Day 7. Alaska Ride 2017: Snag Junction Campground in the Northwest Yukon, Canada

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.

Day 6. Alaska Ride 2017: Fairbanks, Alaska

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. 

Day 5. Alaska Ride 2017: Coldfoot, Alaska

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.

Day 4. Alaska Ride 2017: Coldfoot, Alaska

I wake to find the rain has moved in over the night, and has increased more than I have seen over the last few days. The surrounding mountains are shrouded in white misty rain laden clouds. Outside my room window,  But, I do have electricity, a toilet and a shower.

I can see my bike surrounded in the muddy parking lot by pools of water. My 10 by 20 foot room is comfortable, but a bit cold. I cannot imagine what the rooms feel like later on in the season when it starts to snow.

Coldfoot is a former mining camp established in 1902. Coldfoot experienced another boom in the 1970s, when it became a construction camp for the Alaska pipeline. Coldfoot camp is where the workers lived during the construction period.  There are essentially three groups of people staying at the hotel. There are the truck drivers, tour groups, and one-offs like me.  

I head back to the Coldfoot restaurant to get some breakfast.  As the night before, the buffet is the center piece.  The food is actually good here. As I inspect the vegetable tarts, I tell the guy delivering some items to the buffet that the choices are interesting. He says “Because we are here for 6 months at a time, the food can get rather boring. So we try to keep things interesting and find new things, and change up the selection frequently. Otherwise, we would all go crazy. “ I Sit with a group of truckers as we watch the news on hurricane Harvey. I ask one Trucker if he was South bound and if he went over Atigun pass, and he replies that he went over the pass last night. I ask him what the conditions were and he says it was snowy and at one point it was 28 degrees. Another trucker says that it would be worse at the pass today, since it is raining here in Coldfoot. The trucker’s comments pretty much dash any window of hope that I could make the pass today, or tomorrow: signed, sealed, delivered and a done deal: not going.  

I think that I am going to hang out in Coldfoot Camp for the day. Not much to do here, other than eat, sleep and drink.  I could use some rest as the road back will be really muddy and dangerous, even more so than the other day.  I see that the Arctic Inter-agency visitor center has a ranger talk at 8:00 PM. I will go to the talk and go through the exhibit very slowly, as I ripped through it yesterday. The center is close enough that I can walk to it. I will get up early and head back to Fairbanks, where I will spend the night before heading out in the direction of  Canada.

I walk over to the visitor center and there is a new ranger talking to some folks that are interested in the conditions on the Atigun Pass.  The ranger says he went over the pass twice over the last two days. He says at first the snow was all the way down the North slope, and then later on down the South slope. He says it was slippery and snowy on the last 200 feet at the top.  I tell him that I decided not to try the pass, and he turns and says to the lady ranger “This guy is one of the smart ones!”.  The ranger then tells me “Winter has arrived early this year”.  The ranger then puts on a 30-minute video on the Dalton, just for me: I have the movie theater all to myself.  Great little movie that covers the area, people and wildlife along the Dalton hwy.  Afterwards, he gives me a map with trails leading from the visitor center. I walk the trails first to the Coldfoot cemetery, which is not much, and then later down the road to the airport. I then take the trail back to the Coldfoot camp restaurant where I order lunch.

As I am eating, my buddy Dustin from Colorado comes in the door dripping from head to foot from heavy rains. Dustin and I have been meeting each other on our bikes all the way up the Dalton. Yesterday, Dustin went to stay at the Wiseman B&B, with the thought of trying to get over the Atigun pass today. Dustin did attempt the pass today, but ran into heavy snow before he got anywhere near the top. He said the road was frozen and slippery, but not sloshy. Dustin said that several Southbound truckers tried to stop him from going over the pass, and that one of the truckers told him a biker went down at the pass yesterday.  Dustin showed me pictures of his bike in the snow and pictures of his helmet with snow frozen at the top of the visor. While we were getting lunch, a Southbound trucker that just arrived told Dustin that all the trucks going over the pass were putting on chains.  Dustin has been on the road for 28 days. He quit his job as a custom car mechanic and hit the road.  When I asked him when he was going home, he said “I do not have any plans at this time. I am thinking about heading down to the Kenai peninsula next”.  He says that he just finished doing the Deming hwy, which is the Canadian equivalent to the Dalton hwy.  Dustin was a fountain of information for those areas I was planning on riding through.  He said that there was bad smoke from fires through Idaho and into the BC.  When I get back to the internet I will check on the fires going on in the West. I might need to alter my ride. It is still raining and is showing no sign of letting up. It will be a cold, rainy and muddy ride back to Fairbanks tomorrow. I am sure I will be seeing Dustin on the road tomorrow. 

