Special Places

Interior Alaska

The Dal­ton High­way south from Dead­horse, end­ing 80 miles north of Fair­banks. Over 400 miles of noth­ing but wilder­ness (with the road bisect­ing it). The only facil­i­ties were a camp­site and two cafes. There can’t be many places like this left in the world.

Canada

Klu­ane Lake, The Yukon is a glacial lake found at around 1000m above sea-level a long way from any major set­tle­ments. There are no jet­boats or other adrenaline-type activ­i­ties spoil­ing its tran­quil­ity and set­ting — a sheer delight to cycle along for the cou­ple of days it takes to cross.

Fraser Canyon, British Colum­bia was not on my orig­i­nal itin­er­ary and only became part of it due to a prob­lem with my bike. I was expect­ing to be just fol­low­ing High­way 1 south towards the Canada-US bor­der — how wrong I was? Sheer drops, rag­ing waters, tun­nels carved through the rock and Hell’s gate were just a few of its many surprises.

USA

The Hood Canal, WA, appeared on my left-hand side as I cycled down the Olympic Penin­sula. Another change of plan led me along this beau­ti­ful water­way into an area of Wash­ing­ton State that not many for­eign vis­i­tors will get to see.

The Ore­gon Coast was, along with the Alaskan Wilder­ness, the high­light of the trip so far, par­tic­u­larly the area around Cape Per­petua and the Ore­gon Sand Dunes Recre­ation Area. Gen­er­ally, the effort that had gone into mak­ing the coast worth-visiting by the author­i­ties is com­mend­able. Those nights at the hiker/biker sites topped it all off.

The Coastal Red­wood Forests, CA, espe­cially along the Avenue of the Giants. Giants, indeed, and so wor­thy of the title special.

High­way 1, CA, par­tic­u­larly north of West­port and north of Jen­ner where the wild scenery, lit­tle traf­fic, white-knuckle cycling up and down nar­row roads and around twisty-turny roads were a plea­sure. This is much more so than in Big Sur, south of Fran­cisco, which so many peo­ple rave about. For me, the scenery is equally spec­tac­u­lar but it is extor­tion­ately expen­sive and has too much traf­fic on it to com­pare with the area north of San Francisco.

Mexico

Cross­ing the Baja Cal­i­for­nia Desert, par­tic­u­larly the stretch south of El Rosario de Arriba where you first encounter the rich and var­ied fauna & the stun­ning Catavina Boul­der Field. Since then, Mex­ico has been about the spe­cial sites, rather than spe­cial places to cycle through.

I enjoyed cycling through The Tuxlas, even though sev­eral of the roads were with­out shoul­ders. Traf­fic was light, the area see few vis­i­tors & the land­scape was beautiful.

Cen­tral America

Nowhere springs to mind. For me, the region is about the places, colo­nial towns such as Suchi­toto in El Sal­vador; & the peo­ple that I came across every­where. How­ever, I did enjoy cycling in:

  • North-west Hon­duras & north-east Sal­vador, as part of a con­tin­u­ous route I did between Copan Ruinas & Suchi­toto.
  • Volcano-rich north­ern Nicaragua.
  • Panama’s Caribbean coast & over the Con­ti­nen­tal Divide to the Panam High­way on the Pacific side of the country.