Inuvik to Ushuaia

Planning for the Big Trip: Inuvik to Denver

rfay — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 01:32:47 +0000

Well, we're getting ready for the big trip now, and have plenty of work to do. I'll post some of the research here so you can follow along or add in information as you see fit. If any of you have experience with the far north or other parts of the trip, we'd sure love to hear about it!

Here are our plans as they stand:

About June 3, my brother Collin and his wife Marisa are going to fly us up to Inuvik in his small plane. We will have shipped our bikes in advance, and we hope to get to Inuvik about June 9. Within a day or so, we expect to be headed south on the Dempster highway!

Our expectation is that we'll ride south to Denver, probably going the US West Coast route and then coming across the desert, arriving in Denver around November 1.

Alaska, Ferries, Haines, Skagway

rfay — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 04:26:45 +0000

One of the things we expect to do as we get to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, is to detour over to Alaska to see the Inside Passage. We hope to ride to Haines or Skagway and hop the ferry and take a ride of undetermined length to see those wonderful glaciers.

Information resources include:

Mike Vermeulen's ride on the Haines to Skagway loop.

Reality sets in! June 1!

rfay — Sun, 14 May 2006 17:20:11 +0000

YukonFirstPartOfTrip

We are preparing for departure! Leaving Denver June 1, starting the flight north on June 2, and starting the ride south from Inuvik on June 9! My brother Collin and his wife Marisa of Parkwest Air are going to fly us up there in their Cessna! And they're leading a group of 10-12 more planes. We start from Grand Junction, Colorado on June 3.

Below this posting is a map of the first part of our route and here is the same map as a pdf and as a large jpeg - click to see all sizes (with all the detail).

We leave from Inuvik, which is in Northwest Territories, but we cross over the line into the Yukon pretty quickly. We ride down to Dawson City (450 miles on a dirt road with very little services). From Dawson City we go to Whitehorse, then do a little loop to Haines and Skagway in Alaska, then to the south.

You might like the wonderful flash animations on http://www.experienceyukon.ca/, with the "interactive map".

Gear Page is up!

rfay — Sun, 14 May 2006 21:10:27 +0000

Nancy's bike

We finally got our gear page set up, so you can see our equipment and trust and worries about it. You can see our stove, tent, water bladders, bikes, and panniers. There's even a video of a bear testing the bear bags. Check out the gear page.

Frequently Asked Questions

rfay — Mon, 15 May 2006 17:56:18 +0000

Here are answers (or attempts) to answer some of the questions you ask us:

