Day 7: Whitehorse to Swift River

167 miles

My first week of riding is done. I’m very happy with where I am geographically, mentally, and physically. Today my legs felt fantastic. They are getting stronger and stronger every day. I know that my physical fitness can carry me to Ushuaia. With one week of riding in the bag, I can confidently say that I am now settling into a rhythm. I have left the Alaska Range behind and I’m now preparing for the long slog through British Columbia, Alberta, and the Great Plains of the United States. I am entering a new phase of my journey and it is evident from how I am riding and in the places I am riding through.

I spent last night in the town of Whitehorse, the seat of the Yukon. Whitehorse is a relatively large town. By far the largest town I have been in besides Fairbanks. When I got there late last night, the sun had already set, and when I stopped at a grocery store there was a woman working security. Generally if a grocery store has hired security guards it means you are in a sketchy area. I locked my bike inside next to the cart stalls, activated my motion detection alarm, and then asked her if she could watch my bike while I shopped. She said she would watch it, but it wasn’t her responsibility if it got stolen. I asked her if she thought it was safe and she simply said “I don’t know.” That didn’t really inspire confidence in me, but I went ahead and quickly got my groceries. This was the first time during my trip that I’ve had anxieties about the security of my bike and my gear. The one benefit of riding through sparsely populated areas is that crime is not an issue. Nobody was going to steal my bike in Prudhoe Bay because what are you going to do with the bike and Prudhoe Bay? It would be impossible to sell, and hence worthless to any potential criminals. Now that I’m coming into larger towns I must be hyper vigalent. I’m still paranoid any time my bike leaves my sight. In May I had my mountain bike stolen while in Kingston, Canada. At the grocery store I loaded up for my first proper dinner of the trip. If I am fueling properly, I need to be consuming in excess of 10,000 calories per day. Even when I was training with access to unlimited food back home it was difficult to consume 10,000 calories a day. To get this many calories in I have to essentially be constantly eating throughout the day, which I am currently, but it is difficult on the bike to eat not only 10,000 calories, but 10,000 quality calories with balanced macros. During big training weeks back home I would eat 6 large meals a day and barely managed to keep my weight up. For dinner tonight I had two chicken wraps, a southwest salad, half of a watermelon, 12 cinnamon rolls, a quart of ice cream, and a half gallon of chocolate milk to wash it down. Most nights are on the road I have been consuming probably less than 1,000 calories for dinner. When camping I commonly stop riding, set up camp, and immediately go to bed. It was a nice break to sit down for a solid meal in my motel room. I got to have my first shower in seven days, and first warm bed in the same amount of time (I camped in Prudhoe Bay the night before I departed on this trip). Although staying in a hotel/motel/hostel is obviously very nice for a change, it does have its drawbacks. Primarily, I actually probably get less sleep then I would camping. There are more distractions that keep me up a little bit later than I otherwise would be. When camping, I can stop biking and be asleep 30 minutes later. At a hotel there are little things that take up time like checking in, showering, getting all my stuff charged up, and laying out all my gear to dry. In addition, it took me almost 20 minutes just to eat my large dinner. Nonetheless, it was very nice to spend last night in a motel room. It is worth noting that even if my sleep duration is a little shorter in a bed, sleep quality is probably higher so it all evens out. I let myself sleep in until seven and hit the road around eight. As I left Whitehorse the wind picked back up, because, of course it did. Today was my fourth day in a row with a strong headwind, but I am getting used to it. The wind today was not nearly as strong as it has been the past two days. The headwind averaged about 15 miles an hour today, which allowed me to average over 15 miles an hour on my bike. I think there is a truth to the “third day hump” that I talked about in my day three blog. As with anything, after three days, it just becomes more normalized, the body and mind become used to it. The third day is the hardest, but then after that it starts getting easier. A couple of weeks ago a 15 mile an hour headwind for 160+ miles would’ve scared me, but today I never really thought about the winds that much. It’s good that I am starting to take things in stride a little bit better because it’s not going to get any easier from here on out. On my way out of Whitehorse, I encountered a little bit of traffic, my first of the trip. I was forced to stop at a red light, the first red light I’ve actually stopped at this entire trip. Not the first red light I’ve encountered, but the first I’ve stopped at—as followers of this blog know very well. The mountains around Whitehorse or more hills than true mountains. As I ventured east the rolling hills turned into mountains. Instead of the ginormous peaks of the Alaska Range these mountains remind me more of those you would find in southeast Montana or Norway. They are beautiful, but generally not as rugged. Some of the mountains even remind me of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. One of the incredible things about my ride today was the diversity of mountains that I saw. In the morning, the mountains were rounded and relatively small. In the late morning, I came across a ridge of exposed rock. The gray rock sheets formed a wide slab that was reminiscent of Yosemite’s Tenaya Canyon or Norway’s Mount Thor. The rock slabs rose from the valley at increasingly steep angles until they became almost vertical. I was fascinated at the geography because the mountains where I am now, between the Alaska Range and the Rockies, look—as one might expect—like a mashup of the two ranges. Around noon, I entered a rolling country with large hills that just popped out above the tree line. Lakes were scattered among the mountains and great green forests stretched from peak to peak. It almost felt like I was back in the Northeast riding through the Bigelow mountains of Maine. Even though they were nowhere near as impressive to look at as the mountains I have been cycling by the last couple of days, a change in scenery is not unwelcome. It’s not that I have become desensitized to the brute beauty of the towering Alaska Range peaks, but as with anything, over time grass always becomes greener on the other side. I reached the Teslin River in the early afternoon and stopped for a late lunch. There was a small RV park with a convenience store and small restaurant attached. I dined on more cinnamon rolls, sausage rolls, and meat pie. Just a couple of months ago my vegetarian self would’ve bocked at the mere thought of such a meal. Out here I have a little option but to eat what is presented me. I can be a vegetarian again once this trip is over, but in the meantime, I will be consuming any and all calories so long as it gets new to my next stop. Immediately upon crossing the Teslin the flow of the river, began to slow, and it turned into a lake, Lake Teslin. On the map the lake looks very narrow but long. In person it doesn’t look so narrow. The lake was well over a mile across at all times. However, it stretches nearly sixty miles from tip to tip. The map is hard to scale in person up here with no reference points. The water looked dark and gloomy under the overcast sky. The wind ripped across the flat surface from the south, picking up speed over the lake before railing into me on the north side. Agitated by the wind, the water rose and fell, pitching forward and falling flat to create a smattering of whitecaps across the lake. In the distance I could see rain fast approaching and the overcast sky began to dim. The lake looked angry and uninviting. The far off, but rapidly approaching, curtains of rain veiled the mountains in dark obscurity, silhouetting them against the dark grey and slate blue skies. The mountains became monoliths on the horizon, loosing all their contrast. The wind grew stronger and the temperature began to drop. There was a very small community, the town of Teslin, on the lake where I was able to briefly stop and get some food for the evening.

