Wednesday - It's 85 miles to the Denali Front Gate, we've each got a mountain bike, half a Clif bar, it's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses …

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This is the day where we bike 85 miles over gravel roads back to the Denali front gate.

At 4.30 we woke up to go pee and I asked Wendell if he wanted to get up, it was still dark so he said no. At six when we were planning to get up it was raining. The rain tends to `blow through` so we stayed in bed until seven when it still hadn't `blown through` but I said we needed to get up and get going.
Wendell fixed breakfast of scrambled eggs, ham hot cocoa and oatmeal (we eat well on this trip) while I broke camp. It's a pain trying to pack everything in the rain. I had to contort around the (itty bitty) tent trying to pack without everything getting too wet.
Wendell describes the packing process as, "the tent looks like a giant blue slug digesting a large meal - it wobbles and bulges and occasionally spits out a piece of baggage."
At 7:30am the rain abated and the clouds one by one drifted away revealing a stunning view of Mt. McKinley mountain - it was like assembling pieces of a giant McKinley jigsaw. Wonder Lake campground is built with the sites on a slope so you look out of your tent door to the most amazing view. Or you can sit in the cook shelter perched on the top admiring the view. At 10:00am we finally put our gear onto our bicycles and left.
The first 2 miles were such a steep hill that we had to walk our bikes.
The next 18 were a more gradual uphill. The views are beautiful and we had partly sunny weather and no rain, but it took us 2 hours to go 8 miles. We have 77 left to go and at that rate we will get to the park entrance in 19 hours, well after our train leaves for Anchorage. So the first bus that came along that could fit us and our bicycles onto it we threw ourselves in front of and got a ride up to the top of Polychrome pass. The average speed of the bus is 14 mph, including stops to look at wildlife. We saw a fox curled up in the sun in the ditch on the side of the road. It was completely not bothered at all by the presence of about 5 tour buses full of faces pressed against the windows cameras clicking away. It was just looking around yawning and occasionally scratching.
The difference I noticed about the `Camper bus` which you have to have a permit to camp in the interior campgrounds or a backcountry permit to use, and the regular shuttle bus which anybody can use is that the shuttle bus people get more excited about wildlife and take pictures constantly and the camper bus people are more blasé having seen amazing wildlife etc. from up close and personal while camping out in the park.
As we started up Polychrome pass it began to hail. The driver asked if we still wanted off and we said `yup`. At the pass we ran into a couple of backcountry hikers we met on the train. They were cooking breakfast and it was 2PM. I didn't feel so bad about our late start.


Cycling in Denali is about going either uphill or down. It is never flat.
After our big woo-hoo downhill was over we began to grind back up another pass. So we caught another bus up to the top and got off. We rode and rode and rode. It was pretty , but long. The hours passed, the day wore on. The tundra remained the same. Sloooooowly my patience with uphills wore out. When we got to the paved road with about 15 miles left it was 8PM. I began to spend more time off of my bicycle pushing it up the hill. Our pretty cycle tour had turned into a Wendell style death march.
The colder and more uphill it got, the happier Wendell got.
It got dark and we kept going uphill. We were supposed to lose elevation but evidently this was to happen from a great height right at the very end. It got cold. As it got dark the buses stopped coming by and the 18-wheelers started coming by out into the park to do road construction in the park - they only have 3-4 months of good road construction weather so it is a constant process during the summer. Unlike the shuttle buses, the trucks haul ass. I was glad that we were on paved two lane road. But they still kicked up a lot of dust.
We finally got to the park entrance campground, Riley creek, at 11PM. Thank God the last 6 miles were downhill. At times we hit speeds of 30 mph. We took the first available site to camp in. Wendell made chili and rice while I set up camp. Our tent was still really wet. We got to sleep at 12.30. The temperature dropped during the night. I'm glad it didn't rain, but my feet never got warm.


Tofu Jerky

My mother gets us odd stocking stuffers for Christmas. I brought along the Tofu Jerky from last year's Christmas stocking and we ate it while looking at Mt. McKinley in the distance.


Hobbit at sunset in Denali


Hobbit and a clear view of McKinley


The bus heads into the park, leaving us at the top of Polychrome Pass


Hobbit says goodbye to the camper bus at the top of Polychrome Pass


Grizzly bear mother and two cubs

What are they eating?
I think that it's a hiker.
I'm glad we're on bicycles and that she hasn't noticed us yet.

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