GPX for North Star II guided ride?

[bjn]

Hi
I am in UK, planning big trip through USA and Canada. It seems cool to start in Anchorage, but not sure whether this is a good idea - miles of roads with lots of trucks and trees?

Any advice on route from Anchorage to say Banff would be great, the North Star II guided ride seems to follow interesting route, is it possible to download GPX for that route?

Many thanks

B

[John Nettles]

There are very few roads up that way so a GPS really is not needed unless you are using it to mark distances traveled.  The best guide by far is the "Mile Post" which is a very detailed guide to all roads in Alaska and BC, AB, YT, NWT parts of Canada.

Best, John

[bjn]

Thanks for the reply, you make a good point about lack of choice for route. I guess I was kind of hoping that someone at Adventure Cycling has already found a nice route, using maybe dirt roads some of the way, and having the gpx would save me time planning. If not then it is OSM / Google maps! Cheers, B

[JHamelman]

Any advice on route from Anchorage to say Banff would be great, the North Star II guided ride seems to follow interesting route, is it possible to download GPX for that route?

We do not have gpx files of any of our tours available for purchase. However the North Star tour does use our Great Parks North map set. You can purchase gpx data for that much of the route. You can learn about the data on our Digital Data for Devices pages. There is a link to the online store there as well.


As John Nettles says in his post, there are very few roads so routing is limited. We use the Milepost book as a guide on our tours and recommend it to others going on their own. It is updated regularly and is a trusted resource by the RV community.


I hope this helps. Be sure to stop by the office if you decide come through Missoula!


Best,
Jennifer

[John Nettles]

The "classic" route (based on the founders route during Hemistour of ACA) is from Anchorage (I would do Prudhoe Bay myself) to Tok to Chicken, AK, to Dawson City, YT, to Carmacks to Watson Lake (via Ross Lake but I would prefer Whitehorse  & Carcross to Watson Lake).  Then south into BC along Kitwanga then east to Jasper down the wonderful Icefields Highway.

It has a mixture of paved and gravel.  If you want more gravel, you can do a one-way detour (hitch or fly back to Dawson City) from Dawson City to Inuvik, NWT. Another cool detour is from Dease Lake to Telegraph (gravel).  For fantastic views of bears eating salmon as they swim upstream, take another deour to Hyder, AK (down by Kitwanga).

Again, the MilePost has detailed maps of what is gravel and paved, etc.  I would highly suggest you by a copy (a year or two old one would probably work but a business or two might be closed/open) and plan away.

BTW, yes, you will see LOTS of trees and if you go to Carcross even the world's smallest desert. 

Enjoy the ride, John

[zzzz]

Hello B:

The advice you've gotten so far has all been sound but I'll add/clarify a few thoughts from what I saw on my trip.

1) People suggested that you buy The Milepost not because of the maps but because it is chock full of advertisements for any of the stores/hotels/camping spots along the way so it greatly facilitates trip planning. There is also a Milestone app for your phone. There's a little bit of a catch in that if a commercial business does not take out an ad, they don't show up at all but as best I could tell almost everyone up there takes out an ad.

2) John alluded to the fact that if you get an older copy of the milepost some businesses may no longer be open. Get the most current edition. I did my trip in 2016 and I could not get over how many of the little places between the bigger towns were for sale and/or the owners were were openly talking about going out of business. The rural areas are under serious economic pressure. Always carry enough food that if the next place you're planning to stop at is gone that you're not screwed. Water will not be a problem.

3) Do not miss Denali. Even if you consider it out of the way. If you just take a day there, take a park road bus (they have bike racks) out to Alysian(sp?) and ride your bike back. It's a gravel road that is closed to private cars, the scenery along it is incomparable.

4) On my trip I started in Banff to Jasper to Prince Georges to Dawson's Creek and then rode the Alaska Hywy up to Fairbanks. John has you taking the Cassier Hywy (37 between Watson Lake & Kitwanga) and then the Yellowhead (16) to Jasper. That is the way most touring cyclists go, it is supposed to be much more scenic than my route. I was told by some folks I met going the other way that they found some sections of the Yellowhead west of Prince George pretty sketchy to be on as a cyclist.

5) Bring good waterproof clothes. For 10 days in a row I got rained on in the afternoon. Sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for an hour, but it always rained hard enough and long enough that if I didn't stop and cover my panniers and put on my rain jacket I would have been soaked thru.

Pete

[John Nettles]

Pete,

You offer good advice!

Could you clarify what you mean by sketch, i.e. locals who may be sketchy, the road surface sucked, services were closed/closing/unrealiable, etc.

Best, John

[bjn]

Thanks for all the advice, much appreciated.....

Ben

[zzzz]

Thank you John but my advice suffers from the sample size of 1. It sounds like you have been up there multiple times. Hopefully, I'll get back as it's quite beautiful up there.

"sketchy"... I should learn to be more precise. As I mentioned on my previous post I went up the Alaska Hywy, but until I got to Prince Georges I could have still gone on the Cassier and I was considering it so I was specifically talking to the riders coming the other way (ALL of whom took the Cassier). A couple of them commented that the shoulder on the Yellowhead would come and go, or turn to sand in an abrupt way. This would sometimes happen w trucks or RV's next to you and left you feeling pretty vulnerable.

Separate from that, and the OP does not give their gender, there have been many disappearances on that section of the highway over many years. There are billboards that start in Prince Georges but I'm told go for the next couple of hundred miles with pictures of the young women that have gone missing and asking for info. The last murder attributed to the series was in 2011 but the constant billboards are still disconcerting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Tears_murders