August 19th, 2014
Facts about Tombstone Territorial Park
Tombstone Territorial Park is a territorial park in Yukon, Canada. It is located in central Yukon, near the southern end of the Dempster Highway, in an area of rolling tundra. The park is named for Tombstone Mountain’s resemblance to a grave marker.
Friendly Faces
Josef and Daniel: “You two are the last cyclists we will probably see!” Josef laughed, as we exchanged high-fives in the middle of the Dempster. These two have spent the last 16 months riding north from Ushuaia to Inuvik. They rode with Jeremy a bit through Yellowstone earlier in the year they said. Up next they hope to find work in Western Canada, and enjoy everything that the country has to offer. Daniel mentioned that they are already planning their next cycling adventure, although it will likely be shorter in length. Their blog is here.
Today’s Highlights
Andrew writes:Arriving at Tombstone there was a goodie bag from the girls (Natalia & Lorianne) hidden in the food cache. It had a really nice note attached, as well as a recipe for dinner. All of the ingredients needed were in the bag. I thought that the individually name-tagged beers were a nice touch also.
Today’s Lowlights
Andrew writes:At 1pm, Amanda and I were both ready to pull the plug and find a campsite. We saw a big climb ahead of us (Windy Pass) and had no idea what was on the other side.
What happened…
Andrew writes: The alarm went off at 7am, and it was raining lightly. When it went off again at 730am, it was tapering. By the time we left at 9am, it had stopped. There was a 200 foot long, by 6 inches deep lake that we had to navigate though on our way out of the campground. Amanda made it no problem, but I got stuck in the middle and had to put my foot down. Thankfully my riding shoes are quite waterproof. The Dempster wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be. Mostly hardpacked, although we rode through a few areas that they were grading, which made cycling through the soft stuff pretty hard. The terrain today was uphill for 110km, with two passes that we needed to get through. We were both ready to call it a day after 4 hours, and about 45km. Instead, we had lunch, I went for a little hill climb, and then we had a glorious 10km downhill. At the bottom of the hill, we met Josef and xxxx, and that really re-energized me. The two Czech cyclists had mentioned that they camped last night at the 110km marker pull-out, and so we headed for that. As we were almost there, Amanda made it clear that we should head for Tombstone Park Campground. I was able to flag down a truck, and Alfred gave us a ride the 30km to the campground while we rode in the truck bed again. I think Amanda is becoming addicted to riding in the back of trucks. The scenery would be very beautiful I think, if we could see it better. All day long it rained, was cloudy, foggy, or there would be a little bit of sun, but it would be short lived, and even then there were a lot of cloudy patches all over. Approaching Tombstone, the mountains are definitely breathtaking, and quite unlike any mountains I’ve seen before. Maybe we’ll do some exploring on foot tomorrow.