I wake and think that it is probably 5:00 am, or so. I check
my watch and it is 12:30 am. I am terrified, as I feel that it is time to get
up and get going. I look outside my tent and see a full moon, which is electrifying
the landscape as Andy had predicted the day before.
I lay
awake in the tent noticing that I was too hot to get into the down sleeping
bag, until a blast of cold air sent me into the cocoon. I sewed the down sleeping
bag when I was 20 years old, and added extra down in the feet section of the
bag, which makes it very warm down into the teens. The pattern of silent calm
hot, and then a blast of cold air continued throughout the night, which made it
impossible for me to get any sleep until about 3:00 am. I finally fell asleep,
only to wake at 7:00 am, and find that the temperature is now 59 degrees.
I get up and
check my water status, only to find that I had about an inch of water left in a
little water bottle, and whatever was left in my hydra-pack. I decide to forgo
any cooked breakfast, and to eat the second half of an energy bar from the day
before, along with a gulp of water. I want to conserve the water in the event
of an emergency during the day. I close down, and pack the tent, and then
literally pray that I not have any problems on my decent. The night before,
John went on about how difficult the trail up was on his car. John thought that
he really should not have made it, but somehow he make the campsite. I descend
the rugged rocky road, just taking it one section at a time.
As
I get to a level area, I stop the bike and take a small composure break before
pressing on. There are areas where the slope is so inclined with loose rock,
that you must let the bike go, only to break when I land on areas that will
allow the bike to grab ground and stop. I let the engine do most of the work on slowing the bike, and use both brakes to keep the bike’s speed in check. I
get down to the kilns and do a little gig, as I am happy to get past the this section of trail.
I continue on the gravel road past the kilns, which are once again more difficult
than I remember for the last trip.
I
arrive at the paved road and swish down the slopes until I come to the
maintenance areas at the bottom. At the
maintenance areas are springs that flood across the road, and there are many
animals on the road. I see about 10 rabbits of all sizes, and then I see what
looks like a baby mountain lion jogging of the road. I think that my goPro
captured the scene, but I have not checked as of yet.
I arrive at the Trona
cut-off road, which has been closed most of the time that I have been coming to
Death Valley. The road sign says “Rough Road”, but I have never been on the
road, and I am just dying to see what it is like. The road is rough, but
nothing bad, and eventually connects with the main road to Trona. I get a few
miles down the road and run into the gravel road to the Ballarat ghost town. The
town of Ballarat was founded in 1897, and had 500 residents, 7 saloons, a post
office, a morgue, and a jail. Eventually, the mines in the area started to play
out and in 1917 the post office closed.
I start down the gravel road towards Ballarat at 40 mph, confident in my
ability to navigate the seemly easy gravel road: I sit with my legs crossed,
a martini in my right hand, and a cigar in my left hand.
I get about a half
mile down the road, and encounter deep pebble sized gravel. I lose control of
the bike, and the next thing I know, I am laying face up on the gravel
road about 10 feet in front of the down bike, with my legs folded under me. My
first thought is “Am I okay?”, because it all happened so fast. I manage to stand, and do not detect any
broken bones or bloody areas. I survey the carnage, and find that the bike is embedded
into the sandy walls of the road, the windscreen has been broken into three
pieces, and both rear view mirrors are impaled into the road further, up
stream.
There are other miscellaneous
parts strewn around gravel road, which I immediately pickup and stick in my
pockets. My second thought is "Wow, I really need to get some off road riding education and training".
The bike hit the road on the left side, trapping my left ankle, then
slammed into the wall of the road, which caused the bike to flip over to its
right side, ejecting me forward of the bike, and causing me to slam my ribs and
head into the road.
I immediately,
start the disassembly of the gear, which I am now quite used to, and pile the
pieces next to the bike. I dig out the sand around the tires so that I can push
the bike backwards, and out of the wall of sand. I once again stand the bike up,
and try starting it. The bike does not start, and I am now deeply concerned, as
I have not seen a car at all today. I check the bike, and discover that the
kill switch was turned off during the crash. I flip it on, and the bike
immediately starts. One thing about this bike that I really love, is it always
starts right up, regardless of altitude, rain, or temperature.
I remove the remainder of the broken windscreen,
load the bike back up and hit the road. The blast of fresh air without the
windscreen, actually feels good in Death Valley. Undeterred by the early days events, I am determined
to take the most fun route home, which passes by Joshua Tree, through Idyllwild,
and over the Ortega highway.
I take the Romona Expressway home, and as I get to
the cow smelly section, the highway patrol diverts the traffic off the main road,
and through a dirt road, that is used to support the work on the fields, and
livestock areas. The dirt is a fine dark dirt, that creates a smoke like fog
when a car drives by.
Now imagine, that there are 30 cars in front of me, as
well as oncoming cars driving down this same road. There were times where I
could not see a thing, and I ran the risk of hitting a hole in the road, and
being thrown like earlier in the day: I was not a happy camper to suffer this
indignity, at the end of my ride.
The
road bypass scene was a horror story, as you could see people’s faces of concern as they passed
you in the fields. I do not think anyone
knew the route, or when we were going to get out, but finally after about 2
miles we hit a paved road, which was on the other side of the supposed accident
scene. The rest of the ride was without incident, and I arrived home at 6:45
pm.
I wake and walk across highway 50 to breakfast. As I am walking across, I look up a block and see a herd of deer cross the highway. A couple of trucks slowed to let the deer pass safely. I finish breakfast and hit the road.
As I am leaving town I finally see the US 50 sign that says “The loneliest Road in America”. The last two times I passed through town, I missed the sign and have been kicking myself ever since. As I am 40 miles out of town, I see a man dressed nicely, pushing a full baby carriage, with the top down. This sight is really strange in that we are about 100 miles from the next town, and there are no ranches or houses out on the road. The guy must have a few loose screws, or there is something nearby that I do not know about, but then why would someone walk a baby carriage on US 50?
The conditions and road are just perfect for the first time in two weeks. There is no wind, the temperature is about 60, and the sun is out. There is not a trace of smoke as I look to the mountains. Highway 50 is about as good as it gets, and I am riding it.
I ride for a couple of hours and turn on to a dirt road which I take for about 7 miles. I am heading to the Spencer Hot springs. I decided to go to the hot springs this time, because I have the off-road tires on, where previously I did not.
