Breakfast @ Delta Junction
Kodak DC50 photo (by Nelson Kibler)
This was our first day with Cyclevents. There were now 10 of us riding (9 riders, one "sweeper" and one person driving the sag van). We all got going about 7:00 for breakfast (really good--scrambled eggs, cereal and muffins).
With Cyclevents, we stayed typically in RV (recreation vehicle) campgrounds. While we could have camped in prettier government parks, those were usually more "primitive." After a long day of bicycling, hot showers and conveniences, like AC power for my computer, pay telephones, etc., were deemed essential.
We were on the road about 8:30 AM. I had to stop at the grocery
store (the only store open at 8:30 on Sunday morning in Delta) so I could
buy a new pair of sunglasses to replace my Oakleys, which decided to crack
in half as I changed to my yellow lenses because it was cloudy. I managed
to buy an amber pair and dark pair for a total of $9.00 as a substitute
for my $130 Oakleys until my receive my spare pair from my wife via FedEx
or UPS in Whitehorse.
The Alaska Highway is 1,422 miles long. Mile 0 is in Dawson Creek, British
Columbia and Mile 1,422 is in Delta Junction, Alaska.
We had nice summer weather, but most of the time the Alaska Highway looks more like this:
Driving in Winter is exhausting because it is quite difficult to distinguish the white road, from the white ditch and white sky when looking at it all through headlights most of the time. On December 21, there is only about 2 hours of daylight around here; a combination sunrise/sunset.
At the monument to the Alaska Highway we turned off the Richardson
Highway and onto the Alaska Highway, heading east. We had a good tailwind
all day (my name for this site held true today).
A short distance out of Delta, we came upon a buffalo crossing sign, but
never saw any signs of buffalo.
There is a herd of about 5,000 buffalo in this area, but I've never
seen any of them.
At mile 30, we crossed the Gerstle River, an incredible example of dry silty
Alaska rivers.
Then we stopped for our lunch stop: make your own sandwiches--peanut
butter & jelly, ham and cheese; Gatorade, water, fruit.
As of mile 34, we had only climbed 90' for the day. For the whole day we
climbed 1,280'.
I spotted a cow moose and her very young (1 week) calf and we stopped for
a while to watch her. The largest member of the deer family, moose are found
in northern forests throughout the world, but the biggest are found in Alaska.
| Moose facts: Moose stand as much as 7-1/2 feet high at the shoulder, and weigh as much as 1,800 pounds. They eat woody plants (especially willow twigs) and plants that grow in shallow water under the surface. Moose usually live alone and they do not form herds. Their main predators are wolves and bears. A male moose is called a bull. Bulls shed their antlers (which are shaped like the palm of a hand with lots of pointy fingers) every winter and they grow new ones in the spring. A pair of antlers weighs as much as 85 pounds and spans 5-6 feet. Moose calves are born in the spring. A female moose, or cow, typically has one or two calves. The reddish-brown calves stay with their mother until the following spring when she chases them away to have a new calf. |
Here is what one looks like up close.
We then crossed the Johnson River.
Later we had some breathtaking views of the Wrangell mountains.
We rode into Dot Lake, where I ate an ice cream cone and entered
yesterday's activities into the computer. Dot Lake was the home of Andrew
Isaac, long the traditional chief of the Athabascan Indians in Alaska, and
a wonderful man whom I met while working for Alaska Legal Services Corp.
in the 70's.
Dot Lake is surrounded by wetlands.
We heard sled dogs whining for their dinner. Dog sledding faded away considerably with the invention of snow mobiles in the 70's, but has recently experienced a resurgence. Snow machines are more likely at their owner's command to cross unsafe ice, or break down, than a trusty sled dog. There are two sorts of sled dogs: big freight dogs and smaller varieties used for hunting trapping and racing (mushing). Dog mushing is a major sport in Alaska. There are many races, the most famous of which being the 800 mile Iditarod from Anchorage to Nome. The route crosses windswept passes that can have a chill factor of 130 degrees below zero. There is another 1,000 mile race less known to people outside Alaska--the Yukon Quest, which runs between Fairbanks and Whitehorse (alternating starting points) mostly along the Yukon River.
Programming has been tough. We have not always had luck finding electric power. We programmed outside at a picnic table in Dot Lake until the glacial silt in the air chased me off by threatening to clog the computer.
I was not able to find a phone line to use between Delta Junction,
Alaska and Beaver Creek, Yukon. There were no cells for the cellular phone
either.
End: 63 miles
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997