Posts tagged ‘mountains’

Sep 27

The Yellowhead

The Yellowhead Highway of British Columbia and Alberta almost defies categorization. Between the world’s largest fly fishing rod and a children’s costumed bike parade, the Yellowhead brought us a puzzling array of memories. We left snow-capped mountains at the beginning of Highway #16 in British Columbia, sped across rolling pastures and farmland, were beset by heavy logging trucks on the highway’s narrow or non-existent shoulder, mowed lawns and picked apples on our days off in Prince George, and now leave the Yellowhead amidst glacial lakes and vast mountain ranges in Jasper National Park.

Mount Robson

Picking apples in Prince George

Every day is an adventure. We start some days with a destination in mind and others with nothing more than a direction (South, perhaps?). The concerns of time and distance dissipate throughout the day as we meet friendly tourists and locals. Setting aside the time to talk is one of the most important lessons that I have learned thus far.

One of our hosts, Johnny, puts us down in his "black book"

From mushroom pickers to Mounties, we have met some fascinating people on the road with valuable knowledge to share. Our conversations led to an powerful phenomenon on the Yellowhead: referrals. For a period between Smithers and Prince George, we had several home stays. Church congregations and folks we met would refer us to their friends and family down the road, which led to a cycle of home stays. After returning to the usual routine of a small camp stove and tent, I know firsthand how magical a family’s dining table and guest bedroom can be. To all who have fed, hosted, or helped us in any way, thank you.

huckleberry "bear" pancakes!

Seven-Eleven's two-for-one dollar doughnuts + peanut butter + honey + granola = joy

Enduring the rain has been a challenge for us all, but we continually attempt to improve our waterproofing methods. We have begun to tie plastic bags over our boots and wear dishwashing gloves to keep our hands and feet dry. We certainly do not look “pro” with our new accessories (you would probably laugh if you encountered us on the road), but it sure beats being wet at the end of the day. After days of rain, days like today (the forecast calls for “abundant sun”) are uplifting.

As we ride closer to the U.S. border, I reflect over all that Canada has meant to us – the kindness and generosity of those we have met, the harsh weather, and spectacular scenery – and know that it will be missed.

I wanted to share one highlight from the Yellowhead. After a grueling 150 km day to McBride, where we camped in the city park, we were surprised to learn that the town had planned a fall fair for the next day. At the time, we were particularly interested in the costumed kids bike parade so rather than leaving that morning, we delayed our departure so that we could take part in the festivities. Although we didn’t decorate our bikes, wear costumes, and ride through the parade, we thoroughly enjoyed the day’s activities. Conversations over coffee and doughnuts, singing for the fair, cheering on the young bicyclists, and watching a horseshoe tournament made for an memorable day and capstone for our time in British Columbia.

Our new friend, Pete "the Heat"

Sep 14

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Mudslides & Mama Z

We leave the Cassiar Highway of British Columbia with heavy hearts. Good old #37 has been just what we needed when we needed it, even if we didn’t ask for it. Small miracles define our days. We ride too quickly and often overlook their occurrence. Yet like our shadows they are never far, and when the days grow old they remind us to reflect and to talk.

Endless roads in British Columbia.

Some days we finished with no energy left to speak into an audio recorder. Ever been high up on a patch of cold highway asphalt in the Cassiar Mountains, chilled to the bone with the sun on a long vacation, and holding a hot plate of rotini and Campbell’s Prime Rib in your hands? You praise God for your good fortune, wolf down your food, and figure that it is best to pass out quickly in your sleeping bag before a bear comes along to change your luck. At least that is how I rationalize all of this fun to myself.

Feast at our abandoned logging camp.

New fall fashion: roadside belts.

It is fun, after all. There are the difficult parts to contend with. Drying off a tent on a cold wet morning is one of them. I still have not mastered the Sleeping Bag Arts so as to not overheat as I fall asleep or freeze my toes by 6AM. Heavy bikes get heavier when the hills get steeper. I smell bad and look questionable, which makes our efforts at spreading goodwill and attracting support a dubious endeavor at times.

: Cold sunlight in the mountains.

Yet to quote George Santayana, this difficult world of ours is “shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.” Riding our first day on the Cassiar Highway, we passed up a pleasant campground to fight the dying light and move another 25 (or so we thought?) kilometers to Jade City. We finished our ride in the pitch black of the mountains, headlamps as our only light, looking like ghosts on some twisted family vacation. Through the bright lights of oncoming big rigs and the real or imagined sounds of large animals beside us and the snow flurries, we made it. You dig deep inside of yourself and lean on your brothers in a profound way after a day like that. Small miracles, like shadows, weren’t even recognizable to us until the day after.

