Day 24 • Cassiar Highway, Mile 329 to Smithers • 342 mi

There's an infestation of bears up here. I saw two yesterday, four today, and two tomorrow, all medium-sized black bears.

Fortunately, they're all pretty terrified of a growling red motorcycle. Unfortunately, that makes it quite difficult to catch a picture.

I did, however, see a tiny black fox!

Poor image quality is due to condensation. Yesterday, I dropped my helmet cam in the only puddle in 3,800 miles. It seems to have made a full recovery...

I said goodbye to Dave at around 8:30am—he needed to lay down some miles toward home, but I was told not to miss Stewart and Hyder under any circumstances. The two towns are about a mile apart, are on a inlet of the Pacific Ocean, are separated by the Canada / Alaska border, and are on a 40 mi spur highway off the Cassiar.

This spur highway is perhaps the most mythically beautiful place on this journey. The road runs down a deep valley, the trees are covered in hanging moss, ferns grow on exposed stone walls, glaciers sit by the road and high in the mountains, and waterfalls stream down both sides of the valley in torrents.

There's even a section where the road carves directly next to a 5 meter-wide glacial melt river through a slot canyon.

Due to the condensation and battery issues, I don't have pictures of this. Sigh.

Okay, well, 40 mi down, 40 mi back, that should be about 2 hours, tops.

Hyder is more interesting than anticipated.

There's a 30 mile dirt road leading back up out of Hyder into Canada, up a glacial melt river to the glaciers above. The road is, well, it's a little tough on a bike, especially since I put road-oriented tires on in Whitehorse.

Here's how much room you get (plenty):

Worth it? As with everything else Alaska, oh yes.

Just don't overcook a turn.

This was the first time I might have wanted to not be on a bike—the road demanded 95% of my concentration, but so did the scenery.

I got back to the Cassiar around 5pm, and managed to make Smithers around 9pm.

Total mileage: 342 mi
Trip mileage: 3,808 mi