The return from Inuvik was fast and woozy. David and Jim, a couple of truck drivers that I’d met during my stopover at the Arctic Polar Circle, had offer me to give me a lift to the crossing of the Dempster Hwy. with the Klondike Hwy. It wasn’t necessary to ride the same 742 km on my way back and specially with those roads!!!

In 9h we retraced what it took me 9 days! And that included a 1 h delay in one of the ferry crossings! The perspective from the huge truck cabin cleared something for me: if cars look like ants, how would I look on my bike from those heights? Tiny; that’s what I thought!

The landscape went by at 110 km/h. I recognized every descent and every climb as if I have done them yesterday. The roar of the engine made me remember the glorious instants of adrenaline with indelible smiles on those fast descents, while the shifting gears brought back memories of long hours climbing while drenched with sweat and covered by dirt.

Arriving to Eagle Plains, we had to pass a wild fire that extended almost to the side of the road. The fire was right there on our way and the smoke was so dense that we had to stop to avoid getting off the narrow road. There, I was a witness to the true use of the short wave radio on these trucks to communicate between them.  No nonsense codes or mysterious messages as they abound in some Hollywood movies. Just practical and concrete messages so other drivers wouldn’t get us head on!!

Crossing the plains towards Tombstone we had a hell of a storm, with half of the sky covered with black clouds and the other with plenty of sunshine.  The mix was the ideal setting for the formation of some rainbows like I hadn’t seen in a long time. The rain poured on us without mercy, something that I wasn’t too worried about in these circumstances. But it would be a premiere of what I will face on my way to Whitehorse…

It took me 5 days to cross those 500 km that separated me from the Yukon capital city, riding on the Klondike Hwy. That was the old road that gold pioneers had rode searching for wealth and fortune. Only a few of them were able to escape misery. And I think the more fortuned ones, commercially speaking, were the ones that tended the road posts or “Roadhouses”, essential for the survival of the caravans that rode between Whitehorse and Dawson City. On my way, I stopped several times in those wooden structures that would have been like oasis from paradise for those travelers, especially in winter time.

The road was very narrow and almost without shoulders. The pavement had a rough surface, such that I could feel a vibration on my hands that would get them numb very quickly. Every once in a while I had to shake my hands to regain the circulation and get rid of that bothersome sensation that it produced. Even though there were some climbs, the hardest part of the road was the false plains. Those were the parts that at first sight look totally plain or even as descending, but that mysteriously made the weight of the bike to be felt as ever. The altimeter took all the mystery away with cruel reality: I was slowly climbing, meter by meter even though it looked the opposite. The wind wasn’t my friend either and in almost all the way it was on my face. To complete it, there was plenty of rain those days. Let’s say that the panorama wasn’t very pleasant, was it?

I though that everything was against my performance, because I was feeling very tired and with an inferior execution to what I was expecting after what I had done in the Dempster Hwy. On top of that, the road didn’t present huge technical difficulties. After thinking a bit about this matter, I realized what was happening. I had spent 96 h in Inuvik with an eternal sun that never sets and every day I was awake until late in the wee hours without noticing the time. So, in mi last week, my average sleeping time didn’t surpass 6 h per night!! It was too little for the physical effort that meant riding every day.  I got sleepy with only thinking about it!!

The rain became frequent those days, especially during the first one, where I had two encounters with other cyclists under the rain. All of us seemed to coincide in one more thing other than the mode of transportation: we all had yellow rain gear!!!

First was Gerald Byrd, from Spokane, USA, who was traveling the roads in a recumbent bike, similar to my “Garota” on which I rode several Kilometers through Brazil and Uruguay a few years ago. Soon thereafter, I crossed paths with Maurice Bernier, from Québec, a character admirable for his tenacity and perseverance. In spite of having motor problems that made usage of his hands very difficult and even usage his legs to walk, he was riding a bicycle equipped rather rudimentarily and with the objective of reaching Inuvik. It was only the beginning of a trip that would take him to Mexico and perhaps even further. When he told me that he practically rode all over North and part of Central America in successive trips, I was shocked! He was a great example of what one can do with will.

Every 100 Km there were places to camp, where one could rest peacefully without worrying about the presence of bears. Every campground or rest area with bear-proof trash dumpsters was an option for camping. I’ve been using those containers to store my food. I had to simply open the back side, used to change the trash bags, to find a huge open space where I could put my panniers with all the food and I could sleep without having a bear knocking at my tent doors looking for some food. The funniest part was to see people’s reaction when they saw me doing this. Nobody would think to put their food in the trash!! Of course, they would have their vehicles to store everything without trouble. Pse!!