The road is gravel and when you get to the hot springs it is gravel and dirt. The hot springs are on BLM land, and not maintained by the BLM. Some of the locals have done some improvements over the years to make it enjoyable. I am not sure where the hot springs actual are, but I see a van parked to a water container.
I decide to stop and check it out, and ask the van owner if he knows where all the spring locations are. I park the bike and walk around to the other side of the van, and there is Andy in all his glory walking towards me waving. Andy is a red head with freckles, who I would guess to be 65 years old. I ask Andy, “Where are all the other springs, and is this one here a good one?”. Andy replies that there are about 5 springs dotted over the landscape, and this one is a great one. The road only goes up from here, and I do not really like the look of the road, so I opt to stay here. I ask Andy “Going nude appears to be acceptable here?”, which is yet another stupid question, because Andy is standing in front of me in his buff, casually having a conversation. Andy replies, “Yes, in fact I went naked on a two mile hike this morning”.
I strip down to my bike shorts, which are essentially tight swim trunks, and jump in the hot tub. The temperature is just right, as Andy had diverted the tube carrying raw hot water out of the tub earlier to cool it down. You want the water hotter, then put the tube back in the tank. I soak for about 10 minutes, while Andy goes for yet another hike. I get out, and get dressed as Andy, and another gentleman, with a dog comes back to the tub and start a conversation. Andy says that he got a music degree at UCI, the third year of the school’s existence, and that he was just back for the last two weeks visiting his brother in Denver. Andy spent the night at the tub, with three other groups, that have left earlier. It must have been quite a party late last night at the hot tubs. I had hoped to camp at the tubs last night, but could not get here in time due to construction and the storm. I finish getting dressed, thank Andy and the other guy, and hit the road South, all the while the wind and temperature increase.
The wind starts getting pretty strong and impacts my mileage, but I get to the town of Beatty on the outside of Death Valley at about 3:00 pm. I suit up for a hot one and head down into the Death Valley, where I clock 114 degrees at the bottom. I then head toward the Kilns and Mahogany flats, which is at 8,050 feet and the highest campground in Death Valley. Mahogany Flats is located in a juniper forest in the Panamint mountains.
Once I get just South of the Kilns, the road turns to heavy gravel. The road appears much more difficult than the last time I was on it about 5 years ago. I head up the gravel road, which now has a steep incline that starts to turn into loose rocks. I get up pretty far, and concerned that I missed the campsite, I start to move to the side to stop, which is a huge mistake because I hit a rock, and I immediately drop the bike on the incline.
The good news is it is a great spot to drop the bike, because it is just off the road and smooth, but still on a good incline. I strip the bike and hoist it up as before, and continue on the road, only to find that the campsite is just around the bend. The 16 campsites, or so are totally empty. Just me once again, in my own campground.
The views from the campground are of the park’s valley 8,050 feet below. The winds are gusting, but I already have my down jacket on as the sun has just set over the next ridge. Could be a windy night, although I doubt it will rain: but you never know. Unfortunately, I did not secure my main water source in the form of a platypus water bottle on the bike very well, and it must have fallen off during the ascent. I do have a couple of small water bottles, so I will not die, but I may not boil or cook something in the morning as I may not have enough water left after the night. We will see how I am feeling. There are not any animals here, other than one small bird that is walking around the campsite looking or food.
As I sit at my picnic table working my blog, John walks into the campground. John is planning to go to Rogers Peak at 9,990 feet the highest spot in the part tomorrow with a telescope, and says he was in Badwater, the lowest point yesterday. John is originally from Atlanta, and now lives in Nashville. This is his first time on the West coast, and loves what he is seeing.
I point to the last campsite, and suggest that John take it, as I believe it to be the premiere location, with a view. John is off to check it out and stake his claim. The little bird is still meandering around the campsite looking for food in the dark.
I wake to find the temperature at 35 degrees. After a hand-freezing pack-up, I successfully navigate back down the gravel road to the main highway and head South.
The Salmon river continues to meander flowing North.
I am traveling South, but something feels wrong and I get the impression that I am traveling downhill, but the river is flowing North: must be an optical illusion. The river takes us to a small canyon that is densely packed with trees, and it feels even colder. I would have used the heated jacket, but I packed it away a few days ago. I finally pop-out into a prairie area that I cross for about an hour, and then the road goes over a mountain. Along the way, are offers for scenic viewpoints, which I decline since the smoke prohibits seeing too far. There have been many viewpoints I would have loved to stop at over the last few days, if it were not for the smoke. I enter Ketchum and am amazed at how upscale the town is. I was expecting a sleepy little town, but instead find a touristy ski resort town. I want to get some breakfast so I start into town looking at Yelp for guidance. The restaurants I see are very much upscale “che-fee-fee” restaurants, which are not what I was looking for. I stop the bike in a clearly defined “no parking” stripped zone, to check Yelp for another breakfast option. While I am pondering the iphone screen, I hear a voice say “Do you need directions?”. I look up and there in the middle of the street is a really nice looking police SUV, and an officer looking at me. Realizing that I am looking bad, in both my garb and my parking spot, I say “Yes, I am heading South”. Which is kind of a stupid thing to say since the highway comes in fro the North and exits the city to the South.
If I came in from the North, then all I would need to do is continue on. “Do you need to know how to get to Twin?” asks the officer. I respond with “Yes, that is it”, and he says “you get back on the 93 and head South, you cannot miss it”. I thank him profusely for the information, start my engine and take off South. I get to Twin Falls and find that just as you get there a huge ravine appears, much like what you encounter coming Southbound into Tao, New Mexico. You are just traversing the prairie and suddenly the earth gives way to a huge gap. I get about an hour South of Twin Falls and stop at a rest stop to get a snack, and check on the oil level on the bike. In order to accurately check the oil level I must put the bike on the maintenance stand, and in order to get the bike on the maintenance stand I must take off the pannier, because they are too heavy to get the bike up on.
