pedalpanam

I started my day off in Hyder, AK at the bear viewing boardwalk.  It is a little creek and pond where bears, black and grizzly come to feast on salmon, and tourists with ginourmous lenses wait to take pictures from a boardwalk.  After about an hour I had only seen a bear way in the distance, and decided to see the Salmon glacier.

I hitched a ride with two recent college graduates on a 6 week roadtrip around Alaska and Canada.  After the glacier (spectacular, pictures to come) we drove back into Hyder, crossed the border into Stewart, and headed back to the Cassiar Hwy.  I might have stayed a little longer in these very quirky towns, but it was drizzling and I didn’t want to spend all afternoon finding a different ride.

The guys dropped me off at the Meziadin campground pretty early, and I spent the rest of the day in the picnic shelter while it rained.  That evening I enjoyed the company of some folks from Germany, who shared some of their dinner.  The campground director let me stay under the shelter, so the $15 dollars didn’t seem so bad.

After postponing my departure, it finally stopped raining at noon and I decided to get going.  That afternoon I needed to fill up my water bottles, so I leaned my bike on the guardrail on a bridge on a river, and climbed down the the bank.  I heard something (large) moving on the other side of the bridge.  I climbed back up to the road and heard some more rustling in the bushes, and then a minute later a black bear cross the road a few hundered feet down.  Needless to say I got going ASAP and found a nice place by a creek to camp that night.  I saw about 4 bears from a comfortable distance during my last few days on the Cassiar.

Just 35 miles left on the Cassiar the next morning, and then another 30 to New Hazleton.  I am no longer in the wilderness on the Yellowhead Hwy.  Yesterday I got to Smithers, the largest town until Prince George, and wandered around the huge Safeway reminding myself that I didn’t need to buy a week’s worth of food as had been the case earlier in Dease Lake on the Cassiar.

I ran into a local biker on my way in to Smithers who offered to let me use his shower.  It had been a couple of weeks since my last one, so I happily took him up on the offer.  He also donated a bottle of camp fuel, much appreciated!

Last night’s choice of (free) camping, on a mound beside a train track left me with little rest, so I took my time this morning and read the last article in my two year old National Geographic while eating breakfast and lunch.

I hope to make it 20 more miles to Topley this evening.  Then 3 more days of riding to Prince George where I’ll probably take another day off for some bike repairs and picture uploading.  I met some folks at the campground in Hyder who have offered a place to stay, which is very nice, especially in a larger place like Prince George.

Then I’ll continue east to Jasper and the down to Banff, and hope to be in Montana by mid September.

I can’t remember if I mentioned this in a previous post, but my sick days off meant Baptiste and I split up, he is now a few days ahead.  He’s giving me heads up on things along the way, which is nice!  Maybe I’ll run into him in Mexico or Central America. It was great having a riding companion through Alaska and the Yukon. Buen viaje Baptiste!