Thursday, August 29, 2013

Shelton to Oregon

After a good night's sleep in Shelton and so many easy days, I expected to be full of energy the following day. But for some reason, I couldn't get in a good rhythm. By the end of the day, my stomach was feeling a bit queasy, and I was glad to pull into camp after about 100 km.

I had read that there were "hiker-biker sites" for people camping without a car that were cheaper than other campsites, but when I arrived the only one I saw was full. I cruised around the campground looking for more. In fact, nearly every site was full, hiker-biker or otherwise. As I neared the end of my tour of the campground, somebody yelled from behind a camper, "Is it full?" I stopped and looked over. Two women were sitting by a campfire drinking wine, and I explained, "I'm just looking for a hiker-biker site."

"Well there's space here, if you can't find a site...we're not going to use the tent site."

"Thanks a lot I," I said, "I'll keep looking, but maybe I'll come back." I kept riding around the campsite. There were some empty car sites, but they were expensive. And some company at a campfire would be much appreciated. I rode back to the two women. "You sure there's space for me?"

The two women treated me to a feast that night! Stir fry with steak and vegetables, and I got to enjoy their stories over previous motorbike and RV trips all over Canada and the US. As I ate, my stomach became more uncomfortable, but I didn't want to turn down such good food! I enjoyed the company that evening, but had to turn in early on account of my stomach.

I didn't sleep much that night due to nausea and diarrhea, and was beginning to worry that I had contracted Giardia somewhere along the way. Fortunately, I was feeling moderately better in the morning, and made a short day down to Seaquest State Park near Castle Rock, before feeling ill again. I lay out my sleeping bag on top of my tent (without pitching the tent) and took a three hour nap. When I woke up, I was relieved to find myself feeling much better. I went for a little jog down to a boardwalk and got a beautiful view of Mt. St. Helens, then went back to camp, ate some spaghetti and fell asleep again.

Miraculously, I was essentially recovered by the next day. I rode about 100 km without any trouble, catching a ferry across the Columbia River into Oregon and making next to a pretty brook in a 'primitive campground' with just three sites. I appreciated the Adventure Cycling maps that recommended this route as I sat on the ferry rather than fighting my way across the notoriously dangerous bridge into Astoria. I ate dinner early and was just settling in to read in the shade for a few hours before hitting the hay when a retired couple invited me over to their camp for a beer. Once again, I was welcomed with warm hospitality and good food (brats, in this case) at another's campground. We sat up for a couple hours listening to each others' stories before turning in for the night.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Bremerton to Shelton

I left Bremerton in the early afternoon after spending the morning replacing chain rings and bar tape, and otherwise fixing up my bicycle. It felt good to be on the road again, but I stopped a couple times that day and old made it a about 60 km down to Shelton. I picked up groceries there, and found an RV park that would let me pitch a tent for a ten dollar fee. The grocery store was only three miles from the park, so after picking up pasta and sauce for the evening, I decided to try to carry the bags from my handlebars rather than repacking. I made it about a mile before one of the breaks tore, and my glass jar of pasta sauce slipped out and splattered on the road. Grrr.

I pulled over, lay down my bike, and went back into the road to clean up the glass. I was just about to repack my bags when a big truck pulled up beside me. "Where you headed?" he asked.

I explained that I had about two miles to go to get to my campsite. He offered a ride, and I accepted. "I was driving by as your bag was breaking," he told me. I was impressed, this guy had actually turned around and come back to help me out! "It's my good deed for the day," he said, as excuse for his kindness.

It took a bit for us to find the RV park--it wasn't exactly a tourist attraction, and didn't have much in the way of signage as a result--but we eventually succeeded, and the guy dropped me off, saying, "Well, maybe now you'll remember Shelton." Indeed I do.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

About the Bike


My horse.
From Seattle, I hopped a ferry to Bremerton, camped near town, and finally gave my bike some loving. I think there's some interest in the bike I'm riding, and this seems like an appropriate place to talk about it. To the gear heads out there, this post is for you. I'll do my best to communicate effectively, although I'm afraid I don't qualify as a gear head myself.

The bike is a Giant OCR 3 that I purchased new in 2007 for $650. I purchased it to commute to town, and enter the Kluane to Chilkat Bike Relay once per year. It came with low end Shimano shifting components, pedals that strapped onto shoes, and a standard plastic seat. Since then, I've replaced and modified many of its parts, but the frame, shifters, and brakes remain the same.

The frame is aluminum, primarily designed for the racer on a budget. That means it's light weight, but not as durable as a steel frame would be, or  as stiff as a carbon fiber frame would be.  Although most frames are sold in sizes measured by centimeters, this line of bikes simply comes in small, medium and large. My bike has a 'large' frame. At the time I purchased the bike, the cycle shop owner simply had me stand over the top bar and ensure that my crotch cleared the bar, but by less than two inches to fit the bike to me. Since then, I've grown a couple inches. But with a long stem and properly adjusted seat, I'm comfortable on the bike, which I suppose must mean that the frame fits me reasonably well. In retrospect, I think that paying a bit more money and sacrificing some weight to get a steel frame would have made sense for me. Although I haven't ridden one, they are reputed to be more durable, easier to repair if damaged in a crash, and more comfortable to ride on. Since I primarily use my bike for commuting, and now touring, those qualities are worth the extra weight. On the other hand, the frame has held up great through several thousand miles of riding without any signs of wear so far, so maybe aluminum is durable enough for me anyway!

I haven't changed the shifting components at all: they're still the same low end Shimano shifters. They occasionally come out of adjustment, making it hard to change gears when I want to (and occasionally shifting when I don't want it to!) but with some tweaking they still work as well as ever.

One neat gimmick on this bike is that it has two pairs of brake handles: one on the drops and one on the horizontal part of the handlebars near the stem. It's essential to have the brakes on the drops for descending hills, and the other pair of brakes is handy for cruising through towns. Both pairs of handles connect to the same brake cables, so each wheel is braked by one pair of pads just like any other bike. I've replaced the brake pads in the rear twice and the front once during, but the brake cabling is still original.

I don't know much about the wheels on my bike...I do know that they have shallow rims, accept presta valves, and are Alexis brand. I replaced the entire rear wheel this summer because the wear groove on the original rim had disappeared, indicating that the rim was getting dangerously thin.

For this tour, I've been running 700X28 mm tires and tubes. 28 mm is pretty wide for road bike tires, but I think they give a bit smoother ride than the standard 23 mm tire, and seem to hold up better with a load on the bike. Currently, I have a Continental Gator Skin tire in the rear, and a Continental Ultra Sort tire in front...but basically, I just get whatever I can find when I need one. I'm also carrying two foldable, narrower tires for spares. Again, the spares just happen to be what I had when I left home.

I got my seat this spring specifically for the touring I expected to do. It's a leather seat made by Masi. I picked it up at a bike shop in Fairbanks...I had been planning to get a Brooks Saddle, based on recommendations from a few friends and a bit of reading; they seem to be the gold standard for touring seats. But the bike shop only had the Masi. Fortunately, I like it. It was hard as a rock and uncomfortable for several hundred miles when it was new, and it contributed to my discomfort on the ride from Fairbanks to Haines, but now that it's broken in I can ride all day without getting a sore butt.

The drive train consists of an 8 speed SRAM cassette and chain, and a "triple" set of chain rings. Sometime while I was in Seattle, the chain started to slip on the middle chain ring because the teeth were so worn, so I replaced it as well as the outer chain ring in Bremerton. Currently, I have a 29 tooth middle chain ring, a 52 tooth outer, and a very small "granny gear" for the third chain ring. Again the chain rings aren't ideal for what I'm doing. Now that I've ridden with this arrangement for awhile, I would prefer a bigger middle ring and smaller outer ring, maybe a 35 and a 48.

For pedals, I use a set that has clips on one side that attach to my shoes, and flats on the other side that are comfortable to pedal on with tennis shoes. Although I was skeptical at first, clipping in has a huge benefit because it allows riders to pull up on the pedals as well as push down.

Overall, my bike has held up very well and I've been happy with it. Apart from the tires and tubes, the only repair work I've done on the bike for this trip was replacing two chain rings, the chain, handlebar tape, and brake pads, and adjusting the derailleurs. I purchased a book in Bremerton in the hope that it would teach me the right way to fix my bike, and to capitalize on the interest my brain currently has in bicycle repair. I also payed $15 to have a professional adjust my front derailleurs, because I couldn't get it to shift after I foolishly purchased new chain rings with such different dimensions (I started the trip with a 32 and a 52, with "shift assist pins" on the bigger chain ring...I didn't pay much attention to what the mechanic gave me when I picked up new chain rings in Seattle, and wouldn't have known what to ask for anyway. With the smaller middle chain ring and no shift assist pins on the big chain ring, the new set up doesn't shift as well.)

