Introduction

After a long flight from Amsterdam (The Netherlands) to Prudhoe Bay (Alaska), we start cycling on the Dalton Highway, heading south...
After 720 km we arrived in Fairbanks. We started our cycling trip on the Dalton Highway, a gravel road, which sometimes can be very difficult to cycle. We crossed the highest pass in Alaska (the Atigun Pass (1500 m)) and crossed the Gates of the Arctic National Park. We saw a lot of wildlife (cariboes, grizly bear, chipmunks, fox and eagle). A big forest fire along the Dalton Highway forced us to get a lift past the fires, which were hazardous for our health. We're ok and enjoying ourselfs very much; we're cycling through very beautiful surroundings.
After a long time we're able to update our internet diary again. We're now at Delta Junction and we're able to update this diary in the local library. We've cycled the Parks Highway from Fairbanks to Denali National Park. At Denali we cycled the park road, which gave us some incredible sights and we also saw some wildlife again (bears, caribou and chipmunks). After our visit to Denali we continued on towards Cantwell and the Denali Highway. This Denali Highway is a gravel road along the Alaska Range, which again took us through some incredible beautiful surroundings! Though the gravel road was very bad and we could not get a high average speed on this road. We passed the McLarren Pass (second highest pass of Alaska) and at the end of the Denali Highway we cycled north again on the Richardson highway (accross the Isabel Pass) towards Delta Junction. On this highway today we saw some bisons. Now we will be driving on the Alaska Highway towards the Canadian border.
Today we've reached Tok. We expect it will take about two days to reach the Canadian border. The last days we really have beautiful weather; clear skies with a warm sun.
We're now at Border City, 3 miles before the Alaska-Canadian border.
Today we've reached Haines Junction in Canada. Yes, we're now in Canada! After our last report we've crossed the border between Alaska and Canada and also now cycled more than 2000 km already.
Finally here a new update of our cycling trip through North America. We've not been able to write an update earlier, because all the villages we cycled through did not have any internet access.
Just after we left Bell II, we saw a black bear just crossing the road just in front of us. It just looked at us and we just looked at him. And then he slowly walked on. WOW!!!!. That's was a very nice and interesting experience!
Still on the Yellowhead Highway, we're now in Burns Lake. The scenery has gradually changed to agriculture with haystacks and cows. Traffic passing us is getter denser as well, lots of logging trucks and RV's.
We've reached the touristic town of Jasper in Alberta, Canada. Yes, we crossed the border of British Columbia into Alberta (losing one hour of time). We're also now in the National Park Jasper. We crossed the Yellowhead Pass (1131 m.) and are now turning on to the Icefields Parkway south towards Banff.
We cycled through the National Parks Jasper and Banff, which were incredible beautiful! We stood on top of the Athabascan Glacier, cycled accross the highest pass of Canada (Highwood Pass, 2206 m.), cycled through the Kananaskis Country and enjoyed the incredible beautiful surroundings of the Rocky Mountains! This morning when we woke up and exited the tent, it was only 4 degrees Celcius and the was lot of snow on top of the mountains. A realy beautiful sight. Today we passed the 5000 km cycling distance. Tomorrow we expect to cross the border into America. So in total: Our trip so far can be summarised as one realy incredible beautiful and great experience!
We're still in Canada. We're now in the Waterton Lakes National Park. Fred's bicycle chain was too worn, which inhibited cycling anymore. So we drove into the park and the Waterton Lake village. There at Pat's we ordered new parts for both our bikes (Jan Dirk's chain also was starting to wear out). This meant staying at least another day within the village, because the parts needed to be ordered and then installed. During this day we hiked de famous Crypt Lake Trail, which was very nice to do.
A week has passed after our last message. But in this week we cycled a lot of miles/kilometers:
Since our last report we've been travelling through some very beautiful parks:
After battling against some storms and cycling through beautiful country, here is a new update from our cycling trip. In Moab we stayed another day to wait for the winds to calm down (it was realy stormy!). During this day we visited Canyonlands Nat'l Park by rental car. After this we mounted our bicycles again and cycled to Natural Bridges Nat'l Monument first. Then through Glen Canyon to Capitol Reef Nat'l Park. Through the Grand Staircase-Escalante Nat'l Monument we reached Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park - an incredible and beautiful park!!!
On sunday (2-10-2005) we arrived by airplane at Amsterdam airport, where we were welcomed by our fathers. This is then the end of an incredible adventure!