Alaska's Lost Coast trip happening now

[ScottM]

My good friend Mr. Curiak has a great post up on his blog about his trip with Lost Coast vets Eric (of Revelate designs) and Dylan plus Roman and Dr. Doom.  It describes the allure of the trip, the ambitious nature of it and lots of gear geeking.  Mike always takes great care in his gear choices, and there are some interesting ones in this go 'round.

Check it out here:

http://lacemine29.blogspot.com/2011/06/beach-bound-hold-on.html

[frejwilk]

Interesting..  26" wheels and a rack! 

FW

[Cavesmoker]

love it!

[caseygreene]

Great post Mike. Can't wait to hear about it and see those unique scenes you always seem to capture in pictures and film.

[Eric]

Trip was fantastic. more to come!

[goldenboy]

Good to hear everyone is back safely from that crazy adventure. Judging from the last trip's video recap and write-up, I am really looking forward to going on this journey (vicariously of course).

[Bikeabout]

I've been eagerly anticipating news and photos. Here's what I've found so far. Looks like, well... Looks amazing! And like I wish I'd have been there.

http://lacemine29.blogspot.com/2011/07/off-hook.html

http://packrafting.blogspot.com/2011/06/magical-mystery-tour-yakutat-to-glacier.html

http://epiceric.blogspot.com/2011/07/yakutat-to-gustavus-coast-trip-part-1.html

--Greg

[MikeC]

Long before I'd finished the video below, I knew that I needed to do more than just compile said video.  I knew that I needed to do a full-blown writeup with explanatory images appended.  Too many stories to be told, none of them properly tellable in video form.

And I will.  I'll probably do a full-on gear-geek-out (what worked, what didn't, why, and what I'm changing for the next one...) too.

But not now.  Summer is short, much to be done while it lingers.
. . .

We successfully traversed from Yakutat to Gustavus.  In Roman's words:
225 miles total.
135 miles riding every sort of beach sediment you can imagine.
65 miles paddling lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, sloughs, oceans, bays, fiords -- we used our boats 25 times.
25 miles of mostly stumblef*cking.

We averaged 3.3 mph on bike (including rest breaks), 0.6 mph stumblef*cking on the boulders or f*cksticked bear trails, and 2.3 mph on the paddling stretches. That's with the fat bikes on board.
. . .

Please, please take the time to sit back and relax with this one.  I feel strongly that it is worth watching in it's entirety, perhaps more than once, and not just on your iphone while commuting.  And watch it full-screen!  Sooooo much crammed into that 10 minutes--watch it twice and you'll get twice as much out of it.

Bikerafting Alaska's Lost Coast: Yakutat to Glacier Bay.

Thanks much for checking in.

Cheers,

MC

[caseygreene]

beautiful

[bbaker22]

D@mn!  That looked like and incredible trip with some beautiful footage.  Thanks Mike!

[mattinaustin]

Stunning!  Best one yet. 

Really appreciate you taking the time to get all of the footage and do such an amazing editing job.  I will watch this one many times.

[John G]

Amazing.  Thanks.

[MattySF]

really great video. Thanks for posting.

[goldenboy]

Awesome- in the true sense.

  And I have been keeping this word to describe my own tortured adventures, but your trips are truly worthy.

                        "Funishment"

Thanks for sharing and inspiring.

[mmeiser]

Ok, first off, that video and the 20 second clip posted on youtube just blew my mind.  Both blogged here: http://blog.mmeiser.com/search/label/alaska

20 second clip:

P1020617

I nominate that 20 second clip from captain swallowtail (Eric) as the absolute most mind blowing 20 seconds of video of all time. It in 20 seconds summizes, inspires all the reasons why I love bikepacking so much.

1) mind altering expanses... that line of endless trees and untracked sand say it all... just wow!

1.5) adversity is yin of glorious rides.  Sunny day riders are missing all the fun, ride with me through the eye of a rain, snow storm or just give me a gloomy day a nights riding. They're like listening to the blues. Embrace the funk and when the day, the storm, or the sun breaks through you'll have your moment of sweetness.  It's the sweet and the tart, the yin and the yang. You can't have one without the other. True adventure does not happen until things go sideways. It is then that mother nature gives you the opportunity to truely grow and transcend.

