Thursday, December 18, 2008

Day 1 – Anchorage to Chickaloon

Saturday, May 24, 2008

We woke up around 8:00 a.m. after a good nights rest to find that it was a bit cold. While I showered, Mark packed his things. While Mark showered I bundled up because the gray sky didn’t look good to me.

Over a breakfast of oatmeal bars, we discussed the morning’s immediate problem. The Glenn Highway, the only way for us to go, forbids bicycles on it. Big signs were posted at all highway entrances forbidding us to go any further. What to do? Supposedly, there was a bike path leading out of Anchorage to Eagle River, and after Eagle River, we could supposedly ride on the Glenn Highway without any problem, but we already lost the trail to Eagle River, so the highway was our only route unless we wanted to waste several hours finding that path. Another cyclist rode into our camp with the same dilemma as we were eating. It was hard to understand him. I’m not sure of what nationality he was, but it was clear that he was headed the same way we were. Eventually, he decided to just ride the highway despite the signs, and so did we.  Just as we were saddling up, small raindrops began to fall, and quickly grew to be heavy raindrops.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Day 0 – Anchorage, Alaska

May 23, 2008

Early in the morning at the Las Vegas airport, Mark and I hugged our mom, said our goodbyes, and boarded our flight. It was a surreal experience filled with silent questions. “What is it really going to be like? Are we going to make it? What is Anchorage like? What can go wrong? Did we research enough? Are we really prepared?” Despite these inner questions, Mark and I were both pumped with excitement, not fear.
We proudly told people we met about what we were undertaking, and loved the different reactions. Some people thought we were yanking their chains, others viewed us as heros, and others, as complete fools. Each reaction fueled us on.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

The Hardest Part

The hardest part of doing an extreme trip like this is buying the airline ticket.  Or in other words, COMMITTING to the attempt.  I guess you could buy the airline ticket without mentally committing to your goal and then giving up along the way.  But you know what I'm trying to say.  Talk is cheap. Its easy to say you'll do something completely nuts, but it is something entirely different to follow through with it. My brother Mark learned this the hard way, perhaps.

Taking The Plunge

You may be asking yourself, “why?” Why ride your bicycle from Anchorage, Alaska, of all places, to Tijuana Mexico of all other places? Or for some people, “why all the way to Panama!?” “Why to Tierra del Fuego!? I mean, have you SEEN a world map!?” In all seriousness, I think you have to be just a little nuts.

"Pedal Your Ass Off" Miracle Diet!

Pedal Your Ass Off!
11 Weeks to a Slimmer, Stronger You! 

Do you have a fat ass? Are you looking for a diet that lets you sit on your ass, eat whatever you want and still loose weight?

No gimmicks here. With this exercise system, you can eat whatever you want, and I guarantee that you will loose weight! On top of that, the system requires that you spend 11 weeks sitting on your ass. Try it, and if you don’t see results in just six weeks, send the system back for a full refund.

In addition, I promise that, if followed exactly, the PYAO system will teach you to simplify your life. See the world, and loose your fat ass sitting on it for just 12 hours a day* (sometimes 14, and sometimes 21) for just 11 weeks riding a bicycle over 4000 miles from Anchorage, Alaska, to Tijuana Mexico—or further, if you want to! Why stop there? Why not keep on going to Panama? Why not Tierra del Fuego, the southern-most tip of South America?

Blog Forward

Hi everyone! In the summer of 2008, my brother Mark and I rode our bikes from Anchorage, Alaska to Tijuana Mexico. We were joined on our adventure by our dad in Vancouver, BC. It took us eleven weeks, and took us over 4000 miles through some of the most remote, and most beautiful areas of our continent. It was so very hard to accomplish, but also deeply rewarding to have done so.


That trip has become such a big part of me, but it is a part of me many people can never fully understand. To fully understand it, you must have been there. Because of this, I feel very distanced from people.