First glorious live potato sighting since Whitehorse.

Claudia's unforgettable rhubarb cake in Jade City, BC.

The family and owners of the Jade Store took us in from our cold tent the next morning. We dodged torrential rains the next day and were given the gift of goulash and potatoes and meatloaf and rhubarb cake and love, all of it thick enough to cut with a knife. We left dry, warm, and well fed only to be cold and hungry once more on the doorstep of Dease Lake. I stopped a man outside of the grocery store in the rain for information; he happened to be a chef at the restaurant just down the street.

Brotherhood: I'll trade peanut butter for your honey.

Before we knew it, we had a tenting spot out of the rain on the back porch of Mama Z’s Jade Boulder Cafe. Zora is the name of the owner of the establishment, and she is a spectacular woman. The chef at Mama Z’s is a man by the name of Chris, who happened to share David’s love of music. Chris has tremendous talent as a chef, and we miss his creations dearly. Chris and Zora were so generous and kind and we cannot thank them enough for giving us a place to stay for a time. We will pay their generosity forward and hope it returns to them tenfold. Torrential rains continued to plague the Cassiar Mountains, and Highway 37 was closed to all cyclists and vehicles alike for a time. We rode on past the highway barriers and closure signs, trusting that we would figure things out when we got there…wherever “there” was. And we did.

Surprise roadside reunion with Zora, one week later. We will miss her.

Mud, water, and debris strewn cross the Cassiar.

Abandoned logging camp of luxury.

One of many mountains.

We rode all but the 35k of the Cassiar Highway that a Ministry of Transportation truck evicted us from. Kindness continued to come from unexpected places, like a campground that placed us in an unbelievable cabin after one of our hardest days of headwinds and climbing. The rest was unforgettable. We tented on questionably bear-ridden rest areas in the freezing cold. We camped inside deserted old logging camp trailers. We consumed disturbing amounts of peanut butter, Oreos and some awfully discolored water. Things could not be better, except perhaps our laundry situation. And maybe that is what keeps us going, why we leave each morning for a new patch of earth to pitch our tent. There is more road before us. David just finished On The Road by Kerouac and found a particular quotation that we would like to share:

It was no longer east-west but magic SOUTH. We saw a vision of the entire Western Hemisphere rock-ribbing clear down to Tierra del Fuego and us flying down the curve of the world into other tropics and other worlds.

Watching the washout before they closed the Barrage Bridge once more.

Something deep inside me feels left behind here on the Cassiar, bound to be picked up again on another ride or drive through these mountains. It’s that feeling that there is too much we didn’t get to see, too many conversations that we didn’t get to have because we’re bound south with such haste. There was time to talk just as there is now time to pause and think and write and hope for a day when we can come back. I hope we have enough of our hearts left in Argentina when we gladly leave so much of them behind.

The view from the cabin outside Iskut at Mountain Shadow.

Sep 10

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A Time to Talk

Less than a week ago, we came to a road crossing. We could have continued down the Alaska Highway but chose to ride down the more scenic and remote Stewart-Cassiar Highway. Since that juncture, we have experienced both great difficulty and unsurpassed hospitality and generosity. These recent experiences brought Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken“, to mind.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Heavy rain has brought forth some obstacles on the road ahead. Currently, the highway is closed to motor vehicles and crews are working to stabilize roads and bridges affected by mudslides. Uncertainty lies ahead, and that can be disconcerting. The interruption of our riding rhythm and daily work is stressful, yet another Robert Frost poem comes to mind:

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.

“A Time to Talk” reminds us that the people and circumstances around us might distract from our work, but their “meaning walk” through our lives and their friendly visits are what make the road so rich for us. We are glad for the road we have taken, and we won’t let mudslides distract us from the magic around us.

Aug 29

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Nature Sans Nurture

Whitehorse has embraced us with its warmth and graciousness. We are “actively resting” which is not a misnomer when one is extremely tired and hungry, or when one is taken into a retirement home and fed delicious moose stew, rhubarb pie, and saskatoon berry desserts. Nathan made the acquaintance of Father Jim, the priest of the Catholic church in downtown Whitehorse, and before we knew it we had been housed in a home for retired priests and fed like kings.

Lunch stop on top of a lonely old station wagon.

