Biking Alaska – Riding Denali Park Road

Aug 5th 2013 — Alaska,Anchorage to Homer to Skagway,Biking,Denali — 11:01 pm

We woke up and packed as a trio one last time on the nicest day we had seen in the last 2 weeks. Davy got on a train for Anchorage. His new plan was to fly back to the Bay Area and start a road trip.

Jeff and I put our bikes on the free shuttle that takes you to the end of paved section of the road that goes into the park. We biked 10 miles and dropped our stuff off and Sanctuary River campground. Ironically named, as it turned out to have the most-dense population of mosquitos we encountered in Alaska. Almost unbearable.

We fled the campground and spent the rest of the day biking 40-some miles into the park to Tolkat River. The bus system allowed us to throw our bikes on for free and get a ride back to where we had started.

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Hiking Denali National Park

Aug 3rd 2013 — Alaska,Anchorage to Homer to Skagway,Biking,Denali — 10:37 pm

We had 70 miles to go to get to the main entrance of Denali National Park. After about 10 miles of biking at the top of a large hill I looked back to see Davy riding his bike with one leg and instantly knew the bike tour was over for him. 🙁

Hitchhiking to the park entrance was our new goal. About 4 cars passed before Barry, an extremely nice manager of a golf course in Fairbanks, stopped in his Toyota Tacoma. We threw our bikes in the back and got a ride to an area outside the park called Glitter Gulch by the locals. Davy used his phone to plan his exit. I drank coffee and observed tourists trying to stay warm on a cold and rainy afternoon.

The next day was spent inside the park hiking. It was the first day of our trip that we didn’t get rained on. Denali itself remained hidden in clouds, but it didn’t really matter, the landscape was immense.

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