Finally, to carry my gear I have an Axiom handler bar bag, Ortega paniers, and a small backpack to carry my gear. The paniers have torn a bit at the seams since I've been abusing them with excessive loads, but a few wraps of duck tape seem to have solved the problem. The handlebar bag is holding up like a champ, and is a tremendous asset to my trip. For my body, I've got a pair of Pearl Izumi bike shorts with a nice thick pad, a pair of bike shoes that are decently comfortable to walk around in, a bright yellow jacket, a helmet and lights, and a pair of well padded bike gloves.

Four nights and four friends

It was good to visit Ben. He met me at the ferry terminal in Port Hadlock, and drove me out to the place he was 'bus-sitting.' We sat around a fire, drank beer (a satisfying, but delicate thing to do after all that biking...I drank enough to get sick for the first time) and caught up...it had been almost a year since we talked.

The next day Ben showed me around the wooden boat school he was attending. It's amazing! Clearly, everyone there loved what they were doing. There were a couple people like Ben, who loved boats and were hoping that this school would give them enough skill to make a living working on boats, but many simply wanted to spend a year working on boats whether it led to a career or not. It's always fun to see people doing what they love.

It was also fun to see people finding a way to do what they loved...whether it meant renting a yurt, living in a decrepit sailboat that they got for free, or bus-sitting. I admire Ben for seeing what improves his life and not wasting time on other things...At least, that's my understanding of him.

From Ben's, I bicycled down to Whidbey Island and caught a ferry over to Seattle to visit my Aunt and Uncle. They are some of the most fun people I've ever met: when I was little, I remember lying on their floor with my shirt off, while my uncle stood on a chair and sprayed redi-whip into my mouth...I also remember when my uncle asked me to give my Aunt's engagement ring to her and I slipped it into my underwear...probably not how he expected me to carry it, but I didn't have pockets!

This time, they met me with ribs: delicious, tender, moist, cooked-all-day ribs. There was corn on the cob too, and bread, coleslaw and pie...and of course, plenty of redi-whip. Once, when my dad attempted to turn down some piece of food by saying "I don't need that," my Aunt replied, "This is the house of want, not the house of need!" Somehow, she seems to know what I want better than I do!
What great family...they even welcomed me like this!
The next day my Aunt gave me a tour of Seattle, dropping me off near the Pike Street Market while she went to a meeting, and then taking me up the Space Needle and through the Chihuly Glass exhibit. Both were amazing: from the Needle, my aunt gave me a visual tour of the city, pointing out places she used to live, and telling stories about her and my mom when they were in college. Appropriately placed at the base of the Space Needle, the glass exhibit seemed like it was from an alien world. Dramatic pointy spires of colorful glass erupted from the ground, and Dr. Seuss style trees with tall trunks and long wavy fronds grew from the lawn. Inside, flowers, bells and curly-cues tumbled on top of a brilliantly reflective black deck. Finally, out in the garden, enormous glass flowers grew from glass and steel vines, and framed the space needle perfectly overhead.

It's nice to know that my Aunt and Uncle will always be on my way home from school!

From my Aunt and Uncle's place, I went to visit a fellow Cornell runner named Chad. The last few days have been like a time machine: seeing Ben brought me back to my little league days, seeing my Aunt and Uncle simultaneously brought back memories from numerous moments throughout my life, and now seeing Chad brought me back to Cornell.

We went for a run down by the locks north of downtown Seattle, then went back to the house he lives in for dinner. A few other people came for dinner too, including Chad's girlfriend, housemates, and old cross country coach Doris Heritage, who happened to be a five time international cross country champion from 1967-1971.

The first time Chad introduced me to one of his friends as a Cornell cross country captain, I was kind of shocked: that seems so long ago, I'd almost forgotten. Then he introduced me to Doris: "This is Chandler, Cornell cross country captain. Chandler, this is Doris...five time world champion." I had to laugh at that contrast!

Dinner is a blast; all of these people are happy and fun to be around, and after dinner Chad and I went down to climb at "Vertical World," a hobby both of us picked up since leaving Cornell.

By a remarkable coincidence, I learned that my friend Jonathan from Alaska happened to be in Seattle at the same time, and I managed to catch up with him just before leaving town the next day. By the time I got to his aunt's house where he was staying, he had to leave to catch a flight back to Sitka in ten minutes. But it was fun to see him anyway, and to meet the rest of his family.

The best part of my whirl wind tour through the Seattle area was seeing friends with such varied lifestyles all enjoying, and loving their life so well. From bus-sitting at wooden boat school to starting a career with Boeing to owning a house and enjoying an established career...everyone loved their life.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Whistler to Port Hadlock

It was late morning by the time I finished touring the village of Whistler, but Vancouver was only 125 km away, which sounded unbelievably short after my last ride. I enjoyed the cruise downhill from Whistler out to the coast, followed by a beautiful ride along the coast into Vancouver. I got into the city at a decent hour, and was mildly disappointed to find that the downtown hostel was already full. Instead, I headed out to the UBC campus and stayed in one of their empty dorm rooms for $30. I had hoped to walk around and explore the city that evening, but instead I explored the campus.

It was strange to be in the city again after riding so long  through BC. The campus had big, beautiful buildings, and a wonderful, quiet library. I was ready to write, but terribly disappointed to find that there was no way for a guest to get internet access at the library on a Saturday night after six o'clock. Nonetheless, I enjoyed walking around. I stopped in a food court for dinner and went back to my dorm room. It felt just like college! Everyday as an undergrad, I would go for a long running workout, eat dinner, then sit down at my desk and work. Now I'd finished a bike ride, eaten dinner and was in a dorm room, but no problem set to work on! I actually wanted a good physics assignment that night...instead I went to sleep.

The next day I planned to make it all the way to Copefield to catch a ferry to Port Hadlock where my friend from Haines planned to pick me up. It was about 200 km away, but I planned on taking a county bus part way...then I realized that the county buses don't run on Sundays in Washington! Oh well, I thought, guess I've got another big day after all.

Riding through Vancouver was a bit of a pain, but luckily I had a map produced by the Adventure Cycling Association that showed me a good route through the city. A couple different people recommended the maps to me, and I ended up purchasing Adventure Cycling maps for the entirety of my route from Vancouver to San Francisco. The maps guided me from bike path to low traffic road, and I was grateful to be avoiding the busy highways.

I was a little South of the city, calmly pedaling along when I came to a railroad crossing. I probably shouldn't be approaching this at such a sharp angle, I thought, as my front tire approached the rail. Sure enough, my front tire slipped into the notch between the rail and the pavement, stopping the bike and pitching me onto the pavement. I was mostly on the shoulder, but hopped up quickly and looked over my shoulder to see if any traffic was coming. One car was close behind me, and it slowed almost to a stop and gave me lots of space. It even paused for a bit to stop traffic and give me a chance to retrieve my handlebar bag that had skittered into the road. I packed up quickly and was on my way again soon. Fortunately, I'd been going slow and the crash wasn't bad. My bike wasn't banged up much, and all that had happened to me was a patch of road burn on my hip. Once I got into Washington, I pulled over in a grassy spot, cleaned up my hip and taped a gauze pad over it. Then I cruised down the road to Copefield.

The ride through the northern part of Washington was wonderful! Thanks to the cycling maps, the roads weren't busy and the road gave a lovely tour of the coast. It was fun to be back by the ocean again; it gave me a sense of accomplishment.

My bike was starting to show signs of wear though...the shifting cables had slowly been coming out of adjustment throughout the trip, and by the end of the day the derailleur couldn't shift out of the middle chain ring (the middle gear by the pedals). The handlebar tape, which was already worn and torn before the crash, was now unraveling and hanging from the bar. I promised myself I'd fix up the bike once I got to Ben's. But first I really wanted to catch that ferry!

With 17 miles to go, I had about two hours before the ferry departed, and bikers were advised to get there twenty minutes early. Easy, I thought. Without stopping, I seem to ride about 15 miles per hour most of the time, so I figured I'd arrive with about a half hour to spare.

Two miles later, I got a flat tire. No problem, I've got time, I thought. I took out my spare tube and tools, and removed the broken tube. I hurried, and popped the new tube onto the rim and started pumping vigorously. After about 200 strokes I noticed that the tire wasn't inflating as quickly as normal. After 300 strokes I was forced to conclude that the tube had a hole in it. I couldn't believe it! A brand new tube! I messed with the valve a bit, and tried pumping it up again. Still, it didn't hold air.

