Day 9 Tok to Deadman Lake

June 30 2014

The Ride:
Gentle rain in the morning while we were in our tents. Camped behind school near some ATV trails. Some ATVs drove nearby but no one saw us.

Temps were in the 60's and the ride was mostly downhill! Some steep climbs towards the end of the day but otherwise it was uneventful, which is good. We are definitely out of the mountains. The terrain is hilly, but it is more like Grand Marais area.

My chain broke completely off! Very scary, since we have a long ways to go before the next bike store. Fortunately the master link Nick gave me made the chain good as new, the only problem is it is too short. Hopefully it will make it to Whitehorse...

 Fixing the chain is frustrating. Eating snicker and drinking coffee helped to provide relief.

 Junction at Tok. 90 miles to Canada!

 Played in some sand dunes, left our mark.

 Alaska is vast, and beautiful even with the fog and rain.

Arived in Deadhorse at 7:00 which is a free, primitive campground. It is in the Tetlin Wildlife Refuge and there are many birds here, and they like to squawk and make a lot of noise while we sleep.


Thoughts and Observations:
Most people up here are RVers or motorcyclists.
Locals are friendly. At least I think they are friendly, it's hard to tell because they can be strange, too.
Alaska is very large.
Alaska has incredibly beautiful scenery.
Alaska has very few beautiful women.
Alaska has very few people in general.
Alsaka has NO recycling.
I don't think I want to move up here. Though the scenery is compelling, no recycling makes me cringe. I've thrown away more things in the last week than in the last month before this trip.

2014-6-27 Glenallen to Mile 70

Record day with new friends!


We woke up at 6am, nervous about being walked in on at the laundromat. While packing up the owner came upstairs and into the room from a locked door in back. He asked if we camped out and we sheepishly admitted "We may have fallen asleep in between laundry loads. He said it wasn't the first time... He didn't seem too upset, but it's hard to read the emotions of many Alaskans, especially him.

After stocking up on snacks we headed out. After an initial climb, we had 15 miles of more descending. I'm nervous about when our good luck of constant descending will run out.

We got more conflicting advice from Julia, the owner of a trailer restaurant. Her salmon salad sandwich was delicious, as was her potato salad. Her advice was to drink only bottled water, or boil any other water for 10 minutes because of the Giardia and arsenic. She also warned us to "Not do yourself any favors by camping out alongside the road. Camp in a campground." We will ignore both those pieces of advice. Campgrounds are probably less safe because people are lazy about their food and bears have learned that they can get food there.

A short while later we saw a man in a wheelchair. He was friendly and told about a bear who chased a motorcyclist, and continued chasing her even when she was a mile down the road. Then he asked if we had any money. The bear stories and advice are so wild and conflicting it's impossible to know who to believe.

I am becoming less and less trusting of everyone and everything around me.

Just kidding.

We met 2 delightful cyclists from Germany. Julia and Hannes are on their way to Brazil. They are taking a more meandering route than we, but we plan to meet up in Tok for a 1000km celebratory beer.

We compared gear and shared stories about our adventures. I also go to rant about the United States non-use of the metric system. After riding for 25 miles, we ate dinner and set up camp. Hannes and Julia biked farther to make tomorrow's ride shorter. I was gassed and couldn't go another mile.

Our campsite is a maintenance road. Snow covered peaks loom out in the distance. Will we have to climb tomorrow? Or will it be more downhill?


75 miles

2014-6-26 Glacierview to Glenallen

Woke up cold and wet dreading going. Despite the cold and dread, once I got on the bike, everything felt right.


One mile down the road from where we camped, we found a sign for a cafe and lodging. I think it was called Mountain Lodge. We wished we would have seen it the night before! Although it was probably closed by the time we would have gotten there.

We went in for coffee, and stayed for a second breakfast. "The last 25 cent cup of coffee on earth" the meanu boasted. Free refills, too.

We talked to some other patrons at the restaurant.
From one woman we got the following advice:

• grizzlies all over the Yukon
• Lots of other cyclists coming down from Fairbanks
• the cafe is at the highest point on the pass (we would gratefully descend for the next 10 miles before any serious uphill)
• Alaska has 1 month of nice weather: May. June - August is rainy season. Who knew?

Ride was cold and wet, again, but we devised ways of keeping our feet less cold. Nicholas put plastic bags between his socks and shoes, and I stopped every so often to wring out my socks. It was gross.

Alaska seems like a big joke to me: the weather, the towns on a map that aren't towns at all, the mixed opinions about what to see and what not to see, the mixed advice on bears and wildlife.... it is all so confusing. While at a rest stop wringing out my socks, a Direct TV man stopped to use the latrine. He asked where we were going, and we asked him "Does it get any warmer?" He paused for a moment, looked like he was about to say something smart or sarcastic, and then broke face and answered with a laugh and an unequivocal "No." He knew the joke was already made: Nicholas and I were in for another day of misery.

The woman at the cafe was right aboue the Cafe being at the highest point on the pass. The inclines were less intense and shorter, and we descended much more today. at mile 50, Nicholas gazed out over the road which meandered down into a valley. He said "Last 10 miles downhill." I thought it was too good to be true, but that is what it was. We road a heavenly 10 miles into town, bumping our average speed up to 12 mph for the day as we rolled in.

