July 21
36 miles
2600 feet elevation gain
We were so happy to wake up this morning to some clear skies. Everything was damp, but we left the tent up until the last minute to give it every opportunity to dry out before we packed it up.
Our clothes and shoes were damp from yesterday’s stream crossings, but we knew we had a few more to do this morning, so might as well put the damp stuff back on. It was about a mile and a half of pushing the bikes across the gravel before we rejoined the road. Then we climbed. We met two women who used to live in Tucson, one who has also hiked the AT and CDT. And we finally saw a grizz! A blonde sow and cinnamon cub, one ridge over. We looked at each other for a moment and she decided to move away from us, but we got a good look at each other.
Paul was grumpy today and we had some disagreements around lunchtime, but it’s too beautiful out here for stuff like that so we were friends again before too long.
We got great views of Denali all day, the mountain got bigger and bigger until the clouds finally obscured most of the peaks.
And the road is so awesome without the endless stream of tour buses. We saw only 2 NPS vehicles and 2 construction vehicles. Aside from that, the road is for the cyclists, for now at least. It’s been awesome.
The wind really picked up in the afternoon (though it’s never really gone away) and we decided to make camp early, using the wind and sun to dry everything out before the building clouds inevitably dump more water on us.
We found a nice wind sheltered spot, surrounded by dense brush, and ate dinner at a nearby pond where we watched some ducks and a caribou in the distance.
