'26 International Gathering - Yukon

Words by Will Litty

Photos by Dan Milner and Josh Conroy

As the engines roared and the plane slowly picked up speed, I couldn’t help but imagine what adventures lied in store for me over the next week. Before this excursion, I had never visited Canada and here I was, 35,000 feet in the air flying directly north over the interior of Canada to Whitehorse, a city nestled in the rugged and remote Yukon territory. For the entirety of my two and half hour flight from Vancouver, the only things visible from my window seat were massive snow-covered mountains and glacial fields spanning as far as the eye could see.  

You know the remote feeling you get when flying over oceans? This was similar, except it was prompted by the sheer vastness of the landscape, which I had never experienced before. This overwhelming sense of natural beauty set the tone for the week to come.  

Mountain bikers tend to stick out in crowds, even when halfway around the world. As a lifelong mountain biker myself, I’ve developed a knack for picking out other riders. This proved to be true the moment we landed. With stoke in the air, Yeti Freaks immediately found each other. After we scrambled to collect our Yetis, one of our guides greeted us at the airport. Sylvain, who owned and ran Boreale Explorers, had a friendly, grounded attitude that immediately calmed any nerves for the week. 

Our homebase for the week, Boreale Lodge, was conveniently nestled between Whitehorse and Carcross – two locations that we would frequent on this trip. Surrounded by large aspen groves and snowcapped mountains, the Lodge truly felt like an oasis. The property consisted of one large communal building, where home-cooked meals were served family style, and featured numerous smaller yurts and suites. The bike storage yurt, which would later host a few late-night emergency fixes, was soon teeming with life and quickly overtaken by the Turquoise Yetis fresh off the plane. Topping off the true biker’s paradise was private singletrack, winding its way around the Lodge and showing off the fire pit, which had a knack for keeping people up way past their bedtime.  

Land of the Midnight Sun 

Continuing with the theme of “firsts”, this was my first time experiencing nearly 24 hours of sunlight. From mid-May through mid-July, the Yukon never fully experiences darkness, earning it the name “Land of the Midnight Sun”. Taking advantage of this special phenomenon, we geared up for our first ride around 9pm, heading out straight from the lodge. Swapping bike lights for cans of bear spray, we set off for our first taste of what the Yukon had to offer.  

Traversing a mix of game trails and double track, we wound our way through beautiful forest and over tall ridgelines, eventually ending up at the shoreline of Lewes Lake. Riders sessioned natural sandy features, pedaling and pumping over terrain with breathtaking views of jagged peaks in the distance.  

Back at the lodge, beers were iced down and the campfires lit, which would become a nightly ritual for the remainder of the trip. With the sun never fully setting, we stayed up late getting to know one another, drooling over each other’s meticulously customized Yetis and quickly becoming good friends. 

Singletrack to Success 

The phrase, “no dig, no ride” is a well-known sentiment within the mountain bike community. Singletrack to Success (S2S) is an organization that puts this phrase into practice by hiring local youth with the goal of building and maintaining trails on Montana Mountain, a sacred site to the Carcross/Tagish First Nation (CTFN) people. Since we rode at Montana Mountain, we couldn’t think of a better way to pay respect to the land and give back to the CTFN people than to join the S2S crew for a dig day. Armed with freshly TURQ-painted  trail tools from Coastal Jibs, we worked side by side building a new pump track and dirt jump area followed by a few laps to ensure our work held up. The hardworking and driven nature of S2S crew left us feeling inspired and honored to have contributed to such a special organization.  

Grey Mountain: Dream Trail 

Grey Mountain introduced us to the Yukon’s alpine terrain. The appropriately named Dream Trail defined the phrase “earn your turns”. Before we knew it, the steep and narrow hairpins weaving through the lush forest gave way to a massive ridgeline with a seemingly painted line of singletrack leading off into the distance. After a few false summits and more than one hike-a-bike, the trail topped out at just over 4,500 feet above sea level, delivering an amazing 360-degree view. On one side sat the colorfully painted town of Whitehorse and the Yukon River. The rest of the view was nothing but wilderness, leaving me with a similar feeling of awe to the one I’d experienced on the plane.  

Descending the Dream Trail did not disappoint. With massive views, amazing rock features, and hero dirt served up in abundance, the climb that had once felt like an eternity disappeared quickly as we and our Yetis ripped back into town. 

The Yukon River 

While mountain biking is certainly the focus of our International Yeti Gathering, we also view it as a great opportunity to experience new cultures, landscapes, and occasionally, an activity other than biking. The Yukon River flows through Whitehorse and played a major role in the history and namesake of the town, earning it an important feature in the itinerary. Our crew, now best friends, traded their chamois and bike shoes for swim trunks and sandals and prepared for a trip down the beautiful Yukon River. We filled two massive canoes and began our trip through Klondike Gold Rush history. The once raging rapids led to the name “Whitehorse” due to the distinct similarity of the water to flowing manes of charging white horses.  

As our week in the Yukon wound down, it was hard not to reflect on just how many "firsts" this trip had delivered: my first glimpse of Canada's wild north, my first taste of endless daylight, and my first International Yeti Gathering. But looking back, the landscape and the riding, as unforgettable as they were, weren't really the heart of the trip. It was the strangers who became close friends over campfires, the locals who welcomed us onto their trails, and the shared sense of awe that comes from mountain biking in new places. The Yukon has a way of making you feel impossibly small and completely at home at the same time, and as our Yetis were loaded onto the plane home, one thing was certain: this wouldn't be the last time Yeti Freaks flew north in search of the midnight sun.  

We respectfully acknowledge that this year's International Yeti Gathering took place on the traditional territories of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.