That's got Bingham's name all over it...

Trying to envision what I'd use this for.  Can't think of anything.

I mean I *know* I need it, just trying to place where it'll live...!

I've never seen it all laid out end to end like that.  Nice work.

I've looked into riding sections of it, mostly up north, the past few winters.  But what keeps me from having gone yet is that you need a chunk of time to do it, meaning a need to plan ahead, set a date, take days off, etc...  And snow conditions change so fast, with so much new snow being added each storm, that it doesn't make any sense to go when the trails are 99% likely to be buried.  At least they have been every time I've looked seriously into going.

Grooming is good when it happens, but sporadic.  And the fact that something's been groomed does not necessarily mean that it is rideable--even with the fattest wheels and tires going. 

NOT trying to dissuade you!  Merely throwing out a few things to think about.  I think it has huge potential, and would be a colorful feather in one's cap to have ridden the whole thing.  I'd imagine there aren't many winters when an end-to-end traverse is even possible.  Spring seems a lot more doable.

Let us know if you give it a shot.

MC

sold.

Doh.

BTDT.  Once.  Only once...

Early last summer Greg and I took the "Dixie 311" bait on offer from Dave Harris.  Which is to say that we couldn't resist the idea he'd been dangling before us: A 300+ mile bikepacking loop on little used trail, in SW Utah, with super scenery and allegedly even better riding.

The riding the first few days was excellent--over the top of the Markagunt, up, across, around, and down the Paunsagunt, then a hot lap of the Thunder Mountain trail had us in excellent spirits as we tanked up on water and climbed past sunset toward the Sevier Plateau.

We quickly discovered the reason that no one rides there: A scorcher of a forest fire laid waste to tens of thousands of acres, and in the wake of that fire there isn't much left to ride.  Trails still exist on the ground but they're covered by hundreds upon thousands of downed trees.  No way through there but to carry (and occasionally drag) bikes and get comfortable with a 1mph pace.  For days.

The Tushar Mountains had far fewer downed trees, but the trails Dave routed us onto were mostly too steep and eroded to enjoy.  With much exertion many of them could be slaved up, but when you crested the top expecting (and, after awhile, demanding) a fun descent as 'payoff', you'd be repeatedly disappointed by even less rideable descents.  That's right--hike-a-bike up earned you hike-a-bike back down.  Unlike Dave, we aren't superstar high-horsepower riders, so we didn't expect to be able to ride all of the climbs.  But the downhill hike-a-bike had us scratching our heads in wonder.

Highlights of the trip were stunning weather (only one t-storm in ~7 days out), stunninger flowers, crystal clear creeks to fish in and drink from, burning turns on Thunder Mountain, blasting through skunk cabbage, aspens, and bluebells on the Virgin River Rim, bacon, sausage, and ice cream in Circleville, and a week of camping under the stars.

See for yourself:

Three One One.

Thanks to Dave for the motivation, inspiration, and map work to get us out the door.  Thanks to Greg for being such a great bikepacking companion: His spirits are always appropriate to the mood of the day and the trail.  He also has a keen sense for when nap time approacheth--usually where tiny rivulets course through lush alpine meadows.  Worked for me.  Greg's take on the trip is here:
http://dirtanddogs.blogspot.com/2010/07/dixie-311-bikepacking-tour.html

Nice to see Lee and Joan out there a bit too--thanks for dinner!

MC

Long before I'd finished the video below, I knew that I needed to do more than just compile said video.  I knew that I needed to do a full-blown writeup with explanatory images appended.  Too many stories to be told, none of them properly tellable in video form.

And I will.  I'll probably do a full-on gear-geek-out (what worked, what didn't, why, and what I'm changing for the next one...) too.

But not now.  Summer is short, much to be done while it lingers.
. . .

We successfully traversed from Yakutat to Gustavus.  In Roman's words:
225 miles total.
135 miles riding every sort of beach sediment you can imagine.
65 miles paddling lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, sloughs, oceans, bays, fiords -- we used our boats 25 times.
25 miles of mostly stumblef*cking.

