< Day two: Delta Junction to Top of the World
Day three – 78.8 Miles
At breakfast on day three we read over the VacScene, our daily in-camp newsletter. According to the VacScene, today would require us to do no more than pedal out 50 feet and then coast all day into camp! The elevation profile for the day certainly looked that way, and I’m sure the person who wrote the “coast all day” comment did so in good faith. However, Murphy was a cyclist. Slight uphills are always noticeable and slight downhills aren’t. The day was definitely not all downhill, but it was still fantastic.
There was very little rain and the views were endless. Just a few miles out of camp we had our first and only wildlife viewing experience. We saw a beaver in a lake. As wild as the country is up there, something about 1,500 cyclists in bright colors on shiny machines seemed to keep the land-bound wildlife out of sight. The trees and mountains and streams and valleys were plentiful eye candy for us, and we soaked it all in.
We made good time and set up camp on a gravel runway. Tents became laundry lines and we draped our clothes over the top to dry. I draped a few too many and the tent began to collapse in a slow spiral motion. It didn’t fall entirely to the ground because Ami was inside! I took some of the clothes off the tent and restored its height without major incident. We heard that day three entertainments in the dining tent included a drag show, which would have doubled our lifetime drag show attendance, but we were too tired and passed on the evening entertainment.
Day four: Gulkana Airport to Sheep Mountain Gravel Pit (Camp) >
