In 2018 a friend and I biked from the Fairbanks area (Chena Hotsprings) to Eagle. It was a great trip, with mostly really nice trails but cold weather. I had plans in 2019 to bike most of the full route, but alas family stuff intervened – my wife Nancy snapped her achilles while at a trampoline park. Ouch! Note to everyone – trampoline parks are not for the 40+ crowd! This year I had hopes of biking some part of the route, but I was having trouble finding anyone interested. Fortunately José Bermudez got in touch and was ok with me joining him for the first part of his Eagle to Kivalina (a small village north of Kotzebue) Trans-Alaska trip.
Our trip got a bit of a rough start. We were scheduled for a 9:00 am flight, and after some weather delays we arrived at 4pm in Eagle to 4”- ish of fresh snow with more still coming down.. And it was -20F. To folks not from interior Alaska, it is hard for the air to contain enough moisture to make snow at sub zero temps, so it is somewhat rare to see that much snow at these temps. So rare that another passagager assured us the forecast was wrong, as it couldn’t snow at -20F. Sigh.
The next day we set out. We were staying at the Eagle store and hotel, and I had bought several pounds of additional food after an old timer who runs the Clinton Creek checkpoint on the quest told us we were too early and were not going to make it. Making my 80lb bike a 82lb bike. So heavy!
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The riding was slow for the first few hours until we were passed by two National Park Service rangers heading to Slaven’s roadhouse, a historic roadhouse 100 miles from Eagle.
The ranger’s packed trail was much faster, but alas our plans of making it 50 miles in to stay with some friends were not going to happen without a long day, so we ended up at another family’s place just off the river. They are famous with the Yukon Quest mushers as the “Brownie Stop” as they leave homemade brownies out for the mushers.
They put us up for the night, providing us with a fantastic dinner, and I drifted off to sleep the sound of their sled dogs howling. In the morning we headed out, finding the trail much faster, and made it to our original destination in the early afternoon.
We spent the afternoon chatting with Tim and Tova, and ended up spending the night, having talked most of the afternoon and early evening away in spite of our plans to just “stop in to say hi”. In the morning we pressed on to Kandik cabin.
So far the temperatures hadn’t been truly “cold” but had been between -20F and the mid -30Fs – cold but not epic cold. José hadn’t had a lot of experience riding at these temps and was getting a crash course. Fortunately he adapted, dealing with the layering, hydration hose, and tire pressures issues fairly well. Kandik cabin is a very cool spot and a neat cabin, but alas, not very windproof, so at these temperatures with a breeze it was hard to keep it warm. In the morning we hit the trail to the coldest weather of the trip, near -40F, enjoying fairly firm trail to Slaven’s.
Slaven’s was filled with NPS volunteers setting up for the dog race so we quickly moved to the much quieter public use cabin nearby. We had arrived pretty early, so we planned to leave in the early am hours as the trail breakers were supposed to be in that evening late. Fortunately they showed up in the early evening. Unfortunately we got to talking and our early am departure turned into a late morning one. Socialization – it will be the end of us all!
The trail breakers told us that from the Smith’s (aka the 40 mile cabin since it is 40 miles from Circle) to Slaven’s there was a ground blizzard with near zero visibility. Leaving Slaven’s the trail was ridable but soft… but soon we were in the ground blizzard and big sastrugi (wind-driven snow ridges) meant we were walking our bikes.
Fortunately it wasn’t that bad, but we did end up walking most of the way to Smith’s cabin. After warming up the cabin we watched from comfort as the leaders passed by, then hit the sack with plans to leave around 3am. For once we were not distracted, and made it on the trail at 3am. The trail was firm and fast from all those little dog feet pounding it down and we zoomed towards Circle. It was clear the trail had been quite windblown, and in one section there was a bit of a yard sale and I picked up a gopro camera as well as several mittens. On the way to Circle we passed five teams.
Alas, the lead dog of the the first musher we encountered, “Ranger”, freaked out and caused a big tangle. I had been really worried about this. Everyone with the Quest kept assuring me that it would be fine to have us out there, but I was really worried about annoying the mushers and causing an issue. I had insisted we be off the trail when the leaders passed by so we didn’t damage anyone’s chances on the pointy end of the race. The rest of the mushers went by without issues, though later I was to learn that most of them didn’t really know what we were. Apparently at the next checkpoint they had a laugh as they discussed who they thought we were. One thought we were another team they passed, another a moose.. Because of course moose have headlamps.
We chatted a bit with the last musher, Dave Dalton. He was a bit sleep-deprived, and was just standing on his runners as his dogs rested.
Our conversation went somewhat like this:
Dave: “I think they are breaking trail.”
Me, after looking down at the rock hard trail, “I am not sure, it looks great to me.”
Dave: “They are breaking trail. It sure doesn’t look like 12 teams are ahead of me. I think I am going to let them keep breaking trail and give them a bit more time. ”
Me: “ Looks good to me – you should get going.” While thinking of course it doesn’t look like 12 teams are ahead of you, the next one is a half hour ahead of you, and half of them are almost 12 hours ahead of you!
The remainder of the ride into Circle was a bit boring, but fast. The trail was routed more on the river this year, so I got to see a few big cliffs and bluffs rather than swamp, which was nice. We arrived in Circle just as they were closing up the Circle checkpoint in the firehall. Circle is a very small community, and their firehall is appropriately small – it fits one very tiny fire truck with enough room for another pickup. José I think was hoping we would hang out here longer but I was in a hurry to get to Central, take a shower, and have a burger. The 34 miles from Circle to Central were on a dirt road, and were uneventful but hilly. At Central my burger need was fulfilled, but my dreams of a shower were dashed. Also, our path forward looked unclear, as the highway was closed due to high winds and drifting snow. In the morning I after asking around about trail conditions and being told it was unlikely the trail was still in I called it quits. I hitched a ride back to town with the Quest cleanup crew heading back with a load of port-a-potties. “Classy.” as one musher put it. José rode on to Fairbanks on the highway and eventually the local trails and arrived three days later. After a bit of recovery and recouping he headed out again. Unfortunately his trip ended two days after leaving Fairbanks. Hopefully he will be back next year to complete his route.
This trip was very fun, but a bit slower than I expected. The trail was mostly ok; it looks like we averaged about 5mph for most of the trip, which isn’t bad, all things considered. It wasn’t as cold as last time, but it was definitely not warm. We saw lows near between -30F and -40F, with highs of -20F most days. Watching José adjust to riding in the cold was a reminder about how steep the learning curve is, and how much I take for granted the skills I have picked up over the years that let me be comfortable at those temperatures. Not that I am perfectly comfortable at those temps – I have yet to figure out how to not get the neck of my jacket wet and frozen after 8 hours sub -20F temperatures for example. However, I am mostly pretty comfortable. José seemed to pick up the skills and adjusted pretty quickly, and after the first two days seemed to be doing fine.
This is a hard trip – it is remote, it is cold, the logistics are somewhat challenging, and there isn’t a good way to bail out between Eagle and Circle.
A big thanks to José for the company!