Eventually, I turned back to the old tube, hoping to patch it. I pumped it up, and began turning it slowly, looking for a leak. I couldn't find one anywhere. In fact, the tube wasn't even deflating...wait a second...I looked at the tube in my hands more closely. There was no doubt: I had the new tube in my hands...I'd taken the same tube out of my flat tire and put it back in again! Sigh. Relaxed now, I took the tire back off the rim, put on the new tube, and pumped it up. I checked the time on my cell phone as I got back on the bike: just under one hour until bikers were supposed to check in at the ferry dock, and I had fifteen miles to go. No problem, as long as nothing went wrong.

I got on the bike and pedaled hard. My derailleur was so far out of adjustment that I couldn't switch out of the middle chain ring in front, but it didn't matter too much because with a light head wind, I couldn't use the biggest chain ring anyway. I raced up the hills and spun down them until my legs couldn't keep up with the bike. It felt incredible! It is fun to be fit, especially if there is some application for it.

Fortunately, my bike held together for those fifteen miles, and the ferry was just pulling into to the dock when I arrived. I stopped at the terminal and said, "I'm hoping to get on that ferry."

"And you can," said the worker. I paid three dollars for my ticket, hopped on, and gave Ben a call.

"You made it!" he said, "Good job."

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

A Day in Whistler

My host, Sara, was incredible. She consciously created a lifestyle that she believes in, loves her life, and is working to make her home in Whistler a better place. She has bucked society's definition of success and achieved it on her own terms. That's what I admire most.

Not only that, but she makes a mean blueberry waffle in the morning.

To my surprise, I woke up before eight o'clock the morning after I arrived in Whistler to the happy sound of one-year-old laughter. Sara had waffle batter ready, and she was playing with her son in their living room. I used her internet, made a phone call and chatted a bit with the other cyclist staying with Sara. Then we all took off in different directions for the day.

I headed for the mountains, and followed a trail that Sara recommended. I came through Whistler because of its fame as a ski town...even though it was summer (and I'm not much of a skier anyway), I wanted to see what the trails had to offer.

They didn't disappoint. I followed the Rainbow Lake Trail up out of town. It climbed about 1000 meters up to a beautiful alpine lake. It was a bit much for my body after the previous day's ride: hiking up there was hard work! But the view from the lake was worth it.


The view from a small ridge above Rainbow Lake near Whistler.
The lake is just below treeline, allowing for great views of the surrounding valleys and mountains through gaps in the trees or high points that protrude above the trees. I could see glaciers and snow through the trees and I longed to run the surrounding alpine ridges...accept that my legs weren't really up for it. I restrained from swimming in the lake out of respect for posted regulations: apparently, Rainbow Lake is the source of drinking water for Whistler. I sat around for a spell, then headed back down the hill.

I made a detour on my way back to Sara's to swim in one of Whistler's lakes, and was pleasantly surprised to find her and her son enjoying the lake shore as well. When all three of us were done at the beach, Sara packed her son into her bike trailer, and gave me a tour of the Whistler lakes on the way back to her house.

That night, Sara, the other cyclist and I stayed up and talked. The others' travels dwarfed my own: they told stories of cycling through Asia and Jordan, and traveling through Morocco. At some point, I explained that I was headed to grad school in San Fransisco to study energy resource engineering. "Oh," Sara said, as though I was like many people she'd met before: young and ambitious, and wasting time in school. What a different reaction from the last environmentalist I talked to (the woman who actually hugged me). I honestly don't know which reaction is more appropriate. For environmentalists, Sara's is more typical.

Eventually we went to bed, and in the morning we all took off again on our own missions. But before I headed south, I took a cruise through downtown Whistler. There was a mountain bike festival going on, and it felt like Skagway on a three ship day. The streets (which only allow pedestrian traffic) were packed with people carrying expensive bikes, and the beautifully crafted buildings glistened with souvenirs, outdoor gear, and finely served meals. Unfortunately, the competition hadn't started yet when I left town, but I got to see the jumps and routes the bikers ride down the dry ski slopes. They must be incredible athletes.

 It occurred to me that Whistler is an outdoor town, but designed for people that want to visit the outdoors as a recreation facility rather than a place to live. Sara bucked that trend and embraced another side of Whistler, the side where people live there to be close to the bears and trees. Beyond that, she works to help the forgotten people in the community, strives to think globally as she develops her own life, and lives to be happy without being distracted by all the fanfare that surrounds her. I wouldn't want to live in Whistler...but I would be proud to live like Sara.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Clinton to Whistler Continued

At my last stop before starting the descent, I noticed chords beginning to show through my rear tire. This was the same tire that I had blamed for two of my flats way back in Quesnel, and it had performed without mishap for 400 km. I figured it would probably hold out for 70 more km to get me into Whistler. But once I started down the first descent, knowing I had 1000 m to descend over the next couple dozen kilometers, all I could think about was that tire. I pulled over and changed it.

As I started down the hill again, I gently applied the brakes, and realized I hadn't closed my rear brakes! The brakes have a quick release on them that makes it possible to pull an inflated tire out from between the brake pads. Leaving it open means that the brake levers have to be squeezed much farther before the pads touch the wheel rim, and it seems to affect the amount of braking force that can be applied as well. Jeez, I thought, that was dumb! After pulling over again to close the brakes, I felt confident in my bike and was excited to fly down the rest of the descent.

I whipped by the sign warning of 15% descents ahead, then (thankfully) squeezed the brakes hard when I came to the first sign advising 15 km/hr around the first switchback. So much for speeding down the hill! I spent the rest of the descent riding the brakes and hoping they held up, so I wouldn't go crashing into one of the cement barricades like a bobsledder in a square-bottomed shoot.

Although the road was fairly narrow and full of sharp turns, traffic wasn't a problem. All the vehicles were going at least as slow as I was down the hill. When I finally rounded the last turn and released my brakes I breathed a sigh of relief. Five minutes later the first cars passed me, finally accelerating after their own descents. A strong scent of burnt pads lingered in the air behind them.

After descending from the pass, it was a short ride into Pemberton, BC, where I stopped to buy an icecream cone and send a text to my host for the night (I would've called, but she had told me she would be out at a birthday dinner for her one year old son).

From Pemberton, it was just a short 30 km to Whistler. I hoped it would be flat.

Of course it was not. The road began to climb immediately outside of Pemberton, and didn't stop all the way to Whistler. It hardly even mattered at that point. I put my bike in a gear I could "spin" (pedal with a fast cadence and low resistance) uphill in, and made it into Whistler at about 9 PM. I was proud: when I realized how big the climb out of Lillooet was, I wasn't sure I would make it into Whistler in the heat...I had done it!

But the day wasn't over yet. I called my host for specific directions to her house, and was relieved when she answered the phone. Her house was only a few miles away.

As a fitting end to the day, my nose chose this moment to begin bleeding profusely. My nose has a habit of bleeding spontaneously; I couldn't be to surprised by it after all the breathing I did that day. I hardly cared any more, and let it drip on my jacket as I pedalled to my host's house. What a sight I must have been! Greasy, sweaty, exhausted, and now splattered with blood! My host will never let me in! I thought, with a laugh.

After some confusion, I pulled into her driveway. I used the last cup of water in my bottle to wash my face and hands, and pulled a less-dirty shirt over my blood stained jacket. My host came out of her house to make sure I found it. "Chandler?" she said.

"That's me!"

I went inside, met my host and a fellow cyclist also staying there for two nights. I took a shower, and we sat and talked. I had made it!

This marked the end of the first phase of my bike trip. I had cycled 1350 km through rural BC, pedaling about 150 km per day. I camped in the woods, tied my food in trees, and had to plan ahead to make sure I didn't run out of food between towns. Now I was spending two nights in a bed before a short pedal to Vancouver, then visiting friends for four nights in the Seattle area. And south of Seattle, I'd be pedalling down the Oregon coast, where there are towns every 30-50 km. The wilderness endurance cycle was over, and the relaxed exploratory cruise was about to begin. I went to bed tired and content.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Clinton to Whistler

I got a nice early start from my campground in Whistler, and started off excited for a big day. I hesitated, briefly, as I passed by the short cut I had considered the night before, but decided to take the long way around... I had planned on pedaling about 180 km that day (already 30km longer than my average), but between stopping early the night before and skipping the shortcut, the distance to Whistler had been stretched to 250 km. Regardless, I was pretty confident I could cover that distance, but if I pedaled 30 km out to look at the shortcut and then turned around, I was fairly certain I wouldn't make 310 km.

I had no idea what the road had in store for me that day. My map showed a pass a little ways before Whistler at 1272 m, but Clinton was at about 1100 m so I was optimistic that the there wouldn't be too big of a climb ahead. Some people would call my lack of research on the topography of my route foolish...I kind of like the surprises.

As soon as I passed by the shortcut, I started down a steep hill. Half an hour later, I was still descending the same steep hill. Oh boy, I thought, this is going to be a very hard day. The road descended steadily for the first 20 km South of Clinton, and then started to slowly climb for the next 30 km.