All afternoon the rain came and went in little spats. I wasn’t able to stay dry, but I was able to stay warm as long as I kept riding. Around 7:00 I could see a large band of rain up ahead. It looked cold and menacing. I knew that I could stop right then, set up camp, and go to bed relatively dry. But I needed to get more miles in. So I zipped up my rain coat and plowed into the storm. All afternoon the rain had been light, but this storm was much heavier. The sky got dark and suddenly the rain began coming down in sheets. Pretty soon I was struggling to stay warm. I was still facing a strong headwind and now the sun was begging to set. I was still over 100 miles from the next town, so there was no hope for salvation if things got bad. It got colder and I began to worry. First my feet went numb with cold, then my hands. Soon my core temperature started to drop. It was in the low 40s and the rain must’ve been even colder. At 8:30 I got to the top of a climb and had a several mile low grade descent. As I picked up speed the rain began to pelt my face and the wind made my eyes water. I couldn’t pedal fast enough to keep up my core temperature. By the bottom of the descent I was shaking, fully in the throes of hypothermia. All winter riding in New Hampshire I was accustomed to these fits of hypothermia. I would ride through snow storms or 40° rain and routinely got hypothermia. In my training I would ride until the shaking became too dangerous to hold the bike straight, then I would dip into a gas station to warm up before starting the process all over again every hour or two (you can read all about it in my blogs from the winter). The difference this time around is that there was no gas station to warm up in. I was really out there. This section of road is incredibly remote. I needed a dry place to warm up in though. Just after the sun set and my hypothermia was getting dangerously out of control I came upon a rest stop. The Alaska Highway has these small rest stops at 30-60km intervals since there are no other services out here. The rest stops are nothing more than a gravel pullout with one, maybe two pit toilets. However, this was all I needed. The pit toilets are covered. I had myself a dry spot. I went into one of the two outhouses in search of salvation. I was shaking so badly I struggled to latch the door behind me. I immediately stripped off my wet clothes and changed into all of my dry clothes. The problem was that I had been wearing pretty much all of my clothes. The only dry stuff I had was underwear, a t-shirt, and shorts. That wasn’t going to cut it. I used my shorts as a towel to dry off a little then I pulled out my sleeping bag and stumbled inside. I truly had no other options at this point. I eventually laid out my bivvy so I wasn’t laying straight on the bathroom floor, but initially I was just quaking in my bag straight on the concrete. I hunkered down waiting for my shivering to subside. After about 30 minutes my core temp was back up to reasonable temperatures and I stopped shivering. The rain was still falling outside and it was now 9:30. It was totally dark outside. I was already changed and camp was essentially setup already. I was so tired from the warming up process that all I wanted to do was fall asleep. I wasn’t super stoked about sleeping on the bathroom floor, but it was by far my best option. I was able to hang up all off my wet gear to give it a chance to dry, I was covered from the rain, I didn’t have to worry about bears, and hey, if I needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night it wasn’t going to be a long walk and I wouldn’t need to dig a hole. I kind of just drifted off to sleep before I really made the conscious decision to sleep there. It’s honestly a bit insane that I slept in an outhouse. I know people out there are going to read this and judge my decision. It is admittedly not my best campsite ever. People are probably thinking “wtf is wrong with this kid, he’s messed up in the head.” Which is true. If I weren’t messed up in the head I wouldn’t be out here trying to do this ride in sub-84 days in the first place. Taking refuge in the bathroom saved me from the brink of uncontrollable hypothermia. My only other option at the time was to flag down one of the rare cars and beg for help. However, this of course would ruin my unsupported attempt. That was never an option I considered. This little bathroom was my saving grace and I’m okay—although not proud—with having called it home for the night.