PMA on The Adventure Trail

The idea behind any wilderness cycling adventure is to ride as much as possible. This often means shifting into the lowest gear and focusing every ounce of attention to make it over watermelon sized rocks, deadfall trees, knee-deep creeks, and other assorted obstacles found in the backcountry. Options and work-arounds, like a packraft, allow for circumvention of un-rideable water-bodies to reach the next shore and carry on.

Words, film, and photos by Bjørn Olson

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When rain falls in buckets, headwinds force you into a slow-grind crawl, or tires cake with mud, there are two options: suffer and whimper, or suffer and relish. PMA (positive mental attitude) is the final ingredient to make any good trip great.

The Adventure Trail is a three to five-day fat-bike and packraft route, which begins in Homer, Alaska. The route contains beaches, single-track trails, steep headlands, glacial streams, riverbeds, outwash plains, and a modicum of bushwhacking. Labor Day last, our ADD addled crew of eight disembarked on a hastily cobbled together traverse of the route under less than ideal conditions.

The rewards of wilderness travel by bicycle are vast. The Adventure Trail, with a little PMA and good friends, is an ideal place to scratch the surface.

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