Yukon Ho!

June 26, 2006

July 15, 2006 on 6:19 pm | In Uncategorized |

Biking time: 12:00PM to 6:30PM
End: Swan Lake Rest Area
Distance: 52km
We woke up at 9am in sweet sweet darkness instead of the neon yellow glow of the tent at 5am. For your reference, today’s sunup was 4:30AM and sundown will be 11:11. When we get to Dawson City, sundown will be after midnight. It does make it a bit hard to sleep in a tent, but biking all day kind of balances it out.

We had a long drawn-out breakfast before going back to the room to pack up. Trouble started early on Monday when Sean poked a huge screwdriver-sized hole in his finger while trying to modify his rear panniers.
After some quick first aid we were on the slow road to Windsville. We have no scientific measurements but my estimation is that the wind was blowing into our faces at a speed of about 73mph. Consequently, we stopped for lunch at the Continental Divide after only 20km, and stayed there for about 2 hours, reading last year’s Milepot and trashy celebrity gossip magazines.
Another 20km later it was nearly dinnertime so we stopped at the Swift River Lodge -a gravel parking lot full of trucks, 4 condo-style cabins, and a log cabin rammed with smoking locals and tacky Yukon trinkets. The bathrooms had placards (their official word for “sign”) instructing us to not drink the water due to possible contamination (and autographed by the Yukon Health Minister himself). We bought hot rods, cheese, trail mix and gum and got the hell out.
A couple more kilometres down the road we crossed the border back into BC (the Alaska Highway does this 3 times from east to west), and though there was a sign to let us know we were back in BC, the shit road conditions were more than enough indication. In the next 12km we hit loose gravel twice, potholes every other pedal stroke, and extreme dusty conditions.
Around 6:30, after having only gone about 52km (again -thank you plateau winds) we decided it was best for our sanity if we stopped for the night at Swan Lake Rest Area. As we were setting up our stove, we were stopped by a guy named Jim Abalone (like abalone) who was travelling in his covered pickup truck. He wanted to film us talking about our journey. He took our email information too, so he’ll probably send us a copy of his vacation movie when it’s done. After getting over our movie star selves we made some Stovetop Stuffing (Happy Thanksgiving!) to complement our hot rods & cheese, set up the tent behind an outhouse and went to bed (falling asleep to the sweet sound of Southern American RVers at the rest area spotting moose in the distant lake).

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