Alaska: The First Day

"I'm always looking for a new challenge.

There are lots of mountains to climb out 

there.  When I run out of mountains, I'll 

build a new one."

 

Sylvester Stallon

 

 

I awaken and head down to the lobby of the motel to meet the van, dressed in my riding clothes, as instructed.  I had thought of doing this without a guide, but my lack of mechanical skills combined with a possible lack of cell service and sparse gas stations, stores, and motels quickly erase that thought.  Greg arrives, introduces himself, and we all sit down to the hotel breakfast.  It is not the best breakfast, but it is food.  I had thought perhaps, that like one Scotland trip, we would stop to eat along the way at a restaurant, but we didn't and I am okay with this.  I want to begin doing the thing I came here to do:  ride.

 

 The van has the bikes loaded on top rather than on a trailer in the back.  There are three couples:  Don and Gayle , Mary Clair and Roger, Rob and Shannon, and three singles:  Dave, Larry, and myself.  Greg urges everyone to "synchronize their bladders" before we van out of the city to our starting point.  This strikes me as funny and I giggle, but I follow instructions and visit the girls room.  

 

When we stop, we put our pedals and saddles on our bikes. Or should I say Greg puts mine on as well as that of some others.   We are given a pannier to attach.  I've never ridden with just one pannier before and I wonder if it will affect balance. I learn that it does not seem to in any significant or noticeable way.  Of course, it is lightly loaded.  Just a light jacket and my wallet. At first, I miss the handlebar bag that we carried in Scotland as it made it easy to access cameras and phones for photos, but as the week progresses, I decide the pannier is more appropriate for this place where the weather seems to change rather rapidly going from sun to clouds and sprinkles and back.  I find it remarkably clever that Greg has chosen different handle bar tape for our bikes.  This, along with a name label on the back rack, makes it much quicker to distinguish one bike from the other as all but one are white Salsas. They all have kickstands, something I have not had for years but comes in useful along the way. 

 

 It is sunny and the sky is a brilliant blue, but there is a ferocious, biting head wind that, per Greg, the guide, is normally a tail wind.  The wind makes each mile seem like five miles and I again begin to  question if I have bitten off more than I can chew.  I try to relax and not fight it, just find a comfortable pace, but something in me keeps resisting.  

 

The other riders, except for Dave, have all been here a few days and had time to adjust to the time change, but everyone appears to be struggling in this wind.  Perhaps, I think, it is just that I remain tired after a long journey crossing four time zones.  Later in the van, Shannon looks it up and the app says the wind was four miles per hour.  I laugh out loud when she says, "Four miles per hour, my ass."  I agree.  I have ridden in such headwinds before, the kind that suck you dry even if you yield and pedal without fighting back, but it has never been my favorite riding weather even while it is character building.  Wind is, in its own way, worse than tough hills.   There is an ending with a hill or mountain on a ride, that moment when you crest and feel like a queen, eagerly anticipating the downhill.  But with the wind, it seems eternal and unyielding.  It may change or ease during the ride or it may increase and/or continue.  

 

The wind not only slows me, but chills me despite the brilliant, cloudless sunshine that I am desperately trying to soak into my soul as a shield for the cold, dark winter that possibly lies ahead.  While I chill, I glory in the colder weather.  At home, while I had adjusted, it was like riding in an oven.  When we stop at Denali, Greg tells us that we are lucky as it is often too cloudy to see.  Denali stands tall and beautiful before us and I am humbled and grateful that there is such beauty in the world. Along the way we pass numerous dead trees.  When I question if it was fire or insect, Greg says it is the spruce beetle.  They burrow under the bark and disrupt the water transporting system of the tree.  He says that they can't survive up where it is colder and those trees above that point survive.  

