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Fort Nelson, BC to Dawson Creek, BC: The long miles

We have ridden the length of the AlCan Highway. Two college young ladies took the obligatory photo at mile marker 0 as they were beginning their Alaskan Highway adventure and we ended ours.

This last stage felt long because it did not produce the visual stimuli the rest of the highway did. Actually the best part was the agricultural stretch from Fort St. John to Dawson Creek. Golden round hay bales in green meadows, horses and especially cows grazing were a welcome sight; it had a soothing effect after so much forest all day.

The towns now look like towns again, the service stations' access ramps and the motels parking lots are paved.

This last day was very cold; we wore just about all we packed including balacklavas. It was also dusty in places and muddy in others. A serious auto accident dampened our mood.

We had a comfortable motel though and we were glad for it because when we finished cleaning up the bikes it was quite late and we were tired. Enduring the cold for 300 miles uses energy.

This concludes our Alaskan interlude. Tomorrow we turn our bikes south and east toward the heartlands of Canada and some of its National Parks.

Watson Lake, YT to Fort Nelson, BC: on the AlCan, through the Rockies; spectacular!

Outstanding scenery along a perfect motorcycling road, plentiful wild game viewing and … cold defined today.

It was 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 Celcius) when we set out this morning and shortly thereafter we came to a wide area of colder air so we put on our rain gear to try to slow the flow of chilling air against the body. A couple hours later we stopped for potty, food and warmth and I dug into my saddle bags for woolen long johns, long sleeve undershirt and balaclava. Julia was smarter: she began the ride with most of that on. For a couple of hours in the afternoon it warmed up some but by the time we were approaching Summit Lake it got really cold – colder than in the morning – and stayed cold all the way to the hotel in Fort Nelson, BC.

Within the first twenty minutes of the ride we saw a young black bear meandering toward the tree line alongside the road. Later we ran into several herds of buffaloes (bisons). I missed the best picture: a large bull was lying down on the opposite shoulder of the road so when I got close I prepared to take a photo of him. Taking a photo while rolling slow is not easy because both hands are needed for the bike ( gas and clutch). Anyway I managed to get rolling with the camera held between my teeth ready to take it with the left hand and snap a shot as I went by. Things were going well: the buffalo even got up and stood sideways! I juggled the camera –try doing this with the left hand in a winter glove – and generally aimed at him and clicked. You cannot see what you aim fo because the hand hides the screen because the clicker is on the right. But I could not miss; such a huge creature so close. As I rode clear I noticed that the camera was not turned on!

At one point, I noted brake marks on the road and thought that potentially there could be moose in the area, and there was: one cow feeding in a pond. Later in three separate occasions we saw small groups of cariboos. Eventually to crown it all we came onto a young adult black bear on the side of the road (the camera was in the top case!).

I have tried to do justice to the scenery with some pictures but it falls short of the splendor of this stretch of the Rocky Mountains. The road follows fast flowing, milky green rivers and clear lakes, goes up and down valleys, climbs to summits and generally does its best to position scenery attractively for the rider. It was a long delight: 335 miles.

Whitehorse, YT to Watson Lake, YT: more Yukon, more bear … a good day

We left Whitehorse under a blackening sky on the Alaskan Highway (Yukon highway 1) but we never had any rain all day. In the afternoon it became very windy but for us it was a quartering tailwind so it did not affect us badly.

The ride was a succession of mighty rivers, beautiful lakes with mountain backgrounds and incredible beaver dams. We even saw two bears: a yearling that I captured on a photo crossing the road and whom we observed browsing for a while and its mother. The sow was impressively big; her mask was dark brown and her pelt black, shiny and full. When we lost sight of her we moved on because she was not very far from us.

We crossed a Continental Divide this afternoon, but I cannot say which watershed it represents (Arctic Ocean vs. Pacific?).

