A Wild Ride

Decades before the word “bikepacking” was a twinkle in a marketing managers eye, three intrepid souls set off to bike, hike and pack-raft 775 miles across the Alaska Range. In the summer of 1996 Carl Tobin, Paul Adkins and Roman Dial pulled off the most monumental bikepacking expedition to ever take place. An article that appeared in the May 1997 issue of National Geographic Magazine chronicled their journey.

To this day not many people have aspired to, much less matched, the high bar set by this team. The sheer difficulty, creativity and aesthetic of this undertaking has opened my eyes to the boundless potential of adventure-travel by bicycle. If you have the bug, read on.

For more photography of this trip check out Bill Hatcher’s personal blog post about documenting this expedition and if you would like to read about more hell-biking check out this article that appeared in the October 1989 issue of Mountain Bike Magazine that chronicles this teams bike ride from Nabesna to McCarthy Alaska in the summer of 1988, a trip that foreshadowed the Alaska Range traverse.