The cooking shelters became again a nice option for the free night stay, even when the (relative) scarcity of mosquitoes took the screens, which were essential on the Dempster Hwy, off the windows. Of course, after such experience, nothing could amaze me on that aspect!!

The landscape that was dominating the trip was again populated by a kind of tree that was absent before: the willow. Its leaves whispered with the wind, generating a soft sound that was very pleasant to the ear…Except when it announced it against me.

On huge sections of the road, I saw gigantic piles of logs that initially I thought they were the work of some kind of mutant beaver with the desire of building dams at the side of the road. Well, it wasn’t like that. They were the logs that were piled up after being removed from the side of the road to make more room for the road. They were tons of wood in countless piles that gave a particular touch to the views while I was climbing and descending the moderate hills on the road.

In one of those sections I thought I saw a dog crossing the road. A dog, around here? When I got closer I saw that actually, it was a coyote. Not one, but two.  I thought that they would get away with my presence, but it wasn’t like that. They stay nearby, as if they were measuring me, and they even started to get closer than they should. Even, at one point, I left the camera and stated shouting to get them to go, because the look like they were hungrier than I was. The last thing I needed was a pair of starving coyotes chewing on my heels…

When I got to Stewart Crossing, on my second day pedaling and after a long and tiring day, I decided to take the pleasure of eating something different at the local store. The prices were a bit elevated for my budget, but I could not say no to some pancakes covered with syrup to recuperate energy. I should have looked a bit beaten and my state was probably to be sorry about, because the people I talked to during that half hour that I was there, invited my with breakfast! A bit later another couple that arrived as soon as the first one left, offered me the same! Twice on the same day! Too bad I couldn’t get a rain check to use later…

At the Pelly Crossing I had an episode also related to the usual hunger (I think I could eat until a supermarket is empty!). I made the mistake, again, of going grocery shopping before eating something, and after 100 km of riding and eating mostly cereal bars and crackers with cheese. Let’s say that I wasn’t in my best mental state to select my groceries. Told and behold, I ended up buying a tray of chocolates on sale… weighting 1.1 kg!!! When I got back to the campsite and I saw everything that I gathered and the pile of chocolate, I started laughing by myself. It was impossible to eat all that (unless I wanted to lose my liver on the road) and couldn’t fit it in my panniers!! What an animal!!I ended up giving 1/2 kg of chocolates to George and Judy, a friendly couple that I’ve met when I got there and with a tribe of 4 kids to feed. I’m sure they made good use of the extra supplies…

Friday 13 of July was a very interesting day. After passing through Carmaks and partially a repeat of what I encountered in Paxon with a waitress with a lost glance and a cook that let his tedium to show off, I started my last 60 km for the day. Little by little, the sun that was illuminating the landscape was hiding behind the clouds until the blackness of the sky invaded everything. To my back, I could still see blue skies, but I was facing the wrong direction, straight into the strorm.

I was counting the km I had left to get to my final destination, the Braebun Lodge, the lone shelter in the area, when the wipers in action on the cars passing me in the opposite direction confirmed me what I was afraid of: I was going to get drenched!! And it was like that!! Like if I was crossing and invisible barrier, I entered the cold rain that fell implacably and hit me hard on my face with the wind help. It was only 8 km, so it wasn’t worth it to wear the rain gear. A false plain made that last passage endless.

But when I got there I had a nice reward. After leaving my bike at the door, my first encounter was with a man worried because the burger he just ordered was too big for him and he couldn’t finish it (!!). When he offered me half of it, I didn’t hesitate and I even though he was some kind of celestial apparition, I never enjoyed a burger so much as in that moment.

While I was complementing my dinner with an exquisite soup with homemade bread, I thought I heard my name. When I looked up, I saw that it were Maude and David walking into the store. What were they doing here if they were two days behind me after finishing the Dempster Hwy and passing through Dawson City? Well, what happened was that David’s read wheel got busted and they didn’t have any other option that hitch-hiking. They were with a Swiss couple, whose son was called… yes, Damian!! What a great taste!!!

