Photo by Ben Abbott
Ben Abbott’s 1984 Fuji touring bike lays on the snowbank as he takes a break from pedaling from Fairbanks to Valdez.

Two immense peaks glowed in the east, the last corners of warmth in this valley of black spruce. My right knee throbbed beneath three layers of pants and biking shorts. From the severity of my buttocks’ protestations you’d think I was sitting on a cheese grater not a bicycle seat.

Milepost sign 135 stood solemn above me as I stomped through the crust of the snowdrift on the highway’s shoulder to flatten a platform to sleep on.

“Are you supposed to leave your base layer on, or let the sleeping bag . . .” I shuffled through my unsystematic assortment of wilderness wisdom, talking aloud to hush the roaring silence around me. Necessity may be the mother of invention but desperation (necessity plus fear) paralyzes. I wriggled into my damp bag with all my clothes on.

Two weeks ago, with no experience touring on Alaskan roads and with no consultation of more experienced sources, I decided to bike from Fairbanks to the coast.

The idea had come to me three days earlier when my wife, Rachel, casually suggested I should go on a trip over spring break. Within ten minutes Valdez was calling me. My wife’s initial anxiety and alarm evolved over the weekend (with persistent pleading and persuasion) into reluctant support.

Google maps depicted a flat road with only three intersections. A left, a right, and a left on the Richardson would take me to Valdez.

The morning of Monday Mar. 10, Rachel drove me out of town and by 11 a.m. the buckled, frozen rapids of the Tanana glared at me as I wound towards Delta Junction. My studded tires snapped like bubble wrap on the dry shoulder.

Grinding up the low hill between Harding and Birch lakes I watched a Reese’s wrapper ten feet back in the brush. When you’re traveling through a place your perception of the space is defined by your speed. Pedaling across the Tanana valley, or through the Alaska Range you experience a different landscape than a motorist traveling the same road. The slant of the land leans into your mind as it facilitates or retards your passage. Miles aren’t just minutes separating you from your destination, each has a unique topography and assemblage of occupants. As you decelerate, your vision widens—no longer hypnotized on a narrow line of asphalt. Gaps between trees lead to deeper clearings at 12 miles per hour than at 65.

I reached Delta Junction at 7:40 that night. The sun slid sideways behind the torn up Tanana riverbank as I slipped into the cramped gas station on the north side of the road.

“Could I fill up my water bottles?” The young girl’s expression wasn’t positive. “Even just your bathroom sink.”

Her face softened, “Yeah, but you can’t use the bathroom, it’s broken.” My five-liter capacity reached, I thanked her warmly and set out to find a campsite.

Southeast of the highway on an island of river cobbles between channels of Jarvis Creek I unrolled my bedding. Toothbrushless, with flecks of potato and fruit snack mush marinating my teeth, I snuggled into my sleeping bag and immediately plunged into unconsciousness.

Around midnight footsteps on the gravel woke me. A moose cow and calf tiptoed across the rough river ice and disappeared into the dense spruce on the opposite shore. Three stripes of green arched across the sky from a point on the northern horizon like irradiated smoke from a power plant just out of view. I slept for ten hours.

The next day, I stopped every thirty minutes to suck down some ice water and swallow a few packages of Spiderman gummy candies. Sometimes three or four stops would pass without seeing a car. The Alaska Range—menacing even from Fairbanks—now formed an impassable wall in front of me.

“One pedal at a time Ben. Maybe the road goes around rather than through them.”

During a rest near Summit Lake, a red pickup rattled to a stop next to me.

“You OK then?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you sure beat the mosquitoes.” I chuckled to myself as the truck wheezed away, effortlessly climbing the pass I’d been battling for the last four hours. Only two hundred miles left.

Check out next week’s Sun Star for the completion of Ben’s bike trip from Fairbanks to Valdez.