If only Mother Nature was so kind to us. This present splendor dulls the pain from a week of difficult riding. The road from Tok has been challenging. Nathan has struggled with tendonitis in his knee which led to a hitchhike to Whitehorse to rest and recover. We battled five straight days of 20mph headwinds. Unrelenting, unforgiving, unbelievable headwinds. Our “modest” pace of 65 miles per day was made grueling by the uncooperative attitude of Mother Nature. The wind was so fierce that our bikes would roll to a stop on slight downhills if we ceased to pedal. To give you an example of a day in the life of Bound South: the winds with steep mountain climbs near Haines Junction meant that we began to ride at 9:30AM, rode hard all day, completed 70 miles by 7:00PM, and finished just in time to devour 2,000 calories at a generous grocery store.

Bridge across Destruction Bay

Our last day of riding was a 100 mile trek from our campsite in Haines Junction to the city center of Whitehorse. We were so mentally and physically exhausted that the crosswinds seemed like a gift from above. To be taken in by the community here was a gift from above and this rest is much needed.

EKG of a living day in the Yukon

Ten miles outside of Whitehorse, fierce and cold headwinds appeared. Once more we found ourselves yelling and laughing out of exasperation and exhaustion-induced euphoria. I said, “Don’t forget, David, there are thousands of people out there that envy us right now.” There are certain times when you lose sight of the important things; like when you’re hauling a heavy bike up a steep mountain into a headwind with grizzly bears around.

The diet of Bound South: bagels, peanut butter, and honey.

We’re riding bicycles from Alaska to Argentina, building a house for Habitat for Humanity, and capturing the essence of this spectacular adventure as we go. This is not easy, but it is a privilege and a dream and like any difficult and wonderful thing it is worth doing.

Aug 19

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High One Highway

Denali_means_“the high one” in the Alaskan native Athabascan tongue. It refers to Mt. McKinley, the massive peak that tops the Alaska Range in Denali National Park. It is a very fitting name for the Denali Highway, due to its impressive views of the Alaskan wilderness.

Alaska is massive. It’s more than twice the size of Texas and compared to the lower 48, it dwarfs the entire Midwest region (here’s a picture for scale). In addition, the U.S. federal government owns and manages 65% of the state as public land. This means more than half the state is comprised of national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges. Believe me, it’s enormous.

Late evening view from the Denali Highway

We are currently into our second week of riding and we have seen a lot. In relation to the state as a whole, however, we have seen very little. Over the past few days, I’ve begun to comprehend Alaska’s vastness and its seemingly boundless grandeur. Traveling along the Denali Highway, we experienced a small and magnificent part of Alaska’s beauty. We caught glimpses of glaciated mountain ranges and entirely new snowcapped peaks as the old faded from our view behind us. What baffles me still is that we’ve seen only a glimpse of all that is out there. As many Alaskans will tell you, Alaska may truly be “the last frontier” and that is what calls me back to return one day.

The scenery from the Denali Highway was spectacular. We saw wildlife including anxious caribou (hunting season started earlier this week), porcupines, and a black bear (at a distance, thankfully). On the other hand, the ride itself along the Denali Highway wasn’t nearly as spectacular.

Washboard gravel on the Denali Highway

A majority of the “highway” is gravel. You would think three farmer’s sons from North Dakota would be well accustomed to gravel roads, right? Well, with tractors and pickups, yes. With bikes, maybe not so much. At first, the gravel was manageable. It was well kept and smooth. Later on the road became increasingly extreme alongside the challenging terrain. Large rocks, potholes, mud, and “washboard” gravel soon covered the road as we climbed up and down the mountain passes of the Denali Highway. It was exhausting, both physically and mentally. With no suspension, we feel everything. On top of that, it takes an enormous amount of focus to plot a line down the road and navigate where you think it’s smoothest. Like I said earlier, it was exhausting, so we would rest often.

Finding a spot to rest wasn’t hard. Resisting the urge to snap photos every hundred yards was (sorry bros). We had the road to ourselves, so if we needed to refuel or refill water bottles, we would stop and sit along the roadside or down by a creek (we came across them often). Between meals on the road, which normally consist of bagels with peanut butter and honey, jerky, and cookies, we would occasionally snack on candy bars and trail mix.

Our trusty travel companion, Skippy

We would also snack on blueberries, or rather gorge ourselves with them. Blueberries were so thick in spots, it was hard to stop. It’s prime blueberry season according to the locals, and we aren’t complaining.

Blueberries!