I planned on going to the ranger talk at 8:00 pm, but find that the rain is coming down pretty good.  So, I decide to just hang out and read in the reading room in the hotel. I read for a bit, talk to some people passing through about my trip and then John the ranger comes in. John was the ranger that I talked to earlier in the day. We talked more about the pass and the snow. John says a bus went up earlier and had to return, which is the bus that the couple that I was just talking to said they were on earlier in the day. The couple also said they saw Dustin turn around up on the pass. John says that he loves it here and really wanted the job once it was offered to him. He says it is not about the scenery, but about the people and the stories they have. John goes on to tell me about the many people that are obsessed with crossing the country in cars, bikes and motorcycles.

John leaves and I walk down the hall and run into a party taking up the width of the hallway, some women asks me if I want a drink of bourbon: I decline.  I sit down and start talking to the guy closest to me, who is drinking wine. I ask if they are on a tour and where they are going. The guy says that the group is a state resource group from many industries, such as mining, forestry, etc. that once a year go out to an area of the state and spend some time. The guy is not part of the group, but his wife is.  We talked for about half an hour and I find out that they are based out of Anchorage. Good group that is having some fun.

Day 3. Alaska Ride 2017: Fairbanks, Alaska

I take off and stop for some gas on the outskirts of Fairbanks. I fill the tank and decide to put a little gas in the jerry can as a test to see what happens, as I have never used the can before. Just before I get on the bike I notice a pool of gas forming under my pannier. I am confused as to where the gas is coming from since the fuel tank and jerry can are not close to the pool.  Upon further investigation, I find that there are three little holes in the bottom back of the jerry can causing the gas to squirt out about 2 feet. Horrified, I start to panic because I need this can to get me through the last stretch of road from Coldfoot to Prudhoe Bay, which is 245 miles without gas. I put on some superglue and gorilla tape as these are the only things that I have available to me. The gas stops leaking. I reverse the can on the mount so that the holes are now at the top of the can, and the can is upside down. Off I go.

The Elliot highway is paved and easy to ride. Finally, I arrive at the Dalton highway and the road immediately turns to dirt.  I keep my wits about me as best as I can, because there is something going on around each corner. Eighteen-wheelers, tourist buses, road crews, cutting crews, construction and just plain weird sections of road.  I approach the Yukon river and start down the bridge which is about a quarter mile long angled to the other side of the river. I get about a quarter of the way across and realize that the wet wooden planks of the bridge are super slippery. Hitting the brakes causes the bike to slide, but you must hit the brakes since the bridge is pointing down and the bike left unchecked is picking up speed. Crossing the Yukon is just plain scary, because the river is a long, long way down and the river looks wider than the Mississippi at the Iowa crossing: I just did not know how scary it was until on I was actually on the bridge, which is probably a good thing for now. Unfortunately, I need to go back to cross it again on the return trip.   I make it to the other side without falling into the Yukon and head to the service center for some food and gas.

The Dalton is everything I have read about. It is mostly dirt, with patches of paving. You get going on the pavement, go over the crest of a hill and suddenly it is dirt or gravel. There must have been 25 patches of gravel that were freshly dumped upon the highway, the crews still spreading out the gravel. The gravel patches were concerning, because I was not sure what they were hiding: there must have been a good reason they dumped gravel on the road at that point.

I had a super great lunch, where I was served a delicious salmon soup. The lady serving was very proud of it, saying it had coconut and other interesting ingredients in it: I just loved it.  I continue on the Dalton until I get to the Arctic Circle, where there is the Arctic Circle sign: go figure.  I find that a tour bus is there with 20 people taking their pictures. I wait in line and a BLM volunteer takes my pictures. I ask her how many tour buses she gets, and she says that they get about 10 smaller buses and 3 large buses during the day. Before arriving at the sign, I have visions of me having difficulties taking a picture by myself:  I had no idea the sign was a major tourist trap.   I continue on and reach Coldfoot camp at about 5:00 PM, all the while it continues to rain and coat my bike and myself with mud. 

I stop at the Inter-agency center before going to the hotel. The ranger has the latest weather report for Atigun pass, and it is not good news.  The report shows up to 4 inches of snow in the next 24 hours, and temperatures in the low 30s. The storm front that has come in will continue until Tuesday. You must go over Atigun pass to get to Prudhoe Bay. The ranger will not make recommendations and gives only snippets of insight as to what has happened to others in the past. He says a trucker just came over the pass and said that there was “ice on the top of the pass, but it was gone as he descended”.  I am not a big fan of riding a motorcycle on ice: two wheeled vehicles tend to fall over on ice. A lady ranger then says “What you need to watch out for is the eighteen wheelers. They start to slide, and then they can crash right into you.”.   The guy ranger then says “The Atigun pass is something that you do not fool with.  It is better to be cautious”.  That pretty much did it for me, as I was not ready to die in order to get to Prudhoe Bay.  I check into my room, which is really just a cell in a long trailer, and crash for a bit before going to dinner.  The “hotel” room is interesting, as it is about 10 by 20 foot long with 2 single beds, a shower and a sink. The room smells of diesel fumes, but it is dry and for now, and it is home.

