Kayaking Nenana and Beginning the Denali Highway to Valdez.....

I packed all my belongings including my pictures of Amanda along with the purchases for the road trip which lay ahead.  These were essentials such as a Goretex jacket, cycling gloves, camp stove, fuel bottle and fuel, pot for cooking, mosquito head net, puncture repair kits, spare inner tube 'hand me down' underlayer and t-shirt from Sam, Value Village thermals and padded biking shorts ($70.00 in the sports store, $6.00 like new second hand!), lots of food and a bike lock.  

I was sad to be leaving the Hiltenbrand crew.... But I'll return to see them again.

John and I packed up the car for our drive to the Denali Highway.  That evening we had a canoe session planned.  The logistics of these trips takes a bit of working out.

We needed to drive 10 miles out on to the Denali Highway, an old rarely used stretch of hard and sharp gravel track. From here we would launch the canoe and head a total of 6 hours down stream. Now you can probably already see the problem. How do we get back to the car? We had decided one of us would hitch back to the beginning of the Denali Highway and hope that someone else would be going along it as 'one of us' walked the 10 miles out to the John's 2 year old Toyota Prius V. We both knew it would be unlikely that we would encounter many vehicles... If any!

Shallow rooted trees....

 As we unloaded the canoe and all the gear, a four wheel drive truck towing a trailer with two all terrain vehicles on the back approached from the other way... Heading out on to the main highway. John flagged them down. It was two
young guys who were carrying out research on Ptarmigans (those lovely little birds on The Denali National Park post). They were heading back to Cantwell. John told them what we were up to and asked would one of them mind dropping the car (loaded with all my belongings such as £2,000 worth of photographic gear and laptop.... not to mention the borrowed bicycle!) off on the main highway. They kindly agreed. John gave them a beer and snacks. They then went one better offering to go in the opposite direction to where they were headed once reaching the main highway so the John's Prius would be waiting there for us at our stop point the next day! Imagine doing this in England! They seemed like lovely fellas, so the keys were handed over and the Prius and truck disappeared in to the dust.

We jumped aboard our kayak and paddled down river for 3 hours.

As we set up camp I noticed some rather large very fresh tracks in the wet sand. Big grizzly tracks.... The fur mark around the foot was still visible.... Very fresh indeed!

We cooked up our food and watched a beaver swim across the river downstream, then as the light faded an otter looped it's way down the bank, slipped in to the icy waters and porpoised it's way upstream until hopping out on the bank and disappearing in to the undergrowth. The setting was beautiful, and John's camp food once again was delicious!

Campsite.

The next day John taught me various paddle strokes that could keep us out of trouble as we took on strong headwinds and slightly heavier water. 'Right draw!' he'd shout. I'd draw right.... It was great fun. By 1.30pm we arrived at the end of our paddle, and too my delight there was the red dust covered Prius waiting patiently for our arrival. Ahhhh the brotherhood of Alaska.... There may be a lot of gun totin' hunters and crazy folks about, but the people I've met have been absolute salt of the earth. Wonderful, kind, caring and giving.

The bear wasn't half human..... That's my hand print....

John kindly drove me back to the junction where the Denali Highway began. I loaded up all my gear and all my food. This amounted to at least 60lb of weight all over the back wheel.... John tried to convince me one more time to ditch the bike and hitch my way to Valdez, Homer and so on..... I said “It's not just the destiantion, it's the journey inbetween.” John is wise and experienced, and I knew that if I was pushed for time or anything cropped up, that hitching still remained a very viable option.

John went on to warn me about the lightness of the front wheel, and to remain diligent when coming into contact with big rocks on down hills. The front wheel can easily kick out.... As I wobbled off in to the distance I could feel how unbalanced my entire kit and caboodle was..... This was going to be a very challenging 120 miles... But I was excited, the sun was out and not only that I was blessed with a back wind to help me on my way....

Two minutes later I heard 'BEEEEP..... BEEEEEEP..... BEEP'..... Who the hell?

Well. It was John. He'd chased me up the track with my camera lens cover and my cycling gloves.... Great start! Ha ha!

Here goes nothing!