The ride so far has been challenging. Long, cold, and sometimes wet days have come and gone. We’re meeting new people every day; with towns few and far between, you would be surprised at the number of kind, generous, and encouraging people we meet each day. I’m thankful for the journey thus far and I look forward to each new day.

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Here’s a video from our last morning on the Denali Highway. Fighting the gnats, we attempt to recount our time on the highway.

Bound South – Denali Reflections from Bound South on Vimeo.

Aug 16

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Audioblog

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Every night, the three of us sit down, turn on a voice recorder, and just talk. We discuss what happened that day, how we felt, who we met, what we ate, and share a few laughs. For us, it serves to capture the memories and moments that might become lost in between the intervals of writing and WiFi access. For you, it might be an entertaining look into each day of ours, as well as an opportunity to hear us speak directly about what we are experiencing on the road. When possible, we will include these audioblog files with our future writings. Enjoy!

Future uploads can be found here.

The slideshow above is a view of our travels along the Denali Highway.

Aug 15

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Milestones & Kindness

Since before this trip began, all of us had our milestones to look forward to: the first day of riding, the day we reach the Rockies, the day we reach the ocean, the day we reach Argentina. Add to that the day we build a house with Habitat in North Dakota. Yet I had my own personal milestone that was a little less inspiring: I was waiting for our first healthy dose of misery.

Breaks were short during a tough ride to Cantwell.

This might seem like a strange and negative milestone but it is important. Anyone who has taken a journey with a group knows that nothing binds you together quite like adversity. I remember during the summer of 2008 with Bike and Build when our negative milestone arrived inside Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We went camping for the first time in the great outdoors, unaware that a severe thunderstorm was about to wreak havoc on our ramshackle campsite at 2AM. By the next morning, we had taken refuge inside of a cinder-block latrine and barely slept while a park ranger recovered some of our belongings that had been blown three miles away in the storm winds. We were exhausted, terrified, and sleep-deprived, but Hurricane Teddy became a legendary and happy memory that brought us closer together in retrospect.

On Saturday, we got cozy with misery. We rode our bikes 100 miles from Trapper’s Creek (just above sea level on a flat valley) to Cantwell, AK in the mountains of Denali. We had planned an early start for a long day of riding, but a missed alarm meant that we weren’t on the road till noon. With serious mountain climbing and heavy touring bicycles, it took all of our strength to maintain a 10mph pace when we included rest stops and refueling. We climbed close to 8000 vertical feet over the course of the day. It was raining and in the low 40s. Cold set in if we stopped. My hands were so cold that I could barely open the Snickers bars necessary to my suffering, and I struggled hopelessly while the wrapper mocked me with its “Fun Size” designation. There was nothing fun about those Snickers bars. Pure life-saving necessity was their redemption. We pushed on and on through the mountains with the mile markers passing by far too slowly. There was no civilization between Trappers Creek and Cantwell. We were tired, hungry, wet, and cold. We had no choice but to make it to Cantwell where we heard of a lodge that could hopefully feed us and take us in.

Rest Day = Best Day.

We arrived in Cantwell at 11PM at night, just as daylight was failing. We turned onto the Denali Highway and after a mile and a cruel little climb we arrived at the Cantwell Lodge which had transitioned into a bar with country music and lots of drinking and smoking. We walked inside with our riding spandex and rain gear, chilled to the bone, white as ghosts. We ordered food for six. After we demolished the best double cheese burger, mountain of potato salad, and spicy wing basket in Alaska, we passed out in a discounted double bunk room.

Bound South's best friend.

We woke up for church on Sunday morning. We has passed Cantwell Bible Church on the way to the Lodge and took a guess on start time of the service. We were ten minutes late in keeping with a proud Berg tradition. Within their congregation of twenty we were a spectacle. A couple in the church offered to take us in for the remaining duration of our rest day. Rest was much needed after the century into Cantwell and we were treated to uncommon kindness. Our hosts were superhuman. While we passed out for an afternoon nap, they went for a vigorous mountain hike. They have a team of more than a dozen sled dogs that are full of joy and vigor. Bob, originally a farmkid from Nebraska, has climbed the Seven Summits and is a tremendous role model in is community. His wife Janie is an accomplished veterinarian, spectacular cook, and nonchalantly describes her adventures mushing a dog sled through the Denali Wilderness in -40 degree temperatures for fun.

This journey is as much as about the people we meet as the places we see. We have been so blessed and now we press eastward, leaving behind the challenges and rare comforts of Cantwell to ride the remote gravel passes of the Denali Highway. The most desolate wilderness of our trip lies between us and Whitehorse.