Alpine endeavors

After having spent almost the entire summer riding and traveling far from home, I've been hit with a bit of a sense of guilt for having spent almost no time in the Colorado alpine since the snow melted off. I'm sure some of these emotions will be appeased over the next month. I started things off this weekend with a grueling but spectacular ride right from my front door.


This beautiful vista is 7000' higher than my house, and one can ride there with almost no time spent coasting downhill en route. I think that makes this the longest, highest, continuously rideable climb from Boulder. My legs were feeling it for the last could hours of the 5.5 hour effort, and my lungs were working overtime trying to find oxygen in the thin air at the high point.


I had some rather ambitious plans to continue into the adjacent Wilderness, giving my bike a ride to the summit that is tantalizingly close to this point, but alas, my legs and some moderately threatening clouds colluded to change my mind.


Instead I lounged on the tundra for a while, enjoyed the views, and divulged in a couple slices of pizza that had conveniently been warmed by the sun beating down on the top of my backpack. I fought off the desire to take a nap and eventually made the decision to head farther south and ride a steep, rocky, overgrown section of the Continental Divide Trail that skirts the Wilderness boundary.


I skittered down the descent, at times awkwardly contorting my body above the bike to simultaneously allow the bike to pass over and between jagged rocks while keeping my shoulders out of the overhanging pine bows. Eventually I hit the rugged 4x4 track below, rallied down the remainder of the descent, and chuckled as wondered why it had been such a tough choice as to whether or not I should head down that trail. But soon, my legs were screaming and arms dripping with sweat on the steep, loose climbs to get back over the high ground that stood between me and the dirt roads that pointed toward Boulder. A couple wrong turns took me back up to treeline, but eventually I found myself coasting as often as I was pedaling, and it was only a matter of time before I would be sprawled out on my living room floor.

Now I'm looking forward to the coming weekend and getting back up to the crest of some other mountains...get out there and enjoy it, because the first snows of the year are no longer too distant!

Alaska fatbike armada

The final destination for filming took us to Alaska following a 45+ hour travel marathon to reach Anchorage, followed immediately by a beautiful evening drive to Clam Gulch. There we met up with a colorful cast of characters - Pat and Kathy, both very, very accomplished cyclists and backcountry racers, Bjorn and Kim, a pair of fat-bike enthusiasts and passionate environmentalists, and Salsa Cycles' own Kid and Jason who provided Mike, Hunter, Matthew and I with some cushy bikes for our 3-day beach ride.

The riding was relaxed, with siestas each afternoon while we waited for high tide to pass. With 20' of tidal swing, the beaches of the Kenai Peninsula are ideal for beach riding as the tide starts to go out. Concluding our 5 week of travel with this group of riders, despite most everyone being strangers prior to the start of our ride, and in such a wonderful setting was perfect. Everyone had ample stories to share of past adventures and the 3 days were over before I knew it.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the beach. Also check out some other great shots by Jason and Kid.

Welcome to Alaska!

My first fatbike tracks

Big beach, big sky, and big volcanoes on the horizon

Mad clouds

Kathy and Jason, clearly enjoying the day

Crunching barnacles under your fat tires is bad karma

As we rolled up to this spot, Hunter proclaimed that he hated shooting waterfalls. He said that they're too cliche. It is possible to find a unique perspective of some falls, though.

Someone was apparently out of position

Settling down to enjoy our final evening on the beach

Rainy Nepal

I apologize to those of you that were following along via this blog for updates on our round-the-world adventure. Slow or non-existent internet access and a very hectic travel schedule caused me to drop the ball on that one. But now that I'm back at home and recovering from more than 2 months of steady travel, I'll try to catch up a bit.

Nepal was the next destination after Morocco, and it provided a somewhat wetter and greener experience than had northern Africa. The people in Nepal, at least outside of Kathmandu, were even more friendly, and we enjoyed a 4-day ride through the hills surrounding Kathmandu Valley. More adventurous routes up where the air is far thinner will have to wait until our next visit...

Riding out of Kathmandu. Too bad I wasn't daring enough to pull my camera out while we were riding in the wild traffic within the city itself!

Into Shivapuri National Park, where the cicadas buzz was absolutely deafening

Didn't anyone tell these guys early August is the peak of monsoon season in Nepal? They weren't smiling that night after 4 hours of riding in driving rain on exceedingly muddy trails through a forest full of leaches, all after the sun set.

Not a bad view in the morning looking off toward the Everest Range

Ubiquitous ferns

Insects galore

Matthew enjoys a rest at a most wonderful little gazebo

The gazebo's guard

Hunter made some friends that liked his bike

It's big country, but villages dot the landscape even far from roads

We spent the final night of our ride in this village of 16 houses and were treated to a delicious dinner, local home brew wine, and I was given a thorough tour of the area by the kids

Matthew and I struck off on our own for the final day. Muddy roads like these were far easier for us than for the overloaded buses.

Spinning prayer wheels while riding past them provided the locals with some amusement, although once we alarmed them by riding around in the wrong direction. After correcting this, we were told we had to go around the loop once more just to be safe. We obliged.

Yet another place I'd like to return to...

Next up . . . the Alaskan fatbike beach armada.

Half way to boiling

A whirlwind of a week in Morocco is already wrapping up as we're about to head to the airport. Given the amount of country and culture we were trying to see and experience, we weren't able to spend as much time riding as we had hoped, but we were fortunate enough to experience just a tiny bit of what living deep in the Atlas Mountains entails, as well as what to consider when planning potential bikepacking routes through the region.

Our ride to the airport is about to leave, so all you get for now are a few of my favorite photos from this leg of the trip. There were going to be a few more, but the internet is too slow to get the rest posted right now.