Anatomy of an Adventurer
Added on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 by Carole Nash Editor
Anatomy of an Adventurer
Anatomy of An Adventurer is Nick Sanders’ latest adventure, a world record breaking ride along the length of the Americas. Having ridden from Calgary to the top of Alaska at Prudhoe Bay, Sanders will turn south and ride 16,000 miles across 15 countries to the southern tip of Argentina and the town of Ushuaia. The present record is 27 days and Nick hope to break this by 4 or 5 days…let’s see.
The journey to the start line had begun. It was nearly 3,500kms from Calgary to the northern tip of Alaska, Prudhoe Bay; time to get any early problems sorted out. Out of the airport I was directed to go south on the Deerfoot trail without being told to look for highway 16 which leads onto highway 1. After 30 kms I pulled off to a gas station, bought a couple of bungy straps to properly fasten my tripod onto my rack and asked the checkout girl for directions.
“Well sire, I surely have no idea.” Of course, I forgot how geographically localised North Americans in the service industry are, but was cheerfully passed on to a guy who had a Liverpool accent and he immediately invited me back to his for a cuppa. He was a biker and knew what I was up to. It was raining; there had been storms over where I was going at Lake Louise so when he asked me to stay over with his family it was very welcome. Paul was ex military, a service engineer on Jaguars in Norfolk and RAF Valley in Anglesey.
Next day I was up early, 5am, but my body clock made me feel it was nearly midday. This would be the only occasion I would get up so early and feel so bright. I hate early mornings, an unhelpful trait given that it was a pre-requisite for endurance riding. We rode together until Banff and then I was on my own. The weather warmed, it was sunny and the glaciated park between Banff and Jasper was resplendent. Bow Glacier looked extraordinarily crisp in the hot sun and Athabasca Glacier by the Ice Centre brilliantly white. Neither compared with the southern Argentine glacier at the start of Ruta 40. The Perito Moreno Glacier is perhaps the most magnificent in the world, but here the breeze was blowing me along and I began to warm. No problems as yet.
By the Colombia Icefield I had run out of superlatives to describe what I saw as I zoomed by on my R1. Thick slabs of snow lay on top of the front ranges of the Rockies. Comparing it to a topping on a sandwich was the second thought that came into my head; the first was of white marzipan on finely scrumpled layers of cheap chocolate. These sawback mountains towered over lakes reflecting such a mixing of dyes and inks; it was a million conifers in neon green. The colour and the magnificence was on such a level that I was on tiptoes and still couldn’t see the top. The saving grace of such a place is that the large caravans and recreational vehicles, parked up clumsily in every single viewpoint, gave the place some modesty.
Us comprehending the enormity of protecting nature at it’s most commanding is like expecting microbes to understand Shakespeare. Although you could go for walks in Tunnel Mountain or hang around Bow Glacier, or instead ride all day trying to overtake long looking rooms on wheels. Most were rented from a company that decorates the rear end with something pretty; an attractive female canoeist wearing a pigtail or photographs of wild flowers. There was another one with a hill and another with a lake and snow capped peaks. Sometimes the pigtails would hypnotize you as a double yellow line forbade you to overtake. After a while the one began to get mixed up with the other because when I did look around I expected to see girls in pigtails. Perhaps if I rode a foot-forward bike a lot slower I too could watch the back of RV’s for longer.
Suddenly, I was in British Columbia thinking where the hell am I now? There was a sense in my head that the journey was beginning to take shape. Get 900kms done, test drive getting up early. Check my reactions in the field? Am I tired? The wrists, check, neck, back and knees, check, nuts, check because sometimes when I’m pressing hard against the tank squinting through the undergrowth for bears, my nuts begin to ache. Just then, I thought of the self styled explorer Bear Grylls and wanted to ask him a question, ‘what do you think I should do if I drove into a big one?’ Caption competition material. Even the light in this patchy part of BC refused to illuminate the wheat in the way it ought to.
On entering Dawson Creek, there was a new WalMart as you dropped into the city limits. The long sweeping main street, lined with hotels on one side and services on the right, was a compact business zone that would take me to Mile Zero of one of the greatest roads in the world, the Alaskan Highway. Up on the top street, past the grain elevator was my mate Charles’ hotel, The Alaskan.
I’d known him since 1996 when I asked him for sponsored accommodation. Having left Ushuaia 25 days earlier I was four days away from Prudhoe. Way back 15 years ago, on my first ever big bike on my second only motorcycle journey, I had reached Fairbanks in 28 days. It had been raining and I knew I’d not finish. Having fallen off my Daytona and broken my ankle on Day 3, it still hurt, but so disillusioned was I that I hadn’t beaten the then record of three guys in a car, I gave up in disgust. I’d been sleeping under trucks thinking too much sleep would make me soft and still I couldn’t crack it. I knew then I’d have to have another go.