 We cycle along Parks Highway.  Trucks and tour buses, particularly from Princess Tours, pass frequently.  There is a large shoulder and no side roads that would allow us to escape the highway, but for me it is a change as I mostly avoid riding on busy roads.  There is no wildlife:  not even dead along the side of the road.  This surprises me.  The road is rough in places with large potholes, and I am glad I didn't bring my own bike though the Surly would have handled it well.  Rob complains about not being able to go fast on these bikes, and one doesn't go particularly fast, but the ride is smooth considering the road surface, and with the treads the tires are less likely to flat.  

 

At one point, we see a giant igloo on our left.  It is deserted and has signs about prosecution if you violate the no trespassing order.  Evidently, it was originally intended to be a hotel, but that did not happen.  For awhile, it operated as a gas station.  That too closed down.  The next thought was to turn it into a distillery, but that was a year ago and there is no activity or cars there so I suspect it was another pipe dream. Still it seems a shame that it is not put to some use for it certainly is unique. 

 

 

We stop for lunch at a pull off alongside the road.  The best thing about this and the other lunches are the cookies Greg's father made for us.  Everyone finds them irresistible.   The rest of the lunch is so so.  There are fruits, candy, chips, and packaged lunch meat.  Ron asks for peanut butter and I am glad to find there is some.  While I eat a bit of it, I am not  much for most lunch meats.  Regardless, it is fuel for the journey and nothing can detract from scenery.  We are seeing both the Alaska and Talkeetna ranges as we ride.  There are lots of rather odd looking red flowers that I am told are called fire-weed.  And there are white flowers that may or may not be yarrow.  

Along the way I pick up a pair of wire cutters lying along side of the road and a ratchet for the nylon straps of a tie down.  I decide the wire cutters are probably not the thing to take on an airplane and leave them with Greg.  I also leave the ratchet behind.  I have no need for it.  Perhaps in this pull off, someone who will use it will see it.  The roads are remarkably free of litter other than the occasional tool that bounced off a truck and a plethora of bungee cords.  I assume this is because there are no fast food places or even much in the way of stores or gas stations that people can buy disposable items from.  Regardless, it adds to the beauty.  

 

There are no significant climbs and what there is suits me.  Throughout the week the majority of climbs are long climbs that mostly are not steep, the kind I can climb forever without too much effort.  In places the roads remind me of the Texas Hill country in that way.  I expected it to be more mountainous but this is but the first day.  

 

As I ride I think of my sister, Pam, and how much I miss her.  I know she would have been as excited about my getting to take this trip as I am.  And, of course, I think of Lloyd.   Would he have loved it here or decided that we made a huge mistake.  I think of the long hours of daylight right now, but the long hours of dark and cold in the winter.  Greg says he gets through the winter by ensuring that he gets outside for the four hours of daylight they have in Anchorage in the winter.  But he was born and raised here and for him this is normal.  Neither Lloyd nor I were born here. 

 

By the end of the day, I am in the first in and pull Larry in while I battle the head wind.  And what a battle it is just to maintain 10 mph. My legs and lungs aches from the effort, yet it feels good for I know I am using them and they are responding.  Training for an event does pay.   Larry later thanks me.  Dave, who was with us, dropped off and argues about whether I got the Cantwell sign, but he knows I did and I know I did.  This is the playful banter of friends.  I think of how glad I am to have his company.  Today is our short day and we stop early due to dinner reservations, but with the wind it did not feel short. Rather it feels like an eternity and I am not opposed to stopping.

 

We get in the van and ride to The Perch where we are staying in small cabins. Before we get out of the van, someone asks if they have plumbing as we spot what some think are outhouses.  We do have plumbing.  It is one room with a loft and beds both up and downstairs.  Wood floors.  No insulation.  And a bathroom.  There is a tiny table and bench.  I rather like it.  We go for what is one of the better meals of the week and on the way I see a magpie.  I have a salad with salmon on it followed by a slice of peanut butter pie.  Both are filling and delicious.  We then walk back to our cabins.  I hope to finally get a decent night sleep and I do.