Hemistour was a bicycle tour from Anchorage, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, completed in part by Dan and Lys Burden and in full by Greg and June Siple from 1972 to 1975.
[2] The Burdens and Siples, the core group of Hemistour, along with then-30-year-old librarian John Likins, set out from Anchorage, Alaska, on June 16, 1972.
[3] They split the route into three parts: the first from Anchorage to Missoula, Montana, where the two couples were living at the time; the second from Missoula, Montana, to Oaxaca, Mexico; and the third from Oaxaca to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego province, Argentina — the southern tip of South America.
It was in Chocolate, during a side trip in Baja California, that the group first discussed the idea of a mass bicycle ride across the United States to celebrate the bicentennial in 1976.
This time, Greg Siple and the Burdens flew to Washington, D.C., to negotiate another article with National Geographic — which was never produced — while June attended a language school in Guatemala to learn Spanish.