As soon as I left Clinton, despite the small sense of doom associated with the descent, I recognized that this was a beautiful place to ride. The traffic wasn't bad, and the surrounding terrain became increasingly rugged and strikingly beautiful. The road wound through sandy hills hundreds of meters high (similar in scale to the domes surrounding Fairbanks), speckled with sharp, colorful cliffs. The road followed a stream through a Ts'kw'aylaxw first nation reservation, and occasionally I could catch glimpses of a bluish-green lake through the trees as I pedaled by.

As I passed by the mini town of Pavilion, I saw a sign pointing to the shortcut back to Clinton. It looked like a nice gravel road, and I could see it climbing up a hill behind Pavilion at a reasonable angle. I was frustrated: The road looked completely ridable, and I could've gotten to this point two hours earlier. But in the end, it just made this day that much more epic (and I eventually spoke with another biker about the shortcut, who said he had gotten similar advice from locals in Clinton...maybe the road is worth than the part that I could see). I pedaled on.

Past Pavilion, the road began to descend again. So much for the last 30 km of climbing! I thought to myself, sarcastically.  But the terrain also got ever more exciting. The road paralleled an enormous canyon, and I could just barely see the Fraser River far roaring a couple hundred meters below me. The hills near the road grew into full sized mountains too, and I could see snow for the first time since leaving the Seven Sisters about a week ago. It was exciting to start seeing signs that I was approaching the coast again.

The land was still dry and dusty though, like the horse-land surrounding towns in old western movies. There were little shrubs growing in the dust, and occasional horse stalls, but not much else. I expected to see a ball of tumble weed rolling along, and imagined riding horses through the hills...this would be a good place for that.

I cruised down the hills, feeling good and enjoying the scenery, and purposefully not thinking about the climbing each meter of descent implied. The hills were fun: fast enough to be exhilarating, but straight and slow enough that breaks weren't necessary.

As I got close to the bottom of the canyon, the day began to get hot. I put on sunscreen and sunglasses and pressed on, feeling grateful for the two extra water bottles the Quebecois gave me the day before.

I rolled into the town of Lillooet (Guarunteed Rugged, according to all of the propaganda bill boards posted on the of the road), a little after noon and pedaled up a steep hill to reach the visitor information desk. On the way, I passed by a sign that said 32 C (I'm trying to stick to metric units because I find them a lot more user-friendly...and to make a political statement...but to emphasize my point, that's 90 F!)

The women working at the visitor center were very helpful, filling my water bottle from their kitchen once, and then again after I drank half of it. I asked what elevation Lillooet was at, hoping optimistically that it would be around 700 meters. "270 m" they answered cheerfully.

"Oh," I said with a smile, thinking: wow, this is going to be an incredible day! I wonder if I can climb 1000 meters in this heat...

The ladies went on to inform me: "There's a beautiful, free campground just 5 km down the road...Which way are you going? South? Hmmm that's the biggest climb. Most cyclists that come through here stay at that campground, and then get an early start the next morning, like 5 AM."

"Yeah?" I said, "That's probably a good idea." I'm absolutely going to try....

"Yeah, given the weather here, that's probably the smartest way to do it." They went on to show me a few other campgrounds a bit farther scattered along the way up to the pass. Great, I thought, If I get too hot, I can stop in at one of those. "Do those campgrounds have water?" I asked.

"They're right next to a stream."

"Great!" I replied, thinking, even better.

We chatted a bit more, and the women repeated once more what a good idea it is to stay at the campground and get an early start..."Thanks a bunch," I replied, "I'll probably see how I feel." A short while later, I was back on the road.

HOT!

The road is steep--the signs warn of 13% grades, and it literally switch backs it's way up the mountain. I'm trying to climb it at the absolute worst time of day. The sun is directly overhead, so there's no way to hide in the shade, and each time a pass by a rock face that's been blasted away to make way for the road, I can feel the heat radiating off of it. I drink water every time the road flattens out a bit, counting on my two liters to hold out until I get to the first campground. Eating is out of the question: as long as the road stays steep I spend all of the parts that don't require me to pull on the handle bars drinking water, and I don't want to stop in the sun.

I thought of those football players that died of heatstroke....Listen to your body, I told myself, confident from spending so much time running and trying to avoid injury. I didn't have to deal with heat growing up, but I did some running in the heat in New York during college, and the last 10 days have conditioned me, somewhat. It felt brutally hot, but I wasn't light headed or nauseous and my heart rate was high but not out of control. In fact, I felt strong. I kept going, and made an effort to smile at cars as they passed...I got a few honks of encouragement on the way, which I appreciated.

After climbing for an undetermined amount of time (still no watch or bike computer : ), I was aghast to see that the road descended: "12% grade, next 2 km" the sign said!  Wow! This day just kept getting more incredible.

By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, the slick coating of sweat that had covered my entire body was entirely dry, and I was completely cool. There was a river running next to the road there, and ten minutes earlier I was longing to jump in one. But now I was almost cold. I kept pedaling. Best of all, the road had changed angle, and now I was in the shade, off and on. I can do this, I thought, happily thinking of couch surfing that night.

By now, the road was in the mountains and truly awe-inspiring..."awesome" in the best sense of the word. The arid landscape of the morning had given way to evergreen forest, and mountains shot up to the sky on both sides of the road. I could see snow and glaciers above treeline, and the smell of pine trees caught in my nose occasionally. The constant sound of roaring water as the road roughly followed a creek bed was comforting as I dealt with the heat, too. As I continued Southbound on the Sea to Sky highway, I felt closer and closer to home.

I felt good. I dripped sweat, the occasional droplet making its way through my eyebrows and stinging my eyes. I drank constantly, but was always thirsty. Big puffy clouds teased me as they burned away just before providing shade. But the trees and offered brief respite from the heat when the road hit the right angle, and I was in the mountains! I imagined cyclists racing through these hills, and pulled up on my pedals.

After a couple more descents, and their associated climbs, the road again cut next to the river, and I stopped to fill my water. A sign said that I was 20 km from Lillooet, which meant if the road averaged a 5% grade, including those descents, I was near the summit in elevation (although it's actual location was still 30 or 40 km away). I went down to the stream, dipped my feet in shoes and all, ate, and filled my water. The feeling was heavenly.

I returned to my bicycle feeling refreshed, and was about to leave when a Swiss man came flying down the hill on his bicycle and pulled into my pullout. I was mildly surprised--cyclists aren't too uncommon on this road--and then another cyclist pulled in, and another. Within five minutes there were eight Swiss men in bike shorts and shirts sizing me up; a whole Swiss peloton had joined me in this little pull out. "Which way are you going?" they asked. I pointed: "South."

"Oooh," they said, suggesting that I still had some climbing to do. "Where are you trying to get?" They're English was good by most standards, but poor compared to the other Swiss I had met...it would be hard to have a long conversation.

"Whistler," I said, mildly dreading the doubtful reaction I was going to get. There was some babbling in another language.

"You know that's 100km?"

"Yeah...I've made it 150km so far today," I replied wryly. There was more babbling.

We chatted a bit more, and eventually I said, "Well, have a good ride," and we were off in our opposite directions. A typical cycle touring meeting, I've come to realize, brief close camaraderie in our shared insanity, and then parting with essentially no chance of seeing each other again. It's kind of fun!

I covered the next 40 km with trepidation, expecting another big climb the whole way, but it never came. The road climbed and descended over rolling hills all the way to the end of the pass. Eventually, clouds survived the trip in front of the sun without evaporating, cooling the day considerably. When at last I reached the first sign warning trucks to gear down, I was relieved.

Little did I know the most treacherous part of the day was still to come.

Out of time on this library computer...more to come!

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Lac La Hache to Clinton

I woke up early form my campsite just North of Lac La Hache Provincial Park. Of course, without a tent waking up early is almost guaranteed for me. I packed up and headed south without breakfast, promising myself something once I got to Lac La Hache. The ride was lovely: Lac La Hache is beautiful, the sun was just coming out from behind the mountains, and the air was cool. This promised to be a good day.

The town itself was 20km or so from my campsite, and I was relieved to see that the last of three diners I saw in town was open when I went by. I locked up my bike, pulled a pair jeans over my bike shorts in an attempt to avoid offending anyone, and walked in the diner still wearing my grungy yellow jacket.

An old man walked up to me almost before I sat down. "Where ya goin'?" he asked, and I struggled to catch the words as they leaked through his missing teeth.

"San Francisco," I replied.

"That's a long way!" he said, impressed. The other three people in the diner watched. He asked a few more questions, and went on his way.