As I am sitting down, Roger an older guy dressed in black pants, black tee shirt, pony tail and tats walks up and says “You okay, you having bike problems?” I tell Roger that I am just checking the oil, and there is no problem. He then tells me he is a bike guy, but is driving the motor-home in front of us. Roger then says “I was not too far from here about 20 years ago riding with my friend, and I pulled over to wait for him. I waited and waited, and then a lady pulled up in a car and asked if I was waiting for another guy, and If I was, then he was back about a mile in the middle of the road. I went back, and there he was with an electrical problem and he had a rock on the panel, and was sitting on the rock.” Before I could get better clarity on the road, and the electrical panel story, Roger’s wife Gloria walks up with their dog, as she was having a hard time trying to get the dog to “go”. “Are you telling a Pete story?” Gloria cheerfully chimes. In a downward beat, Gloria then continues with “Oh….Pete died yesterday” as she looks at me. I tell them that I am sorry, and they tell me they have been on the road telling each other Pete stories, and reliving the good old days when they would ride these same roads with Pete. Gloria hands Roger the dog, and then heads off to do her own thing. While Gloria is gone, Roger tells me that he once went way up North in Alaska on his Harley. “I only saw about 5 Harleys way up North, mostly it was BMWs” says Roger. “I ran into another Harley guy at a campsite, that was waiting on a new chain to be delivered, and he was on his third chain, and boy it would be expensive to have a chain delivered to a remote campsite. I was hoping that was not going to be me next” says Roger. The last thing Roger told me was that I needed to check out Shoshone Falls, as it was as great as Niagara Falls. I told him that I had never heard of Shoshone falls, but I would be sure to check it out next time through. As I continued on, the temperature got to 95 degrees and the smoke slowly dissipated. By the time I got to central Nevada the smoke was all but gone, thanks to a wind coming out of the South. At one point, I was riding and saw what looked to be a gliding bird in the air above and in front of me. As I got closer, it looked more like a glider. Suddenly, I realized it was a tumbleweed, suspended in the air by an invisible dust devil. But, by the time I realized it was a dust devil, it was too late, and I was in it being jerked around the highway. The landscape was classic Nevada sagebrush, with mountains in the background and nothing in between. My plan for the night was to camp near Austin, Nevada, but due to several heavy-duty road construction projects, my progress was greatly diminished. As I was approaching Ely, a great and dark storm was coming out of the South. The winds were the strongest of the trip, as great, or greater than the winds I encountered in the Yukon. At his point, I could only achieve a speed of 65 mph, due to the intensity of the head-winds. There was heavy blowing sand, so I decided to forgo the camping and find a hotel in Ely. I was lucky to get a room at the same hotel that I had used two years ago on my highway 50 ride. Overall, there were tremendous landscape and temperature changes on this 455 mile ride through Idaho and Nevada: a good day.
I wake, get some breakfast and check how the
smoke situation is doing outside: it is bad.
I hit the road and although it is 10 am, the sun is just an orange globe
in the hazy sky.
I travel south on the 93 until I hit Missoula, Montana where I
grab some lunch. I continue south thinking that the road will now change into a
winding mountain road with little, or no cars, but quite the opposite is true.
There are tons of cars going both South and North, and on both sides of the
highway are industrial buildings. I stop to get some gas, and as I am working
on the gas cap I hear a diesel pull up behind me and out of the dodge pickup
truck steps Jim, who is about 75 years old and wearing rancher garb. “What part of California are you from?” asks
Jim. I tell him that I am from Orange County. “The last republican holdout.” Spouts
Jim. “I was born in Alameda, and went to school at Berkley. Alameda was a good
place to grow up” Says Jim. Jim is
filling a gas can and says this Suzuki ATV only gets about 15 mpg. I wish Jim a good day and head back on my
way. The industrial view goes on for
about 2 hours and finally, the canyon walls narrow, and the meandering Salmon
river springs into life. The Salmon river was use by Lewis and Clark on their
expedition across the West, and there are many historical markers describing
their efforts. I get about an hour past the town of Salmon, and decide to ride
to a BLM campground that is about 7 miles off the highway. The road quickly
turns into gravel, but thanks to my new-found Dalton highway skills, and my off-road
tires, I make haste to the campground.
I
pull into the campground and find that I am the only one here. There are two
picnic benches, a beautiful little babbling stream, an outhouse, and a water
pump. I was really expecting no water on such a remote and small campsite. I
start working on the bike, as always and a little white car pulls up into the
campground.
I am thinking that I now have neighbors, but Tom jumps out and
assembles his fishing pole. As he is
walking by, I ask Tom if there are really fish in this little steam and he says
“You bet, there are rainbow, brook” and a couple of other trout that I cannot
recall. I then say “They stock the
stream?”, and Tom says “No, they are all native.”, which does not make sense to
me, as I recall that only brook trout are native to most these areas? Tom heads off and I eat dinner. About an hour later, Tom comes back from the
stream, and I ask if he caught any fish, and he tells me he caught about 6 or 7,
with the largest being 7 inches long. I do not see him carrying any of the
fish, so I assume he did a catch and release. We start talking and I find out
that he is volunteering at one of the local state parks. He has been here six
months, and prior he was down near Death Valley for six months. They have been
full time living in an RV for a year, and he is loving it. Technically, they
are citizens of Texas, which allows people that live in an RV to only have a PO
box. Tom used to work at the University
of Arizona in Facilities Management.
I told him I received my degree in
Landscape Architecture at UofA. Tom says
that the new building housing Landscape Architecture was a disaster, because they
put no insulation in the roof, as it was to be green, and then they tried to
plant vines to go up the side of the wall, but the extreme heat killed them
all. Tom says his wife is a biologist, and loves this area because of all the
diversity. Tom says that he does miss
other areas, and that the closest thing to ethnic food in the area is pizza. Just
then Gloria comes back from the other side of the road. Tom asks if she saw
anything new, and she says “Na”. Tom
asks if I am carrying a gun, and I say “nope”, although one of the rider club
guys from Montana wanted me to carry one. Tom laughs and says that the locals
always ask him if he is going to take a gun when they go for a walk, due to
rattle snakes. Tom says “All you need to do is walk around them. You don’t need to kill them.” Tom and Gloria then pack it in and head on
out. I am now all alone in my own private Idaho. The area quickly grows dark and cold, as I am
in a canyon. I climb to a little hill in
my campground to survey the area, and find that there are no lights at all. Tom
says there are a few ranches up the road, but I see no indications.
I wake and find that it is rather cold. What a difference from yesterday afternoon, where I was wearing a short sleeve shirt. I decide to head back to Golden, since going West would take me too far out of the path of where I want to go, and the smoke appears to get worse as I head West. I stop at Tim Horton in Golden and find that there is a massive crowd in line. It take about 30 minutes for me to get what is essentially an egg MacMuffin. I gas up and get the heck out of town on the 93 going South. The road is nice, with no traffic going Southbound.