Therefore, I am going to tell my story and try to pass on what I gained from the bike trip. Stay tuned for a true story of adventure, hardship, brotherhood, rite-of-passage, and an experience that was deeply and truely rewarding.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Back Home

Bookmark and Share Subscribe


Well, we did it. After 77 days on the road, we crossed into Tijuana Mexico. We flew back to Utah on August 10th, and I went to my Salt Lake City apartment and Mark and our Dad went to their home in Price.

It was truely an amazing journey, and I'm so glad that I got to do it with my brother and my dad. It is so surreal. I look back through the photos we have taken, and I just can't believe it. Now and again, I stumble upon a photo that stirs my memory and it is strange... It brings back lots of feelings of excitement, fear, anxiety. I almost have Post Traumatic Stress Dissorder kind of flashbacks. I become distraught, and panicky, and want to cry sometimes, because I am suddenly plunged back into that part of the trip. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't anything CLOSE to a bad experience. I did the trip to experience those feelings. It was so exhilerating. It made me feel so alive. It is amazing that my 15 year old brother did the trip with me.

And suddenly, I'm not on a bike anymore. I have a door that I lock at night, and I sleep in the same place. It is like I closed a book that I just read, and nothing more. There isn't anything gained on the exterior that people can see and exclaim, "Hey! You look like you just rode your bicycle from Anchorage Alaska to Mexico!" Most people can't even fathom it. I may as well have accidentaly slipped into an altranate universe and found my way back. It is almost... frustrating. All I have left from the trip are photos, video, journals, and my fragile memories. It is a part of me that I find very hard to express to others who have not shared the experience.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Los Angeles

I almost can't believe we have come this far. We arrived in LA city limits yesterday and are currently staying in a hotel right on Venice Beach. We spent all day today just browsing around the shops, talking to independant hip-hop artists and whatnot, and also surfing. Sweeeeet. When people believe us, they are just thrilled and awed to have met us, and demand that we shake their hand, and have a picture with them. However, many people just think we are lying to them, or jerking their chain. Haha, sometimes it is hard for me to believe that we have come this far, but then I get on here and see all of the pictures, and it blows me away.

Finally, the weather is WARM and SUNNY, and glorious. There simply are no computers available for me to upload any photos though. There are only these internet kiosk things where we can do internet stuff, but no USB ports or anything. I will be uploading the many hundreds of photos that have been acumulating since the last upload when I am back home in SLC, which will be in 5 very short days. We have our tickets to fly out of San Diego on August 10th. wOOt!
That also means that I will get time to start uploading video clips too. I've got 20 hours of footage now. That is going to take a LONG time to sift through. :S

I look forward to seeing all of my friends back home again very soon. I miss you all!

Friday, July 25, 2008

San Francisco

Well, we made it through Washington and Oregon, and Northern California. Wow, That was a big chunk without any updates! Haha, I plain just don't have time to post all of the details of the trip! Basically, the weather has continued to be below the norm. Rather than sunshine and warmth we have had overcast, and frigid mist...

...untill we finally arrived in San Francisco. It has been sunny, and moderately warm the past few days, and warming up. (Yay!) We stayed here in San Fran last night, and we explored around today, and we will head back out on the road tomorrow morning. It looks like we are right on schedule to arrive at the Mexico border by August 10th or 11th. Or maybe a little earlier. Haha. We'll just have to see.

It has been amazing. The giant coastal redwoods of Northern California are simply breathtaking. I wanted to spend a few weeks just exploring and hiking through some of those areas. Fantastic. It really makes you feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things though, to see these giant lifeforms, born over 1000 years ago, and they will still be around long after I am gone. Even the fallen trees last as tributes to their lives.

The redwoods are incredibly resiliant as well. It seems like they are impervious to just about anything that can be thrown at them. Many of them have had fires burn holes right through their trunks or stumps... and yet they still stand... AND LIVE! There was one tree in particular that formed a little room inside it's trunk where it had been burned out; a hollow cavern large enough for me to stand. And the tree was still tugging along. Amazing.