Breakfast was fairly standard diner food: ham, sausage, bacon, hash browns and toast. I enjoyed it immensely. The waitress asked if I wanted anything else. I said, "no," and after waiting for a bit to see if she would bring the bill, I got up to go pay at the cash register. As I got up, she walked by: "I'm buying you breakfast today," she said simply and with a smile.

"Really?" I was honestly surprised and amazed.

"You look like you have a long way to go," she said, and walked off.

Wow! First of all, I feel kind of guilty...I probably look really grungy and broke, but I'm not really (well, I am grungy but I'm not broke!). But on the other hand, I think this is one of those situations where it's best to say thank you and pay it forward.
Grungy me at the summit just before Clinton-1232 meters.


Bike tans...gloves and shorts.
Her generosity is amazing! Many people I talk to about this trip seem to think 'you have too much time on your hands.' It's fun to see someone so honestly supportive of it.

Like my interaction with Chandler, the waitress's support put me in a good mood for several hours, all the way to 100 Mile House--a small town that is conspicuously not 100 miles from any city. (Well, it's 100 hundred miles from Lillooet, which is another small town...it was named in the 1800s when gold prospectors left the Fraser River in Lillooet, and travelled to 100 Mile House by carriage).

I had several errands to run in 100 Mile House, and spent several hours there. I called ahead to a woman in Whistler who offered to help me through warmshowers.org, a cycle tourist network. I told her I'd be arriving in two days. I also went shopping, learned that the campground I was planning to stay at 30 km past the town of Clinton was closed due to flooding (but no matter--the internet showed a provincial park that allowed 'wild camping' literally across the street), and found something to treat my water with (the steri-pen I brought seems to be broken, or at least hypersensitive to battery voltage, and I ran out of iodine).

Eventually, I headed South again, but by this time it was hot. I only went about thirty km before having to stop to fill up my water bottle. I pulled into a roadside stop that had a plywood ice cream cone outside.... It doesn't seem right to go into a business and beg for water, so I figured I could at least buy some ice cream. Nobody was around the counter, so I went back to the bathroom and filled my bottle. When I came back out, the owner was behind the counter talking to a customer. I got in line, and the owner quickly asked in a thick French-Canadian accent, "You want some water?"

"I filled it up in the bathroom," I replied, holding up my bottle.

"You filled it in the bathroom!" He replied, incredulous. "Here, I will run cold water for awhile and then fill it." Eventually his other customer left...or maybe he was just a friend. He was still holding my metal bottle when he handed me a plastic bottle off his shelf. "Here," he said, "It's a gift."

"Thank you!"

"And here's another one. How long will you stop here?"

Well, I was planning on leaving right away. But that seemed like the wrong answer. "Oh, pretty soon," I replied vaguely.

"Like five, ten minutes?" He said, not waiting for a reply, "I'll put it in the freezer for you." He brought my now full bottle over to the freezer then came back. "Let's go sit."

We went and sat at on of the tables in the shack. "Where are you from?" he asked.

"Haines, Alaska."

"That's a beautiful place!"

"What were you doing there?" I ask.

"It was a trip." He went on to tell me about his adventures with bears, and some of the people he met. Inevitably, he asked where I was headed.

"San Fransisco," I said.

"huh," he grunted. "That is bull **** down there."

I agree with him, to some extent, but we'd both rather talk about other things. He continued: "My brother used to ride like that. He quit smoking and started riding his bicycle," he said, inhaling deeply from his own cigarette. "It was terrible. He used to talk about it all the time to me, how he quit smoking and exercised all the time."

"Rubbed it in, eh?" I said...active listening, I think it's called.

"He got lung cancer five years ago."

"Oh..."

"But he's still alive. Nobody lives that long with lung cancer. The doctors say 2-6 months. If you live two years, you're really lucky. But my brother has lived five. Nobody knows how he did it, but we know he did."

He got up from the table and came back a bit later with a popsicle. "You like these?"

"Yeah!"

"They're for the kids," he said. "They're nothing but sugar. Terrible." Then he seemed to remember that he just gave me one. "But good for you," he added. I ate it appreciatively.

"There were a few other bikers here. One was from France, but I never speak French to those people," he continued.

"No?" I ask.

"I hate those Paris guys,"  he said, making a disgusted gesture with his hand.

I left once more customers came in, my spirits again buoyed by someone else's enthusiasm for this trip. I pedaled on with two full liters of ice cold water.

I'd only gone about 20 km when I came across a sign that said "All you can eat barbecue buffet, $9.99." Now that was worth stopping for! The buffet was inside an RV park, and I went inside to check it out. It was as advertised: one generously sized pork steak, plus all the beans, cole slaw, rice and potatoes you could eat. The atmosphere was perfect, too: seating was all outside but covered and in the shade,  music was playing, and the cook/owner used his position of power to make fun of his customers: "What do you recommend?" one patron asked. "The restaurant across the street!" he replied, "What da ya mean? What do I recommend, it's all good!" He seemed to live by the sign hanging over his barbecue: "This is not Burger King. You don't get it your way. You get it my way or you leave." I loved it.

"Where are you camping tonight?" he asked, as I worked through my second plate of food.

"Edge Hills Provincial Park."

"Never heard of it," he retorted.

Yeah, well, it's there, I thought. It's amazing what locals don't know. I realize that every time tourists ask me questions in Haines!

"I was planning on camping at Downey, but I heard it's closed."

"That's right, it's been flooded for weeks. I just saw the sign today, it's still closed."

He walked away...it reminded me of The King and I, when everybody goes through a big effort to convince the King to do something by making him think it's his own idea. It also reminded me of when I was talked out of sailing to Glacier Bay: somebody with more experience laid out his opinion then let me think about it. Well, I didn't really feel like pedaling anymore that night anyway...maybe if it wasn't too expensive to pitch a tent at this RV park...

While I'm working on my fourth plate of food, the guy cake back and asked about my route. I mentioned some back roads on my map that cut a corner in the highway system and reduce the associated distance from 90 km to 40 km. 10 of those 40 km are gravel but I was leaning toward taking my road bike over it anyway...at home, I ride it up and down my gravel driveway all the time anyway.

"Oh no, you don't want to do that," he stated. "You can't ride a bike back there. It's gravel. It's 18 degrees up hill. And you'll kill yourself on the backside."

Sigh. People often mistakenly think things are impossible...that makes it hard to talk about them before hand. On the other hand, he could be right, and I'll have to bicycle 30 km out of my way to find out. A second opinion sure would be helpful, especially since this guy is trying to sell a campsite, (and the provincial park I mentioned is halfway through the shortcut). But that could be hard to come by tonight...

"I can pedal through some gravel..." I said tentatively.

"Not this gravel," he declared assertively, "it's deep. You need a four wheel drive vehicle to get up there."

Well, we're at an impasse. His word against my best guess. Eventually he left, I finish off my fourth and final plate of food, and decided to stay the night.

Outside, I felt the wait of the enormous meal I just ate and the distance I'd been riding. I must have looked pretty exhausted, because a woman came over to see if I was OK. We struck up a conversation: she maintained the gardens in the campground in exchange for a place to stay. I told her I was bicycling to grad school to study energy resource engineering, and she actually hugged me! She'd been traveling around the world for years, and was an active environmentalist...she recently attended a demonstration against the Keystone XL pipeline in DC for instance: "There were 40,000 people there," she said, "but there could have been more."

Eventually, I got my tent set up and went to bed. In one day, I met three people wildly supportive of this trip. What a good feeling!


An afterthought:

The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour is a collection of outdoor films that is shown in venues around the world every year. I make an effort to see it; I find it fun and inspirational. One amazing Alaskan asked me what film I would make to submit to the festival. "It would be about the people in Haines who live there and hike there just because they love to. They explore the Takshanuks quietly, modestly. They don't care what anyone thinks about their efforts, or how they compare to anyone else. They just hike." 

And then: "But I couldn't really make that film...because they don't live their lives for anybody to watch them."

Is blogging superficial?

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Quesnel to Lac La Hache

Once I finished updating this blog, I headed over to the bike shop in Quesnel to get some new tubes, tires, and patches. I enjoyed visiting the shop: the couple that owned it were friendly and enthusiastic about the idea of cycling to San Francisco. Unfortunately, they only had one inner tube the right size for my tires, but I also bought six more patches and a new tire (which I decided to carry until the next time I got a flat. Based on the previous day's misadventures, I didn't expect it to take very long). From the bike shop I made my way over to the bakery before starting my ride and ate a pound cake for breakfast. It was well past eleven by the time I started to ride.

I made decent time that day, but eventually the sun came out and I got bogged down by the heat. I pulled over to the side of the road when it neared the Fraser River and made my way down to the water. I had just taken off my shoes to wade around when I heard a voice say, "Everything OK?"