We ate lunch in Teslin and spoke at length with an Australian couple traveling two-up on an older BMW 1000 GS. He told us that he was 60 kg (132 lbs) over gross and they were headed for Prudoe Bay, AK to begin a journey south all the way to Tierra de Fuego, Argentina. We wish them success; it sounds like a grand adventure. He has done several adventurous rides in various parts of the world. They mentioned the Air Force Lodge as a good, impeccably clean place to spend the night in Watson Lake. They had heard it from a couple traveling the AlCan in a 1940 Ford. The people traveling the AlCan form their own little community with its own “grapevine”. It is rather interesting. Often we find the same people at our hotel that we had lunch with earlier in the day or a day or two before. We hear about someone and then a day or two later we run into that person and can say:"Yes, so-and-so has told us you said this!"

We were blessed to find a vacancy at the Air Force Lodge where I am writing this. Total mileage was just under 300 miles (or as Julia says: 460 km).

Watson Lake is where there is a park filled with some 60,000 signs. It began with a recuperating soldier in 1942 who posted his hometown and distance on the highway sign post.

Dawson City, UT to Whitehorse, YT: Highway 2

The clouds began to drip as we headed out of town, enough to make drop patterns on the beaver ponds along the road but not enough to put on the rain gear. Leaving Dawson City is somewhat of a downer because the road cuts through the “scats” of the dredge. All that is left of the bottom of the valley are the piles of boulders (a la Idaho City, ID); the binding top soil and life sustaining dirt was washed off during the dredging process. Soon we climbed out of the valley and all was well with nature again.

Twenty minutes into the ride, the rain proper began so we donned the Frog Togs and rode on. The nicest by-product of the rain is that there was no dust on the gravel portions of the highway. The mud flaps we installed in Anchorage are working perfectly on both bikes – thanks Kurt.

At Stewart Crossing we stopped for fuel, potty, late lunch and warmth (not necessarily in that order). After that the rain was intermittent and we got out of the rain gear at Pelly Crossing. Our tentative goal for the day was Carmacks, YT; it made sense on the map. However it did not proved to be our choice for an overnight so we fueled up again and headed all the way to Whitehorse, YT.

Soon after Carmack we saw a large black bear near the road (brown in color but a black bear nevertheless). We stopped at Braeburn, YT (a gas station / café / RV park) where the café is very famous for its cinnamon buns. Nine inches across and five high, the monsters are also very good: the dough is made just right. We bought one to try and ate a fair portion of it; even at $7 it was still worth it. We arrived in Whitehorse with 560 km for the day.

Tok, AK to Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada: the Top of the World Highway

It is called the Top of the World Highway because it really feels like it. From the tiny settlement of Chicken the clay road rises continuously to above the timberline and crosses the border into Canada’s Yukon Territory on top of a remote high ridge. The road follows the ridges all the way to Dawson City. The road after the border is mostly “chip sealed” and / or simply gravel. The scenery stretches for ever but the pictures do not capture the vastness or the emptiness of the area.

We left Tok after some housekeeping delays and headed toward Chicken, AK. A short few miles before Chicken, a sign says: “Pavement ends” … and it does. From then on until we shut down in Dawson City (not to be confused with Dawson Creek, BC) we ate dust while we learned to ride on powdery clay then on gravel-on-clay. We left at least a couple hundred yards distance between us so we would not be constantly in the dust wake of the leading rider. However, pickup trucks and especially semi-trucks coming the other way raised huge billowing dust clouds that took away ALL visibility for long seconds while, white eyed, we hoped not to run into a berm of gravel, an animal or another vehicle.

Chicken, year around population 15, 4 outhouses, 1 saloon - got its name because the miners who registered it could not agree on the correct spelling of Ptarmigan. These grouses were plentiful in the area and provided meat for the pot – the miners referred to them as “chickens”. There we met a friendly North Carolinian, Aaron, and had lunch together. He finished his master’s degree in the spring and has been riding his refurbished 1200 Goldwing; up and down the East Coast then west to Alaska. Fully loaded he says he is “at a thousand pounds”. He does his own repairs, and saves money by camping. He had just gone over the Top of the World Highway that morning and from the dust on him and his motorcycle we got an inkling of what was in store for us.

