the itinerary

showing our travels in northern BC, the Yukon and alaska. the dashed line is the ferry route.

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...

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!

our home for 5 days

setting up camp on the observation deck.

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.

going south

we are almost back in the lower 48 states, bur still in Canadian waters. cruising between Vancouver island and the mainland currently the ferry trip is everything I remember from last time!what a trip!

we are almost back in the lower 48 states, but still in Canadian waters. cruising between Vancouver island and the mainland currently the ferry trip is everything I remember from last time!what a trip!

port call

GeoTagged, [N55.34373, E131.65038]

calling in on ketchikan in some harbor spelunke...

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.

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.

shootin' the alaskan breeze in haines

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.