The bus ride to Deadhorse from Fairbanks
Finally, with all the delays behind me, I caught the bus to Deadhorse. It was a long journey, but it gave me a chance to see how the Haul Road looked for when I cycled back!
The bus to Deadhorse
(Blog post written Tuesday 21 July 2009. The plan was to take a bus to Deadhorse from where I would begin my cycle tour from Alaska to Argentina.)
I got up nice and early, as after all the delays I was eager to get going. It was a half hour ride down to to the Northern Alaska Tour Company and I arrived at 05.30.
There was a full bus of ten passengers, and I was the only cyclist going north. The other people on the bus were a real mix - There was a student heading for a research station, four hikers, and a headteacher heading back to her school in the middle of nowhere amongst them.
Checking out the route I would cycle
On the way up to Deadhorse, I made mental notes of where were good places to camp or get water. I also saw an arctic fox, carribou and a bear.
Most of the other people were dropped off before Deadhorse, and I finally arrived at sometime after 23.00.
At over $200 a night, the 'hotels' were way above my budget, and so ignoring the notice which said 'be careful of the bear', (with its current photo-fit picture), I went around the back of a warehouse behind the Carribou Inn and set my tent up in the shelter it provided from the wind.
The following day would be the official start of my cycling journey from Alaska to Argentina!
Here's the other Alaska bikepacking blog posts in this series:
- Biking from Deadhorse to Happy Valley
- Biking from Happy Valley to Galbraith Lake
- Biking from Galbraith Lake to Random Roadside
- Biking from Roadside to Marion Creek
- Riding from Marion Creek to Arctic Circle
- Cycling from Arctic Circle to Five Mile
- Riding from Five Mile to Elliot Highway
- Cycling from Elliot Highway to Joy
- Joy to Fairbanks
- A day to rest the knee
- Fairbanks to Salcha River
- Into a headwind
- 100 miles in the bag
- Riding from somewhere I can't remember to Tok
- Cycling from Tok to Northway Junction in Alaska
- Cycling across the border between Alaska and Canada
Dave is a UK travel writer living in Athens since 2015. With 20 years of firsthand travel experience and over 80,000 km of bicycle touring across six continents, he's been blogging at Dave's Travel Pages since 2005. Every guide is based on places he's actually been.
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