There are mountains on both sides of me, which probably explains why there is no rain. Death Valley is has multiple mountain ranges that prohibit rain from crossing over, and these mountains are probably acting in the same fashion as the Death Valley mountains. Visibility is about 95% as I start down the 93. I was thinking about doing the hot springs in Radium Hot Springs, as several people along the road suggested that the hot springs where the place to be. But, I arrive at Radium and find that it is yet another tourist trap. There are two cops in the 4 way stop intersection directing traffic. It is a mad house, with massive amounts of traffic. It appears that the traffic is primarily coming from the South and turning left toward Banff, and ultimately Calgary. I decide to not stop at the hot springs and continue down the road, all the while the temperature gets hotter, and the smoke increases. At one point I stop to make some mac-in-cheese at a rest stop with a nice stream, as the roadside restaurants looked too expensive, or not appealing. As I sit eating, another vstrom pulls into the rest stop. Being a good biker, I go up to the guy on the vstorm to say hello. I ask him what year his bike is and he says it is a 2003, which I immediately know is a dl1000, because they only started
making the dl650 in 2004. I blurt out my knowledge by saying “it’s dl1000”, and then immediately see it printed on the side of the bike. Vince, the biker appears confused and disoriented. I ask him where he is going and I get a very convoluted answer that sounds like he is going North, and maybe South, and will stop at his friends and stay there, etc. After his response, I gave up and hit the rest room, wishing him a great ride, wherever he may go. Along the route, I notice that I see a motorcycle about every 5 minutes. This is much different that what I experienced on the Dalton hwy, where I think I saw 5 motorcycles on the entire highway. In about 30 minutes, I arrived at the US border station. There where 6 really nice lanes with stops signs and a stop light at each one. What was odd, was I was the only one at the station. There was no other vehice, in front or behind me. I went to the first lane and waited at the light, which was red. I waited about a minute and nothing happened and then I decided to ride up to the window, fearing that maybe someone did not see me. I got there and was told that I should have waited until the light changed, and to never to it again.
I apologized for my mistake. The agent asked all the regular questions and then I told him I really expected to see more people.
The agent then said “Who would want to come to this” as he pointed to the smoke all around us. I agreed and was on my way. I rode on for about 30 minutes and decided to turn off the Garmin GPS in order to get it to sync right with the IPhone. The Garmin and IPhone have a very on-again-off-again relationship. Sometimes they work and sometimes they do not. This time I turned off the Garmin and it did not come back on. I then pulled over to the spot on a small park road, where I tried without success to get the Garmin to turn on. I remounted it, pulled the battery, and hit it.
Suddenly a fire pickup pulled up to me with two people. A lady was driving and she asked me if everything was okay. I told her that it was just the GPS and it was not mission critical.She
then said “You can get home, right?”, which I gave her the thumbs up.
She took off and I followed behind them using my IPhone as the
navigation device. The smoke was getting pretty bad by the time I got
to Whitefish, and so I decided to get a hotel instead of camping, as I
was not too sure sleeping in a camp fire was too healthy. I get to the
hotel room and read up on Garmin 595 issues and find that if you take
the battery out, and then connect the Garmin to a computer, then the
Garmin will come back to life. I try the recipe out, and it works: kind
of lame. Looking back at the last week, I find it kind of odd that I was in rain about 80% of the time the first week, and then suddenly there is no rain and the world is on fire with smoke everywhere.
I wake, and look outside to see what the weather is like. In the Gulf gas station next door, I see a lady walking around in shorts: It is warm here.
I check the weather report and it will be 80 here today, with no rain in the forecast. I load up the bike next to the hotel bench, where a guy is smoking a cigarette. I tell him that my gear was totally waterlogged last night, and as last night this concept appears quite alien to the people of the region. There must be such a line of demarcation, with those that get rain, and those that do not in this area of Canada. I ride an hour up into Glacier National Park and turn into Illecillewaet campground. I am determined to get a great camping spot today, and arriving at 11:30 am did the trick. There are those campers that come up for a Friday and Saturday, and leave on Sunday. The camp ground is at 5,399 feet and the temperature is great. There is just a touch of smoke in the air from fires, but coming up it got really bad, where you could see active fire areas with columns of smoke spiraling upwards. The smoke is very localized, as you can be in heavy smoke one minute, and then go around the corner and it is gone. The campground is at Rogers pass, the site of where the railroad used to pass by a magnificent chateau
during the gilded age, around the turn of the last century. I hike up to the ruins of the chateau, and there are many information displays on the history. The chateau was a stop on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and was of the highest quality facilities and dining. The railroad imported Swiss mountain climbers to lead people up the glacier, as the area was at that time the premiere mounting climbing location in North America. The railroad stopped coming in the early 20s and the chalet closed soon after: They tore the structure down a few years later.
I started doing a short hike and rain into an Austrian couple, Julia and Michael. The couple was coming back from the old railroad track that runs past the Chalet’s ruins. Michael stops me and asks “Are you not afraid of the bears?”. I ask him “Should I be?”. We joke around for a bit, and then they take off in the other direction. I keep going, and find that I am by myself. I start thinking about what Michael said about the bears, and grow uncomfortable going any further down the path. I turn back and start down a local path.
I walk some distance and again run into Julia and Michael on the short trail. Unfortunately, you cannot hike more than about a mile without a party of 4, due to the bears in the area. There are many signs warning people about the bears and what penalties will befall you, if you ignore the rules. We hike back to the starting point and I ask Michael if he wants to go back around the short loop, since it appears that you cannot go anywhere else. Michael laughs, and I go back to the campground and spend some quality time on the bike, cleaning areas that I have not looked at since the Dalton hwy. I find that somehow water has gotten into the “sealed” tool tube, and the tools and spare parts are covered in the Dalton hwy red clay mud. Lots of work cleaning up everything. I also continue to dry out my gear, as last night’s efforts were not efficient. My campsite is right next to the raging steam coming down from the glaciers, which produces a nice background noise. We are in the valley, so I anticipate that night will come early. The campground has great facilities, but no shower. Bear boxes are provided, since we are in bear country.
