With one of my classes done for summer I thought I would celebrate by heading down to the Kenai and bike Johnson's Pass which is located at about the 64 mile marker on the Seward Highway. The trail is a 21 mile point to point trail that drops you off 40 miles further down on the Seward Highway. I arrived at the trailhead around 11 am and was planning on riding there and back giving me about 42 miles of riding.
My legs weren't feeling great probably from my lack of time on the bike and the 55 mile ride I did 2 days previously. The trail started out great though on beautiful singletrack with a slight incline perfect for getting the legs warmed up. I passed a backpacker and a runner and made my first few creek crossings that were no deeper then a few inches. Further along the trail as the creeks got bigger bridges have been constructed to help you cross. You will still end up getting your feet wet as a few creeks dont have bridges and on some parts of the trail the creek was actually flowing down the trail. A few miles into the trail it quickly became overgrown with devil's club and cow parsnip that made the going that much tougher. Cow parsnip is known to give people small blisters so I was little worried with all the bushwhacking I was doing. It was also getting harder to see my front wheel and the mud was thickening in spots.
At mile 9 I stopped to get lunch as there was a great spot right before one of the bridges that
had a beautiful view of a waterfall. At mile 10 you come to a Lake and not too much further the cow parsnip retreats and the trail becomes a little wider as you start your descent. The downhill isn't very technical with just a few small rocks to navigate around. I soon became too complacent and next thing you know I was over the bars smacking my head into some downed trees. My neck was a little sore also from the fall and as I went to inspect my helmet I noticed that I put a nice crack in it.
After regrouping from the fall I started my descent, taking it much more cautiously. At mile 18.5 I came to a small stream that had about a dozen sockeye salmon in it. I didnt like biking near it due to bears so I decided to turn around and start heading back. I was walking my bike at this point since my legs were feeling pretty tired.
As I came up on the Lake again I heard a rubbing coming from my back tire and looked back to see my tire was rubbing against my rear seat stay. Upon my inspection I noticed that the bolt connecting the seat stay and chain stay and fallen out deeming my bike useless. This is the exact same thing that happened to me with the other rear triangle. I felt so stupid for not checking those as soon as I got a few rides in on the new rear triangle.
On the 10 mile hike back to the car though I had a black bear run right out in front of me and stop 20 yards of the side of the trail and just stare at me. I was a little unnerved as the bear was unphased by my hollering. From then on every minute I was hollering Hey Bear, on my hike out. I finally made it out at 10 exhausted from the days events.
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