Great, I thought, somebody must have seen the bike and stopped to be helpful. I wonder why I didn't hear their car? I often leave my bike next to the road when I make water stops, and keep an ear out for people stopping. I hope that I could run back to the road in time to claim the bike before somebody else decides it should belong to them. There's a steep bank of rip rap between the river and the road, so I couldn't see who was talking. It was hard to hear over the river anyway, so I reluctantly took my feet out of the cool water and picked my way up the rocks.

It was another biker! We chattered for awhile...he was biking from New York to Homer, Alaska. His dad died in 2007 and he's naming a mountain after him near Homer. We exchanged tips on campsites in our respective directions, and he warned me about biking across the Astoria bridge in Oregon (he rode down the coast a few years ago). Apparently, that was the scariest part of his ride...I'll have to make sure to cross it at an hour when there's not much traffic. While we talked, the same car drove back and forth by us several times; the biker told me it was his cameraman, and that they were shooting a documentary about the trip.

Eventually, he reached out to shake my hand: "What's your name, by the way? My name's Cha--VROOOM." A semi cut him off, but I thought he said....

"What did you say your name was?" I ask.

"Chandler."

I grinned. How do these things happen? "That's my name too."

"No f---ing way!"

This extended the conversation for several more minutes, until we ran out of things to say about the name Chandler. Eventually, we pedaled off in opposite directions, agreeing to find each other on Facebook, but knowing we'll probably never see each other again. This puts me in a good mood for several hours.

As the day finally started to cool off, I arrived in Williams Lake. It's the last sizable town for awhile, but there's a provincial park with a campground about 50 km down the road. I had figured on camping there, before I got such a late start in the morning. Regardless of whether I chose to press on or find a campground in town, I was hungry and ready for a break from the sun, so I pulled into a Subway and ate for a bit before biking on. About 5 km down the road there's a last cluster of shops marking the end of town. Although I was kind of itching to go, I remembered my troubles finding a campsite after leaving Spencer at about this time, and pulled into a gas station to ask about campgrounds.

The cashier couldn't think of any, which seemed unlikely given that my map showed a camping symbol next to the town (thanks to Eric Fontez for the map! I made good use of it). But then again, I didn't double check any of the information on the map. A woman came up to check out and chimed in, saying there was a campground back down the hill five or ten kilometers, but that I should really go set up my tent on the public school lot just a couple hundred meters away: "It's public land," she said, "I don't see how it could be a problem."

Somehow, I didn't feel comfortable pitching my tent on school grounds--I really don't like getting yelled at--and I was in the mood to ride anyway. I decided to press on, figuring in the worst case scenario I would ride for an hour after dark and get all the way to the provincial camp ground.

This time, it worked out. I did ride almost all the way to the campground, but the traffic was minimal and the confidence that there was a good campsite ahead made the ride enjoyable. I ended up finding a BC recreation site that allowed camping about five kilometers before the provincial park and followed the dirt road to it a few kilometers off the highway before laying my sleeping bag out under the stars and falling asleep.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Quesnel to Port Hadlock: the short story

Well, it's been a while since I wrote here...I suppose I've been busy doing things to write about. And still, I don't have much time on the internet here, so I hope to give a more thorough account soon.

I arrived in Port Hadlock last night to visit my old friend Ben, who's going to school for wooden boat building and restoration. It's wonderful to be here, and shocking after pedaling through rural BC for two weeks. From Quesnel, I pedaled almost to Lac la Hache and camped at the entrance to a BC recreation area after a late night, then did a short ride down to Clinton the next day (my ride was cut short by an all you can eat barbecue buffet...amazing!). The next day, I was planning to stay in Whistler with a fellow cycle tourist I had contacted through warmshowers.org--a kind of couch surfing website specifically for cycle tourists. After stopping for the buffet, that meant I had 250 km to go....It turned out to be a tremendous ride through the mountains, the most challenging and rewarding ride of my life. After two nights in Whistler where I enjoyed a hike in the mountains and seeing some new life styles, I continued onto Vancouver, and then Port Hadlock in the next two days. And now, at last, I'm enjoying some relaxing days and catching up with friends in the Seattle area. Tomorrow it's on to Aunt Val and Uncle Scott in Tukwila! And hopefully I'll find a couple hours to sit down and really write. Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Fraser Lake to Quesnel

The last two days have been tremendous and eventful. After my day off in Fraser Lake, I finally woke up early enough to beat the sun, and was out of my tent by 5AM. I struggled with my jet boil a bit: there are two pieces that (apparently) serve to disrupt the jet of gas coming out of the stove, causing the fuel to mix with the air. Those pieces are not attached to the stove, and as a result I consistently drop them. Somehow, I managed to avoid losing them for about ten years anyway, until the day before I reached Fraser Lake. I'd always wondered if the stove would work without them...turns out it doesn't. I cut up a tin can and got the stove to work a little, but now the part of the stove that releases the fuel glows red hot and eventually fuel stops coming out of the canister. And then, if I remove the unscrew the stove from the fuel canister, fuel keeps spraying out of the can. I suspect that the stove is getting so hot it's damaging the valve in the canister...I'm hoping to find replacement parts somewhere...or maybe it's time for a new stove.

Anyway, I eventually managed some warm, mostly cooked oatmeal with salami, and hit the road at 6:15. And I felt tremendous! About 20k in I had my first flat tire, and I stopped once for 45 minutes to eat and refill my water bottle. But otherwise I stayed on the bike and rode fast|! The day was just starting to get hot when I rolled into Prince George at 1:15, 155 km from Fraser Lake.  This was great! I thought I'd go find a hostel, be set up by 2:30 and have time to wander around town, get some food, and look for stove parts....Unfortunately, it took me about two hours just to find the visitor center, I couldn't check into the hostel until five, and all of the sport shops were closed for Sunday (and would be closed Monday too, for BC day).  I showed up at the hostel at five to check in, but the fire alarm was going off and nobody could figure out how to stop it...so I had to come back later. By the time I stumbled into the hostel, I was hot, dehydrated and tired as though I'd been riding all day.

But the hostel was great! Eric's World, as the building was called, included a spa, hostel, and Eric's home. The live-in caretaker had grown up in Egypt and Italy, and provided hilarious conversation throughout the evening, especially after two English women showed up to egg him on (coincidentally, they're taking the ferry to Haines in a few days!)

The next morning I got up early for another big day ahead of the sun, and was ready to go by 6:15. But this was not my day. Just as I finished packing my bike, I realized I'd locked my bike shoes in the hostel. |The owner had gotten up early to get my bike out of his spa, where he'd let me store it for the night, but had since disappeared back to bed, and I'd left my keys up in the hostel as instructed. My only options were to wait for somebody to wake up and let me in, or ring the door bell and wake up the whole hostel to get the caretaker to come down and get me. I sat around for about twenty minutes, but the thought of roasting out in the sun eventually inspired me to press the door bell. The caretaker came down, rolled his eyes, and I was on my way.

I'd only gone about 20 km when I got my second flat tire. Seeing as I rode 900km on my way to Haines from |Fairbanks, and the first 600km of this trip without a flat, I figured these two had to be correlated and attributed them to wear on my rear tire making it thin. I switched to my spare tire, (which is only 23 mm wide rather than 28mm) installed my last inter tube, pumped it up hard to prevent damage to the sidewall of the tire, and kept riding. I got my third flat about 20 km after that.

Well, I didn't have to hitchhike quite yet: I had a patch kit with me with three patches left. I'd tried, and failed, to use one before (turns out I put it on backwards!), but in theory I could patch a tube and keep riding. I had about 80 km left to the next town, Quesnel, where I could go to a bike shop and get new supplies. Of course, they'd all be closed for BC day, but I could camp there and wait for them to open on Tuesday. I set to patching the tube, and picked the rock out of the tire that had caused the hole. The patch seemed to take well, and I was optimistic, but not particularly surprised when it failed. I took the tire back off (it seems risky to test the tube outside of the tire, when there's nothing to keep the patch from blowing off), and looked at the tube again. The patch still looked good. But aha! There were two holes in the tire. I patched the second one, and was relieved to find that the tube held air. I left it soft this time, hoping that would reduce the risk of a puncture. I got back on the road, and started pedaling cautiously toward Quesnel. Not much room for error now.

I got more confident in the tire as the day wore on, and had a decent ride for a few hours (except for a few minutes of discomfort when a bee managed to sting me while I was riding). I was cruising down the last hills into Quesnel, with about 5k left, when I hit a bump and got my fourth flat tire. What the heck! By now it was hot, hot outside, and I was really wanting to get to some shade in Quesnel. But there was no shade nearby, so I put my head down, pulled over into some grass, and set to applying my last patch. Again, there were two holes in the tube, but they were close together. I could cover both of them with one patch. I tried it, but the tire still didn't hold air. (I noticed later that there was yet another hole in that tube...probably from walking the bike with a flat tire to get to that grassy patch). I stashed the bike in the woods, (not an easy task as it turned out), and ran/walked into town. I eventually found the visitor center and learned that there were bike shops in town, and found out about camping options. I got some food, found that the bike shops were indeed closed, and eventually went back to my bike, again dehydrated and hot despite my early morning start.

