in life, and doing without them
makes one realize what they are and cherish them.