Mt. McKinley is one of the coldest, most extreme places on earth. We found this out the hard way. We had been on the mountain for 12 days and were climbing from 14,200 feet to 17,200 feet. The weather was a nice sunny 10 degrees, but without warning the weather changed dramatically. 

Like most of the world’s largest mountains, Mt. McKinley, also known as Denali, creates its own weather. This was one of those times. The weather turned from sunny to near zero visibility with hurricane like winds. The temperature was -25 degrees without the wind. We were climbing along a very narrow ridge, which dropped thousands of feet to our left and right. The only thing I could think to do was to start crawling on our hands and knees to escape the 60 mile per hour winds. 

We could go no further. We couldn’t see anything, and were getting very cold. We decided to dig a snow cave on the side of the mountain. We stayed in the tiny cave for 24 hours to wait out the weather. This was only one of many challenging situations we faced on Denali. We continued on our climb, and on the 4^th of July we reached the 20,320 foot summit. But this was only the beginning of our trip.

We descended the mountain and were flown back to the small Alaska town of Talkeetna. We both were tired from the strain of pulling 110 pounds of gear each, and we both lost a lot of weight. We decided what better way to recover then by going on a backpacking trip to the northern tip of Denali National Park. We knew the area had a lot of bears, but we weren’t expecting to see one up close and personal. While heading back out of the bush, we experienced one of the scariest things that can happen while in Alaska. We were charged by a very large grizzly bear. He ran full speed toward us, and stopped abruptly 50 feet from where we were standing. Just as fast as he had ran toward us, he turned and sprinted away disappearing into the Alaska wilderness. 

We returned to Talkeetna, refreshed and ready to resume the rest of our trip. We had our bicycles shipped up to Alaska so that we could ride them south to Mexico. Our mantra while on the mountain and for the rest of the trip was, I can’t wait to get to Mexico. Just wait till we get to the warm sun, and beautiful beaches of Mexico. We had to keep telling ourselves that over the next three months while we biked through the freezing weather but also the most beautiful places in North America. We biked out of Alaska into the Yukon Territory, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. We had many more bear encounters, also some moose, and wolf encounters. We biked through mud, potholes, rocks, rain, sleet, hail, and massive mosquitoes. While on our trip we carried several pairs of Costa Del Mar sunglasses. They helped keep the freezing rain and mud out of our eyes, but the most impressive thing was the clarity of our surroundings. I was a little skeptical at first of what these glasses were supposed to do. But when I put them on I was amazed at how the colors were brought out of the mountains, and the blue and green lakes surrounding us. We stopped at many of the lakes to fish for grayling and salmon, and once again the glasses performed great.

We biked like crazy to make it to California. We both had dates to keep, but it wasn’t with a couple of babes. It was to scuba dive with the most feared and impressive creature of the sea. We had friends and family meet us on the boat to hopefully see the massive chompers of Jaws. We spent all day diving in the frigid waters in the Farallon Islands. The islands are a marine sanctuary which protects one of the most diverse animal populations in the world. Many bird species and other marine life surround the islands, but the thousands of seals are what attract the largest great whites in the world to this area. Not only was the water cold, but it had a stench that stung our nose hairs. We were certain that at any moment a huge shark would pop out of the abyss.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see any sharks due to the poor visibility of the water. We did however get to see almost everyone puke their guts out. 

We finished off our trip by biking to the town of Rosarito, Baja Mexico. The final mileage biked on our trip was 3,987 miles. We successfully climbed Denali, we didn’t get eaten by bears or sharks, and we safely biked through the crazy towns of Mexico to reach our goal intact.

We filmed our entire trip and plan to have our documentary finished soon titled “Exploring the Unknown”. Also, be on the lookout as we tour the country with our multi media presentation. Dates to be determined. To find out about the film and presentation go to our website at www.live-adventure.com.