We got food at a grocery store in town, looked into paying for camping, but at $25 for a tent space (same as an RV) we decided it was too much.

Before finding a place to stay, we went to a vacant parking lot infront of a boarded up taco and gift shop to air out our tents and large gear. Not a taco shop and a gift shop, and taco and gift shop. It was here that we met some interesting folk, and got some supplies. Who knew sitting in a vacant lot could be so eventful?

"The Robber"
While airing out our gear, a man came up to us in his truck. He said that he was coming back from camping with his wife and daughter, and they needed gas money to make it back. He was selling some of his camping gear. For the last two days (the cold, wet rainy miserable days) Nicholas had been talking incessantly about how much he wanted a thermos like the one I have to keep hot liquids in. And it just so happened that this man had a 2 liter thermos in his truck bed. $5. So Nicholas bought the stolen thermos from the man and it made our day! He also bought a solar/wind rechargable  up radio from him which works like crap. I knew it wouldn't work, but I seceretly like that we can get the weather report for 30 seconds at a time when the thing works.


"The Crazy Hiker Guy"
While airing out our gear, a man came from inside the boarded up building and started talking to us as he smoked a cigarette. Apparently he had been walking and hitchhiking between Anchorage and somewhere. His story was hard to follow. He diappeared for a while, and then returned with some fishing line and hooks that he gave to us because he wouldn't need them anymore. If we are stranded by a lake or stream without food now we can catch some of our own.

"The Mayor"
An ATV riding man approached us and taught us something about government: Glenallen is an unincorporated borough, has no mayor, and has no laws. There are no taxes, and no ordinances. If you want to start a bussiness, you buy a piece of land, nail together some walls, and start up. It just so happens that, according to the mayor, Glenallen is one of hte last places with any freedom. Who knew? And we got the privalage to be a part of it.

The man wasn't actually the mayor, because there is no government in Glenallen. But he probably runs the town considering he and his wife own half the successful businesses in town: The RV Park, the grocery store, the functioning gift shop and cafe, and something else.

Despite being one of the only places with freedom, we didn't feel free enough to camp in the parking lot of the man who owns half the town.

There was as 24 hour laundromat in town, so we decided we would take a long, long time to do laundry.

The weather is clearing, and tomorrow is supposed to be better.


62 Miles

2014-6-25 "Moose Lake" to Glacier View

12:00
Last night was restless due to a moose cavorting in teh water by the boat landing. He was steps outside Nicholas' tent and gave some noisy grunts before splashing among the lily pads.

We stayed awake for some time before falling asleep again. We woke up to a steady dirzzling rain that has been going on for the last 5-6 hours. It is noon as I write and it shows no signs of letting up. I hoped it would pass quickly like the previous rain showers, but, alas, it persists. We will likely break camp and head out with wet gear.  We want to get in some miles and out of a dangerous camping area.


7:00
Cold, wet day. Lucky to be remotely comfortable now. The wet tent feels amazing, "Like a sanctuary," said Nick. We endured the longest, steepest climbs of the trip, and my chain broke on one of them. I took out a link and nervously pushed up the rest of the hill. I want to get a spare chain, but the next bike store is 600 miles away.

Feet are sopping wet, and I couldn't feel them for most of the ride. Only now, inside a sleeping bag inside a tent, am I beginning to regain feeling.

Making hot food was a struggle, since the cold made us not want to stop moving, and expose our poor hands to the cold. The temps were in the mid - low 40s for most of the day.

Hanging our bear bag was also a struggle, and we put it at about eye level. We suppose now we made it easier for the bear to get our food than if we left it on the ground: it won't even have to bend over to take a bite out of our bags. 

I'm nervou sabout the cold weather, and about what supplies we might be able to get in Glenallen, our next city on the map. If it's like the last city on the map it will not even have a well.

We passed by the Matanuska Glacier. It was beautiful and impressive, although when you are as cold and wet as we were, it is hard to appreciate a huge chunk of ice. We took no pictures.


39 Miles

2014-6-24 Palmer to "Moose Lake"

After waking up, we picked up some more food from the grocery store and headed out along the Old Glen Highway into the vast wilderness of Alaska. Even along the highway it is almost all wilderness. No commercial development and few private residences.

The biking is becoming more steep, with some long steep climbs.  We stopped in Sutton to buy postcards. The towns are few and far between, and so getting water from taps is difficult. We hoped to fill it in Chickaloon, 17 miles down the road. When we got to Chickaloon, all there was was a post office that doubled as a very limited general store. I asked the man if he had a place I could fill water. He said "No I don't have a well," and then added a bit of wistfully "Maybe next year." The rest of chickaloon was 1/2 mile of vacant buildings and boarded up shops with junk surrounding them all. And this was one of 4 or so cities to be included on the state highway map in a 200 mile stretch. It made me nervous to think about running out of food or supplies.

We found a spot to camp by a boat landing on a small lake. The water was clear, but the landing was dirty. Cigarette buts and beer cans were strewn about, and Nicholas found a package of bacon next to a toilet paper wrapped human turd. Had we been thinking a little more critically, we would have realized that it was an animal magnet and not the safest place to camp. But it was beautiful and convenient so we camped there.

A man, aka "The Crazy  Frenchman" aka "The Wanderer" is lost and presumed dead after Kayaking in the Katmai National Park. What cool aliases.


Mileage: 45 miles