July 5
47 miles
We woke up early this morning, and since it’s never dark out, decided to just get up and get going. We were on the bikes by 6am. We made good time this morning, riding 30 miles before lunch. We leapfrogged a few times with a trio riding in a car and stopping frequently to look at the flowers. We met them in Deadhorse, so we stopped to chat a couple times. Although from afar the Arctic Tundra just looks like grass, there is an incredible diversity of plants, and different wildflowers blanket the hills in purple, yellow, and white.
We passed a wayside with a pit toilet to find that the place was absolutely filled with trash. It’s disappointing that people in cars can’t pack out their trash. There has been unfortunately quite a lot of trash along the roadside. Perhaps it’s more visible due to the lack of trees and tall plants, but it’s disappointing.
The afternoon was tougher than the morning. The pavement has given way to gravel and the 1-2% consistent grades turned to rolling hills, sometimes hitting 10% inclines. Climbs come with descents at least, although they are always over too quickly.
We are in mosquito territory now, and without bug spray. One of the employees at Deadhorse Camp yesterday gave us some patchouli oil, which does repel them somewhat, but my ankles got chewed up nonetheless.
We also got our first real look at the pipeline, which finally emerged from underground. The weather here is wild.
Cold, hot, cold, hot. We took a break in the shade of the pipeline, because there are no trees in the Arctic Tundra. After looking at the terrain ahead, we decided we should stop at the 50 mile mark, but at 47 miles we found a really nice camp spot near one of the braiding channels of the Sag River, and figured this was probably the best spot we’d find.
We took a dip in the water, which was cold and refreshing. The climbing will continue to get harder the next two days as we approach the Brooks Range, which has been getting larger on the horizon. New life birds today: Long-tailed Jaeger and Lapland Longspur.