from door to door in 4 weeks and 2 hours! plus a 5 day ferry ride.
priceless!!!
Thursday, August 25
7315 miles and endless fun
from door to door in 4 weeks and 2 hours! plus a 5 day ferry ride.
priceless!!!
last bridge
almost there! over the golden gate bridge and a few miles more...
Peter is home since friday; Sean left on Saturday from and arrived in LA the same day. the last returnee is Klaus who made it home on Sunday.
home again!
returning to California with anticipation but also with a bit of sadness for a perfect trip is coming to an end...
in Bellingham
arrival on Friday last week. an awesome boat ride is over but will stay in our memory forever...
Sunday, August 21
the four bikeriders
Sean, Peter, Klaus and Oliver.
the trip is coming to an end. more or less in Bellingham. Peter had to split and turn north (again??) to go back to Vancouver. and the rest of us is just zooming down to California...
for all of us this journey was, I think a very unique and awesome experience. everything just fell into place! this trip was not planned nor really prepared. 2 guys were recently just talking about going biking, the third bikerider heard about it a couple of weeks before; and the fourth one got told a few days before he got scooped up on the way up north.
and pretty much we were a great pack, maybe the perfect crew...
it was f.....g awesome!!!!
thank you, guys!!!
I will follow up with a slide show, gps tracks, etc. in a few days.
thanks for following our journey!
through the Alexander archipelago
sometimes the channel in which we sail is barely bigger than than the vessel is wide. so we have the panoramic as well as the close-up view. the scenery is one of a thousandfold variation of one theme: sky, water, trees and terrain contours. in its starkness it really is an extension of the boreal landscape.
Thursday, August 18
Wednesday, August 17
cocktail hour on the MV columbia
doing the inside passage on the ferry from skagway, ak to Seattle is one of the best things one can do in Alaska. the boat calls port at several town (we are leaving wrangell right now). the entire trip takes 5 days.
Tuesday, August 16
Hokusai on my mind
Hokusai, the most famous of Japanese print artist, interpreted and depicted a landscape which is very similar to the one we are traveling through minus the waves and swells.
a mountainous, partially submerged landscape dominated by the subdued greyish green of the forest, the greenish grey of the water and the greyish white of the low-lying clouds. there is a horizontal strip of greenish brown and grey when the low tide is in. it disappears with the high tide, the algeas and kelp dive under and only the partially mottled grey of the shore rocks are left.
a very magical landscape composed of very few elements but in infinite variations.
Sunday, August 14
five star hotel
at the lake hotel! we are camping out in the kitchen shelter with the stove burning all night. beats any fancy hotel.
winding roads
again, phantastic riding days!!! especially the tok cutoff, a road not much driven or ridden. the scenery is breathtakingly beautiful, the traffic horrific (2 cars per hour), the weather terrific, finally.
the Alaskan highway along Kluane Lake is, as always, mesmerizing.
Saturday, August 13
around midnight
camping at the tetlin national wildlife refuge. we had a great salmon dinner, a copper river red caught the very same day!
Friday, August 12
bathing with bears
yesterday evening we decided that a bath is absolutely necessary. so we walked over to a glacier pond, stripped off and jumped into the icy water. well, we saw a few bear paw prints around the water. sure enough, while soaping up we noticed a big brown something in the bushes across the flat. we didn't waste a second to get out off the water and hurried half naked back to the camp.
on the trestle road
the road to McCarthy is an old railroad grade which led from Cordova on the coast to the coppermines of kennecott. the mine closed one day in 1938, in 1944 they pulled out the tracks w/o the sleepers and spikes. that's the road. those 60 miles took 4 hours to drive in the 1990's. improvements had been done in the meantime and 2-3 hours is now the travel time. crossing and passing old relicts such as an abandoned wood trestle bridge it's a journey into the past.
up to the bonanza mine
we ride the bikes up to the fork where it goes to the jumbo mine to the left and the bonanza mine to the right. we parked the bikes there and had a pleasant short walk up to the ridge. passing several towers of the team which brought the ore down to the plant, we reached after a few hours the actual mine. absolutely stunning! half collapsed this big structure sits just a few meters below the razor sharp ridge. the powerhouse, driving mechanism, loading station, bunkhouses, etc. totally fascinating!
the view around is absolutely breathtaking! an alpine landscape of the finest!
a glorious day
the best weather we had so far! sights one won't ever forget! a memorable hike! a awesome ride! and, to rough it a little bit, another dinner at the McCarthy lodge!
roughing it...