Dinner turned into a camaraderie event, exchanging stories and people in common along the road. We even ate one of the local famous cinnamon buns, huge cinnamon pastries big enough to feed almost 5 normal people or 2 cyclists…

When they left it was 10 pm. Everything was wet and I didn’t want to set up the tent on those conditions, so I talked to the owner of the place, Steve, to see if there was any roof where I could put my sleeping bag under. No, there wasn’t any. An on top of that, because there were 6 grizzly bears in the area, they let the dogs out to keep them away. So, now, I didn’t even was to set up the tent because the dogs were a bit wild or otherwise I had the bears to deal with. What a downer. So, now what?

After insisting for a while and with me not showing any signs of moving from there, he sent me down the road towards the Braebun Lake, where I could find a guy called Don, who had some cabins where I could settle down. I wasn’t too clear about this, it was late and cool. This didn’t look good.

When I got to the coast I asked around and I found Don in a house, having a few beers with his neighbors. I must have looked a bit ridiculous at those night hours and dressed as a cyclist, trying to explain what happened in a few minutes but it worked the same!! Don invited me to follow him, trough a bridgeless creek. So, out went the shoes and into the cool waters up to my knees and pushing the bike to the other side of the creek.

Don had already passed the creek with his worn out car and showed me one of the cabins that multiplied in the forest. It was a lodge that he was reconditioning and wasn’t open. He apologized thousands of times for themes because he just arrived from a week in Carmaks and when I expected to find a dirty and run down place, when I opened the door, I saw an spectacular cabin, with three beds, kitchenette, old style oil lamps, wooden stove…. It was a luxury. And he felt bad for not being able to offer me something better!!    

We ended up dinking some beers and chatting until 2 am. We has an interesting character that lived all his life in the ‘bush’ working in the old mines (well, he was in the Yukon), guiding hunters and fishermen through the forests, working in construction, etc. He was an endless source of interesting anecdotes about life in those lands, far from the big cities. He even showed me handwritten letters from his grandfather, who was one of the many pioneers looking for gold in the XIX century.

In the morning he prepared a gigantic breakfast: eggs, bacon, toasts, juice and coffee and even moose meat. Impressive!!! And exquisite too.

With a pretty heavy stomach I crossed the creek back, got on the road and it must have taken me 30 km  to digest everything and catch up to the bike’s rhythm.  But you can't make an omelet without breaking the eggs… (Note from Omar: this was an attempt to translate “sarna con gusto no pica”)

On July 14th I arrived to Whitehorse after a scenic tour that bordered emerald green lakes and under a sun that turned out to be hotter than it appeared. I landed at Ricardo and Luisa Colaci’s home, the Argentinean that I’d met at Fort Mc Pherson, on the Dempster Hwy. They received me as another son, they filled me up with great homemade food, gave me their hospitality without limits and we chatted, with a mate at hand and in our “Argentinean dialect”, until dead tired.

It was also an opportunity to meet again with Maude and David, Frank, the German from the Dawson City Hostel, and even with Julia and Stefan, the German couple touring the world on a tandem bike! If we would have organized the reunion, it wouldn’t have worked out.

On Tuesday July 17th I continued my route but with a unplanned destination. The original idea was to tour the Cassiar Hwy, but after getting some info about the Tongass National Forest in the Inner Passage of Alaska, I decided to explore that region a bit. 

I shared the road with Maude and David fro about 20 km, who were following my original route, until the detour that would take me to the South Klondike Hwy, to Skagway. That was my first experience sharing the road with other cyclists during this trip!!

After a touching farewell (I already started to be fond of this guys) I change course to the south. The day came along with the weather and the landscape of mountains and trees in an area of mild climbs and descents that made my riding very pleasant.

Just before passing Carncross, a little town which tiny downtown area with the old Far West facades was very similar to Dawson City, I found a nature curiosity: a sand mini desert in the middle of this forested and dense area. As they say locally: the smallest desert in the world!! 

From then on, I started to get into a mountainous zone, towards the White Pass. This is a mythical pass, which along the Chilkoot trail, was used by thousands of gold diggers arriving form lower latitudes to Skagway and had to dare to climb this first pass as the first obstacle in their long journey to the insides of the Yukon, looking for the precious gold.

The windy arm of the Bremmer Lake was with me during plenty of kilometers with impressive views. The mountains showed abrupt cliffs towards the green mirror lake, tightening the road in a narrow space that was constantly inundated by countless waterfalls.

After a couple of long and tiring climbs, I arrived to Tutshi Lake, where I set up camp. There, Monika and Peter, a couple from Germany, gave me some supplies to add to the sad noodle dinner that I was preparing. Among those supplies were some beef nuggets made with Argentinean beef.  They were processed, of course (and screwed up) in the US!!