We averaged 3.3 mph on bike (including rest breaks), 0.6 mph stumblef*cking on the boulders or f*cksticked bear trails, and 2.3 mph on the paddling stretches. That's with the fat bikes on board.
. . .

Please, please take the time to sit back and relax with this one.  I feel strongly that it is worth watching in it's entirety, perhaps more than once, and not just on your iphone while commuting.  And watch it full-screen!  Sooooo much crammed into that 10 minutes--watch it twice and you'll get twice as much out of it.

Bikerafting Alaska's Lost Coast: Yakutat to Glacier Bay.

Thanks much for checking in.

Cheers,

MC

The penny is indeed OEM.  Classic, eh?

Nice bike--great bp'ing chassis for sure.

MC

The story goes that Scott and Chad were driving home from the Grand Loop, frustrated at the lack of quality singletrack on that route.  I'm not clear how they were surprised by this--the loop has existed for better than a decade, Scott has ridden it before, and it's *never* had much singletrack.  Anyhoo, I'm glad they were frustrated, because they spent the bulk of their drive home trying to brainstorm a multi-day bikepacking loop with as much high-quality singletrack as possible.

The end result of their brainstorming, map-geeking, and on-the-ground reconnaissance is the Coconino Loop.  Start in Flagstaff, get on dirt right in town, ride to and through Sedona, Cottonwood, Williams, and back to Flag on a heap of high quality trail.  A bit over 200 miles in sum.  There is a heap of singletrack, quite a bit of doubletrack or forest road, and a quasi-tolerable amount of gravel.  Very little pavement, and it happens in short stretches.

Tim Stern, Jeff Oatley and I spent four full days and nights out on the route, camping from roughly dark until dawn, and traveling at a comfortable, even leisurely pace during daylight hours.  Naps were taken, as were photos.  Snacks and stories were shared.  NO ONE was in a hurry--none of us seemed to have any sort of schedule or agenda at all.  We rode when it felt right, stopped when that felt right, and just sort of proceeded through each day. It seems the three of us have one main thing in common: Riding and racing on the Iditarod Trail.  Thus you can probably guess that when the conversation wasn't lodged firmly on bacon, or bikes, or how much longer 'til we'd be into a town to get some more ice cream, we spent a *lot* of time talking about The Race in Alaska.

And that was really good.  I get asked about The Race all the time but it's rare to sit back and hear about it first-hand from the perspectives of two who've been there, at the front, several times.

These pixels might tell the story that my words are failing to approach:

Touring the Coconino.

I really enjoyed this loop.  I seem to have arrived at a place in my life (mentally and, um, chronologically) where I haven't the patience nor desire to repeat trails unless they tick all of my boxes.  Put simply, the Coconino was the kind of loop that I could happily make into an annual trip.

In this day and age 4 days and nights is a lot of time to spend essentially doing one focused thing.  If I had to pick one moment, one sensation from that length of time to list as the most memorable...

...hmmm.  I guess I can't.  My brain goes into overdrive and then brownout when I try.  But the hyperspace descent into Williams, with millions of chunky manuals on a dark and hobbitesque trail...  

...yeah, that one keeps bubbling to the top.

Cheers gents--thanks for all of the hard work that went into making this a brilliant turnkey bikepacking loop.  

MC

The last ~7 days of my 2010 self-supported Iditarod trip.

I feel a need to reiterate: My energies were largely devoted to forward motion, leaving the camera a distant afterthought.  Especially, and oh so critically, on this leg of the trip where my daily caloric deficit caught up to and passed me by, asleep trailside.

