Bears, Broken Bikes and Forest Fires: 2 Weeks cycling through Yukon Territory

The Klondike and Alaska Highways were littered with incredible lakes, beautiful Mountain View’s and magical wildlife viewing. Along the 918 kilometres of highway I got the chance to see moose, bison and both black and grizzly bears. My first ever bear encounter was a little too close to comfort when I stopped to investigate some rustling down in a ditch by the road. Looking back down into the ditch, I was terrified to see a grizzly munching away on some plants at the bottom. By the time I’d grabbed my bear spray the grizzly had already run up the ditch and was now just a couple of metres away from me. Luckily for me it decided human wasn’t on the menu that day and bolted off down the road. My bear spray has since replaced one of my water bottles in my stem bag, it’s safe to say I’ll feel better it being as close to me as possible after this!

With 250 miles to go until Whitehorse, where the next bike shop was, my rear freehub somehow got dirt into it and was jammed up meaning for 4 days I couldn’t freewheel. This was an interesting challenge which although very frustrating at first, developed into me testing out fun ways to ride downhill without my feet on the pedals, including a few failed attempts at a superman pose!

The final challenge of the journey came on my last day. Amidst a heatwave in the Yukon, another day of beautiful blue skies was forecasted. However, I awoke to see a grey sky with the sun appearing through the ‘clouds’ as a dark orange circle. I noticed something was strange but didn’t give it much more thought as I packed up and got on my way. After just a couple of hours of cycling I quickly realised those ‘clouds’ were in fact smoke from the forest fires in Northern BC. With just 60 miles to go until Watson Lake, where a hotel room hopefully awaited me, I decided to push on through. The smoke got thicker and thicker to the point where I could taste it with every breath and feel it in my eyes on every downhill. Determined to make it to Watson Lake I pushed on until with about 12 miles ago I stopped to watch some Bison by the side of the road. A friendly Canadian pulled over and warned me that it wasn’t safe to pass them, offering a lift in his truck. Feeling my lungs needed a relief I gladly accepted and he took me the rest of the way to Watson Lake where I stayed in an old World War 2 air force lodge until the smoke cleared. Even a few days after I could still feel the smoke in my chest. I think it’s fair to say I’m going to avoid ever doing that again!

Check out the full story here: https://youtu.be/VzN3N8Tp-Lc

And if you want more regular updates of my journey attempting to cycle from Alaska to Argentina feel free to follow my instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dan_camps/

by DanCyclestheWorld