Adventure Magazine

"Fat biking was
a great way
to get around
and familiarize
ourselves with
the area and it
was fantastic
having our own
personal guide
in Dusty."
The town of Anchorage is dwarfed by the majestic Chugach Mountains in the background - Image by Lynne Dickinson
Above: Dustin and Steve
on the Tony Knowles
Coastal Trail
Left: The illusive Winter
Bull Moose - Image
compliments Visit
Anchorage
We had left the heat of a NZ
summer (well actually the middle
of unprecedented floods) and after
a short connecting flight arrived at
Anchorage, a city blanketed in snow.
Anchorage sits at the base of the
Chugach Mountains with Cook Inlet
at its feet. Six mountain ranges can
be seen from Anchorage, including
the Alaska Range in the north where
you’ll see the infamous Denali on
a clear day. There are another 200
recognised mountains, 60 glaciers
and 30 lakes and ponds in the
Chugach National Forest and State
Park, all within 80km of Anchorage.
We arrived in the late evening and
were met by Teri from Visit Anchorage
who drove us straight to the Lakefront
Anchorage, our accommodation for
the night. We were greeted with a
life-sized polar bear and bison in the
lobby (both stuffed) along with nearly
every other Alaskan animal hanging
on the walls (well mainly their heads!)
It was quintessential Alaska, where
the urban meets the wild.
Our first morning we were greeted
with a picturesque white city, with
deep snow everywhere. Dustin Eroh,
co-owner of Alaska Bike Adventures,
picked us up from our hotel to take us
on our fat biking adventure. Fat biking
is fairly new in New Zealand, however
in climates such as Alaska, where the
ground is covered in snow for half
the year, fat biking has been around
for a while. In fact, fat bikes were
first seen in the 1900’s but it wasn’t
until the 70’s that modern-looking fat
bikes came to life with the help of bike
frame builders from Alaska.
Dustin took us out to the start of the
Tony Knowles Coastal Trail which
winds 17 km along the coast from
downtown Anchorage to Kincaid Park.
On paper, this looked like a fairly
easy ride, however with the amount of
snow we were soon breaking a sweat
despite the cold. This was our first
introduction to Anchorage and it did
not disappoint. Biking along snow filled
trails we could see numerous mountain
ranges in the distance and an ice
covered ocean moving eerily alongside
the trail.
Fat biking was a great way to get
around and familiarize ourselves with
the area and it was fantastic having
our own personal guide in Dusty.
His knowledge of the area and our
surrounds were invaluable. At one point
we left our bikes on the side of the trail
and headed onto the foreshore, which
was covered in ice bergs and snow.
We walked to the edge and watched
the change of tide move the icebergs
along right in front of us
Our next stop was Girdwood, a
45 minute drive from downtown
Anchorage for some skiing and
snowmobiling and hopefully to catch
a view of the Northern Lights. The sun
was doing its best to break out from the
clouds as we drove along Turnagain
Arm towards Girdwood. We stopped
numerous times to photograph,
however, nothing can capture the
grandeur of the scenery here and no
photo could do it justice.
50//WHERE ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS/#237 ADVENTUREMAGAZINE.CO.NZ//51