I wake and find that the rain has not stopped: it is coming down pretty good. I ride for a couple of hours getting soaked embracing new and interesting smells from the countryside. I then decide to switch out my gloves at a historical marker.
This was the exact site where the last spike was driven for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad that connected the East to the West, just outside of Fraser. As I change out the gloves in my pannier, the bike falls over to the right. I poorly parked the bike, and the new Givi large footprint stand adapter has raised the kickstand about ½ inch. I immediately start taking off the top bag and the left pannier, but I unable to get the right pannier off, as it is trapped under the bike. The bike is still heavy as there are many other items still on the bike, but using all my effort I am able to lift the bike up without rolling it. The preferred method is to roll the bike forward during the lift, but due to my poor parking, moving forward would have sent the bike off the road and into the mud, which would have turned into even a larger mess. The good news with the bike dump is that all the gear to keep the bike from getting damaged worked. The front panniers and hand guards kept critical components on the bike from hitting the pavement in the fall. I continue on for two hours until I reach Prince George, where I stop at my first Tim Horton’s restaurant of the trip. I had a great sandwich and a much-needed hot soup. I honker down and continue in the ever-increasing rain until I stop at a gas station near the foot of the mountains. I see a hotel on the other side of the road and contemplate finishing for the day, as the rain is just relentless.
I ride on for another 30 minutes and suddenly the rain stops after an amazing 6.5 hours, which must be due to the positioning along the mountain range. I continue on until I reach jasper, which is your classic town on the edge of a national park. People, restaurants, and traffic are everywhere: I cannot wait to fill my gas tank and head out of town. I head south on the 93 toward the ice fields. I am thinking that I will get a camp spot at one of the many campground along the 93. I stop at the first campground and ride through, but immediately know that I am in trouble as I can tell from the eyes of the people at the existing campsite. They have that “You are so out of luck” look in their eyes as you drive by. I give up on the campground idea after the first two campgrounds, and realize that I am now in big trouble because there is not a hotel around for a hundred miles plus, and it is already 6:00 pm. I check my Garmin and find that the largest bulk of hotels is in the town of Golden, which I will not get to until 9:45 pm. I bear-down and drive through the rest of Jasper park.
By the time I get to Golden, I am on my last legs. The last few miles going into Golden was torture. The highway goes from 100 kph to about 30 kph with twisting roads. I go to the Best Western and they are sold out, but Mildred at the desk calls several other hotels and finally calls Carrie at the Holiday Inn with one room left, but at a hefty price. I immediately take it as I am out of options, and you cannot sleep in your bike, like you can in a car. I check in and Carrie tells me they have not had rain for over 30 days, which is what Dustin told me earlier. I tell Carrie that my equipment is totally waterlogged and I must dry everything out: this idea is very amusing to people that have not seen rain in a long time. Carrie asks where I was that was raining so hard, and I tell her, but Prince George and the 16 appear to be a long way away for the people of Golden. I order pizza after I secure my room, and hit the sack after a 12 hour, 566 mile ride, of which half was in pounding rain.
It rains during the early morning, but nothing to be concerned about. I get up and go and get some water at the pump and run smack into Bob. Bob retired in 2003, from working out of Truckee, California and now lives in Lake Tahoe. Bob has an amazing recollection of the roads and distances in Canada, as he has traveled them for years. You ask Bob how far something is and he knows the answer. Bob and I talk about all kinds of things for about a half hour. Things like my bike, his solar panels for his rig, the weather, the roads, etc. Bob, just as Dustin says there were all kinds of fires in Idaho when he went through three weeks ago. I tell Bob that I was thinking about going to Price Rupert today and then through Banff. Bob asks when I need to be
home, and I tell him I need to be at work on the 11th. Bob then says “You better skedaddle up through Banff, and not go to Prince Ruppert, because it takes 3-4 days to get out of Canada from where we are standing”. I guess this means another change in plan. I go back to my campsite and start packing. Getting up late and talking to Bob is putting me way back on my departure time. As soon as I start packing, up my campsite driveway comes Bob and his wife Cindy. Bob tells Cindy that this is the bike he was talking to her about. Cindy is also a talker, and soon all three of us are talking about the bike and where they have been. Bob starts saying he went up in Alaska, here and there in 2007 and 2008, and then says “Right Cindy?”. Cindy gives Bob a funny look and says “Sure, it all runs together in my head these days.”. Together they make a great couple and probably have a great time going all over Canada in their camper. I ask Bob when he is planning on heading back home and he says “In October”. I tell him that October is kind of late and cold to be in Canada, but then I remember he is from Lake Tahoe, and tell him “That is no problem for you Bob, right?”, which he winks in return. I see the ranger starting to clean the rest room, and perhaps the recycling cans, so I quickly finish packing and hit the road.
I immediately run into road construction. For this torture test, I am to depart the highway and go down into a semi-swamp area of mud before returning to the road. As I start to descend an eighteen-wheeler starts to come straight at me. I quickly pull over to the side in even deeper mud and wait for him to come by. I quickly run into
another steel bridge matt, and then another and another. I also run into some 10 wood plank bridges, but none of them appears to be as slippery as the ones on the Dalton: maybe different wood, or newer wood, a different cut, or maybe the volume of trucks on the Dalton make them slipperier? Outside of the one road construction zone, the 37 continues to amaze me. Great road with lots of zigs and zags. Probably the best motorcycle road I have been on for such a long distance. About half way down the 37 I find a very nice hotel and restaurant. I get some gas and have a late breakfast. I am the only one in the dining room. Beautiful place with nice quarter sawed oak tables The canyons on the 37 start to get narrower and the feeling is very much like highway 50 going through the West side of the Rockies in Colorado. As always, it rains but often the sun comes out. I go around a corner at 60 MPH and there is a black bear, he is literally one foot off the road digging something out of the ground: I could have hit him if he spooked and ran into the road. About a mile later I see a dead black bear with it’s head on the roadside. 5 miles later I see a sign that says “Caution, Bears along the road”: a little bit too late for one of the bears. I stop to clean the bike a bit after crossing yet another steel mesh bridge, and Jason and Wanda have stopped, and are out walking their dogs. They come up and start talking about the bike and where I have been. Jason and Wanda says they are from the BC down South. They are the first people that I have run into that do not immediately know the current road conditions on the Dalton highway. Jason says “did you notice the two bear cubs up the tree where the dead bear was?” I tell him that I did not. I continue down the 37 with no further delays or events. A day and a half and I am finally out of the 37: on the map it looked so small compared to the rest of Canada. I thought when I started the 37, that I would be out in a few hours.
