The Rise Up Ride: Day 104-107, Seward to Sanctuary
Date: August 4-7 2021
Start Location: Seward, AK
End Location: Sanctuary Campground, Denali National Park
In July 2017 I'd flown to Anchorage to join fourteen Adventure Cycling Association riders on an three-week self-contained tour east on the Glen Highway past Palmer and the Matanuska Glacier to Glenallen and Paxson, and then west on the gravel Denali Highway to Denali National Park. Before the tour I had taken a solo shakedown trip to test my gear riding north over three days from Seward through the Chugach Mountains to Anchorage. So this year I skipped forward and took trains up to where our trip to Denali had ended four years ago, this time to ride deep into the Park.
Between a busier than expected tourist season and fewer hotel rooms due to a lack of housekeeping staff, Anchorage is fully booked. Since my train from Seward arrived late and the connection to Denali left early, I set up my camp chair in front of the station and watched the Olympics all night, joined by a Pennsylvania college group also caught out by the crunch. I loaded my bike and gear into a big luggage bin that was fork-lifted into the baggage car and by late afternoon I'd arrived at Riley Creek Campground, a short ride from the Denali Park train station.
My destination over the next few days would be Wonder Lake Campground, 150 km down an unpaved dirt and gravel road that crosses eight mountain passes on the way to the base of Mt Denali. But because the Park has about 700 grizzlies, only a handful of campsites with hardened bear boxes for storing food, and limited space on the camper buses, organizing the expedition required some deft navigation of National Park Service and overlapping Park consessionaires' regulations and services to get the necessary campsite permits and bus passes.
So much of the National Park infrastructure is shut down, here and across the US. There are no showers, no place to get a meal, and the Mercantile has ice cream, booze, and refrigerator magnets but not their usual selection of dehydrated backpacker meals. However the backcountry store and small market on the road to Healy outside the Park were open and I rode over to shop for calories
Campers in Denali have two options, either scoring scarce tent sites at the limited campgrounds or to register for Back-country Units accessible by foot. It's difficult but not impossible for cyclists to camp in the units the required one mile away from the road, but luckily another camper and I agreed to pool permits and share sites at the Sanctuary Campground (mile 20) for tonight and a site at Wonder Lake for Monday and Tuesday. I'd decided to follow John Neary's suggestion and ride the hop-on hop-off Camper Bus, with seats removed for camping gear and a rack for two bikes, up beyond the first fifteen miles of pavement and private vehicles. From here at Sanctuary I'll have 100 km and almost 2000 meters of climbing to ride tomorrow deep into the largest and wildest park in the country. My plan, depending on the weather and my abilities, will be to ride as far as I can and flag down a camper bus for a lift to Wonder Lake if I can't make it the entire way.
Sanctuary is a six-site campground with a vault toilet, hardened bear boxes, and a cooking shelter set next to the Sanctuary River. I set to filtering water and cooking a big meal after pitching a wet tent. The weather has changed, signaling that the short Alaskan summer has ended and autumn will be rushing into winter soon. It's raining almost daily and I'm back in the warm waterproof clothes from the first part on the ride when late Wyoming spring resembled early Alaska autumn. But with the onset of rain, everything is damp, cold, and part of the constant battle to keep the survival gear dry.
