Former University of Southern California rugby player Stephen Thomas is well on his way to biking from northern Alaska to the southern tip of South America.
Thomas is doing this to raise money for injured veterans (Thomas himself served in the U.S. Marine Corps). He hit a snag relatively early in his trip as the smoke from the massive forest fires in British Columbia forced him to detour around.
That wasn't the only hazard he had to watch out for . . .
Thomas tells the story of his bear sighting like this:
"I've been wanting to see bears hunting salmon for such a long time and was starting to think it wasn't going to happen on this trip after the stop I added on the trip to Haines, where I heard was good for this ... I was still thinking it wouldnt work out last night after I got in to Juneau on the ferry at 1045 pm and wasn't feeling biking to a campsite in the dark and the rain and decided to roll my sleeping bag out on the porch of a Legion Post and hope no one minded.
Fortunately, before I could pass out, I got a message from Jake, a stranger I reached out to on Couchsurfing, who asked me if I still needed a place to crash and then prceeded to drive out and picked me up at half past midnight in the rain and let me crash on his couch. Then this morning Jake drove me into town and showed me around, and after hearing what I was interested in agreed to drive me around after work and take me to spots he thought were good for it, which brings us to the part where we were hiking around in the rain and waiting to see something like this." (sic)
He moved on from Alaska, but the fires in BC made it tough to breathe.
He next moved east into Alberta and circumvented the fires. This caused a concern in that Thomas wanted to get out of the cold-weather states before the snows hit the mountains. It has meant he has been riding hard over relatively flat prairie trying to get back on track. It is hard, and often consistently flat scenery.
But the good news? He's back in the USA.
"The smoke cleared out and I finally saw some of Washington, and man oh man, it didnt disappoint! ... Along with skinnydipping in the freezing lake, we also picked huckleberries along the trail, drank beer and watched mountain goats while waiting for the mist to clear to catch a glimpse of old Mr Ranier,"
(sic) Mr. Rainier might be an honorific, but he means Mount Rainier, the tallest mountain in Washington and only marginally smaller than Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the Lower 48.
He's on his way.
To donate to Stephen Thomas's cause, which is helping injured veterans, go to:
https://www.gofundme.com/15000milepanamericancyclingchallengeforveterans