I did the best I could rendering these stills and clips into a story.  And it is important to dwell on the fact that it is "a" story, but far from the complete story.  I have no idea how to objectively film myself falling to pieces over and over the way I did on the way up to Shaktoolik and then Koyuk.  I wish someone had--it would have been hilarious, right up until it became too pathetic to watch.  Increasing calories (by eating 'ahead' into my rations) made all the difference--bringing me back from the brink and into a coherent, forward moving human in just a few hours.  Had I been a day later getting to where I was, that wouldn't have been an option, and my predicament would have gotten interestinger and interestinger.

<iframe src="

http://player.vimeo.com/video/19022689?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff9933

Completing the trip that I did, in the style that I chose, is probably the most rewarding thing I've yet done.  The difficulties went beyond the mental and physical relatively early on, and took me to lows and highs that I didn't expect and could never have prepared for.

That said, I'd encourage anyone considering duplicating this trip to think twice, thrice if necessary.  It's about the worst way to experience The Trail and bush Alaska.  At least from my perspective.

It is almost unbelievable the amount of time that goes into putting a video like this together.  Darn near a full-time job.  Hope that it provides entertainment, inspiration, and maybe even a bit of education to someone, somewhere.

Cheers,

MC

I've used the RBH and the Integral.  Honestly wanted to like both.  Ended up taking both out on the Idita--one in 08, the other in 09.  Ended up hating both--the Integrals because they always slipped down, the RBH's because they ripped my ankles to shreds.

I'm back to a basic wool liner sock with a plastic throwaway VBL.  Cheap, light, easy to carry spares.

 

Another seven days of travel encapsulated in the montage below--from just before Takotna to just past Kaltag. 

I tried (when editing the video) to give some idea of morning, day, and night, but the reality (when shooting the clips) was that all effort was devoted to forward progress, and I just couldn't focus tightly enough on the vid.  Thus, the bulk of the shots are daytime when it was warmer and more doable.  Another way to look at it is that (in the video) things all blur together into one endless day--and that's *very* accurate to how it was out there.  Even thinking back I have a hard time calling up where certain campsites were, or which memorable events happened on which days.  One big blur.

The entirety of this segment was shot below zero--the high temp in this 7 day stretch was about -5, with 4 nights of roughly minus 55.  Yes, those were difficult nights.  Average daytime temps were closer to minus 20, which turned out to be nicer than you'd guess because the sun was shining and there was no wind.

Enough details--much more important sensory data to be gathered right here:

IditaTour: Part two.

Working on part three now.

Cheers,

MC

Late last winter I found myself in Alaska with a bike and a plan.  Again.

I went there with an ambitious objective: To ride the Iditarod Trail from Knik to Nome without outside support. 

Why? 

Well--why the hell not?!

Actually, there are many reasons why--you can read more about them here.

Early in the trip I started a video diary, basically turning the camera on myself and letting fly with whatever came to mind.  It was a spur of the moment creative effort that morphed into a means for keeping myself together through the difficulties that came my way, day after day.  Looking back now, it was a stroke of brilliance: Combining the immediacy of spoken word with the timelessness of stills tells a much, much more complete story than I (or anyone) could recreate from 9 months and three thousand miles away.  This 'retelling' is much more honest.  Really.

Below is the first installment in a 3-part series.  Part one covers the first 8 days from Knik to ~McGrath.

Please keep in mind that my energies throughout the tour were focused on efficient forward progress--the camera had to remain an afterthought, which limited my creativity considerably.  I started with a very, very limited amount of food, fuel, and camera batteries, and each time I stopped for a pic or vid I was 'burning daylight'.  I didn't have enough battery power to review shots much less get any 'do overs', so the clips were off the cuff and then I'd be back on the bike seconds later, working to generate some heat and unthaw frozen-from-handling-the-camera fingers.  Run and shoot, shoot and run. 

I carried a glorified P&S camera.  No tripod, no remote, nothing but a peashooter and a fistful of batteries.  Given where I was and what I was doing, this camera's specs (HD vid, big zoom, flip screen, and AA batts) made it the easy (only?) choice--I didn't see another option that combined those 'big four' all together.  All in all, it worked out pretty well.

