After the days on the ferry and in the places of South East Alaska, was really eager to finally really starting cycling. The first 60 km to the boarder with Canada was easy riding along the river and I already thought – hoped – whether my whole intended route would gone be that way – well that would have been to easy wouldn’t it? I reached the Canadian Customs and the lady there asked me whether I would have enough water with me since it goes up in the mountains from now. Well right there was the answer – it is not gone be as nice and easy as it was from Haines to here. The mountain was not that high but it took good 3-4 hours to cycle the 25 km to the summit at 1047m. The thing here is, that the most passes have this ramp like roads going up. It is never really steep but it takes time to go up those ramps and sometime it can be quite tiring and frustrating. As I could see on the top, it was actually not just a summit but a double summit. While cycling down from the first just to go up the second, it started to rain and I couldn’t see a lot of the scenery anymore. Just a bit down from the second summit I found this great hut, just as the mean at the Canadian Customs told me, with an oven, table and chairs. I stopped right there and called it a day. After firing in the oven it was toasty – even hot – in the little hut. I spend a great night there and was please with what I did on my first day.

The next day it rained just once – the whole day. The road went down and up, along a sort off a Height Plato with mountains on the side which were still covered with snow – it is beautiful even in the rain but would be even better with sunshine. I got a glimpse of the beauty for about the last 45 minutes of my riding day – the rain stopped and I could see some blue patches in the sky. Soon the sun came out – and with it the mosquitoes. The advantage of rain is, that there are no mosquitoes – so what do you prefer rain or mosquitoes – I go for the mosquitoes.

On my third I got to Haines Junction at around midday. I was faster on the road then I thought I would be. The reason was the distances I got out from the map were not in miles but in Kilometers. I know I that I have to be ‘careful’ about miles and kilometers that is why I looked for a note on the map, saying whether the given distances are in miles or kilometers and I found that note. It was in the table, showing the distances between major cities – “all distances in miles”. Well, as I know now, this didn’t mean the distances in the map. The distances on the map are in miles for the American part and in kilometers for the Canadian part – it those make sense but I did not expect this – however, better shorter then longer.

This third day was not my day at all. After finishing shopping In Haines Junction it started to rain, so I waited for a while, hopping that it would stop and it did. I went on the way again, up one of these small summits – took me about two and a half hours to clime that one – and then trying to escape the dark black wall of clouds which was following me. Unfortunately I was not fast enough and the clouds couth me. While I was cycling along the road in the rain I asked my self over and over again “why I’m doing that?” The next few days I had better weather and I knew why I’m doing it, it is great!!

I could write more about the riding through the valleys and over some hills, but his would probably start to be boring (actually I have to go to bed, better said into my sleeping bag in the tent outside, to be fit tomorrow to go to Prudhoe Bay. No, I go with a care – at least the way up and then I probable gone cycle back to Fairbanks). So I gone stop here (there might be more after Prudhoe Bay).

From Haines to here I did some 1065.5 km (660 miles) during 58 hours and 27 minutes pedaling. I did not see any bears along the way, but I saw some Moose, a ……. ( have to look up the name) and many small animals. My back wheel toes pretty well and but my front rack started to fall apart but I fixed today.