I drug my bike out of the woods, and started walking the 7k to a campground, flinching every time I heard the rim of the $115 rear wheel ping against gravel on the road. As I walked, I thought...Maybe I could pull the patches off the failed tube, and try and patch a different tube. And I could put the 28 mm tire on...at least that would provide some more protection for the rim. I waited until I found a nice shady place, and tried to reuse one of the patches. It worked!

What a relief to ride rather than walk the bike. Soon, the sun dipped behind some clouds, I made it to my campsite, went for a swim in the lake, and went to bed feeling good. Now, I'm waiting for the bike shop to open while I type this out at the visitor center. Hopefully today will be a better day. It's mercifully overcast and rainy outside.

I think it's good to step back and see where I went wrong...the flat tires were caused by a combination of things, I think: a worn tire, too skinny of a tire for the load in the rear, and a bit of bad luck with sharp pebbles. So today I'll be a new fat tire (or two!). But the biggest mistake was giving up on the bike 5k from town. I should have found some shade, relaxed and gotten it going rather than running to town. It would have saved me a lot of sun!

In the meantime, I've been looking at courses and starting to plan out my arrival at Stanford. I get excited doing that, then get sad thinking about Alaska...I've been thinking a lot about values on this trip. Happiness, family, the world....the first two don't require education. But maybe the third? I had a conversation with Tim Shields before I left Haines... we talked about how parts of society really aren't sustainable now. The Tlingit probably had a sustainable lifestyle...maybe we could recreate that...or maybe we could use the technology, knowledge, and social structures that generations have worked to create and move forward. That's the vision for the lifestyle I want: small, locally focused living but still connected, and actively contributing to the world. A small cabin in the woods...but with an internet connection. At least that's my thought for today...I change my mind every 20 km!

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Smithers to Fraser Lake

It was a mistake to pedal past Smithers...By the time a left after shopping, going online, exploring town a bit and making phone calls, it was almost nine o'clock and I pedaled into the dark for awhile before coming to the next good campsite. I got up early the next morning and started biking before breakfast, planning on a full day of cycling to get to the provincial campground in Fraser Lake.

The first town I came to was Houston, home to an enormous saw mill, and a wood pellet mill! I cruised around the town a bit and checked out the mill. I'd never seen so much lumber! And it was fun to see where some of the pellets come from that everyone is talking about in Southeast right now.

After leaving Houston, I fell into a wonderful rhythm on my bicycle. For the first time, I felt good even in the heat of the day and made good time for several hours, all the way to Burns Lake (a little over 100 km into my ride). I met two other cyclists there, a pair of Swiss women going from Anchorage to San Diego. We yakked for a bit and I ate lunch, then pressed on. After lunch, I struggled to find a good rhythm again, but eventually dragged myself into Fraser Lake just before the visitor center closed. They directed my to a beautiful camp ground on the edge of the lake, and I happily drifted down there.

The campsite is beautiful. I waded out into the lake with my bar of soap and washed off, and instantly felt a hundred times better, then headed back into town (less than 1km away) to find a burger and some groceries. After my burger, I went back to the beach to cook some more food (instant potatoes with salami, and kiwis on the side) and watch the weather put on a show across the lake. The sun was setting then, which cast the enormous thunderheads across the lake in majestic reds and purples, occasionally illuminated by bolts of lightning. I could live here, I thought, as I fell asleep.

I woke up late the next morning and decided to spend the day. I had planned to take a day off to explore Prince George, but the employee at the information center had mentioned a neat hike, there is plenty of internet here, and I had plenty of catching up to do. A day off now will do my hands good too, which are a bit beat up from riding.

That's all for now...I'm off to find that trail!

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Terrace to Smithers

After a prolonged stop in Terrace where I enjoyed the city amenities and avoided the sun, I started cycling on toward Smithers, planning to camp near a nice hiking area on the way. I wanted one more wilderness excursion before the population density got too big. I was looking for a nice day hike where I could follow a stream to be sure to find my way back, and in the middle of nowhere so it would feel like Alaska. If I could find some alpine, that would be a bonus.

However, I didn't make it that far before it got dark, so I pulled over in a nice looking pull out and laid out my sleeping bag on top of the rain fly for my tent: too nice out for the tent, and I wanted to be sure not to sleep in.

I was on the road again by eight the next morning, and had more or less changed my mind about hiking that day when I saw one of the Seven Sisters (a string of ~9000 ft mountains) peaking between two hills. A stream was running under the road, presumably fed by one of the glaciers on the Seven Sisters. This was too good to pass by! I spent about an hour stashing my bike and gear in the woods, tying most of my food up in a tree, and packing a day bag with the rest of my food and enough clothes to spend the night if need be. I sent a message with my SPOT, so that someone would no where I headed into the woods (I'd told my dad the day before that I was planning on going hiking).

The walk along the river was beautiful: lovely forest with no undergrowth. Eventually I stumbled across a small boulder patch that gave me a view of a small peak poking above tree line that started rising just 200 meters from the river. I took a compass reading (just in case), turned away from the river and went straight up to the alpine. It worked out better than I imagined: I gained the alpine before my turn around time, and it afforded beautiful views of the southern most peak in the Seven Sisters, as well as the road and Skeena River I was traveling on by bicycle.

I got back to my campsite early, although a bit dehydrated, and enjoyed some rice with powdered beef gravy for dinner before turning in.

After a good night's sleep, I resumed the cycle toward Smithers. I got a later start than I'd hoped (without a reliable alarm, it was somewhat inevitable sleeping in my tent), and ended up pedaling through the heat of the day. I sad to see the traffic begin to pick up, and the towns get closer together...definitely getting into more people! On the other hand, I enjoyed a delicious cinnamon role from a bakery in New Hazleton, and am now taking advantage of a wonderful library in Smithers...I'm looking forward to beginning to meet more new people as well.

Tonight, it's on to MacClure Campground, and then Saint George in two days or so.

Haines to Prince Rupert

Well, I biked from Fairbanks to Haines, and I had dreams of kayaking this leg of the trip. But I didn't have the time, or the friend with time, that I needed to do that. And besides, I grew to love ferry rides in High School travelling to activities (like most kids in Haines), and looked forward to the idea. In Juneau, I was hosted for a day by my friend and fellow runner, Tristan. He suggested running the West Glacier Trail, and I happily agreed, not knowing anything about it…
The trail slowly degrades, and eventually is only marked by cairns built on slippery rocks that were under ice only a few years ago. We keep going. “It’s so strange,” Tristan wonders aloud, “we used to go down to the glacier right here. I haven’t been here in four years, but then the glacier was right there.” He points to a spot to our right, perhaps 400 meters from where the glacier now terminates. We keep going.
“There used to be ice caves here.”
We see people out on the ice, wearing harnesses and looking down. Apparently, they’re about to descend into a moulon.
Eventually, we drop down a steep, slippery rock face, and find three people at the entrance to an ice cave. One of them knows Tristan, of course (he seems to know all the active people in Juneau). “If you go back there, you have to crawl for a little bit, but then there’s an opening straight up to the sky!” Tristan’s friend tells us. We enter.
I’ve never been in an ice cave like this before. On the way to school, my Dad used to help Iris and I scramble into some caverns formed by the waterfalls on Mud Bay Road. And last winter I made a trip to the edge of a glacier South of Fairbanks, and clambered around in a small cave there. But this cave is massive: 3 meters high at the center of the entrance, and 5-10 meters wide. A stream flows into it, probably the source of heat that melted out this cave. It’s cold and wet inside; the glacier drips. Tristan and I walk, then bear crawl toward a bright spot. I poke my head through a curtain of drips and look up at the grey sky above. Tristan climbs out and stands in the light, but only for a second. It’s more like a solid cylinder of drips, rather than a curtain, and he’s quickly wet. We don’t stay long; it’s too cold. But the majestic blue light filtering through the ice is striking.
Back out of the cave, I feel a warm breeze coming off the glacier, and remember that it felt cold before entering the cave. It must really be cold in there, I think. I saying something petty: “That was amazing.”
“Living in Southeast Alaska,” Tristan says, wryly happy.
“It’s the best,” I say, wondering why I'm leaving...To save places like this, I suppose, in some small way.


