04.09.08
Destruction Bay to Haines Junction
107,2 km, 6:49h, Ø15,7
sunny
What a day!
My alarm clock rang at 7 am, I got up at 9 am, had a good breakfast (Bacon & Eggs) and had a very late start at 11:30am. Despite the headwind I had a pretty good start. After 38km I reached the construction area near sheep Mountain and had to take a 7 km long ride in the pilot car. The driver told me that there are cyclist coming through everyday though I don‘ t believe it.
After 42 km I stopped and celebrated the first 1000km of my trip with with a coke and the leftover peanutbutter-jelly sandwiches from breakfast. A few km later I reached the second highest point of the Alcan only 1m lower than the highest point. The scenery was beautiful again. Since I rode through an area with a high population of bears I was looking out for them the whole day but didn‘ t see any.
At 6:30pm I caught myself thinking: Only 40 km left, that‘ s great I‘ m almost there!. It‘ s amazing how you get a very different view of distances here. The road was going up and down and when I started to work my way up to the highest summit (1004 m) of the Alcan my legs felt pretty tired. But there was nothing I could do except of slowly pedaling up there in a low gear.
100 m before I reached the summit I saw an RV in a pull-out and heard a man shouting: I‘ m german. Why don‘ t you stop!?! So I did and met 4 german guys who were travelling around for 4 weeks. They invited me to have dinner with them. Salmon, potatoes and brussel sprouts. It was a great dinner and we talked about my trip a lot. At 8pm I kept on moving I wanted to get to Haines Junction before dark. And I couldn‘ t really believe it but there was a great 11 km long downhill ride!!! That was awesome, a little cold but very enjoyable;-).
I arrived at the Kluane RV Park and pitched my tent with the last daylight. The showers were kind of dirty, so I didn‘ t have one. Since I didn‘ t sleep well last night I fell asleep pretty soon.