There have been no shortage of goals. With two units of distance (Yay, 1000km!. Yay, 1000miles!), towns (yay Coldfoot! Yay, Fairbanks!), administrative boundaries (Yay, Canada! Yay BC!), mile/km posts (Yay, another 100 done!) and daily totals (Yay, reached daily average! Yay, 100km done!). But Sunday saw two big milestones for this trip:
* End of stage two. (Delta to Teslin). Not just that, but in 10 days (including two lower milage days) of more consistent cycling (stage 1, Deadhorse to Delta, took 14 days!)
* My average distance per day (including rest days) is now over my planning estimate of 50 miles (80km) per day (1935km in 24 days).
The all metal bridge at Teslin – vehicle tyres make a ghostly howl when driving over it:
And being able to see the river through the bridge was a bit weird!
I’ve been lucky with the weather (very little rain) and since the Dalton highway, the roads have been reasonably good, with no really hilly days, and I’m sure I’ve had more tailwinds than headwinds. Here’s hoping my luck and progress continues for the next 22 stages!
Finally, something for any geologists reading this. Coming up from a river crossing the road cut through some really soft rock – sort of like dry clay, or packed very fine sand. But it is obviously solid enough to be left by the road engineers as a vertical surface. I could wear it down with my thumb, and it looks a bit like limestone in that it dissolves and redeposits with rain!
Any idea what this is?
Cycling Details:
June 12th – 120 km to Teslin. Started at 09:30, got to Teslin 9 hours later with 2 stops for sticky cake. Mix of headwinds and tailwinds, more stealth climbing (down hills not quite as big as uphills!)
Keith's Big Ride 
You’re going at a fantastic pace! Can’t shed any light on the geology mystery but wish you good weather, good roads and lots of sticky cake! xxx
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Thanks for that. Hope all is well in Dunkeld!
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Yay! Rocks! Well, sort of. Thanks Keith 🙂 but what you’re looking at there is most likely a loess – a kind of fine, windblown deposit (i.e. not really a rock yet) which is a common feature of glaciated landscapes where the wind can transport a fair bit of material over long distances.
Its coherence, or solidity, is likely due to the proportion of clay to sand/silt particles, too sandy and it would slide, too much clay and it would slump or turn to mud and erode very quickly.
However since you mention proximity to a river… it would be a clayey deposit related to that, but more information needed about the location really (e.g. if you’re quite near the continental divide/in headwaters it would be unusual to get a fine-grained deposit up there. But if you’re relatively downstream then a clayey/silty deposit is to be expected).
Not overkill on the information is it?
Glad you’re doing well enough to notice your geological environment! Awesome!
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Hah. Just took another look at your pictures … looks quite floodplainey!
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Excellent – thanks for that. Yes, it was a bit further down stream – the nearby river was about 50m wide. A loess – learn something new every day. Thanks for that! Keith.
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