I left Tok while it was still raining, but luckily the wind was at my back for the second time of the trip. I stopped at talked to some old guys touring. They were in the 60’s and 70’s and carried some gear while one of their wives carried the rest. Another weird thing is he confused me for being German, I must speak with an accent because at least a dozen people have thought I was German and two thought I was Argentinian. I stopped in Northway Junction for the night before heading to Canada the following day. On my way to Canada, there was this couple around my age driving in a Subaru with bikes and other gear strapped to it in the opposite direction, and they were so excited to see me bike touring and cheered me on and pumped their fists out their windows. It was so lovely to have a cheering section for just a second. Later on I crossed into Canada and eventually made it to Beaver Creek and treated myself to a meal for my accomplishment.
The following day as I was finishing packing up my bike, a family pulled up with like five bikes on it. I assumed that most everyone in the family had one and the mom informed me that they were all her husbands. Nice. But she should really catch up to him and get a bike or five too. The mom gave me five Clif Bars which was nice cause I cleaned out the store their of granola bars and they just don’t cut it when it comes to calories and bike touring. I continued on my way it was quite nice for most of it. I was hoping that this was the day I was finally going to dry off. I had some beautiful views of the Ruby Range to my east, like literally right across the road from me which was cool. In the afternoon I started to hear thunder and looked around a bit. I noticed the sky behind me was getting quite dark. I pushed onward hoping I could stay in front of the storms; that hope stayed with me until I rounded a curve and the southern end of a mountain and was greeted with incredibly strong winds, a nice view of a large and dark rain shaft, and lots of cloud to ground lightning. When the storm got too close for comfort, well way past my comfort zone I flagged down a set of vehicles and asked if I could hide from the storm for a bit. I got my bike all secured and hopped in the back vehicle which a lady was driving. IT turns out they are a Coast Guard family and the husband, driving the truck in front, got stationed again in Anchorage and they were moving back up there from somewhere in the south. She fed me oranges, gave me a micro brew and we just hung out for the 40 minutes that the storm was over us. After the storm I made my way the final few kilometers to camp where I cooked my food under a shelter before setting up my tent. I hung out with a couple from Ottowa and drank beer and wine and ate chocolate with them.
I slept in a bit late which worked well to help dry my tent off before packing it up again. Not long after starting my ride I ran into a Swiss couple Violeta and Mark from Geneva. I had to give them the bad news that the bakery listed on the map and on signs was in fact closed. The second half of the ride to Burwash Landing was mostly downhill which was nice cause my legs were kinda tired. I had been pushing myself pretty hard for a while now. I biked only about 20 km the next day into Destruction Bay and got a motel room. I had been rained on for the past week and was over it. I needed to dry off. I spread out all my gear throughout the room to air it out and dry off. Plus I took a long shower which was divine.
The next day was a wind sandwich. I started my ride with a cold headwind while riding south along Kluane Lake. Once I rounded the bottom of the lake and rode past a mountain valley I got a well deserved tailwind. Luckily I had some hills to climb so it was nice to have a little assist up them. I met this cool couple from B.C. Megan and Shane who were stopped at the rest stop there. I stopped to take my pants off cause I was getting too warm and we chatted for a bit and they offered me a beer which I readily accepted. We parted ways and I continued my climb up the hills. Not long after that I had a headwind again, fucking wind sandwich and I had to layer up again cause I was clouding over and I was getting cold again. I had heard I was going to have a big downhill into the town of Haines Junction and I was really looking forward to it. I was getting quite demoralized by this wind. After all my days of biking on this trip, and countless mountains climbed, nothing breaks my spirit like a cold headwind. It’s relentless and seemingly never ending. It drains me of energy and my motivation to continue. When I finally reached a sign indicating a big downhill I was pretty excited. At first I had to pedal still to maintain speed cause of the wind was so strong, but after a few kilometers I was able to relax my legs a bit. But about that same time I had to slam on my brakes because there was a large grizzly munching on some flora on the side of the road. I didn’t want to seem like I was charging at the bear and have it attack me, so that’s why I stopped. Also, even though I was going downhill the bear could still easily outrun me. Stupid wind. I pulled out my bear mace and made myself big and yelled “hey bear”! The bear, now aware of my existence was startled and ran further down the road. Shit, why won’t you just go in the woods??? Satisfied after a while that the bear couldn’t care less about me I made my way forward and down hill, looking back a few times to make sure I wasn’t being followed.
I was still about 160 kilometers from Whitehorse and planned on doing it over two short days, no need to push myself right? Right out of the gate I was flying. I had a nice tailwind, number three if you’re counting like I am. Around the 80-90 km mark I had hoped to camp near every creek was dried up; I had already been rationing water by taking a sip and holding it in my mouth for a kilometer or two to make it last. By the time I reached the Kusawa river I had decided to just continue the last 40 kilometers into Whitehorse since I still had the wind and was so close. I was able to score some water from a construction site, saving me about 30 minutes of filtering water. As I was making my final approach into Whitehorse I of course got rained on again. The weather is not normally like this here. This is supposed to be a semi-arid landscape, why I am here the one year when they get all the rain??? I definitely earned myself this rest day, I may take a second one to really let my body recover after such a long ride yesterday.