San Francisco has been great. It reminds me a lot of Salt Lake City, but considerably bigger, buisier, and with excellent public trasportation in place. Tonight we are going to see the revival of "A Chorus Line" which I'm told will be excellent. I had to work for a few hours today washing out my pants so that I don't look like a homeless person at the theater. Haha.

Still no opportunity to upload photos from Washington on down. I'll have a lot of work to do when I get to a better computer.

Friday, June 27, 2008

British Columbia (Past Cassiar)

Past the Cassiar, things completely changed. Where there would have been miles (or kilometers) of wilderness, there is either farmland, ranch homes, or woodcutting factories. Most of the communities we came accross in the first few days were all woodcutting villiages. It smelled GREAT. Fresh cut wood is a great scent to wake up to, or whiff as a big semi passes.

It became difficult to find a place to pee though. Haha! Normally, we could just go on the side of the road, but past the Cassiar, there are two problems: Either there is just too much traffic to get any privacy, or you are peeing in someone's yard. Haha, that is no good. The rest areas or gas stations can be a little far and few between. Sometimes 20 miles apart, so we had to really plan ahead when we would pass them.

The Cassiar

British Columbia may have had some of the most surprises of the whole trip thus far. It was certainly incredibly beautiful. The Cassiar Highway started out with very rough, winding roads with lots of pot-holes and poor repairs. There were many 100 ft. patches of gravel every few miles, and even some greased down dirt roads.

Our first day on the Cassiar Highway took us over mostly rolling terrain as we neared a mountain pass. Towards the end of the day we started climbing up into the Canadian Rockies yet again. The water from runoff and springs was a beautiful teal/blue color. Sharp titanic mountains surrounded us on either side, and when we would yell, we would hear sometimes five or six echos! It was cool. We passed several lakes that looked like lagoons in the Carribean, but were frigid cold. We stayed in Good Hope Lake down by the lake at a spot that the locals often camp out. The view was incredible as the sun set.

The next day had us climbing again toward the summit. It leveled off at the top for a while, and we came accross "Jade City," which is not actually a city at all, but a Jade store where they design and make all sorts of Jade things. We stopped there because we needed food, and the store in Good Hope lake never opened up. They only had snack foods, but it was better than nothing. Several people came and talked to us, including a very attractive girl from Vancouver. These nice old folks also talked to us for a while, and then gave us $120 to help us on our way!!!

As it turned out, it really was a HUGE help a few days later... But I digress. The afternoon took us downhill a looooooong way. I was pretty easy going. I think we were "snowed" on that day. I'm pretty sure it was just snow blowing off the mountain we were by though cause there weren't any serious clouds nearby lol. In the evening we had some trials. We got rained on a bit, and also had 20 miles or so of that oiled dirt road stuff. On top of that, we had climb after climb after climb. Finally after a downhill stretch, we made it into Dease Lake city.

We didn't get out of Dease Lake until afternoon the next morning because of updating this page haha. We had a HUGE mountain to climb, and we didn't stop pedaling till we got to the top. It was 4100 feet high!!! It wasn't incredibly steep, but it was a workout. We could both feel that we had improved our strength and endurance over the past weeks since we didn't even have to stop. Past Gnat Summit, there was a lot of up and down terrain, but we made a descent at the end down into Iskut. Wow, that place looked really cool. I don't think we even took any pictures though because it was too big to try and photograph. The mountains just jutted WAY up all around us, and there was a great big lake right in the middle.

The next day we finally saw some bears! I saw a cub, and Mark saw the mom. It was way cool. The cub was right up next to the road, but down an embankment in the grass. It bolted off into the forest as soon as it saw me. The ride that day was filled with steep little climbs over little change in elevation. It goes without saying that we had lots of headwinds, but it was particularly frustrating that day. Coming into Bob Quinn Lake though, the wind stopped, and the ecosystem changed. We were suddenly into a rainforest climate! The trees were very tall, and thick to boot. The branches of many trees were draped with yellow green moss. The forest looked very old. In addition to that, the highway changed. It was a brand new, super smooth, broad shouldered road! It is the nicest road we encountered in BC! Also, it runs the rest of the way down the Cassiar from there!