 

I decide to go for the all you can eat buffet, as there are no other options at Coldfoot Camp. I fill my plate and wander into the bar area, where there is one seat left at the end of the bar. A few minutes after I sit down the room is packed with people, and I soon realize they are all staring at the TV screen at the front of the bar, which is showing “initializing UFC”: the big fight is tonight.   There is a guy running up to the corner of the room with his iPhone, which is attached to the TV.  He is trying all kinds of things to stream the big fight on the TV, but apparently it is not working. To my right is a guy that says the internet is not going to work, and to not get my hopes up. Apparently, in Coldfoot there is only a satellite internet connection, that is marginal at best. The guy laughs and says “I made the mistake when I started staying here and purchased the week-long internet package. What a mistake, I could not get anything. What a waste of money”.  They try to get the fight on the TV for the next hour and it never happens. People slowly drift out of the bar.  In the meantime, the beers are flying out of the cooler. The bar keep tells us that he arranges the beers on two sides of the cooler. The beers on the left are the beers for the tourists. They are “local craft beers” made by a brewery in Fairbanks. The guy sitting next to me laughs and says “craft beer, ha.  They just charge more.”  The craft beers are $5.25 and the other regular beers or the right side of the cooler are $4.75.  Regular beers, such as Miller are for the workers and truckers.  Two young guys on my left are hanging out drinking beer while waiting for the fight? One of the young guys asks me “Did you actually choose to come to Coldfoot?” In order to avoid a bar full of people pointing and laughing at me, I tell him that “I was just passing through”, which is a kind of stupid thing to say since the road is a dead-end.  I ask him where he is from, and he says “Anchorage, but we travel all over the state doing work”.  Shortly after, he and the other young guy get up, not before he reaches over and shakes my hand and says “good luck”.  I also call it a night and head to my room.

Day 2. Alaska Ride 2017: Anchorage, Alaska

I head off to Fairbanks in the rain. I am still getting used to the new Scout K60 tires and the weight of the bike, and all my gear.  In my mind, I am thinking this will be an easy day, but It just was not so. The day is long, and it continues to rain until about 2:00 PM.  About 3 hours into the ride, I am so cold and wet that I decide to switch to my electric jacket.

I also am getting notifications from my Garmin unit that the tire pressures are low. I decide to check the pressure using the gas station unit and I find that both tires are low. I decide to fill the tires using my portable tire pump as a test.  I try hooking up the rear tire to the pump and find that the threads are not connecting. This is really bad, since I will be dependent upon the pump if I get a flat on the Dalton hwy.  I use the station pump to get the tires filled, and off I go. I roll into my hotel at about 5:00 pm.  The weather is very nice and about 70 degrees when I arrive. People are walking around in their shorts. I am still cold, and using my heated jacket.Time to get Chinese food for dinner.

Day 1. Alaska Ride 2017: Orange County, California

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

Mary Oliver

When I tell people that I plan to ride my motorcycle from Anchorage to the Arctic Ocean, and then back home, they usually ask three questions. The first question they ask is “How far is that?”.  I tell them it is about 5,000 miles, but depending on which way I go, the mileage may change.  They generally respond with “that is a long way. Does your butt hurt?”.The second question that I get is “Who are you going with”.  I tell them that I am going by myself.  Have you ever asked someone if they want to ride 5,000 miles on a motorcycle to the Arctic Ocean? If you did, you probably did not get many takers, just as I did. A couple of years ago, I joined a Meetup group in San Diego dedicated to going to Alaska as a group. After several meetings, it became apparent that about everyone in the group had a different idea of what it was to ride to Alaska, with many varying opinions on the time of year,

duration, and ultimately the route.  The group quickly abandoned and people went their own ways.  I learned from my Alaska group experience, that if I want to go to Alaska, then I would need to plan and go on my own. The third question that I get is “Are you not scared to be by yourself?”.  The answer to that question is “absolutely not”.  If you ever wanted not to be lonely, then ride a motorcycle across the country. When you are by yourself, people feel that it is okay to strike up a conversation with you about any topic that automagically pops into their heads. You could be filling up the motocycle’s gas tank in Oklahoma, and someone will come up to you and start asking questions about where you are from and where you are going.  And when people do start talking, they just do not stop. Often, you must jump on your bike and take off, only to look behind you and see that they are still talking.  Well, that last part might be an exaggeration, but most conversations extends well beyond the norm.

