I asked Darcy's advice before we left. Bring lots of warm clothes and bundle up before the long descents, she said. Bring booties. Watch out for bears.
The park buses can only fit two bikes each, so Mark took a late-morning bus and Trystan and I took the 2 o'clock. Trystan and I had both visited the park before, and the six hours on an old school bus (average speed, 15 miles an hour) dragged a little, despite seeing "the big four" -- caribou, Dall sheep, moose, and bear. We were eager to get on our bikes. We'd spent most of the day in a car and a bus, and we had a 92-mile ride ahead of us.
The road ends at Kantishna, a cluster of impressive lodges and private residences on the banks of Moose Creek. Trystan and I downed some canned coffee, loaded up and took off, wondering if and when we might catch Mark. The clouds that had hung over Denali's peak disappeared, and the giant mountain dominated every view. By some luck, we'd picked the warmest, sunniest weekend of the year, just a week before solstice.
The hours and miles flew past. At 10 o'clock, I was still wearing sunglasses. We had ridden alongside the mountain (about 30 miles north of it), and now started to put it behind us. The road had all but cleared of traffic. Several friends had mentioned this trip, and our bus driver had exclaimed how popular it had become (park employees call bikers "meals on wheels" for grizzlies), but the road was hardly crowded with cyclists -- in our many hours out, we passed just two.
The road is rarely flat, so up and down we went, churning steadily uphill and flying fast down the gravel descents. Sometime before midnight, we slowed for a parked car with cameras stuck out the window. We soft-pedaled past as a good-sized grizzly, lying in the ditch, glanced up from his slumber. An hour later, I spotted another bear 300 yards off the road. He stood and faced me, watching as we snaked our way down a fast descent. Bad place to crash, or flat, I thought. Five seconds later, my rear tube was completely blown, the rim bouncing over the rock and dirt. Checking over our shoulders, we shuffled down the hill and pulled over by some heavy equipment. I imagined huddling inside as a grizzly bear pawed at the glass doors. I yanked the tire and swapped the tube and we were off.
We found Mark at the East Fork River, laid up with a broken spoke and nagging knee. We rallied, downed some more canned coffee, and set off together. Forty-three miles to go. I had felt tired for an hour -- sleepy, and a little fatigued -- but now my body woke again. We climbed to Sable Pass, at 3,900 feet. The sun had long since set, and the temperature had dropped from near 80 into the 40s. We passed through tiny pockets of warm air and frigid low points, the cold pooling as in a Fairbanks winter. We bombed down the pass, the longest descent of the trip, Trystan and I still in shorts. I started to shiver. My toes got painfully cold. I thought of Darcy's advice, and how sometimes you have to learn for yourself. I put on pants.
We climbed again, and dropped, and climbed once more. We watched caribou glide over the tundra and moose lead tiny calves through the willows. We drank more coffee and waited for the sun.
The road turned to pavement, crested one last rise, and then we were home free. We coasted downhill, spooking a black wolf in the road, and reached our car just as the first tour buses headed into the park. A few minutes later, the sun crested some low clouds and shone down again.
