Step 1: Setting a date.
It is one thing to read about, dream about, and even talk about taking a “gap year” to explore the world, but it is another thing to actually do it. It may sound easy to commit to at first, but putting school/work/life on hold is really a hard task to do mentally. I can say that once the decision is made, it is very liberating!
Also, once we started to spread the word, and people started getting used to it, our co-workers, family members, and others started to get really excited about it!
Our Date: May 10, 2014.
We’ll start by flying in to Anchorage, AK, USA. We’ll have to have our bikes partially disassembled and boxed to get on the plane. Hopefully, we’ll spend that first night with a Warmshowers host. — It will be a nice start to chat with someone that has done some biking in the area we will be about to explore.
The next day we’ll head to the Anchorage REI to get some of our last supplies, most notably another bear canister or two to store food in. Then we’ll head north. After several days we’ll arrive in Denali National Park and bike the park road out to Wonder Lake and back, before it opens to motor vehicle traffic on May 20. The park road (gravel) extends about 90 miles into the wilderness with views of the largest peak in North America – Denali.
View of Mt. McKinley (aka Denali) from Wonder Lake (c/o Wikimedia Commons)
Doesn’t that sound great?! But I’m getting ahead of myself – there will be other posts to talk about our plans for where we will be headed on our two-wheeled gap year. We have a date, so let the planning continue…
Read on about our route ideas.
I remember the road into Denali being scary on the bus…mostly being very close to the steep gravel (is there another way to build a road up there? ;) ) edge when we had to pass another bus. It’s much better suited to bike traffic!