Lastly, there were several times when it was simply not possible to shoot due to circumstance.  Most often this means it was too cold, or windy, or snowy to bring the camera out, but there were several occasions when I was suffering too badly to be able to manage it.  Thus, while the clips shown are somewhat revealing, some of the most precious moments were never recorded.  And that's as it should be: Memories can grow more powerful through the years without evidence to support or deny!

IditaTour: Part one.

Part two coming up in a few weeks.  'Til then, enjoy this'n a few times.

Cheers,

MC

right, but back to those "in-bag encounters with camels". Tell us more, that sounds uncomfortable if not also humiliating and impractical.

What--are you workin' on your post count?  Go fer a run or somethin'...

Camels are warm, and they don't drink much.  Make sense now, Mr. Poopypants?

that was 3 burlies in one post. nice.

I tossed in a flimsy, a clumsy, and a svelte to even things out.

yeah just the drom lites, the normal black ones are in another league by their own. I have a 10L one of those I call big pappa.
 
Super Bulky though?  I think the big handle things on the camelback bladders are bulkier, and the bonus is that you can detach the hose, switch caps, completely seal up the bladder and kick it around all night in your bag if you were so inclined.

I was referring to the ones like your Big Pappa.  I've got a 4, 6, and 10L and they're burly.  But yeah--bulky and clunky cap/elbow/hose.

No argument about the camelbak bladders--they're flimsy *and* bulky, and a PITA to get open.  After my fateful in-bag encounter with the camel I switched to the Hydrapak bladders.  Not quite as burly as the MSR droms but much burlier than the camels, and svelter and easier to open/close than both.

MC

MSR bladders have 1/2" of welded seam,  I've never heard of one failing.

If you're talking about the MSR cordura-esque dromedaries, yeah, they are Burly.  Never seen or heard of one failing either, and I've had a few for 6+ years getting used often in packs and (on car camping trips) hanging from trees as hydration and/or showers.  Burly.

But the cap/elbow/hose dealio that they use could be improved upon by an ADD monkey.  Teeeny flow through that elbow, super bulky, and hard to insulate.  I've never looked hard at an alternate setup, but if you could come up with one that had better flow/less prone to freezing, the MSR bladders are about as failsafe as can be expected.

MC

"Had I known what to look for, I could have spotted the weakness in the seam before I ever left on that trip.  Live and learn."

C'mon Mike, you've left us hangin long enough...

You just gotta do a close inspection of the seam all the way around the bladder.  Any variability or questionable looking areas are just that--questionable.  I saw one of those spots on a Camelbak bladder seam a few years ago and, in a moment of stupidity, thought, "Meh--it hasn't failed yet, what's to worry about?". 

Plenty to worry about on a winter bivy when you wake up soaked to the waist with a wet sleeping bag, wet pack, etc...

At the moment I'm attempting to find out what is up there, (Yukon), come up with some ideas of what to see.

Sure--good idea.  

I searched just now but couldn't find the link to a story a friend of mine wrote for Car and Driver about taking a Corvette up the Dempster.  It's a good read and if anything will encourage you to go see it even more.  But it also underscores my point that road touring isn't the same as bikepacking.

Which is very different from saying you shouldn't go check it out.  

Cheers,

MC

Mike - they did that trip in winter?  awesome.

Yup.  Not too hard to get them talking about that one.  More or less Kathi's initiation into winter bike trips.  Ask 'em about it sometime, then sit back and enjoy.

Is not exploring the Yukon considered bike packing? 
What about the Canol Heritage Trail, is that bike packing?
I don't consider racing with nothing but a credit card in your pocket bike packing.
Drink some water, you sound dehydrated.

Methinks I'm not the one lacking water.

I think riding the highway up to Inuvik would be cool, and scenic, and challenging if you did it in winter.  But I'd not confuse it with bikepacking.  Road =/= trail.  YMMV, obviously.

Cheers,

MC