yakutat to gustavis part one !

 hello out there.... is anyone still listening??
my apologies for not posting anything for the last 3 or 4 months. computer issues ect...

i just noticed that you can now click on any of these photos to bring up a full size slide show.  highly suggested!

lets just get back to where i left off, Alaska! part one.
i suggest grabbing a large helping of your favorite beverage, cranking up some good music,  and making yourself comfortable, cause it's going to be a long ride. don't worry though, i'll do my doomdest to make it worth your while.............

these photos are from the first 5 or so days of a pretty damn sweet packraft, fat bike, trek that started in yakutat and finished in gustavis alaska in glacier bay, 11 days later.

in hindsight this trip exceeded all of my high expectations in more ways that can be described in words, but this is going to be a damn good try.

first the group and subsequent dynamics ect... was stellar.
and talk about a star studded cast of characters
roman dial
mike curiak
eric parsons
dylan kench
doom

whoa ............. good thing that plane didnt go down cause our sport( what do you call taking bikes boats and bad ideas out in the middle of the alaska nothingness just to get from one place to another?) would have very well met it's possibly predictable end...........

ok lets get to these photos
day one, anchorage, getting ready to fly south to yakutat for the start of the trip. it's raining  cats and grizzlies! things don't look good , but we buy our tickets anyway, and off we go, on the special edition Disneyland plane, WTF?  i think there are about 10 other people on this 250 seat jet.
so we we head straight to the back of the bus like we're on some sort of high school field trip.
perfect!

brake less fatbike chaos  

  yakutat, some how our elevated spirits have scared the rain away and it's perfect pugs weather when we land.  we throw our bikes together and get an obligatory quick meal at the bar next to the tarmac.
it strikes me as funny that we are at a fly in, fly out, FISHING village in alaska  and the only thing that they are out of is seafood!  being a non red meat eater i'm left to beg the waitress for a plate of rice and veggies for 18 bucks, an obvious low point of the trip for me! needless to  say i'm ready to hit the saddle and disappear for the next week and a half.

as i wasn't running any brakes...  it didn't take me long to perfect the "terrain brake"

which was applied liberally due to the infinite photo opportunities!!



 

 if you haven't already... check out mike's blog, and killer photos and video from the trip.

 camp #1      lupine like you have never seen .
 

 our first water crossing and the end of the line for anyone with out a packraft or a bushplane.

 

 

 fortunately the bugs weren't as bad as i had expected. just bad!

day one and two were pretty much perfect beach riding with just enough crossings and log fields to keep things interesting.
for the most part we all had the same gear ratio  eric, dylan , and i had 22x20  mike had a 24x20 and roman had a cool little two speed set up.

 our first big crossing the mighty alsek river

 pugs paceline, check!

part of the rarely seen fairweather range 

mount elias 18,008 ft. in the distant background

mike droppin in on the biggest DH of the tour. 20 vertical feet in 1.5 seconds!

 

after three days of relatively smooth beach riding and minimal pushing, it was time for a change.
this is the approach up to the grand plateau glacier mostly nice bear trail with some nasty moss covered boulders. this got us up to the glacial lake that we would boat across to avoid the raging river created by the lake.
as it turned out this ended up being one of the most amazing beach detours one could imagine. 

it was late and cold when we put in on the lake and we really hoped to find a beach to camp on quickly, after about an hour of paddling we found a tiny beach to land on and scratched out a small camp site.

 this was just before midnight.

roman sleeping in, next to the fire. 

i love the road classification on the map.

this was the easy part of a three hour slog back to the beach
we/i had a pretty close encounter with a huge bear. it hissed and charged me,  but decided to make the right choice and avoid our group in the end. likely we were just to skinny and smelly for its taste.

well that's it for now.