Later that day, I boarded the Taku for the 44 hour trip to Prince Rupert. I read, slept, and wrote the whole time, only stopping occasionally to heat food in the microwave, and go for short runs in Sitka, Kake, and Wrangell while the Taku rested in port. I always enjoyed ferry rides when I was travelling for activities in High School, and I still enjoy them now.

Prologue

Well, at long last I’m creating the blog I promised at the beginning of the summer. I thought this would be a way to keep people posted on my voyage to grad school throughout the summer…and it will be! It’s just that it took me awhile to get started.
Not to worry though; I haven’t been bored! My summer started May 18th, when I finished working at the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. The Center is a wonderful place to work: the people are sharp, motivated and fun; the work addresses real problems in Alaska and the organization is rapidly becoming the leader in Northern energy research. Nonetheless, I spent enough time reading about fuel additives in my office over the winter, and I was excited to spend the summer outside.
In some sense, I started my bicycle trip to grad school right then: I pedaled south to Haines. It was hot and sunny when I left Fairbanks (miraculously, seeing as it was snowing two days earlier). I waved goodbye, stopped by the grocery store and kept riding south. I had dreams of making it to Haines in three days, meaning 220 miles of riding a day… I’d never rode farther than 100 miles in a day before, but I wasn’t very tired then, so I figured I could probably keep going.
I quickly found that the challenge wasn’t fatigue, but rather dehydration, constipation, improper diet, sore butt, too little salt, numb hands, leg cramps and sun burn. I made adjustments as I went: drank more water, tried harder ; ), stopped relying on oily foods (peanuts, etc) while I was riding in favor of more carbohydrates (tortillas, mango) and started eating more protein during longer breaks, lowered the seat 1.5 cm to help out my butt and leg cramps, bought some super salty nuts, changed my hand position and started wearing a cotton T-shirt instead of riding shirtless. I also started riding at night when it was cool and there was less traffic, and that made everything easier. It was too late in the trip to make me comfortable, but at least I made adjustments before I had to stop. As it turned out, it took me just under three days to get to Haines Junction (instead of Haines) for an average of a little over 170 miles per day instead of 220.
But it was a blast! The highlight was riding around Kluane Lake as I came into Haines Junction. It had been another uncomfortable day on the saddle with lots of stopping, napping, and stretching to get across the sixty miles of rough pavement South of Beaver Creek. But in the evening the temperature finally started to drop, the pavement smoothed out and before long I felt like I was flying. I cruised through the last thirty miles into Burwash Landing, stopped for a quick leak and powered straight through Destruction Bay, stopping just once to fill up my water until I got nearly to the base of Sheep Mountain. The moon was full that night, and seemed to weave its way in and out of the mountains on my right, while the still frozen Kluane glistened to my left. The sun set, but the colors on the horizon in my mirror never disappeared and I watched as they slid from West of North to East of North before finally rising above the mountains as I pedaled across the bridge at the back of Kluane Lake. The final 30 miles into Haines Junction were brutal: I was famished, and I underestimated how far it was. But I made it, and treated myself to a delicious restaurant breakfast once I got there.
On Monday (May 27) I started working with my dad. What a blast! For a week, we split, hauled and stacked wood. It felt so good to get up and move and work every day rather than go to an office and sit, stare and read. Once the wood job was done, we jumped into painting a house. It was a big project—A full two weeks—but the weather cooperated and we knocked it out quickly. I love working outside, with my dad, solving the small problems that always come up with his handyman projects. It would be easy to stay in Haines, rent or build a small cabin, work with my dad, make a living, hike, appreciate the land. And the people.
After painting the bike race came and I got distracted from work by more adventures. My bike team consisted of three friends I made at UAF. What a wonderful crew! We all managed to find each other in Haines Junction the night before the race and got off to a jolly start in the morning. Unfortunately, we ended up taking two cars: Heidi drove a car from Whitehorse, and I drove a car up from Haines with my teammate Quinn and my friend/former coworker Amanda (ACEP’s brilliant biomass studying, dog mushing, life-loving Australian). The race did not go smoothly: there was confusion between the two cars, and we lost track of each other. One of my teammates (Signe) ended up racing in jeans and riding Quinn’s bike; the truck got a flat tire and we missed Heidi’s finish. But overall, everyone rode well, we had fun, and ended up second in the mixed teams division.
Signe stayed in Haines for a week and we filled it with fun day trips. With Quinn, we climbed Tugkaho and With’s Tit, and motored a boat 15 miles out to Eldred Rock. We visited the library, the hammer museum, and friends. I could write five pages about that week, but here is the best part:
We went up Witch’s Tit on a calm day. We sailed across the canal in the morning in Quinn’s boat with his dad and sister, and started up the mountain by 8 AM. I consider Witch’s Tit one of the three defining peaks of the Haines skyline: There’s Ripinski to the North(ish), Santa Claus to the East, and Witch’s Tit to the West as you drive out Mud Bay Road. It’s a 5000 foot peak, located about a mile inland from the ocean—it’s steep. But it’s also absolutely amazing. Indescribable, really, but maybe you’ll get the idea: the first ~3000 feet of the route follows a goat trail (it’s so worn, it’s more like a goat highway than a trail) that cuts through a wonderful old growth spruce forest, skirts past a thousand foot drop through a steep dusty birch grove, almost disappears in a dense patch of alders that strangle the trail, and then suddenly splays out into a dozen different paths as the view explodes in the alpine.
A few hundred feet farther at the top of a knoll, the world opens into an enormous canyon. Rainbow Glacier is 500 feet below: ice blue, crevassed, rugged and hanging over a thousand foot waterfall. Rainbow Ridge is on the far side of the glacier, soaring 3000 feet above. And farther up the valley, past the icy blue of Rainbow Galcier’s hanging tongue, there is an enormous mass too large to really comprehend gleaming white in the sunlight. And, if you can take your eyes off the glacier and turn around, Chilkat Inlet is silty grey 3000 feet below. It’s silty for a few miles to the South, but then the water turns to Lynn Canal green along a sharp line. On the other side of Chilkat Inlet, just three miles from where you stand, parts of Haines are visible, on an isthmus between Mounts Ripinski and Riley. Taiya Inlet drowns the land for three more miles on the other side of Haines, the sea green contrasting with the dark forest green of the spruce trees on the far side. The old growth trees across the inlet mark the base of Santa Claus Mountain, which soars 5000 feet up from the water, hiding the glaciers, the peaks, and the rest of the world behind it.
This is God’s Camp.
From there, the route crosses a glacier and climbs up to a prominent ridge, and a rocky peak that is generally considered too technical to free climb. We enjoyed the beautiful day as we climbed, slid back down, and sailed back to Haines in Quinn’s boat. These are the days that make me want to stay in Haines.
At the end of the week, my friend, small time employer, and adventure buddy Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and I drove to Palmer with Signe. We dropped her off at home, and undertook some of our own adventures. We went pack rafting on the Matanuska and Chulitna Rivers for three days, we hiked up most of Pioneer Peak, and ran a bit of Eagle Pass and the Cottonwood Trail. It was good to spend time adventuring with Jonathan again; this is what our friendship was built on.
Afterward, I was home for a week to do a bit more work with my Dad and visit with my sister when she arrived. At first, I had planned to leave for Stanford around now, but I was having too much fun. Especially because Quinn had invited me to sail to Glacier Bay with him…that was an opportunity worth postponing my bike trip for.
In the end, despite being wonderfully excited about sailing, I decided my lack of experience, Quinn’s 19 foot open boat and Lynn Canal waters were a bad combination, and backed out just before we left on the trip. Instead, we flew/ferried to and from the entrance to the bay, then kayaked. Like my week in Haines with Signe and Quinn, the week in Glacier Bay was extraordinary and could fill pages. All three of my companions were fun, and good to be with in the Bay. But the highlight of the trip came for me after Doug and Tom left, and Quinn and I began paddling back to the ranger station:
We paddle slowly, stopping often to appreciate the birds, the whales, the Fairweather Range….the beauty. It’s a perfect evening. Eventually Quinn says, “Maybe we should paddle all night.”
“I’m up for that.”
So we paddle and paddle on into the dark.
As the sun sets, the place only becomes more magical. I can hear birds calling in the distance, and sea lions barking and whales blowing. I see the silhouettes of cliffs and shoreline, smell the fragrance of the sea, and feel the strength of my core, hands and shoulders flexing against the water. I feel strong. Remember this, I think.
“Look at the phosphorescence,” Quinn says, softly.
I’m amazed. Each stroke of my paddle glows. It’s faint then, but soon even the wake from my kayak is glowing bright green. I feel as though my boat is carried by spirits. I could go forever. Is this real? This is more magical than fiction.
Eventually, Quinn and I returned to Haines. I enjoyed a few more days with my family, crammed in biomass research for Jonathan, then boarded the ferry bound for Juneau, and eventually on to San Francisco.