The 37 stops at the 16, and where there is a gas station. I do the regular pre-authorization game to get gas and then sit in the parking lot to review maps. A guy pulls up on a motorcycle and starts talking to me about the weather and how it is going to rain this afternoon, but there will be 6 days of sun afterwards. I was so into the maps that I did not really notice what he was riding, but pretty soon my eyes go down to his bike. The guy is on a scooter with panniers, and with one of those orange pole flags on the back. I have a hard time having a serious conversation with him once I
see what he is riding. He hits the road as I finish with my maps. In a few minutes I overtake him, as he is only riding at about 45 mph. going slower than the main traffic is very dangerous, I would not recommend anyone ride a scooter, bike, or run on this type of highway: too dangerous. The 16 is a beautiful road and well-travelled. Parts of the scenery look like Illinois or Wisconsin. I spend the next few hours making hay and arrive at a nice new hotel in Burns Lake. Time to wash some clothes. I go out to the bike to get something later in the evening and it has started raining.
I wake and notice that the bike cover has no morning due, a first on this trip. I stop at a gas station that has two bikes at the gas pump. Two older guys greet me, and as always we exchange were we have been and where we are going. The bigger of the two guys says they were in Dawson City. He says they normally go the first week of July, but decided to go “late in the season”. He says that “Dawson City is like a rally for dual sport bikes”. I tell him that I heard Dawson City was not so good to go to, and he says quite the contrary. He says “If this get bad on the road, you can always get out”. Not sure exactly what that means, but I assume it means there are always dirt roads out of the area. I tell him I got stopped by snow on the Dalton highway and he says “it happens, as it is pretty late in the season”. You bet, the season is basically the month of July, from what I can figure out based upon my limited experience in Alaska. I finish up with the gas, after a super long wait in the store due to a massive influx of people, and then I start toward the big bridge over the river. I get about 10 feet away from the bridge and I see that it is a steel mesh floor. Sensing another
Yukon challenge, I freak and start to wonder if I should cross it, is it slippery, should I stand on my pegs, what should I do? This all goes through my head in about 2 seconds, just as I hit the bridge. Yes, the bridge is slippery, and it is not even raining. I just have never run a bike across a long steel mesh bridge before, but somehow, I get to the other side, even when a car is coming across at the same time: of course, I am in the middle of the bridge and going for a head-on collision. I decide to go South toward Banff on the 37, which is somewhat of a gamble since the Alcan is the big highway, and everything else is unknown, but as I come to find out, the 37 is actually a better conditioned road. I stop for gas at the start of the 37. There appears to be one active gas station, and several that have gone out of business. I really have no option but to get gas at this station, so I go in and tell the guy I want to get gas and he says "go ahead, and I will charge you afterwards", which is totally different that everywhere else. I gas up and then ask him about the 37, says "will i run into snow?". He says "no, and once you get to the bottom it will be absolutely balmy", as they have had temperatures at 2 below already. I take off and find that the road has no construction and it looks like the road was repaved within the last couple of years. I am really digging this road. I plow on and things go pretty good, until once again I run into another steel mesh bridge. This time I recognize the bridge from far off and prepare. Just focus, relax and take it easy. The weather is still cold at about 45 degrees. Sometimes it rains and sometimes it is sunny. I keep the heating jacket on and adjust as needed. I camp at the Kinaskan Lake Provincial campground. This is a really nice campground. Probably the best groomed campground I have ever been to. A ranger comes around and takes your $20 Canadian. The ranger is a very nice German lady. We talk a bit, and then she continues on with other customers. Later on, I am sitting eating a few noodles and she walks up and hands me her left over pizza. I cannot
stop thanking her. The pizza looks good, but I am forced to remove the salami as I am a vegetarian. I roll the salami up in the left over saran wrap she used to cover the pizza. As I am cleaning up, I go to the trash can and pop the salami in the can. As I am doing so I noticed that the can is actually a recycle can. I try to get the salami out, but the can is locked so people cannot take recyclables. Great, I take the rangers salami and put it in the recycle can, which she probably checks. I can just see her finding her salami and thinking “What, my salami is not good enough for him?”. I just hope I am long gone before she checks the recycle can. I am thinking about staying in Port Rupert tomorrow night. Port Rupert is a little bit out of the way, but it looks interesting and I believe I am ahead of schedule.
I forgot that the time change when you go into Canada, therefore I laid in bed until I realized it was 8:00 am. I got on the road and immediately run into 10 more miles of gravel road. Finally a sign says “End of Construction”. I journey on without incident until I run into Pine Valley, where there is an Inn and bakery, which is interesting because I am in the middle of nowhere. Upon entering the bakery there is a French Canadian couple that greets me with Bon Jour. The women is off to the right making something in the kitchen and the man takes my order. The menu is simple: there are baked goods and Quiche. I order the spinach quiche and a coffee. I go to a table and there are two other groups there. A German group of four and another couple. Almost immediately, the women brings out my quiche. The quiche is huge and
presented beautifully in a nice looking oblong bowl. For some reason, I thought the quiche was going to be a small round dish. Even the Germans were eying my quiche and saying things in German that I could not understand, but probably was something like “Holly crap, that looks good”. I quickly finish off the quiche, as it tasted as good as it looked. I stop at the rest room and find that everything is spick and span, just like the rest of the restaurant. These people are serious about their business, even if it is in the middle of the Yukon. I continue on my way and stop at a town for some gas. I put the credit card in the gas pump and then start to pull it out like normal, but the machine will not let go of the card. I panic as I continue to pull on the card. I have visions of having to go into the store and tell them that my credit card is stuck in the machine. I then see that the machine wants me to pre-authorize an amount for the transaction. I click on an amount, and the machine lets go of my card. That was a first for me.
