CANADA

Travel 

Alaska & Canada: The Alaska Highway, Richardson Highway, Denali, Parks Highway & Denali National Park Road

Total kilometers biked: 3310 km

Days biked: 27 days

Road conditions: Majority of road were paved or sealed.  Large stretches of road construction (sometimes 10-20 miles), riding on crushed, dusty stone.  Denali highway was unpaved with looses gravel and sand and corrugated at times.  Denali National Park road was well graded and in great condition for a dirt road.

Weather: extremely hot, dry and smoky (over 1 million acres on fire in Alaska), only 1 day of rain, which is highly unusual

Food and water:

Food

To save money, we carried most of our own food (granola bars, power bars, nuts, dried fruit, etc.)  When we needed to buy food, it was expensive overall ($6 for orange juice, $8 for peanut butter, etc.)

Water

Readily available, stores/restaurants were very willing to fill water bottles

Sleeping:

Camped in wild: 90% of time

Campground camping: 10% of time, with Canadian exchange rate, we could camp for about 10-12 dollars a night.

Alternate transportation: hitchhiked through Whittier tunnel (no cyclists allowed)

Maps used: The Milepost & Milepost Plan-a-trip map

Highlights: saw a lot of wildlife – black & grizzly bears, moose, mountain goats, caribou, buffalo; one grizzly about 20 feet away in Denali National Park – too close, great view of Denali in park, hot springs, glaciers, road stops had great homemade food/snacks, all you can eat pancake buffet outside of Whitehorse, Japanese man who was going to fight off a bear with a plastic fork

Experiences: Alaska airlines lost our bikes in Calgary and we had to take a bus to Dawson Creek and wait 2 days for our bikes to come.  Our trailer tire blew out and we got a new tire from a stolen bike at a police station in Watson Lake.