Just when I was about to start eating, a car with Mary Whitley, from Whitehorse, arrived. She was the same woman that followed me on the Dempster Hwy to give me some food and that had passed me that morning when she was going out of town. As she was going to see some friends in Skagway, she told me that she would meet me on her way back. And she did it!!! On top of that, she gave me a box of Thai food as an advance present for my birthday. She’s a total idol!!

With a spectacular view of the lake from my tent I went to sleep. They were 120 long kilometers...

Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!!!  So I woke up on July 18th with a beautiful day, with plenty of sunshine and no wind at all. My Birthday present was a hardboiled egg and an apple that the German couple had left on the table that morning. Quite nice!!

The riding became slow due to the endless stops to look at the landscape, full of lakes, trees molded capriciously by the strong winds and winter snow and getting closer to the pass where I would descend vertiginously almost 1000 m in only 18 km. What a better present that a descent like that?

Definitively, the descent was full of adrenaline. I reached the 70 km/h in spite of he curves and counter curves that abounded on the road and that flag at my back, unbalancing my ride. But, it was great!! The greatest!!!

It wasn’t for free though. After a short stop to checkout the landscape from a cliff and at about 8 km from Skagway, I felt that something wasn’t right. A ‘bump’, ‘bump’ on my rear wheel was foretelling the bad news. Was it a spoke? Was the wheel misaligned? No, the tire had a big cut, who knows why and the tube was pushing to get out of the tire. What a downer!!! As I was very close to the end, I relieved the pressure from the tire and kept going, swinging all the way to the Hostel where I had a reservation for the night, I deserved a bed for my birthday!!!

After changing the tire, I took a stroll around town, which downtown was like a Hollywood studio, with the old far west theme installed for the pleasure of the horde tourists from the cruises that invaded the place everyday and occupied every centimeter of Streets and sidewalks. It was an incredible madness, with souvenir shops selling from 5 dollar T-shirts to diamonds costing a few thousand dollars!!!

At the Hostel, its owner, the divine Nancy, had prepared me a cake for my birthday, so I celebrated with the occasional guests. Nevertheless it was missing the warmth and that “je ne sais quoi” that one can have with friends and family at home. Y became nostalgic and missed being with the loved ones. Would it be the age? Let’s see what happens when I receive the 35 in South America!!

The Inner Passage was coming… but that will be part of another chronicle.

Until the next time!!

Good trials!

Damián

 

Acknowledgements

To David White and Jim Freeman: for giving me a ride from Inuvik to the Klondike Hwy in record time!

To Maurice Bernier: for the life example and the will that represents to see you riding the world roads.

To Louise Millar and Richard Deams: for inviting me with that great breakfast at Stewart Crossing…and George and Judy Ayers for their intention to invite me too!

To Marvin and Collen Pender:  for the firewood that kept me warm at Pelly Crossing while I was writing my notes.

To Gloria Yoder: for the most exquisite grapefruits that I have eaten in years!!

To Gerard, Helene and Damien Berger: for their good vibes, the cinnamon bun and letting me reunite with my friends Maude and David!

To Don Banks: for giving me a place to sleep and sharing with me so many good stories about live in the bush… and for the breakfast with moose meat!!

To Steve Watson: For sending me to Don and making those spectacular cinnamon buns that can resuscitate even a starving cyclist!

To Ricardo and Luisa Colaci: for giving me all their affection and hospitality, making me feel like at home while I was in Whitehorse.

To Maude, David, Frank, Stefan and Julia: for the reunions with road friends, that fill the void that one has when far away from home.  

To Mary Whitley: again, for your generosity and kindness.

To Monika and Peter Mack: for the detail of the hardboiled egg saying “happy birthday” in the morning of July 18th.

To Nancy, from the Skagway Hostel: for making me a delicious cake to celebrate my birthday.

.. and to all of those that sent greeting messages with countless samples of affection and love for my 34 years!!! I’m grateful from the bottom of my heart!!

Some Statistics

Days on the road: 45

Days riding: 31

Kilometers done: 2852 km (1070 on gravel)

Hours on the bike: 181h12m (7d13h12m)

Average speed: 15,74 km/h

Maximum speed: 70 km/h, descending to Skagway (18-07-2007)

Meters climbed: 24.381 m

Maximum height: 1352 msnm, Top of the World Hwy (22-june-2007)

Released adrenaline during the abrupt descent to Skagway: plenty!!

Hours with a smile on my face after such descent: a few!!