pedalpanam

I made it into Fairbanks alive and well late last night and camped out at a hostel. The internet here is pretty slow, so I’ll be headed to a coffee shop later today to upload pictures and recount the last 10 days of my trip.

Happy weekend!

A quick post from Happy Valley, an old workers camp 80 miles south of Prudhoe Bay.

In summary, the last two days have been plagued by mosquitoes.  A few miles out of Prudhoe Bay on the first day, I looked into my mirror and all I saw was dozens and dozens of them following me.  The best defense is long pants and a rain jacket, but of course this mean getting too too hot.  The weather has been great, 50s at night, up to 70s in the day.

We’ve got about 160 miles until Coldfoot, where there is a cafe and I’m looking forward to a hamburger or something, until then we have to get over Atigun Pass in the Brooks Range, 4,800 feet.

We’ve got plenty of miles to do today, so I’ll sign off for now.

Pictures of sunny landscapes taken after midnight to come soon.

Had a great week in Seattle, just finished packing everything.  Am flying to Fairbanks tonight, have a layover there, then will meet my French cycling companion Baptiste (he says his nickname is Bat, but I think Baptiste is a much cooler name), who is flying in from Vancouver.

Tuesday 7:30am I take a plane to Prudhoe Bay, and will spend the next 8 days biking 500 miles south to Fairbanks.  Until then I’ll have very limited internet connectivity.

Talk to you all later!

[EDIT]

Despite having a bike box and a 70lb (!) duffel bag, the Seattle airport was quite painless.  I am now waiting for my flight to Fairbanks.

Many thanks to the Larsens for their warm hospitality and to Kjel for helping me run a bunch of errands the past few days for some last minute supplies.

Among the things I got:  A second fuel bottle for my stove, a long sleeve base layer, food (duh), the Alaska Milepost (of which I cut out the pages of my planned route through Alaska and Canada), socks, mosquito net for my head, a bunch of batteries.

Things I forgot:

• mayonaise

I had big plans to grab handfuls of mayonaise packets everywhere I went the past few weeks, but I forgot, oh well.

Since I’ll be above the Arctic Circle, and the solstice was only last week, I’ll have several days starting Tuesday morning where I will not see the sun set.  We’ll see how this affects the sleeping and riding schedules.

The weather says 30s and 40s F in Prudhoe Bay, which will be an incentive to bike fast southward, where it is somewhat warmer.  Hopefully nothing 7 winters in Chicago won’t have prepared me for.

Once again, adios.

I’m in Seattle, about to take the Greyhound out to Yakima to see my cousin Ingrid for a day or two.  I only have time to upload some pictures from the trip along the Pacific coast.  More details later.

Just a quick note from Aberdeen, Washington.

My parents dropped Luke and I off in Rainier, Oregon on Thursday, and we biked west to Astoria, where we then crossed North America’s longest continuous truss bridge.  Despite this intimidating label, traffic was light and crossing north into Washington was fun.

The moment we crossed into Washington it began to drizzle, and wouldn’t stop for at least 12 hours.  Tired after 52 miles on our first day on the bikes, we pulled into an RV park and camped for $10.  It wasn’t any state park, but it was probably cheaper and full of as many RVs, and had a view of the ocean.

We woke up on Friday after sleeping in and got a late start to the day.  Although it drizzled on and off all day, we were never really soaked through.  We passed countless salmonberry bushes, and at one point filled up a Nalgene bottle full of them.

At Raymond we headed west on highway 105, and pitched our tent on a gravel pull out on the side of the road in Tokeland, exhausted after a 75 mile day.  We awoke at 7 when trucks pulled up and parked; several families had shown up to go clamming.  No one seemed to care that we were camped out right there.

We have been blessed with good weather today, though with somewhat of a headwind.  We hope to get to Quinault to camp tonight.

Pictures coming soon!

Currently working on getting this mess into my bike bags.

Getting ready for the Portland-Seattle Trip