From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

Our last message is already one week old. We were in fact in the bush last days. The only town we went through had a population of only 25 people (and 5 in winter!) So, here is a resume of our adventures …

When we left the campsite in Tok on Monday morning, we met Joanes, from Spain - we had met him in Anchorage the day we left. He is also going to Ushuaia and following the same way as us. Even with the rain, we biked together for the first kilometers. The weather forecasts predicted only scattered showers for the day, that’s why we decided to leave. Unfortunately, it was wrong… It rained all day… Joanes left us at Tetlin Junction as he was following the Alaska Highway. We took the direction of Dawson City on the Taylor Highway (which becomes the Top of the world Highway once in Canada). This road was not the easiest one: up hills up to 9% grade. With the rain and these many up hills we felt worse and worse. We knew that this road would be difficult, but not that much. We stopped with no more energy on the side of the road to pinch the tent. Even with rain, we had to cook a hundred meters away from the tent, because of bears. As we could not find any tree strong enough to put our food bags on, we put them in pipes that were running under the road.

The next day, no more rain, but it was freezing cold. We went up and down to 1000 meters elevation (about 3000 feet). We even thought to go back and to take the Alaska Highway to go straight to Whitehorse. As always, pickup trucks and RV passed us. Suddenly, one of them stopped in an uphill and offered us a lift to go to Chicken. We thought about it and accepted the proposition, after only 25 km. With this lift, we could arrive early, get some rest, and leave the following day with more motivation, but without the food we would like to purchase there! Indeed, there was no groceries store there, not as somebody told us in Tok…

On Wednesday, we biked the whole day, on gravel road, with sun shining. The day was difficult but the landscapes were beautiful. We finished with a long downhill and stopped at the state campground next to a river. This kind of campgrounds has only outhouses and sometimes drinking water… and food storage boxes for the bears. As the sun was still heating, we went to have a shower in the river. It was a great instant despite of the freezing water.

On Thursday, we went up, and up, and up… We discovered two gold panners in a river next to the road. One of them stopped his work and explained to us how they worked. When we were at the top, a vehicle from Germany stopped : it was Willy, Marga and Fernando. Willy has been travelling with his truck in Americas for 6 years, and they invited us to stay at their place in Mexico. They offered us cakes and sausages. We stopped in Boundary and slept in a cabin. We even have the owner’s daughter coming with two plates of food!

We crossed the border after an uphill of 6km long and 400m high. The border was in the middle of nowhere, at the elevation of 1258m. The Canadian officer was very nice, spoke to us in French and gave us some water. Everybody told us that the road was paved after the border and downhill… It was completely wrong! The road was uphill, and gravel with some paved patches, like they call them. We could not go to Dawson city in one day like we planned and camped in the bush on the tops (over 1100 m high).

Saturday was a day like the others: up and down, gravel, and still more than 1000m high. We understood why this road is called the “Top of the World Highway”! Hopefully, the 14km downhill that people told us was true! We enjoyed it! We spent last 2 days with only 4 liters of water and not much food, something we are not proud of. Now, we are in Dawson City where we had a nice shower, we drunk lot of water and ate all we could eat.

PS: Thank you Willy, Marga and Fernando for the food you gave us and for your invitation in Mexico!