Who are you anyway? What were you doing before?: Randy and Nancy were 52 at the end of the trip... Our previous life was in suburban Denver, Colorado, USA. Randy had a little business as a computer consultant, and Nancy was doing graphic arts for CH2M Hill. We have 3 kids between us, all adults. We spent years getting ready and practicing for this trip, and we actually did it!
What in the world are you doing? And why?: We rode 14,000 miles (22,000 kilometers) from the top of North America (Inuvik, in western Canada) to northern Argentina in South America. It took about 2.5 years total - We wrapped up in January, 2009. So what are you up to?
How many miles do you travel each day?: We usually aim at 30-50 miles (50-80 kilometers) per day. In most of Central America it has been on the low side. It's terribly important to remember that bike touring isn't about getting somewhere, it's about enjoying where you are and meeting the people you see and seeing the things you see. You can see the actual average on the front page.
Why do you call yourselves "hobobikers"?: When we were doing our first long tour we were up in the Canadian Rockies and had some rough weather. We had all our clothes stretched drying all over Randy's BOB trailer, a repaired tube strapped on, and even a friend's old tennis shoes dangling from the back. We thought "Hobo" was the best way to describe our appearance. We've cleaned up our act a little, but we're still hobos. (In the US, a "hobo" is/was a person who rides freight trains without paying a fare.)
Has anybody ever done anything like this before? Are you trying to break a record?: People do it every year. And no, we´re going far slower than the record-setting 9 months or so. We hope to take at least 2 1/2 years. Read about some of the other cyclists who have done this.
Are the roads terrible in Latin America?: We've had generally good experiences in Mexico and Central and South America. We seek the back roads and are always looking for information. Horrible traffic is not worth the effort. Randy wrote about our Mexico experiences here and Nancy wrote about riding in Latin America here.
Do you ride at night?: (Everybody asked us this in Central America!) No, we always try to be tucked in somewhere at nightfall.
Do you ride every mile of the way? Do you ever use other transportation?: We like to ride everything, but we make exceptions. When we come to water, we take ferries (across Lake Nicaragua, and many times in Canada, for example). We took the train into Copper Canyon in Mexico, and took a bus from Durango to Zacatecas to avoid the dangerous Holy Week holiday. There are a few other times we´ve put the bikes on a bus for a ways. But we ride most of the time. We´ll have to take a boat around the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia.
Aren´t you worried about your safety in Mexico and Latin America? Are you carrying a weapon?: We keep our eyes and ears open, but we´ve never ever had any threat in Latin America. And no, we don´t carry a gun. Read more about security issues.
How can you afford to take so much time off of work?: Nancy says we're temporarily semi-retired or else we're taking a long sabbatical. Our kids are grown and we've saved for it and we're renting out our house. We saved up and sold our house and invested the proceeds and hope that the savings and the income from the house proceeds will do the job.
Do you have a sag wagon? Are you camping? Where and what do you eat?: No, it's just us and what we can carry. We carry all our camping equipment and are starting to use it a lot more in Peru, after not using it much since central Mexico. Mostly it´s little hotels along the way. Read about the tradeoffs here.
Are you carrying a laptop computer?: We did for awhile, but have now left it back at home to get our weight down. We use a flash drive that has our programs on it, and stop in at an internet cafe.
Have you had any mechanical trouble?: We've had pretty normal wear and tear - a new chain here, new chainrings there. Take a look at our Bike Maintenance Log.
How many tires have you gone through?: We´ve used up three sets of tires so far (as of Central America). We haven't had too many flats (see the front page for the count).
Do you speak Spanish?: Randy is speaking pretty good Spanish now, after trying to learn all his life, it seems. Nancy butchers the language pretty well and wins everyone over with her smile.
Have you lost a lot of weight?: No, we generally stay pretty stable. We're slow and not riding beyond our body's capabilities. On some segments, we've actually gained weight!
What do you eat? What do you drink?: We eat whatever the local people eat along the way. Right now (in Peru) we're kind of tired of chicken and rice. But if it's cooked, hot, or dry, we can generally eat it and over all we haven't had an extraordinary number of digestive problems. We drink water that we filter with our Katahdin Hiker water filter, or buy water. In Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia there were actually several cities with drinkable tap water, too.
How about health insurance? Healthcare? Your health?: We carry health insurance but haven't used it. Our health has bene quite good, except for the whooping cough episode. Here is a complete discussion of health, healthcare, and health insurance.
Don't you get tired? bored?: Yes, we do, as all travellers do. We try to find interesting routes and rest when needed and avoid thinking about how far we still have to go. Here's a little article on this subject.
Where will you be in ... I'd like to join you for awhile: We'd love to have you join us for a section of the trip! Send us a note to coordinate. We're pretty loose about our schedule, and can make something work with you.

Inuvik Weather

rfay — Wed, 17 May 2006 06:36:04 +0000

(Take a look at the new Weather page for a hint about what the weather is going to be like.)

The Far-North Weather Page

rfay — Wed, 17 May 2006 07:31:37 +0000

Inuvik, of course, was our starting place:

Here are readings for Rock River, which was about 200 miles into the journey. When we got there it was a pleasant day, but a week earlier it had been 32 F with a 50 MPH wind...

Here is Dawson, the bottom of the Dempster Highway:

Weather Underground has a wonderful new Google Map of Personal Weather Stations, so you can see the temps in the whole region.

The Wundergound site has excellent historical information, so I was able to look at the highs and lows for the week of June 9 for several years back. The lowest reading I saw for that week was 29 degrees F, and no precip of any kind.

Dempster Highway Ferry Crossings

rfay — Tue, 23 May 2006 14:58:43 +0000

We're starting as early in the year as would be possible. In April, the Dempster is closed when the rivers start to melt, taking out the ice bridges. The highway reopens in June when ferries can operate.

The current road report shows that the ferries are not yet running on the Dempster as of May 23. If we started today, we could not ride the highway.

The historical data for the Peel River Crossing and the Mackenzie River Crossing show that the ferry usually starts running the first week of June, but in 1977, it didn't start until June 16. I don't know why we chose June 9 as a starting date because we didn't know anything about this. But I'm glad it looks like it was a reasonable date!