 

Today, I am flying out of Orange County into Anchorage, where I will pick up my Suzuki DL650 that I shipped to Anchorage several weeks ago.  I worked with Tyler at “Orange County Craters” to crate my bike, and find a shipper to get my bike from Orange to Anchorage. After the bike was crated, the first part of my bike’s journey was by truck to Seattle.  From there, the bike went via barge to Alaska.  If you want to get something to Alaska, then you need to get it to Seattle, where it will be loaded on to a ship or barge.  

 

After I get my bike, I will stay overnight in Anchorage.  I will then go to Fairbanks the next day and stay the night.  From there I will start North on the Dalton Highway, also known as the “ice road” or the “Haul Highway”.  The plan is to stop in Coldfoot overnight, and then head to Deadhorse the next day, where I will stay the night.  The next morning, I will take the Arctic tour, which is a bus that takes you to the Arctic Ocean, via the oil fields.  You cannot get to the Arctic Ocean at Deadhorse without an official tour, and you cannot take the tour until they do a security check on you.  Once I complete the Arctic Tour, then I will head back South stopping at Coldfoot and Fairbanks along the way. I have not really planned any stops after Fairbanks. I will just wing it as I go through Alaska, Canada and the continental USA.  My plan is to be back home on September 9^th, and back to work on the 11^th.

 

I have been planning this trip for some time. I probably started visualizing the ride sometime after I started riding a motorcycle 6 years ago.  I have taken a number of long distance rides while preparing for this trip.  I have ridden across the USA several times and done motorcycle camping, which I will also do on this trip. I had planned to do the Alaska trip last summer, but family priorities prohibited me from executing the plan.  I chose going over the Labor Day weekend, instead of the 4^th of July and Memorial day holidays. August should still be good for the trip, yet it does tend to rain more as September nears. The jet appears to go down low well in advance of the Anchorage airport. I see the coast line of inlets covered in a grey overcast. The rain is steaking over the windows of the jet. I dread picking up the bike and getting through a new city while it is raining.   The airport in Anchorage looks brand new and has the same feel as the Minneapolis airport. I quickly retrieve my checked bags and grab a taxi to the warehouse that has my bike.

 

The warehouse folk have been expecting me.  I am taken into the warehouse and asked to sign papers. I tell the guy “I have not seen the bike, how do I know it is not in pieces”.  He says he will fix the documentation if that is the case. He then starts to walk away.  I say “Wait, but where is the motorcycle?”.  He says “Oh yea.”  He opens the side door to the warehouse and says “Out there”.  I look out into the warehouse yard, and not seeing the bike I ask “Where?”.  He says “Way out there.  See it?”.  I look to the end of the warehouse yard and there is the bike out in the open in the rain.  I walk to the bike and noticed that the bike is pointed into a rack.  When I get the bike out, then I will not be able to move forward because I will hit the rack Just then a fork lift comes by and I quickly ask the driver to turn the pallet with my bike around so I can get out.   It has been raining and the wood is very wet, which makes removing the 2” screws difficult with my $7 electric screwdriver. I figure out that it will probably take at least an hour to remove all the screws just to get one side of the crate down. The driver runs off and comes back with an electric screwdriver, and he just starts to remove screws at a very rapid rate. In a few minutes, he had removed all the screws. We remove the plastic covering and I find that the left mirror has been removed. I just on the bike and find that the wood wheel chocks, in both the front and rear are massive.  The driver pulls the bike and I push and we get the bike out after much effort. I turn the battery back on and start the engine. I hand the driver my electric screw driver and a $20 bill, which he declines, but I insist he take since I do not want to carry the weight.  He finally accepts the items and I ride off. He does and then comes over to see what I am up to.

 

 The “in theory” ten minute ride to the hotel is pure hell.  I go down the street and immediately run into a mile long train. I turn around and start ignoring the GPS.  I quickly find that many streets are one way and I must go the wrong way and then make a u-turn.  This all becomes very difficult because I do not have a left rear view mirror. I make big left turn hand signals because with the heavy 4:00 PM traffic, I am not sure If anyone is really in my left lane.  I finally get down to the main highway, only to find that the turn has been shut down due to construction. I must once again go the wrong way and do a reverse turn.  I finally make it to the hotel.  The good news is they let me park the bike under the canopy of the hotel.  The other good news is there is a restaurant and bar on my floor.