The next day was bad. We got hit with rain hard. After only 30 miles (at least we went that far) we had to take shelter at the Bell 2 Ski resort. We used that $120 that those nice folks gave us and got a cabin for the night. We thawed out in the jaccuzzi for a while and slept in nice warm, queen-sized fluffy beds. It was the first day that we actually had time for leisure.

The next morning I was a bit bummed out because we had taken a huge chance by staying at the resort. The whole reason we stayed there was to avoid the rain since there was no kind of civilization for another 50 miles or so, and yet in the morning, it looked like more rain. Luckily though, when we actually got onto our bikes and started riding, the light rain stopped. We did 77 miles that day through easy terrain. It turned out to be mostly downhill or flat the whole day. We saw four more bears along the road. One of which was a full grown blackbear. It bolted off into the woods when it saw us, and I'll tell you what: those things are QUICK. I don't even know if you would be able to react fast enough to grab the pepper spray if one charged at you. Fortunately, they usually either just freeze and try to act like they are not there, hoping you didn't notice them, or they just make a "B line for the tree line." We stayed at a rest stop that night, 20 miles North of Kitwanga.

The next day, we came to the end of the Cassiar Highway, and with it, we reached the end of the remote wilderness that we had known all through Alaska and the Yukon.

Vancouver!


Wow. We actually made it. The adventure is not over yet, but we are entering "Act II." We have joined up with our dad here in Vancouver, and tomorrow we will ferry over to Victoria to officially begin part 2 of our trip to Mexico.

It is very strange to me to look back on the map and see how far we traveled. It feels like we have been on our bikes forever, yet the path seems short somehow. We are staying in the comfort of a friend's home here in Vancouver, but certain habits simply have taken over. I was offered a big fluffy couch to sleep on, yet I opted for my Thermarest, and considered setting up my tent in the back yard... but then I found out they had dogs, and my allergies would have been on the fritz.

Yesterday (and technically the day before...) was interesting. On the 25th, we started pedaling 170 miles away from Metro Vancouver. We weren't even supposed to arrive here until today, which is the 27th. As we rode on through the day though, the incredible scenery and the excellent weather put Mark and I in a very good mood. It was difficult to navagate on the new route we had chosen because I wasn't able to check the route beforehand to find places that we could stay. When we reached the end of our mileage quota for the day, we weren't really anywhere near a campground. I had been thinking about this for a while at the end of the day, but I tossed it out to Mark almost jokingly: "What if we just didn't stop riding today? What if we just kept riding through the night until we got to Vancouver?" I think he had also been wondering the same thing, and he took me seriously. We decided to go for it, and as the highway led us directly West toward Vancouver, we rode off into the sunset-- true Chromoly Cowboys.

After the steepest climb of our whole trip, and after being spooked by some suspicious parked vehicles in remote areas, (not to mention some vicious dogs that were apparently unleashed,) and two RedBull's later, we made it to Pit Meadows, which is a part of the Vancouver outskirts... 150 miles from where we started that day. Technically, since it was 3:30 AM of the 26th, it was a new day, but in cycling terms, the day doesn't end until you stop peddaling and set up camp. 150 miles (241 kilometers) in one ride is our new record for sure.

We went to sleep around 3:45 AM, and I set an alarm for 7:00 AM. We both woke up at about 6:30 AM though because it was getting so bright, and also because the city had begun to bustle around us. We had "camped" in a fenced off area at a baseball field. There were thick bushes on one side, and a large steel storage container making corner with that, so we had a little privacy in our little corner. The baseball field was located right in a buisy part of town. It was right by a McDonalds, a handful of other stores and restaurants, and the Lougheed Highway ran right by it. The highway, which was near silent in the early hours of morning, became a torrent of raging traffic when the sun came up.

