2015 in review will be a series of posts reminiscing about the year’s rides. Each will highlight one header photo, the rotating images at the top of the blog, taken during that ride.
I reached Salmon Glacier on day 4 of my 2015 Trip to Hyder. This 1,766 mile eight-day trip was first conceived in 2014 when I set out a goal to ride in all 50 states. Why Hyder? Well, it is the southern most town in Alaska, just over 1,000 miles from Seattle, and the roads there are paved roads the entire way. So it seemed a logical choice to be the destination for my first trip to Alaska.
When organizing the trip, Will and I knew that we would use the small town of Stewart as our “base” for a day ride into Hyder. However, it wasn’t until we arrived in Stewart on day three and spoke to Jeff, who was riding back home to Wisconsin on a Harley, that we decided to check out the unpaved road to Salmon Glacier. Jeff had ridden to the Arctic Circle earlier on his trip, covering many hundreds of miles of dirt roads. He kept saying that the dirt road up to the Glacier would be easily passable on my bike.
While Will had appropriate mixed-use tires on his bike, I had street tires on mine and knew from that day’s travel on gravel covered roads that they don’t grip loose gravel at all. However, I kept thinking that I couldn’t be outdone by a Harley rider!
We put off the final decision until reaching the end of the paved roadway. The road beyond was relatively dry and looked to be hard-packed dirt. I was thinking I did travel 1,000 miles to get here, so we slowly rode up the mining road, passing back into Canada before actually reaching Salmon Glacier.
I was glad I decided to ride the extra 15 miles or so of unpaved road. It wasn’t bad at all.
There was a great deal of fog covering the glacier when we arrived but most burned off over time. While waiting, we met two Canadian students from Vancouver, and one of them climbed out to the end of a rock formation. He is the one in the photo. Below is the original photo.
Reaching Alaska was just one goal of this amazing trip. Our second goal was to ride the BC Ferry through the Inside Passage, a beautiful 15 hour sail through the coastal islands of British Columbia, with the bikes safely stowed for the passage.
The day after debarking in Port Hardy, we traversed Vancover Island from top to bottom, our third and final big goal of the trip.
With all three goals met without major incidents, this was an notably amazing international ride for me. Below are a few other photos from the trip.
These pictures are amazing! Your trips look like so much fun! C:
They are fun and so full of adventure! It has been some of the best travel I’ve experienced.