upon arrival at the end of the road wi set camp with a view of the wrangell-st.Elias mtns. there is only a pedestrian bridge across the river to McCarthy, kennecott and beyond. but, as bikeriders we had the privilege to cross over with our horses. so we rode into town and hitch the ponies in front of the McCarthy lodge. warming up in the saloon we the settled in the dining room, or rather stumbled into. without ordering we got served a 6 course meal of the finest order prepared by a former NYC W hotel chef!
what a treat! now, we are an 8 hours drive from anywhere in the middle of the (literally) wilderness. surrounded by glaciers, icefields, razor-sharp mountain ridges; abandoned mines; grizzlies, wolfs and moose are roaming; you get the picture...
roughing it, part 2
a typical morning in the bush! verve coffee from Santa Cruz on the french press.
in kennecott
kennecott, McCarthy and the wrangell-st.Elias mountains, one of my favorite spots in America!!
kennecott had been one of the biggest copper mines in the world (of Guggenheim fame) and was closed literally overnight in 1938. and everything was being left behind!
a trip into the past and/or a steampunk paradise! offices, the powerplant, bunkhouses, cottages, ore concentrater, the airtram coming from the mines. absolutely everything is there in various degrees of decay, from well preserved to collapsing. what a sight!
Wednesday, August 10
the railway road to McCarthy
we are having peach pie in chitina before hitting the old railway grade to McCarthy. below the old kennecott copper mine it lies in the middle of the wranglell-st. elias mountains, one of the greatest spots in Alaska!
out in the cold
today was another great day, just a bit wet and cold. Sean and Peter went to wasilla to check out the dog mushing museum whereas klaus and I did the Denali hwy. originally the only access to Denali np it is nowadays a very remote feeling area. hardly any traffic, almost only hunters (hunting season starts soon). cold rain and plenty of mud again for the hwy is for 110 of its 135 miles a dirt track.
reunited in glenallen we went limp and decided to take a hotelroom. enough of the cold and the run...
Tuesday, August 9
what to do today???
at the black bear coffee cabin pondering what to do with the day...
we have this idea: why not going for a ride today?! let's skip office and instead ride along the Alaska range!! doesn't that sound good?!
Monday, August 8
muddy waters
it's a 1000 miles roundtrip from Fairbanks to prudhoe bay. maybe 60 miles of the Dalton highway is paved, the rest is dirt, often brutal dirt. the road conditions can change in shortest time, usually to the worst. on both ways we had everything, sun and rain, smooth gravel and deeply rutted mud. it's only for the tough, the rest has to stay away.
a wild country
we stopped for a short walk in the brooks range. choose any mountain, any peak, hike up to it and you can be pretty sure that no one ever had been there before.
the meaning of nothingness
the stark absence of almost everything is what makes this landscape so stunningly beautiful. the sky; the ground covered by tundra; nothing else...
a strange world
prudhoe bay feels like an outpost on some otherwise uninhabited planet (think of 1960's science fiction novel).
all this absolutely wild country and suddenly one finds himself in this machinescape.
Friday, August 5
the edge of America
well, I. guess we can't go any further for ain't no more land. the northern most road in north America!
behind us is the arctic ocean. after that comes the north pole...
behind us is the arctic ocean. after that comes the north pole...
in the tundra
GeoTagged, [N70.21608, E148.40133]
it's breathtaking scenery! endless vistas, huge skies and not much in between...
over the Brooks Range
GeoTagged, [N70.21614, E148.40135]
a true white knuckle ride! but after all we left the taiga behind us and climbed over atigun pass in the Brooks range and descended into the tundra!
at the arctic ocean, finally!
GeoTagged, [N70.20200, E148.46502]
we made it! after 500 miles of rough riding and breathtaking scenery we arrived in prudhoe bay!
Thursday, August 4
off to prudhoe bay
GeoTagged, [N64.83032, E147.84868]
after spending a night at Randy's place (a local motorcyclist), we went on a search for a bike shop to get ready for the run up to prudhoe bay. new rear tires, filter change, etc. it's 1000 miles roundtrip on dirt! it's me and Peter!
Sean and klaus go to Denali.
I won't be able to post anything until we are back around Fairbanks (sat/sun).
see ya later...
Wednesday, August 3
the prospectors and the bikeriders
GeoTagged, [N64.07736, E141.10613]
that's for real! the 40 mile mining district is hive of activity! $1640 per oz!
Tuesday, August 2
housekeeping day
GeoTagged, [N64.06750, E139.39628]
we decided not to go to the office today and instead catering to the chores, cleaning the bike, doing laundry, etc...
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