Bike and Canoe Trip

This trip is the perfect combination of music, biking and canoeing. You start your trip with a few days of music at the Dawson City Music Festival. From there you launch canoes into the Yukon River and spend a few days floating 100 miles down the river to Eagle, Alaska. Once in Eagle get ready for several days of breath taking ride down the Taylor Highway back to Dawson City.

Carcross and Montana Mountain

Having lived in Colorado the last few years I've picked up a several new hobbies. The latest summer hobby is downhill mountain biking. So when I came to Skagway and was invited on a mountain biking trip I had a preconceived notion of what would happen. At Winter Park they use the ski lifts in the summer to load your bike and haul it up the mountain for you. You pay for the lift access and then take as many runs down as you want. However, in Alaska downhilling is a little different. There are no lifts to take your bike up the mountain so you have to ride or push it up your self. Just about 1.5hrs from Skagway is a great little town called Carcross. It is in the Yukon and a great place to visit if Skagway is rainy and foggy. Carcross always seems to have some sunshine. But the best part is Montana Mountain or a downhillers paradise. At Montana Mt a man named Wayne has dedicated the last 15 years of his life creating and maintain some excellent single track mountain biking trails. There are runs with jumps, mellow blues and greens and some really difficult steep runs or some with lots of rocks for the more technical rider. The best part about the mountain is you can find a run for everyone you go with.
http://www.montanamountain.ca/

Anna, Rachael, Nolan and Mike

24 Hours of Light Mountain Bike Race

To celebrate the summer solstice the Contagious Mountain Bike Club of Whitehorse holds an annual relay race. The course is 12-14km and varies year to year. The object of the race is to get as many laps as you can in 24 hours between 12pm Saturday and 12pm Sunday. Teams can be from one individual person up to eight people. Sockeye Cycle sponsored our team of seven and Friday night we loaded a van and made the two and a half hour drive north to the Yukon. We staked a claim in the campgrounds and woke up the next morning ready to ride through the night. 
The course was 13km this year. It started out with some climbing and a few rock sections that led into a nice downhill berm filled section, after the berms it opened up on a ridge line that over looked a valley. You almost expected to see T-Rex walking down there, it was such an amazing view. For the few night laps we had the moon came up over the ridge to illuminate the course. After the ridge you came up on some cruise-y stuff with a few tight trees and to finish the lap you sped down a double track section as fast as you could go. 
The start and finish were next to the time clock and pavilion and it didn’t matter what time you came through there was always someone cheering you on.

 The team had such a great race. We completed 24 laps in 24 hours and place third!

After the race

 

The Sockeye Team!!

Kluane Chilkat International Bike Race

Today is the 21st annual KCIBR. The first race was held on July 3rd, 1993. 21 years later this 8 leg 148 mile race is still going strong and riders can still enjoy the journey from the Haines Junction all the way back to the coast. Each leg has it's own unique terrain and scenery, some with hills others flats, but regardless the views are remarkable which ever leg you ride. 

The Sockeye Team is out in full force today if you are in the area cheer them on as the reach the finish line in Haines!

http://www.kcibr.org/

Yukon by Bike

It's Thursday and that means the Disney Wonder docks and we get to send out one of our favorite day trips, Yukon by Bike. This tour is for the avid road cyclist. You pedal thirty-eight miles from Log Cabin, BC Canada to Carcross, YT through some of the most beautiful scenery in the region. 

The Yukon has long captured the mind of adventurers seeking their fortune in a land larger than California but home to only 30,000 people. The scenic Klondike Highway serves as your byway through the rugged wilderness. Experience the magnificent headwater lakes of the Yukon River, an opportunity to spot wildlife, view relics of old mining boom towns, a Northern First Nations community and the remote solitude that has attracted visitors since the days of the Klondike Gold Rush.
Your tour begins in the gateway to the Klondike town of Skagway. Your guide who is versed in the history and ecology of the region drives you by van from the coast over the summit of the White Pass, retracing the route of the gold stampeders of 1898. You cross into Canada traveling on the Yukon Plateau along a spectacular alpine valley dotted with lakes and carved by a massive glacier. You arrive at Log Cabin, a stop on the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway and the start of your ride.
After a bike orientation and safety briefing you mount your road bike and begin your thirty eight mile ride north on the paved Klondike Road.  If you prefer to bike only a portion of the route or are feeling tired, the van is there to transport you at any time. Frequent stops are made along the way for photos, sightseeing and lunch. Your ride ends in the town of Carcross on Nares Lake. Relax on the drive back to Skagway as you retrace your exhilarating bike journey through the Yukon Territory!

Sunny Summer

The 2013 season has started out as a great season. The sun has been shining and the weather beautiful!

Stop along the Klondike Highway

Zabeth and her group coming down the Klondike Highway