We’re back in Dawson City after our fantastic 1,150 mile, 22-day round-trip up to the Arctic Ocean. We didn’t run into any other bicyclists planning to ride both ways. The general consensus seems to be that we’re odd ducks. But we’re happy being odd ducks and we had a lot of fun out there on the Dempster. We’d be hard pressed to find somewhere more remote to spend that much time. We loved it. What a beautiful ride!
We’ve already posted about most of the route. So what’s new in the past few days?
We successfully navigated a very complicated detour the Yukon government set up to get around a sinkhole on the shoulder:
We passed the 2,000 mile mark for our trip!
We also had our first direct interaction with a grizzly bear. An oncoming RV flagged us down to let us know that they had just passed a grizzly 200 meters down the road, then they wished us luck and drove away. We cautiously continued riding and almost immediately we could see a grizzly ambling in the distance:
Once we snapped a pic, we put the phone away and made sure the bear was aware of us so it wouldn’t get startled and charge. Giselle unleashed a few quick blasts from her air horn and the bear seemed intrigued. Not the reaction we had hoped for. We turned our bikes sideways in front of us and raised our arms in the air to make ourselves look bigger. The grizzly was still curious and kept walking towards us. We were concerned and thought we might need to use our bear spray if the bear got much closer (or worse, if it charged us) but then Bill switched from his “hey bear, we’re friendly and non-threatening” voice to his stern “get out of here bear, go into the woods!” voice. The bear seemed to understand and dejectedly loped to where Bill was emphatically pointing — off the road. We could hear the bear cracking through the brush so we knew it was a bit off the road, but we still kept our eyes and ears open as we cautiously rode past. The best possible outcome for everyone involved.
The weather finally got kinda cold! After roasting north of the arctic circle, it was about 40 degrees Monday night in Tombstone Mountain campground, our last night on the Dempster. Giselle finally was able to wear her down booties and use her extra-cozy sleeping bag liner!
As we get further south, it’s getting kinda dark-ish at night. Still don’t quite need a headlamp yet.
Updated Totals:
2,142 miles pedaled
94,766 feet climbed
Today: rest day in Dawson City before we start riding toward Whitehorse. All the roads should be paved from here on out so we’re hopefully done with mud-caked bikes. We’re going to miss the days of endless gravel.