We are in Grand Junction where we will fly out of

nancy — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 05:28:59 +0000

Today is June 1st, 2006 and we are really doing it, we on our way. After months of prep we are on the road but not on our bikes. We drove to Grand Junction where we will fly out of Grand Junction Airport (Walker Field) in the morning in a Cessnar piloted by Collin Fay and Marisa Fay. Collin and Marisa do this all the time with their business, Parkest Air Tours.

We are flying to Helena, Montana to meet 13 other small planes which will fly us to Inuvik and drop us off with our bikes and all the gear. We will then ride south on the Dempster Highway, a 450-mile gravel road with very limited services. What a great way to see the world.

Wish us luck and good riding weather.

Dawson Creek, BC

rfay — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 21:05:04 +0000

Today our airlift of 12 planes flew us about 800 miles today from Helena, Montana up to Dawson Creek, BC, Canada, the beginning of the Alaska Highway. Some of it was a bit choppy, but it was a successful trip.

You ask why we need 12 planes to get us to the North Country? We have no idea. When we were planning this trip, my brother Collin and sister-in-law Marisa asked if we wanted a ride up there in their Centurion light plane. We said yes. They also invited many, many of their Parkwest Air Tours clients... and all of them said YES! So it's a really big group.

Tomorrow we go on to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory if the weather works, or perhaps to Dawson City, at the bottom of the Dempster.

As I write this, the temperature in Inuvik is 2 degrees above freezing, and we're wondering if we're really ready for that kind of temperatures. The forecast is a little better than that, though, and cooler temps mean less mosquitoes...

Whitehorse, Yukon. Tomorrow we get to Inuvik!

rfay — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 05:13:28 +0000

We flew from mile 0 of the Alaska Highway all the way to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. It's 10:11pm and the sun won't go down for more than an hour. But tomorrow the sun won't go down at all.

The flight was wonderful today - we hugged the river due to low-hanging clouds and had great views of beautiful places. The ride over the Continental Divide was spectacular.

Hope to update you more and provide some pictures from Inuvik, if we have internet access.

In Inuvik, SOUTH on the Dempster!

rfay — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 02:49:05 +0000

We made it to Inuvik and we're headed south on the Dempster Highway tomorrow morning! I'd hoped to have a picture of Inuvik for you but the library is closing so I'm rushing it.

480 miles to Dawson City. A store in Fort McPherson and the hotel at Eagle Plains are the only real things between here and there. It's almost all dirt, and of course we hear all the horror stories about it, like bears and mosquitoes and moose. I think we'll have a blast. We'll let you know in 10-14 days. We're glad to have you along with us!

We made it to the Eagle Plains Hotel!

rfay — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 22:37:58 +0000

Well, it took us six days but we made it to the halfway point on the Dempster Highway, the Eagle Plains Hotel. We've had a wonderful time - quite a stretch for us to do something this hard as the first thing on the tour, but we're well. The weather has been incredible. Because there's no night, the earth gets lots of warmth from the sun this time of year. In our first couple of days the temperature was in the 80s and 90s Fahrenheit! Really hot.

No bears! Nancy's worry level may be decreasing - she spent a lot of time talking with a woman whose extensive experience in the wild in this part of the world (and no problems with bears) gave Nancy more confidence to deal with possible encounters (and less fear that we'll have them).

And so far the mosquito season has hardly started. We have plenty of bites, but it's the kind of thing we've experienced before, not the intense disaster people talk about in July up here. However, we have a long ways to go... But we have mosquito outfits and spray and such.

Today we're taking a day off and just resting here at the Eagle Plains Hotel. We swapped a night's lodging and dinner with them in exchange for developing a website - http://eagleplainshotel.com - that they've never had before.

Beginnings

nancy — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 01:53:35 +0000

Well, we've been out for a week and have met the most amazing people. The stories that we're hearing are phenomenal. Between the stories are many incredible landscapes - the awesome Richardson Mountains that form the divide between the Arctic watersheds and the Pacific, between The Mackenzie and the Yukon.

No bears but lots of bear scat. I'm calming down a little bit.

We'll try to get some pictures uploaded and write some of the wonderful stories we've heard when we get to Dawson.

North Fork Pass

nancy — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:21:49 +0000

DSC01549 north fork pass views
Originally uploaded by refay.

North Fork Pass was the last pass on the Dempster. Everything is downhill from here!