»Preview »Itinerary »Reports »Maps »Photos »Bios »Iditasport

Norwil

Pat Calls from the Yukon
LISTEN:  [RealPlayer]  [Windows Media]

    Download a FREE media player to listen.

The Yukon is about two miles wide in places and just serpentines its way out to the Gulf. It's quite a piece of work, it's like, you just look ahead and you can see five miles at the next point and you just put your head down and spin it out. Getting into villages– we're out there traveling and we don't have a clue where we're at. We leave Galena heading for Nulato and we have no clue. I know there's a village, Koyukuk, that's 25 miles from Nulato and 25 miles from Galena, but I have no clue where it's at on the river.

"I'm eating Tylenol like...the bottle says you're only supposed to eat eight a day, well I'm eating like 16 a day and then that's not even including the ibuprofen I'm eating. I feel like I'm a walking pharmaceutical experiment...."

You're just riding along and riding along and it's so vast. It's just beyond anything I've ever seen. I've never seen a river that is so huge in my life. I don't know where I'm at, I'm just riding along and I get excited when I see some shack on the side of the bank and I think, 'wow, I must be getting close to a village.' Another hour goes by and another two hours go by and I see another shack and I kind of get excited again.

What I figured out is the clues for knowing when I'm getting into a village is they start marking the trail about eight miles before the village and then there's usually bottles and cans that are littered along the sides of the trail. And when I start seeing the markings and then the garbage alongside the bank then I realize, 'God, I'm getting pretty damn close to a village.' But it's still..it's like we're traveling at six, seven, tops, seven miles an hour.

	click

From Nulato to Kaltag is 38 miles, and that's going to take me six hours to do that. And the distances, they're not that far if you're on a road bike on the highway, but on a mountain bike, pulling a trailer with 30lbs of gear on it, on 15lbs of air pressure in 2.4 bloated out tires, man, it is like slow going. My hands are completely numb, I got carpal tunnel; elbows are bugging me; my knees are sore. I'm eating Tylenol like...the bottle says you're only supposed to eat eight a day, well I'm eating like 16 a day and then that's not even including the ibuprofen I'm eating. I feel like I'm a walking pharmaceutical experiment.

And then it's like 'how much food can you eat in a day?', I'm eating six packages of Oreos, three packages of Fig Newtons, beef jerky, energy drink mix; I'm drinking like 230 ounces of electrolyte a day. And I get into any place I can make some food and I eat like three Cup of Soups, two packs of Top Ramen, and then I got chocolate-covered almonds and I got licorice. I mean I'm going through so much food a day I can't believe it. I can't get enough food inside me and I'm still right on the edge, 'I gotta eat, I gotta eat, I gotta eat, I gotta eat.' This race is just totally bizarre.

And then it's like I go from Ruby to Galena and I'm like kicking butt; I'm doing it in six hours, 45 minutes. I get to Galena and then I spend another two-and-a-half hours riding around Galena looking for my drop box at the post office. And it's not like these towns are huge or anything, little Galena is kind of a good-sized town, but even though you get to a village, your work's not done. You got to find the mailbox; you got to get in there to get your box; you got to get to the community center, or the high school or wherever, the rec center, so you can cut open the box and start filling the trailer back up with food and stuff.

It's not like checkpoint and go, checkpoint and go, it's like checkpoint, slow down, talk to people, socialize a little bit. You know we're sort of like rolling ambassadors. You can't just go into some village and say, 'give me my box, I got to get out of here. You're wasting my time.' Village life is pretty slow, people are just kind of laid back. We were in this grocery store last night, Greg Blackwell and I and we were trying to issue the phone to call the postmaster...[Transmission Ends]

—Pat Norwil, MountainZone.com Correspondent

EXPEDITION DISPATCHES