I go on for a few more hours and arrive at Whitehorse, which is a substantially large town. I decide that I need some Canadian cash for my government camping spot, which was self check-in last night. I left a $10 US note, for a $12 Canadian campsite. I find the Scotia bank in downtown, which is affiliated with BofA. Downtown is a happening place. Unfortunately, there appear to be a number of homeless folks hanging around the downtown area. I quickly pop-in a US quarter into the parking meter, run to the ATM and grab some cash before someone tries to jump my bike. On the way out of town I stop at Mikey Ds for a fish sandwich, which tastes significantly better than the US version. I head out of town and run into yet another construction zone. I swear that the construction zones are pre-meditated torture. For this zone I get to wait for the pleasure to ride across a section of road that has been removed right in front of my eyes. In yet another zone, I get the privilege to ride through a
mile’s length of road that has just been sealed. I exit the zone, pull over and inspect the damage. Hanging underneath a number of sections of the bike are long strings of tar. I start to ride and can hear banging and smacking from tar and rocks being hurled into the bikes fenders. The tar is everywhere. I pull into the “Squanga Lake Campground” around 6:00 pm. The campground is just about as nice as the one I had last night. The campground is about ½ full, just as last night. What is nice with the campground, is that they supply unlimited wood, which is nice but I do not want the hassle of taking care of a fire, so I forego the campfire.
Got time to call out some good and bad decisions that I have made on the trip:
1. Good call on the Daytona boots. The Daytona boots have Gortex liners so that your feet never get wet. They certainly did not, even when covered in full mud. I got the touring version which has a flap over the zipper. This keeps the mud from getting to the zipper. I knew there would be rain, but I really had not appreciation for the amount of water and mud that the boot would need to put up with. If I had taken my other boots, then my feet would have been cold, wet and miserable.
2. Good call on the Columbia down jacket to replace my old and trusty balloon jacket that I have owned since I was 17. I was fretting that the jacket was too big, but the size has worked out just fine while camping. The jacket is warm and wonderful. Thanks Aunt Jan for the birthday money to purchase the jacket.
3. Bad call on the CB radio. Never used it on the trip and sent it packing home. Many reasons for the thumbs down 1.) the road was just too wild and crazy to spend any time talking on a CB radio. The last thing I wanted to do is say “Hey, good buddy” and then go over a cliff because I was not focusing on the road. 2.) the antenna mount sucked, because I designed and built it. It came loose with the difficult roads. 3.) too much weight with the radio, antenna and mount. 4.) too much space storing the radio.
4. Good call on the Givi bags for the panniers. I had only recieved one bad last year when I did the across the country ride, so I did not take the one I had received. Without the bags, I would remove the panniers during camping and at the hotels. With the bags I pull them out and leave the panniers on the bike. I also used the bags when flying to Alaska. No need to send temporary bags back home like I did two years ago on the ride-across-america.
5. Bad call on the Givi Jerry can: kind of. The Jerry can would have been great if it did not have several holes in the bottom. Not sure where the holes came from. I hope someone did not do it on purpose, or else I will hunt you down and get even. My solution was to fill the jerry can and then mount it upside down. Good thing that the spiket does not leak.
6. Good call on the Unifun battery storage device. I can charge the device during the day while on the bike, and at night I can charge my helmet using the device. On previous trips I would need to charge the helmet while I rode, which sometime ended in my head getting jerked around, when I forgot that I had a cable attached to my helmet while dismounting the bike: ouch.
7. Good call on the crash bar panniers. I saw one of the guys in my motorcycle club had used military bags as crash bar panniers. I copied his idea and build my own design harness to keep the bags in place. The result is I can carry more items and distribute the weight up front. I keep emergency supplier in the bags so I rarely open them.
8. Bad call. Going to Alaska late in August. Should have gone in July or early August.
I wake around 6:00 am, and feel good after the wild ride of the previous day. There is still some clean up and repair on the bike that I do after breakfast. I stop at the front hotel desk before leaving and tell the kid that I am planning to go to Dawson City. The kid is a fountain of information about the border crossing and roads. At one point the kid says “The road to Dawson City is terrible, and it takes forever to get there”, which is not exactly what I want to hear. I then load up the bike and hit the gas station. I pull up to the pump and Martin runs out and asks if I want full service, since he says I am at the full-service pump. I do not want full service, and move the bike to the other pump. I ask Martin if I there is air for the tires, since the Garmin tire monitor is telling me the rear tire is low. Martin says he will run the air out so I can use it. I start to work on the tires and Martin comes by again and asks about where I am going and where I came from. I tell him about Coldfoot, and like everyone else he says that winter has come early this year. Martin says he knows the owners of Coldfoot Camp, and they own the Yukon river stop, plus many other enterprises. He says they are in their mid-forties.
I take off down the highway and my temperature gauge says it is 45 degrees. I get 30 miles out and an error indicator on the console goes off. I freak, panic and pull the bike off to the side and shut the bike down. I read the manual on my bike to figure out what the error means. The manual really does not say, but essentially says that if the engine is still running and you get this error message, then it is not an error at all. I start the engine and the error message is gone. The ride continues without incident, and is much unlike the day before. The Alcan is not the 405, but It sure is not the Dalton hwy. At the town of Delta Junction, I stop at the post office and send some unneeded things back home in order to reduce space and weight. There were items that had already fulfilled their purpose on the trip. As I come out of the Post Office, there is Fred looking at my bike. He tells me that he really likes the bike because of the height of the seat. Like usual, Fred asks where I have been and I tell him I was on the Dalton. Fred then says “Winter has come early, and they are now requiring chains at the Atigun pass”: Is there no one in Alaska that does not know the current status of the Atigun pass? I then go down the street to a nice little drive-in, with picnic tables on the side. I sit down and start eating, but Tim at the next table strikes up a conversation, once again asking me where I have been and where I am going. Tim then starts to tell me in great detail about the best ways to get back to Orange County, as he has done that route many times before for work. The problem listening to Tim, is there is no way I can follow him as he rattles off the names of towns and lakes. The best I can get out of the conversation is that the area around Banff, is really good. So, I change my plans on the spot: Dawson City is out, and I will double down on the area around Banff.
At the town of Tok, I stop at Napa to get some WD40 because the locks on the equipment are more difficult due to all the rain. Jim is sitting at the counter talking to the Napa guy. Jim and I start talking about the weather. Jim is probably around 70, and he says that it used to be where he could predict the weather in Tok, but no more. Things are changing all the time. Jim says during the winter in the 70s, it used to average about 60 below, now Jim says, it averages about 15 below, at that. Jim goes on to tell me that the North Pole is moving about 7 miles per year, and it is now 300 miles more toward Moscow than it used to be, back in the day. Jim really gets going with the information, but I must continue on, if I am to get a good campsite later. As I am getting on the bike, Jim says “Winter has come early this year”.
