Trip Summary Trip Dates: Jun 22 - Jul 05 Start - End Locations: Anchorage, AK - Denali National Park Days: 14   Rest Days: 3   Level of Support: Self-contained Miles: 450 Average Miles Per Day: 45 Surface: Road/Dirt Riders: 14 Type: Self-Contained   Meals: Shared cooking Accommodations: Camping Physical Difficulty: Advanced   Cost: $1199 Booking Status: Full

Alaska, aka the “Last Frontier,” should be first on your list of places to visit if you’ve a yen for knock-your-cycling-socks off scenery, charismatic megafauna, and world-class bicycling. Be aware, though, the Denali Adventure is a very challenging tour, dishing up rough gravel roads, primitive campsites, extreme isolation, fast-changing and often inclement weather—oh, and did we mention Alaska’s state bird, mosquitos giganticus?

But by taking on these challenges, you will reap a bonanza of satisfaction and lasting memories. The popularity of this trip in 2007 required us to run it two times.

After meeting in Anchorage, we will head east on the Glenn Highway toward Glennallen, the supply center for the Copper River region, and then ride the Richardson Highway north to Paxson. The Richardson is Alaska’s oldest highway, having evolved from its beginnings as a gold-rush trail in the late 1890s. The trail was improved into a wagon road in 1910 after the Fairbanks gold strike, and finally paved in 1957.

Heading west, we’ll pick up the gravel Denali Highway, staying on it for 140 miles, to Cantwell and the George Parks Highway. Ultimately linking the state’s two largest cities, Anchorage and Fairbanks, the George Parks Highway will take us through the Alaskan interior of the imagination: tundra, muskeg, glaciers, milky rivers, deep forests … and Denali National Park, the apex of a highlight-filled tour.

Denali encompasses some six million acres, or more than 900 square miles, of wilderness, yet it has just one lonely road poking into it. The park’s crowning feature is, of course, Mount McKinley, the highest mountain on the North American continent at an elevation of 20,320 feet. What’s even more impressive is the fact that the massive mountain’s base sits at just 2,000 feet above sea level, meaning McKinley’s total relief is 18,000 feet, greater than that of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak.

Originally known as Mt. McKinley National Park, the preserve was created in 1917 not for the benefit of its namesake peak so much as to protect the region’s rich mammalian life. That includes the “Big Five” beasts that visitors like you still look for today: moose, caribou, Dall sheep, wolves, and grizzly bear. Other critters you might spot in the park’s mosaic of habitats are eagles, otter, beaver, and ptarmigan. World-class fishing for trout, salmon, and grayling is also available along the tour route, which ends at Denali. Here you can arrange to take the train or a private shuttle back to Anchorage.

Mountain bikes or wide-tired touring bikes are recommended for this tour, because the rough riding surfaces are too much for narrow-tired road bikes. The Middle of Nowhere, Alaska, is the last place you’d want to suffer a serious bike breakdown. And, while the fatter tires may be a bit slower on pavement, they’ll open the doors to some of the most incredible landscapes in Alaska—and, that is to say, in the world.

This trip just may be the ultimate two-week adventure. Won’t you join us?

For more detailed information, see Self Contained trip logistics.

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