FLASK

FLASK: Florida to Alaska                                    

Training at the outdoor gym!

I've been doing some bike touring for a few years and have become enchanted. It's such a great way to travel - just the right pace to see the subtleness of the terrain, meet people, and enjoy a long day outdoors. Though when I first started touring back in 2006 I didn't think touring was so great ... I remember calling my wife at the end of the 2nd day of my 1st tour down the Pacific Coast. It was another hard 100+ miler through Washington state and I was sitting exhausted in a diner in Astoria, OR, asking her to reserve a seat on the next bus for me. She sagely suggested that I ride to the next town with a bus stop in the morning but at a slower pace and then decide if I really wanted to be off the bike. Well, that slower morning ride immediately changed my perspective and 11 days later I pulled into San Francisco with a huge smile on my face.

I've always wanted to see Alaska - Mt. Denali, in particular - so when we realized that this was the right summer for me to ride there and that I hadn't seen my wonderful sister, Judi, and my favorite niece, Michelle (Squirrel), since they moved to Florida, well ... FLASK was hatched. Why not start the ride there and get full enjoyment?

Generally speaking, I'll try to cover about 70 miles a day and that should allow me to more or less stick to this schedule while giving me time to play and otherwise seek out diversions along the way:

April 8: I'll catch a train from Flagstaff to New Orleans where Judi will pick me up and take me to their place in Panama Beach City just east of Pensacola. Then around ...

April 18: embark on the bike tour with Squirrel along for the first day or two of the ride (YAHOO!). I hope to catch up with some old friends in Sherman, TX, on the 1500 mile ride to La Junta, CO, where ...

May 10: I'll catch a train to Phoenix so I can watch Rae's graduation from the ASU Executive MBA program and celebrate with family and friends before ...

May 17: I return by train to La Junta and get back on the bike, heading north to Estes Park where I'll meet up with Wes and Quinn for either a climb up one of the Fifty Classic climbs on the Diamond of Long's Peak or, depending on the snow conditions, some other wonderful outdoor adventures.

June 3: Arrive in Tetons National Park (NP) and - hopefully with my beautiful wife, Rae - go up the uber-classic 5.6 Owens-Spaulding route of the grand Teton. If she's still with her sister on an RV trip up the Pacific Coast, then I'll solo the route. From there, ...

June 7: I'll bike into Yellowstone NP and do a few days of backcountry camping and exploring - again, hopefully with Rae but, if not, then - in the words of our 3-year-old grandson, Phin - "I'll do it by my own self."

June 19: After some steep, glorious riding in the Rockies, I'll arrive in Glacier NP for some more backcountry fun, most certainly with Rae by now (yea!). Then I'll bike across the border on ...

July 3: Into Banff, Alberta, for some climbing at Lake Louise and then into the Jasper NP ice fields for some Canadian Rockies goodness. Mmmmm, tasty ... On the map, the next part of the trip looks vast but I'll be stoked that on ...

July 17: I arrive at Watson Lake in the Northwest Territories just below the Arctic Circle to meet up with Wes, Quinn, and [a fourth companion that's still needed for this part of the adventure] for final preparations for the Cirque! On ...

July 19: We take a chartered float plane into Glacier Lake, then haul heavy packs 7-10 hours across scree fields and through alder thickets into Fairy Meadows, where we'll set up base camp for the Fifty Classic's Lotus Fower Tower (5.10) and whatever other alpine adventures we can find. After 18 days of adventure, we catch the float plane out on ...

August 3: From there, I'll bike the 1000 or so miles to Anchorage - hoping to arrive around ...

August 16: I may bike into Denali NP but it's just as likely that I'll catch the train to the park instead. Then there's a shuttle bus inside the park that will pick you up and leave you anywhere on the park road, so I hope to have some long solo backpacking adventures; though I've had a few friends threaten to meet me in Denali for flyfishing (which'll be fun to learn) and camping. I'm not sure but I suspect that the cold, wet weather'll force me from the park by ...

mid-September: If the weather's good enough for a ferry/backpacking trip down the Aleutian Chain, that will be a fun week or two excursion.

I had thought about paddling down the coast but I've been convinced that it would be deadly so I'll make my way back to the contiguous US via the Alaska Ferry, probably along the Inner Passage into Vancouver, BC, but maybe on the cross-channel route into Bellingham, WA. I'll visit good friends in Lions Bay, BC, and then finish my trip home. Since Rae may have moved us from Phoenix by then all I know is that I'll make my way to her again in the most expedient and cheapest way possible.

It's not the route I necessarily intend to stay on but here's what the ride looks like on Google Maps:


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Over 5000 miles and 70 days of riding. Nearly 6 weeks of climbing and/or backpacking. Backcountry in some of the world's most beautiful spaces with my wife. All outdoors. Doesn't it sound AWESOME?!