12 results for month: 07/2015

55-57: Whitehorse to Haines -42, 45, and 26 miles

55: If one needed more data to be convinced I am not a morning person, today provided. I didn't want to get out of bed because it was a drizzly grey outside. Even oatmeal and tea didn't perk me up. I dragged my heels, knowing at some point I would have to leave the warm comfort of Whitehorse. With ferry ticket booked for next Thursday and a 2-day weekend weather window to get over the passes on the Haines road, it saddened me to know more rest days weren't really an option. Still, it took me till 10am to get out of the house, after numerous scrambles for forgotten items. The drizzle began to let up on the far side of town. As I climbed the last ...

52 – 54: Rancheria to Whitehorse (6mi), Day trip to Atlin, and Rest Day in Whitehorse

52: When I woke up, the weather was still dismal. Upon entering the cafe for breakfast, the ladies asked incredulously if I was going to ride in this. As I cruised through my Yukon Platter     (3 eggs, 6 bacons, 2 pancakes, 2 toasts and hash browns...and this very hungry caterpillar could have eaten more) I made up my mind to find a ride to Whitehorse. I finished eating, packed up my things, and parked my bike in the rain in front of the cafe with a dripping paper reading "Whitehorse." After chatting with many Eastbound folks, finally Blair and Candace, a retired couple from Victoria, offered a ride if I could figure out how to get my bike ...

50 & 51: Jade City, BC to Rancheria, YT – 62 and 67

50: I’m resigning myself to sleeping in and riding later into the day, because I just can’t get up with my alarm. I’m still sleeping poorly with the long daylight hours (sun sets after 10 and it gets light by 4, even during the night it is twilight, not full dark) and an air mattress that has sprung a slow leak I can’t locate and needs reinflating 2 or 3 times a night. I didn’t get on the road until 9, but it didn’t really matter. The first 20 miles were all cruisy downhills out of the Cassiar Mountains (namesake of the highway and ghost town at one of the worlds highest-grade asbestos mines which closed in 1992). I stopped to eat ...

49: Dease Lake to Jade City – 66 miles

Another morning of slow motivation, turned off alarm clocks and procrastination getting out of camp. The first quarter mile up the dirt road back to the highway was exceptionally steep and painful, and the road climbed some more in the first ten miles. With weather that couldn't make up it's mind and relatively un appealing scenery, I considered every reason to stop a good reason: four snacks and seven clothing layer changes later, the weather cleared up and I finally rounded a bend and found myself atop a long, sweeping descent down a mountainous river valley. It was quite idyllic and precisely the kind of scenery I was expecting for this road. ...

45 – 48: Kitwanga to Meziadin Lake to Bell II to Kinaskan Lake to Dease Lake – 96, 57, 74, and 85 Mi

45: Apparently my body really wanted two days off so close together, because today I had LEGS ( and quite probably a tailwind). The miles this morning melted away, and by noon I'd already done 50. Just after lunch I rode past the places folks in Kitwanga recommended I camp. I stopped at a lake for a yoga break, where thousands of baby frogs had just hatched. Individually they were cute, but in that quantity they looked like swarms of termites or cockroaches - they created the illusion the whole ground was crawling, which was altogether kind of gross. I just kept pushing and didn't feel any fatigue until I was within shooting distance of the ...

Red Tarps & Red Tape

The Nepali Times just published a great article about the challenges that the Nepali bureaucracy poses to aid organizations like ours. What they describe is consistent with our experience getting aid into rural Nepal in the interval between the April 25th earthquakes and the beginning of the monsoon season in late June, detailed below. The whole article is worth reading, (link at the end of this post), but here's the key paragraph: While we were able to procure an initial shipment of several tons of food, tents, 32 tarps, and other assorted materials into Darkha in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the villagers let us know that they ...

43 & 44: Smithers-ish to Kitwanga and weather day – 66 & 3 miles

Andy made blueberry pancakes this morning, and then the three of us set out - Andy and Kirsteen on mountain bikes and I weighed down with 10 days worth of food plus leftover brownies and grilled chicken from last night. After my grocery run in Smithers, I had to pack and repack meticulously several times to make everything fit and balance the weight evenly. My bike was so heavy this morning that I was grateful to be able to draft behind Andy and have an almost-all-downhill day (following the river) to get used to the extra weight. At Moricetown, about 12 miles down the road, Andy and Kirsteen peeled off to do a loop back home. I made good time ...

41 & 42: Houston to Smithers and Rest Day – 42&2 mi

41:Houston to Smithers -42 mi Leaving Houston was a slow start. John and I both found it necessary to sleep in, and then make important phone calls before hitting the Great Emptiness that will be the Cassiar highway. My phone call (involving my health insurance and a prescription refill) was not fruitful, and left me frustrated and in a sour mood heading out of town. Unlike the previous few days, the short ride to Smithers got more and more scenic as the day went on. The climb up Hungry Hill was exceptionally sweaty, but that meant a long coast down the other side and it was down hill all the way to Smithers. I bid John farewell at the visitors ...

Days 37-40: Purden Lake to Houston, BC- 50, 67, 70, and 68 mi

37: Purden lake to Prince George- 50mi On our way out of the campground, John and I stopped to chat with a German couple cycle touring across Canada. The beginning of the ride was nice, but a few miles out of PG we turned a corner from wilderness to an alien universe of industrial ugliness. We were hungry and stopped at the first gas station, where I caved to the lure of cheap hot dogs. When you're really hungry all the time, junk food is hard to resist.  I did not like PG and was very grateful for the security of John's company. As we made our way across town to run errands, I felt more and more confused about how a university town could feel ...

Days 35-36: Mt Robson to La Salle Lake to Purden Lake – 79 and 66 Miles

Day 35: Mt Robson to La Salle Lake, 79mi Today was hard. After saying goodbye to Mr. Davidov and riding off in opposite directions, I was a bit overcome by loneliness.  I'm now just over half way in to my trip, which means I'm completely off-sync of all the logistics planning I did in May. I knew today's route in terms of "go down the road and stay left onto 16 and follow that for a few hundred more miles" but knew nothing about elevation profiles, camping options, etc. I was completely demoralized when I reached Tete Jaune Cache (named after a blond fur trapper) and a MASSIVE headwind hit me in the face. I wanted to give up, but it's harder to ...