'71 IHS grad bicycled from Pierre to North Pole

It is not unusual to put three thousand miles on a vehicle during the summer. Three thousand miles on a bicycle in 40 days at age sixty-five-that's intriguing. Bicyclist, Gary Wietgrefe, started in Pierre with a goal of North Pole, Alaska. To be exact, 2,998 miles later he passed Santa Claus House and a pen of reindeer to arrive unscathed at his nephew's home in North Pole.

Wietgrefe retired in 2012 and often dreamed of bicycling to Alaska. "After I turned 65, I thought this was a good year to try it," said Gary Wietgrefe, an Ipswich native and life-long South Dakotan. "Our nephew and family live in North Pole, Alaska, so I thought that would be a good destination for a summer ride."

The last few years Gary and his wife Patricia have traveled to many countries on four continents. They had been to Alaska years before but have never driven there. Rather than flying, this time Patricia drove and lined up lodging and meals, meanwhile Gary biked and average of 75 miles per day, eight-hour days, for forty days.

"It was a lot easier than tossing hay bales as a kid with my brothers all summer on our farm south of Ipswich," he reflected. "Then we took Sunday's off. Since I didn't consider this bike ride work, I only took two rain days-one in Saskatchewan and one in Alberta."

Many have asked how he prepared? It was not the normal preparation of taking bicycle spinning classes all winter. He planned to build endurance. The first five days he logged between 50 to 60 miles per day. The last five days in the Yukon and Alaska his average was about a hundred miles per day.

"Actually, this year I only put on 4.4 miles on my ten-year-old hybrid bike before I took off." He went on to explain, "I just wanted to check accuracy of a new $12 odometer against my new GPS." As an avid hiker he often logged a couple ten to fifteen mile hikes each week through the Sierra Madre foothills in southern Mexico where they wintered the last couple years.

Wietgrefe said another common question from many: What did you eat and how many calories did you consume?

"My GPS totaled 132,469 calories-an average of 3,312 per day while biking," Wietgrefe reported. Clutching his waste, "I lost only one pound on the trip. The best measure was my stomach."

After bicycling into a strong Alberta wind eighty-seven miles one day, his GPS indicated less calories consumed than the next day with the wind behind him for eighty miles. "I tried to absorb nature on this trip," he said. "Gadgets are not natural."

Wietgrefe found the Global Positioning Systems great for tracking distances, time, and speed but those factors calculated calories consumed which may be accurate without wind. To save battery life, elevation was apparently estimated every couple minutes-too long for short hills.

"Saskatchewan was flat, but one day I was rolling through some hills and actually lost feet of total climb in a two-mile stretch," he explained. "The Northern Rockies through the Yukon Territory intquite mountainous." The total 59,200 feet climb was GPS calculated, but somewhat arbitrary. Had Wietgrefe been flying that would have put him into the stratosphere.

Wildlife.

It is impossible to go ten-miles-per-hour, eight-hours-per-day through the Dakotas, Prairie Provinces, Canadian Rockies, Yukon Territory, and Alaska without some unusual experiences-especially with wildlife.

Riding bicycle on a highway shoulder would be considered a wild life for many. Wildlife definition changes with age and location. It is different for those returning to college compared to bicycling amongst grizzly and black bears, moose, elk, grey wolves, coyotes, melanistic and grey fox, porcupines, wood buffalo, and nesting sandhill cranes in the northern Rockies and Yukon Territory.

"My favorite day, I was pedaling 12-13 miles-per-hour when I saw, heard, or felt something different. I turned my head right and was eyeball-to-eyeball with a crane," Wietgrefe's voice rose with excitement. His later research indicated a sandhill crane may have been courting him.

After drafting slightly behind him, Wietgrefe went on to explain how the crane then landed in the ditch ahead. "I couldn't believe it. Wind direction and my speed must have attracted her. After casually landing, the crane walked into the four-to-five-foot-tall brush, squawked, popping its head out occasionally, squawking again and again-apparently inviting me in while I stood amazed eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Until the crane relationship, his blog that night was going to be about a black bear that rambled fifty yards in front of him apparently more interested in a dandelion meal on the other side of the highway. "For hundreds of miles I saw grizzly and black bear grazing roadside dandelion blossoms. Since they can run 30-40 miles-per-hour, no way could I outrun them."

There are no population centers in northern British Columbia and over half the Yukon citizens live around their capital, Whitehorse. For a thousand miles few tourists and road construction crews were his only traffic. Wietgrefe explained, "When available, I used photographing RVers and campers as moose and bear-blocks while passing. Cautiously ignoring dangerous animals as I passed may have been risky, but impatience attracted too much attention."

Mountain buffalo (officially wood bison) run wild in northern British Columbia into the southern Yukon. They are smaller than Plains buffalo, but unpredictable and fast.

With nearly 20 hours of sunlight, he started each day shortly after sunup with wildlife surprises awaiting. Bears were not the only dangerous animals. For over 200 miles wood buffalo grazed ditches. Cows protecting calves and young males protecting herds were worst. Wietgrefe explained, "Wood buffalo spooked easily. I never knew when they would turn to defend themselves. Only a cow moose protecting her days-old calf scared me more as I stopped to avoid a collision."