2) completely transcendant roads... Beaches become roads!.... No man has traveled this route... except for Eric and the others who've done it on previous trips.  Global insiration applied locally in my own own back yard... One could ride around Michigan, perhaps the Upper Peninsula completely 100% using the beaches as roads. And globably... New Zealand beaches... Australia beaches, the beaches of Africa, the remote lakes of Russia. Patagonia?  The possibilities are endless.  Just take a packraft and a fat tire.   And people say adventure is dead? ha!   A whole world of highways and ribbons of sand have opened to us.  But that's just one example... again in my own backyard. Michigan has thousands of miles of snow mobile trails.  They're now open to fat tire bikes in both spring and winter (summer to overgrown).

3) Lightness of being opens new doors of possibilities.... as weight decreases... as we strip things down to the elemental so to do opportunities and doors open in multi-modal / multi-sport travel.  Ski + bike, packraft + bike, hiking + biking. At some point lighter doesn't just mean faster... it means freer. Less stuff. More freedom.

4) multiple speeds are overrated.  You can clearly see by this trip, their average speeds, etc. That while just moving by bike at any speed is it's biggest advantage having multiple gears and the extra complexity is not always necessary and sometimes when weight and reliability are of utmost importance multiple gears are just a pain. I wonder where this line is a lot lately, especially with Jefe Branham's new record for single speeding the great divide. Mind = blown.   I personally will never be the fastest anything. So why is speed even part of the equation. Yes I love covering ground, the mobility of 120+ or even 190 mile days helps me transcend time and geography, but there are other boundries to transcend.  All I need is some gear to get me up the hills, or through most of the mud and sand and beyond that it's needless complexity. Coasting downhill is still coasting wether going 15 or 40mph, the gears aren't going to get you there much if any faster.  And walking is still walking. Exactly what percentage of a trip down the divide, or down the lost coast of alaska would one actually use / need more then one gear.

5) bring on the 4.5"+ tires!  I've been dreaming of a Pugs since I first road a protype. Still I've had to wait patiently and shall continue to do so. At this point it's taking off and the breakthroughs are changing rapidly.  More rim choices, more frame choices, more tire choices.  I'm getting the urge to do a fall TD with a single speed pugs with 4.5's. Or at least that's what the rummor mill is saying.

In conclusion...

I'm sure I could say more, but for now my fingers are needed elsewhere.  It's time to go join a dozen friends doing a quick 50 with 4k vert of climbing down in the foot hills of the Appalachia near loudonville, OH. The road bike screams for hills to climb and the legs ache for some aching. The lungs and heart for bursting, the body for its appetite of exhaustion and endorphines. The fingers for the flicking of STI shifters, the resting on the hoods, the pull of the bar on a climb. Today I may endevour to stand every climb and pretend like I don't have a mountain double setup on my road bike with a 34t/34t ratio. Cheers my brothers in arms. It's been a great summer and I dream of an even great fall on the divide.

[mmeiser]

BTW, I hope the Captain and MikeC don't mind this recommendation, but the first thing I did was run to keepvid.com.

Because my laptop being a 2.16 Intel Core Duo 17" macbook can't seem to stream HD video.

Keepvid allows you to download the full resolution videos from Youtube and Vimeo so you can watch them in their awesomeness over and over and over and over.  And mikes in particular... just like his iditarod videos are so worth it.  His multi-media story telling capabilities are my envy.

The video cannot do it justice.

The History. Camp fire on the Potomac in January... all that history, who's sat here, who's walked, who's sat before a fire here and looked out on this river. George washington and his troops, Stonewall jackson, who else.  But it's just a crappy video, that can't possibly capture the historical context:

Camping on the Potomac River

January 19th on Skyline Drive. The isolation, the adversity brings changes of weather, the second rain as the ice falls from the trees, the clouds roll through the mountain tops... still just a crappy video:

Morning on the skyline drive

January 28th on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a cloud rolls over the ridge and turns a tree frosted white right before my eyes... still just a crappy video:

Clouds moving over the crest of the parkway

[Eric]

glad you liked that clip Mike. it was a meager visual attempt at summing up the feeling of being 4 days out in a remote and wild landscape.

[Chunt]

Awesome video Mike!  Glad to see your gear stayed dry and functional during the trip. No easy task seeing the terrain!

Surviving a trip like that PLUS filming it is key to adventure documentary.

Great work.

Chris

[trailrider11]

Awesome video! The only way to put it into words.