It turned out that I got a late enough start (~6AM) and the station was open, so I waved at the attendant as I rode past - he was from North Africa, from all places, and we had chatted about the Atlas mountain range, and the Sahara desert, and the commonalities and differences between over there and over here. Widely different environments, but still lots of similarities: hostile conditions tend to lead to similar ways to cope with them.
The ride up to Glennallen was totally uneventful. The weather was gorgeous,
there was hardly any traffic, I was in no hurry. Even the routing was within my
limited abilities (one turn, make sure you go left. :-) I had taken advantage of
my leisure evening to check out maps and bonus listing, and I had decided that
if it felt alright, I would ride around. I didn't want to have come all the way
and just sit in a hotel, and as this was my first time this far North, there was
plenty to explore. There were actually four things on top of the things that I
really wanted to check out: Denali park, the Iditarod HQ, the Whittier tunnel,
and some glaciers calving in the ocean. Denali
park, because it's one of the prime National parks in the U.S., and although
I would have no time to visit, I wanted to check it out in preparation for the
next time I would come up and really stay there for a while. The Iditarod
is the well-known sled-dog race - what's not so well-known is that
there are also some folks who do the race on foot, skis, mountain bikes... A
friend of mine is into ultrarunning and had just completed the Iditarun a few
months ago, and I just wanted to see where he ran (well, mostly walked fast. :-) I had discovered the history
of the Whittier tunnel when preparing for the rally, while
researching
it on the Internet. The harbor town of Whittier is separated from the rest
of the peninsula by a mountain range. The only way to get there, is either by
ferry, or through a tunnel dug under the mountain. Until a year or so before the
rally, only trains could run through the tunnel, and one had to
load his or her vehicle in the train in order to cross (some would argue that
this was a perfect ride for a BMW rider.) The tunnel had recently
been upgraded, though, and there is now a roadway that allows one to go through
under his or her own steam, so to speak. The description had whetted my
appetite - cars share the roadway with trains, so rails are embedded
in the road surface. Not a huge deal in a car, a bit more of a challenge on a
motorcycle, where you have to make sure to "color between the lines."
Catching a tire in a groove that run lengthwise on the road is a pretty sure
recipe for a crash. To make matters more interesting, they have installed turbo
fans every so often down the length of the tunnel to ensure appropriate ventilation.
The downside to those is that when you ride past them on a small vehicle, the
sudden blast can make you swerve... into those train tracks, for instance! Of
course, after reading that description, I just had to try it, or
course :-) Lastly, calving glaciers: I've yearned for a long time to come
sailing up to Alaska, and have read countless travelers' accounts
describing the rugged and majestic scenery offered by the coastline here.
Pictures of gigantic rivers of ice slowly cascading into the ocean have always
fascinated me, so this was the perfect opportunity to check this out first hand.
So, I tried to plan a tour (notice the change of terminology, we're not really
in a rally mindset here :-) that could let me make the most of those goals.
After poring over maps and guides, checking the bonus list (still there...),
trying to get confirmation of ferry schedules (I had downloaded some schedules
from the Internet, but not all - duh!), I decided that I was going to skip
Denali: although State route 8 cuts across between SR 4 and SR 3 and would cut a
lot of miles from going all the way around through Fairbanks, I learned that it
was, if not all, at least for a good part gravel. No thank you :-) I decided to
do a nice, easy loop from Glennallen to Glennallen, going through Anchorage
(where I could swerve a bit off the way to check out the bonus at the Itidarod
headquarters, and score another 2 decent bonuses in town), then on to Whittier,
where I could tag on the way the Portage bay glacier that was right before the
tunnel. Then, hop on a ferry that was departing at 3:15 PM towards Valdez - a
ferry ride would give me the perfect vantage point on glaciers and the coast
line, and was worth quite a few bonus points - and I would be able to take it
easy while lounging in a deck chair. One more bonus in Valdez, and it was an
easy straightforward 120-mile ride to the barn - the finish line in Glennallen.
Whittier was about 520 miles from Beaver Creek, about 10 hours of easy riding.
Planning to catch the 3:15PM ferry, I had to leave Beaver Creek at around 6AM. I
was sitting pretty. Of course, I should know better than trust my sense of
time... :-)
researching it on the Internet.
To be continued - sorry 'bout dat
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