I get to within 20 miles of the Canadian border and the road suddenly erupts into road construction, with graders going back and forth and all kinds of strewn gravel. I feel like I am back on the Dalton hwy, as 80% of the road is now gravel or mud. It is almost a DMZ, with the countries saying “If you can get through this stuff, then you can come on in”. I have visions of going down at this stench of road, after I had just gone through the Dalton unharmed. I go through the Canadian border station without incident, and continue on until I reach the “Snag Junction Campground”. Fifteen beautiful campsites next to a lake. The campground is not full and I snag an excellent spot. The sky is now partly cloudy with the temperature about 70 degrees. It is so much different than what I left on the Dalton, that I feel that I am on a different planet: no, just Canada. There is a guy in the next camp site in his tent repeatedly yelling
“there is a bob-cat on the camp ground, hello hello”. I look up and I see a rabbit sitting in middle of the road between me and the yelling guy’s tent. The rabbit is calmly staring at the tent where of the yelling guy like he was watching TV. I have noticed that the Northern rabbits look more like big house cats. They have dark hair running down their backs and large rear legs. I do not see a bob-cat, and apparently the rabbit does not either, or else he would have been high-tailing it out of the area. I wonder what drugs the guy in the tent is doing? Oh great, I see that my bike is dirty again due to the DMZ roads. I guess I will be clearing it a few times on this trip.
I wake from the hard sounds of rain on the top of my hotel unit. It is 3:00 am and I am starting to fear the worst: that the rain is intensifying. I lay in bed until 5:30 am and then start getting ready for the days ride. I am worried that the bike may not start since it is been sitting out in heavy rain for two days: I decided not to put the bike cover on it when I parked it, because it was not raining hard at the time: really bad
decision. I decide to get some of the oatmeal out of my camping gear and heat up some water using my camp burner on the hotel steps, in order to save some money. I will stop at Yukon River and get a mid-morning breakfast and lunch. I start loading the bike and two young guys come up to me, which is weird in that it is 6:15 am and I am off on the side and out of the way. The two guys looked to be in their early 20s. The older looking one says that three of them came Southbound over Atigun pass last night on their bikes. There was no snow on the North face, but the snow was deep at the top and on the South slope. He says that one of the guys chain broke, and a guy in a pickup truck took his bike down to Coldfoot. The old one says that he ended up pushing his KLR down the pass because it was too difficult to ride. He said that they never would have been able to go up the South slope the way it was last night. He then asks if I have a chain link to fix the broken chain. I tell him that I did not, and they turn around and abruptly leave.
The bike starts right up, and I am on the road at 7:00 am, and it is raining hard and about 45 degrees. I head South for the next 2.5 hours while the rain slams through the crack at the bottom of my face shield. I found that the face shield was fogging up badly. Often, I could not tell if there was real fog or it was just my faces shield fogging up. Throughout the morning there would be patches of heavy fog, with alternating patches of high winds. The area was socked-in with low rain clouds just over my head. The kind of rain clouds I have seen in the Coastal areas and at time in the desert in Southern Arizona. Although it was very difficult riding, I found that I was going about 10 miles per hour faster going South, then I had done going North. It was just easier, maybe because the rain had smoothed out the road? What was really weird was the piles of gravel where now gone. Maybe the construction crews leveled the piles out? I stopped at Yukon River for breakfast and gas. You get breakfast and
about 3 gallons of gas for just over $30. I make some repairs on the bike, as a number of parts have come loose due to the intensity of the road, and then I am off up the Yukon River bridge. I watch an eighteen-wheeler take on the bridge at about 80 miles per hour. He probably needed the speed to make the incline. I sure did not want to be on the bridge when a truck comes from either direction: there will be nowhere to get out of the way because I sure will not be going 80 miles an hour up the bridge. I had been dreading the bridge ever since I came Northbound on it. The bridge is made of wooden planks, and with the rain the ride is like being on ice. I size up the length of the bridge, look at the top and behind me to see if there are any trucks coming, and then I take off up the bridge. I am doing pretty well going straight up the bridge, but I can feel the handlebars start to wobble as I get half way up the bridge. I downshift, relax and focus on a nice even speed. I make it to the top and feel a huge relief come over me. The road becomes worse the more South you go. You just never know what is over the next hill or around the next bend. There are changes in road types, where it goes from asphalt to gravel or mud. You might suddenly find that there are many potholes filled with water. There are washboard conditions, and then there Is the dreaded thin layer mud road. I was going about 60 and crested a hill only to find that the road had turned in to a smooth mud slope. I handlebars suddenly start to move back and forth, I downshift but the hill is steep and the slope is slick. I finally get control of the bike, just when a truck comes toward me. At the bottom of the
is a worker with a road scrapper, which accounts for how the road got to be so smooth and slick. I get to the Elliot highway and about a mile into it run over a small wood plank bridge. The bike immediately goes sideways, but the good news is the bridge is so small that it is all over in an instant. There should be a law against wood plank bridges in Alaska.
I arrive in Fairbanks without going down, but with a bike and gear covered in mud. I take the bike to the car wash and then check in to the hotel. I see that the bike still needs more cleaning, so I take it back for a second go at mud removal. The weather is just beautiful in Fairbanks. The sun is out and it is about 70 degrees. The weather changed when I left the Dalton. One minute it is pouring rain on the Dalton, and then it is nice in Fairbanks. It is nice to be out of the rain, as it had rained every minute since I originally left Fairbanks going North days ago.
As
I get to a level area, I stop the bike and take a small composure break before
pressing on. There are areas where the slope is so inclined with loose rock,
that you must let the bike go, only to break when I land on areas that will
allow the bike to grab ground and stop. I let the engine do most of the work on slowing the bike, and use both brakes to keep the bike’s speed in check. I
get down to the kilns and do a little gig, as I am happy to get past the this section of trail.
I continue on the gravel road past the kilns, which are once again more difficult
than I remember for the last trip. 
The bike hit the road on the left side, trapping my left ankle, then
slammed into the wall of the road, which caused the bike to flip over to its
right side, ejecting me forward of the bike, and causing me to slam my ribs and
head into the road. 
