So Cliff struck hard. But let’s rewind and give a bit of background into this. I hung around in Whitehorse for two days, and on my second rest day I was biking along the path that runs by the river and saw two other bike tourers. As I approached to say hi we all recognized each other! It was Christiane and Sid whom I met back in Denali National Park! They told me they had a campsite in the local campground and said I should join them at their site tonight to sleep which I gladly did. That night Christiane and Sid both did some bike maintenance and got their hands dirty. While we were hanging out and chatting one of the employees came by and told us that I too would have to pay cause it was $22 per tent not per site. We were taken aback since there were large groups with a massive tent and here were three bike tourers in two small tents having to pay more. Eventually I acquiesced and went to the office to pay. When I got there a sign was hung on the door saying that they were closed and wouldn’t be open again until 7:30am, well no one can say I didn’t try to pay. We eventually went to bed and that is when Cliff struck.
I woke up first and went to use the toilet and brush my teeth. My nose was a bit runny and my throat scratchy. Yay, I am getting a cold. I think this cold is a combination of being rained on for over a week now and pushing my body really hard the whole time. Now that I gave my body two rest days I got sick; not unlike in university when you were cramming hard for finals and were super stressed and once break started you got sick. When I was walking back to our site I saw Christiane running towards the office holding a piece of paper, I figured that the campground employees charged them extra because I didn’t pay the previous night. I was about to ask Sid about that when he interrupts my thoughts and says “We’ve been robbed”. I then checked over my stuff and found that all my gear was still there; the thieves went through my saddle bag but unsurprisingly found nothing of value to them. The only gear of mine that was not inside the vestibules of my tent was my food bag and cook set, both of which were where I left them. Sadly Sid and Christiane were not as lucky; six of their eight panniers were gone. I am not exactly sure what all they lost but it was not good. I hung around camp while they filled out a report and called the police.
I left town a bit after noon that day, only going about 55 km cause of my late start and feeling a bit unwell. I bathed in the lake which was very refreshing and made some tea whilst I read Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I apparently am quite English. They person camping next to me invited me over for dinner, drinks, and cribbage. Her name is Carol and is super awesome; she made us sausages and burgers, as well as gin and lemon which took the edge off my sickness for a bit. She also taught me two new versions of cribbage: one she called reverse cribbage (I call cutthroat cribbage) where the goal is to not get points, and I forget the name of the other but you start at 60 and you get negative points if you get fewer than 31 (you play 4 hands to yourself and a crib hence the high scores) and try to get to the end. We chatted around the fire until after midnight before retiring. She invited me over again for breakfast giving me a lemon to mix with my tea later and also an ultralight hammock. Score!
My ride that day was rough, I did in fact make it to Squanga Lake Campground but I felt so terrible by the time I got there; I felt feverish and so sluggish. I guess I am resting tomorrow. I made myself som chamomile tea with half of the lemon cut up into it and I literally just ate the other half raw for the lemony goodness. I made a fire using only flint and dried grass to get it going mainly just to see if I still had it in me and it was good practice. I also set up the hammock and read in it for a bit before going into my tent to sleep. After reading for a while in my tent I got up to pee, I did drink a lot of tea after all, and when I was a few meters from my tent I heard a snapping sound and looked back. To my dismay I saw my tent pole had snapped, fucking Cliff I hate you so much. I just stood there staring at it for probably a minute before doing anything because my brain was a bit cloudy from the sickness. Eventually I had an idea, one that would hopefully fix my pole and also get me out of the drizzle cause of course it would be raining on me. I went into my now collapsed tent and found a stake that had the hook broken off, grabbed athletic tape in case plan A didn’t work. Thankfully plan A did work and I was able to jam the stake into the broken pole and make it work.
I slept fitfully waking but to cough or expel snot from my nose, super fun. I lounged around drinking so much tea all day, I coughed a lot but it felt like the stuff in my lungs was breaking up and I was on the mend. I had some new neighbors who were here to fish. They are in their mid twenties from Whitehorse they invited me to dinner with them if they caught enough fish for us all. I alternated between reading by the fire and the hammock then it started raining again and pretty much I hung by the fire for warmth. I went into my tent around 2100 to read and rest up to hopefully get better. Around 2200 I had to pee, big surprise considering all the tea I drank and on my way back Jess, Kylie, and Aaron invited me over for s’mores. One does not say not to that and I happily joined them around their fire. I ate so many of them, my body was like “CALORIES”!!!!! We chatted for a few hours, trading adventure stories. Kylie has toured across Canada, and Jess and Aaron did a bit of touring around Iceland before the weather put a stop to it. The ladies definitely enjoy bike touring more than Aaron and when he said he wanted to do it again Jess made sure that she had witnesses to hold him to it. Jess told me that I would see signs along the Alaska Highway for the next bit advertising “best cinnamon buns” and I should review them, I think I can take one for the team and do just that. They gave me their left over chocolate, marshmallows, and crackers for extra snacks and we went to bed.
I had a decent tailwind most of the day as I rode along the lake south to Teslin, I camped at an RV place cause it had been so long since I last showered. I got up and hit the road again the next day, hoping to make up some good distance cause I had hoped to be a lot further up the road by this time but I got derailed by health. I made it to this “town” called Swift River and found a clearing just past it and made camp there by a stream which I gladly bathed in. It had gotten up to 34o C for a while that day and I was just craving the cold water to wash off the day’s dirt and sweat. I also made use of it to rinse off my riding gear as it had also been a long time since I last did laundry. The next day I rode over the continental divide, that’s cool I guess. I stayed at Big Creek Campground and again washed up in the stream. I could tell my legs weren’t going to be happy tomorrow and I still wasn’t feeling 100% from being sick but I had no choice but to continue since I was over sold on what I could get in Rancheria, turns out more or less nothing, so I had no extra food if I wanted to take a rest day. I made friends with a Romanian guy now living in Vancouver by the name of Traian. He takes off for a few months every year to tour around on his motorbike. We exhanged info and he offered me a place to stay in Vancouver if I am ever in town.
My ride into Watson was a bit rough, as expected my legs weren’t totally cooperating, and while I was pushing up a hill a family in an RV pulled over and gave me snacks, beer, a frozen treat and told me that they are Warmshowers hosts in Anchorage. They took my info to add it to a Pan-American Whatsapp group chat. Cool! I will be making my way to Liard Hot Springs over the next few days, apparently there won’t be much in the way of towns so I might be surviving on candy from gas stations for a while.