Adventure Cycling Association

We’ll meet in Adventure Cycling’s hometown, the beautiful and vibrant college community of Missoula, Montana. Beginning our journey north, we’ll ride between mountains and lakes through the picturesque Seeley-Swan and Flathead valleys to the ski and summer recreation resort town of Whitefish. From there, we’ll continue north, passing through northwest Montana’s Tobacco Valley to Eureka, our last stop before crossing the Canadian border at Port of Roosville to begin our trip through southern British Columbia.

This week provides some of the premier scenic highlights of the entire tour, as we cross the Canadian border and ride north along the headwaters of the Columbia River to the resort town of Radium Hot Springs, make the long climb through Canada’s Kootenay National Park to Vermillion Pass, and cross into Alberta and Banff National Park. We’ll end this week with a layover day at scenic Lake Louise. 

Leaving Banff, we'll head north toward Jasper National Park with three unforgettable days of riding along the world-famous Icefields Parkway, which should be on the top-10 bucket list of every bicycle traveler. After a revitalizing layover day in the town of Jasper, we'll launch a 10-day, 550-mile journey westward on the Yellowhead Highway, quickly reentering British Columbia. The Yellowhead, which follows several major river systems, will provide us with unforgettable overnight stops in some of BC's most popular provincial parks, lakeside resorts, and summer vacation towns.

For two gorgeous weeks we’ll turn north to tackle the Cassiar Highway, a backcountry byway short on services but long on amazing scenery. We’ll visit a string of provincial parks and small villages, including the First Nations village of Iskut, before reaching the Yukon Territory and the town of Watson Lake on the Alaska Highway.

The meaning of the word “remote” becomes clearer than ever as we depart Watson Lake for a week of pedaling on the unpaved Campbell Highway, which arcs north and west into the vast emptiness of Canada’s Yukon Territory. Overnights at a series of lakeside campgrounds will be interspersed with visits to two small villages before we join the paved Klondike Highway and head directly north again before enjoying a well-earned layover day in Dawson City, which played a major role in the Yukon Gold Rush of the 1890s.

Back on the road, we’ll head into the isolated country traversed by the unpaved Top-of-the-World Highway and toward the Canada-Alaska border. Eventually we’ll merge onto the Taylor Highway, which takes us to the Richardson Highway and the town of Tok. The Taylor Highway leg includes an overnight stay in the improbably named village of Chicken, Alaska, which will seem to us as much like the edge of the earth as Top-of-the-World did. The story goes that the town was originally to be called “Ptarmigan,” but townspeople couldn’t agree on the spelling, so Chicken was the name chosen. From Tok, three more days of northward riding will take us to the storied outpost of Fairbanks, the high point of our tour in terms of latitude. (From Fairbanks, it’s only 198 road miles to the Arctic Circle via the Dalton Highway.)

After our layover day to enjoy Fairbanks, we’ll ride for two days to Denali National Park and Preserve, where we will spend two more days exploring the park’s scenic wonders by both tour bus and bicycle. Our North Star adventure formally ends upon our departure from Denali, but Adventure Cycling has arranged for that departure to be as special as the rest of the trip: you and your bike will board the Alaska Railway’s Denali Star and make tracks to downtown Anchorage, from which point you will head for home — changed forever, no doubt, by the remarkable journey you have just completed.