As every mountaineer knows, there is usually a limited time in the year when you can climb high peaks. Depending on the hemisphere and local climate, this usually is in the summer (higher latitudes) or in the dry season (near equator). Climbing a 6000m peak in winter or in the rainy season is much more extreme, more risky, less rewarding (except perhaps to avoid crowds), and in general not really an option.
In the excellent book “Climbing: Expedition Planning” authors Clyde Soles and Phil Powers have listed the prime climbing seasons for all major mountain ranges world-wide. From this I was able to generate a pattern for the peaks along the Panamerican route as follows (grey bars represent good months):
Prime Climbing Season for Panamerican Peaks
I started planning. Beginning in the North in late spring / early summer and assuming a certain average daily distance on the bike and the time spent on the various mountains, I ended up with the following pattern (yellow = within 1 month of good time, red = bad time):
Peak climbing times with original itinerary
As you can see, while there were a few peaks that fit, two were borderline (Mexico’s Orizaba and Chile’s Ojos del Salado), and three were way outside the possible climbing season: Peru’s Huascaran, Bolivia’s Nevado Sajama and Argentina’s Aconcagua! No amount of tweaking the daily distance or start time or other parameters seemed to work within one year. I didn’t want to skip any mountain. I didn’t want to extend the trip beyond roughly 1 year. What to do? I was stuck.
After some thought I had a different idea: How about riding in the Northern summer from Alaska down to Central America for the first half year, and then in the Southern summer from Patagonia up to Central America for the second half year! While this is not the original all-in-one-direction bike route, it does solve the climbing season puzzle and allow for a much better fit. My current plan looks like this (bottom five rows in reverse order):
Peak climbing times with new itinerary
There are no red zones and both Canada’s Mt. Logan and Chile’s Ojos del Salado are close to the good season. So I should have a reasonable chance of possible weather conditions for most if not all peaks. Note that I also swapped Mt. Logan and Denali at the beginning. This decision was due to the scarcity of expeditions offered on Logan. The number of climbers on Denali is about 50-100 times higher than on Logan (Denali is part of the Seven Summits, Logan is not). Consequently, there are many expeditions every week for several months on Denali, while on Logan I only found this one in 2009!
Now purists might say: “This is not the classic Panamerican Highway ride, you need to fly from Central America down to Patagonia, and the sequence of peaks doesn’t match those of the countries on the map!” And guess what, they are right! But that’s the best I could come up with. After all, this project has never been done before, so there is no template or blueprint. Finding a solution for problems like this is part of the challenge. As long as I ride the entire distance (except for the Darien Gap) and make an attempt on all peaks I am satisfied. Perhaps others will find a better solution for the peak puzzle…
March 5th, 2009
I knew this would be a logistical challenge: Getting all the gear for the bike and the climbs, researching routes, flights, bus and ferry schedules, expeditions, visa, health preparations, insurances, technical gadgets, testing everything ahead of time etc. This is by far the biggest adventure project I have ever done!
To get a feel for trip logistics, here is how I set up the first two expeditions up North:
– May-7: Flight from Florida to Whitehorse via Air Canada
– May-9 to Jun-1: Mt. Logan expedition with Canada West Mountain School
– Jun-3: Bus Transfer to Anchorage with Alaska Direct Buslines (Whitehorse – Tok – Anchorage)
– Jun 7-27: Denali expedition with American Alpine Institute
– Jun-28: Bus Transfer to Fairbanks with Alaska Direct Buslines (Anchorage – Tok – Fairbanks)
– Jun-30: Bus transfer to Prudhoe Bay with Dalton Highway Express
– Jul-1: Start bike ride …
I thought I had some equipment and it was only a matter of updating a few items here and there… Not exactly! At least there is no shortage of good information online. For example, the expedition outfitters provide detailed equipment lists, such as the Mt. Logan gear list from Canada West Mountain School and the Denali gear list from American Alpine Institute. I realized that most of my own equipment is either too old – most of my mountaineering was done when I still lived in Germany some 20 years ago – or it was no match for the conditions on Logan and Denali, considered among the coldest on Earth.
As for the bike and regular camping, I have the basics. However, one of the big changes here is my desire to ride on a recumbent, which I have never owned. (I’ll blog about that separately.) A good equipment list for the bike part of my trip has been compiled by Dani Grab and can be found here. Dani has done this bike trip in 2005/2006, so he knows what he’s talking about!
So for the last couple of weeks I have been gear shopping and ordering from many online stores such as REI or backcountry.com. It is a lot of fun when you get all this brandnew equipment and try it on – anticipation is half the fun! How I’m going to fit all this into the 2 bags allowed on the Air Canada flight to Whitehorse on May-7 – now that’s a different question…
March 4th, 2009
Some people have asked me: How did you come up with this specific idea for such a big adventure? Below I shed some light on this by giving you the context in which this idea came about.
When I was in middle and high school in Munich, me and my friends did a lot of sports. We rode the bicycle to and from school and in our spare time this was our main mode of transportation. We went hiking and skiing, then added mountain-biking to the mix. I dabbled in triathlon and ran two marathons. But my love was always the bicycle.
I discovered that I liked to ride long distance and to use the bike to get to far away places and see a lot of terrain. More than once we rode across the alps to Italy or around Mt. Blanc in France. I also did some combined riding / hiking daytrips. For example, I rode my bike from Munich to Garmisch, then ran up to the summit of the Zugspitze – Germany’s highest peak (nearly 3000m) – and rode back (180km roundtrip) in about 12 hours.
During the 2.5 years I lived in Fargo, North Dakota, I discovered tailwind riding as a way to go very far. I systematically explored ultralong downwind rides on days with strong wind, and pushed out my 24 hr riding limit via 400km to 530km and then even 700km. (See the trip reports on my home page.) That gave me a lot of confidence about using the bike to cover long distances.
When you read about long bike trips, the Pan American Highway always enters the picture – after all, it is the longest road in the world. Many riders have done this trip, so you can find ample trip reports and for the most part it is safe and you have good infrastructure in most places. You also encounter only two languages (English, Spanish), which makes things easier…
Another fascination was instilled after reading Dick Bass’ book on the “Seven Summits“. I thought about doing the 7 summits, then perhaps riding with the bike from peak to peak – similar to what Goran Kropp had done: Riding 8000km from Sweden to Nepal, then climbing Mt. Everest and finally riding back – a stunning achievement! (it seemed like a logical, albeit extreme extension of my Zugspitze tour in Germany.)
However, there are many issues with doing the 7 summits by bike: How do you cross the oceans? What route do you take? Is it safe? Can I afford ~2 years of my life for such a trip? …
Then in the fall of 2008 I had the idea of riding the Pan American Highway and climbing the highest summit of every country along the way – my version of several summits by bike was born. I gave it the name Panamerican Peaks. This idea solved many of the above issues elegantly: No ocean crossings required, time frame about 1 year, logical route. Yet it remains a BIG challenge, and to the best of my knowledge it has not been done before, so it will be a pioneering adventure.
An idea is a powerful thing! If you think about it, the big decisions in your life are usually driven by ideas. Ideas about what you want to do with your life. What kind of education you pursue or which kind of job or career you seek and accept. As it turns out, after a long gestation period of almost 20 years, this Panamerican Peaks project is now going to focus most of my energy for the next year of my life!
February 27th, 2009