If it wasn't that that woke us up, then it was the fact that people were showing up at the baseball field for something. It sounded like there may have been some construction going on nearby.
Either way, we only had maybe 3 hours of sleep before getting up to try and meet up with our dad. We needed to contact him to let him know that we were actually in town because he wasn't expecting us until late that afternoon. It took us a while to try and find our way around without a map, especially since we were trying to get directions over the phone without any idea of the scale of the map our dad was referencing. It turned out to be relatively close by, and we only had to ride for about two or three hours.

We finally arrived at our friend's home, and another friend came to pick us up to show us Vancouver and also so we could grab some food. It was really cool, but I was a Zombie most of the time because I was so tired.

Vancouver is a huge place. It is a REAL metro area. Salt Lake City is like the movie set of a metro area compared to this. The city just keeps going and going and going.

For the first time in over a month I was able to sleep as long as I liked, guilt free. I think I woke up at 10, but I'm not sure. Anyway, we are planning on taking it REALLY easy today, and using it as a time to catch up on some relaxation, and also a good oportunity to update this page.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Yukon


I really don't have time now to post details, but we made it through the Yukon territory! It was ROUGH. The wind was killer the whole time. We had headwinds most days, and the gravel sections were no good to ride on.

We are on day 3 of the Cassiar Highway, and it is BEAUTIFUL. They weren't kidding when they said it was the scenic route. The road isn't even as bad as people made it sound... at least, not that bad for bikes. We are able to easily dodge the potholes and such, and actually, the dirt/gravel sections aren't too bad.

Time to go!


Friday, May 30, 2008

Alaska!


I will have to post individual day journals later, but for now I will give this update:
We made it through Alaska! We are at the Canada border today, and will be ending our first week on the road in the great Yukon. To summarize the week, we rode 15 miles out of Anchorage the day we flew in.

The next morning it started raining... and didn't stop. We rode 78 miles in the rain, soaked to the bone, UPHILL without any downhill sections. We were worn out and slept late that night. We were late getting on the road the next morning because we had to dry our things and get back on our feet.

That day we had the wind to our back... but we were still going uphill. It was uphill all day. There were very little downhill slopes. It became clear that we were climing a mountain pass. My bike started to suffer from the gunk and mud that had built up in the axle and gears, and the rear gear system failed. The ratchet system stopped working, so when I pedaled, nothing happened. It wouldn't turn the cogs. We had to end the day early at Sheep Mountain Lodge at 38 miles for the day.

The next day, we FINALLY reached the summit at Eurika, and it was relatively flat/downhill into Glenallen where we stayed that day after 79 miles.

The next day was supposed to be flat and easy, but we had a strong headwind all day. It was very discouraging because it was like riding uphill all day again, and we were just plain worn out from that. We made it 51 miles to Chistochina.

On the 28th we rode a NICE 90 miles over a mountain pass. The day was great! It was a nice ride, and Mark and I were full of energy. We stayed in Tok at the Sourdough Campground.
The next morning was started off great with an "all you can eat sourdough pancake breakfast" their at the campground. We made it 90 miles to the Canadian border, but it was a HARD day. There were constant rolling hills that wore us out after 40 miles. The last 50 were pretty rough.
Anyway, we are getting ready to head into Canada! We will have more info and pictures later!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

So little time...

Mark and I fly out of Las Vegas at 7:00 AM on May 23, so there are really only 3 days left to wait...

I was able to drop by my Salt Lake City apartment for one last time before departing on my upcoming adventure. I needed to grab some last minute things that I forgot to pack, but as it turned out, I drove all the way up here from Price, Utah (2 hours away) and forgot to bring my keys to my room.

Luckily, I was able to get into my room using my clever thinking and my... erm... cleverness. Anyway, I got in and was able to grab my rain parka, bandana, thermal balaclava, and backpacker's fishing gear.

I also dropped by Barnes and Noble to get some more of my favorite journals made by Moleskine. I'll be keeping a written record of my adventure in conjunction with a video journal.
I do not expect to have any opportunity to edit the video footage while on the road, so from here on out, I will be posting only photos and text.

ALASKA TO MEXICO BLOG