Arriving in Dawson City is really cool: there is no bridge over the Yukon so a free ferry runs back and forth. The river carries a lot of water and is amazingly swift so the ferry ride follows a parabolic course from one side to the other. We remained seated on our bikes holding the brakes because there is no ramp on the landing and the ferry simply rams the shoreline, and drops its ramp. Dawson City is at the confluence of the Yukon and the Klondike rivers. These names fired the adventure dreams in the children’s novels I read growing up; being here is exciting for me. Dawson City retains its gold mine character (saloons/gambling and dance halls) and many of its original buildings. Our hotel “Yukon Hotel” was built in 1898. We have the run of it and our very large room overlooks the river.

Dawson City is also where the exhausted, starving would-be miners arrived floating down the ice clogged Yukon from Whitehorse, YT and were met by the fresh, well fed would-be miners who had not rushed headlong into the wilderness but had waited for the steamer service to begin and cruised up in style to the Klondike gold fields! The former had clawed their way up the mountain and glaciers out of Skagway, AK to the border where the Mounties would require them to show enough supplies to last them one year before entering Canada and head for the Klondike gold fields. So these adventurers went back and forth from the border to Skagway in miserable weather moving all their supplies up ridiculously steep, snow covered terrain on their backs. Once through the border, they wintered in very rough (very cold) country waiting for the ice to begin melting. When this started they built log rafts and floated the river toward Dawson City. How any survived is a mystery to me.

Glennallen, AK to Tok, AK: a pleasant ride into Alaska’s interior

This shorter ride (143 miles) gets us back to Tok where we will ride straight north again to do the Top of the World Highway. The day followed the pattern we have noticed: cloudy and cold in the morning and brightening into sunshine in the late afternoon. We left Glennallen later than usual because we mailed equipment back to Ohio; equipment made redundant by route choices. Today was a very nice day to be riding, the natural surroundings continue to promote musing and praises. In Glennallen we stayed in the same motel as on the way in: the Snowshoe Motel (in the same room:6), Larry – one of the V-Strom riders – left our route book there for us to pick up on our way.

Glennallen, AK: on the road again

After Palmer – where we ate lunch at the Noisy Goose: soup and coffee to warm up – the road follows a mighty river with jagged Chugach mountains for background. Eventually the road climbs about 1500 feet above the river and turns the corner of a ridge and instantly the panorama opens up to an incredible vista. The river still runs down on the right, the mountains still its backdrop but the valley broadens into a basin with a beautiful lake on the left (about 1000 feet higher than the river), an imposing cliff closes the left side for miles. The road descends to the lake and then ascends on the side of the cliff; it gives a tremendous impression of adventure. All of Alaska is there: the remoteness, the cold, the limitless expanse, the black spruces, the lake and the river, the mountains layered into various strata of clouds. Later we climbed out of a valley to a stunning view of the Matanuska Glacier. It is a very long flat glacier that snakes back into the mountains. The icecap on some of these mountains looks to be greater than 300 feet thick. Finally, the last 15 miles into Glennallen are ridden staring squarely at the Wrangell - St Elias range with the high, white peaks of Mt Drum and Mt Sanford. Amazing!

Today I rode cold; there was not a part of my body that kept warm. Finally later in the afternoon the sun came out and I finished the ride comfortable. Julia had more layers and did better.

Kenai Peninsula, AK: Alaska on a 500 miles loop

The Kenai Peninsula is a lovely appendage to the Alaska’s main land. Whereas on the continent the vistas are stately, well ordered and spaced for leisurely visual enjoyment; on Kenai – especially on the way to Seward -- the vistas bunch up around you from all azimuths. Every few miles at the corner of valley a new set of panoramic splendor greets you with all the necessary Alaskan actors: the craggy peaks with snow fields and glaciers, the wild lake, the evergreens and the tundra above them and the strong rivers.

We went to Seward then spent the night in Moose Pass and headed on the morrow for Homer but we gave up the ride and tucked into Kenai (the city of Kenai) for the night. This is as far west as we will get on this trip.

There is only one road from Seward with only one intersection for Homer; we missed it! In two full months of traveling through 15 states and two provinces we had not missed a turn off … and we missed the easiest one (it took us 10 miles to realize it too). As it happened, the turn-off was in a construction zone while we were led by a pilot car; we were not paying any attention outside the roadway.

We stopped for potty, coffee and gas at the Sunshine lodge. There we decided to have breakfast as well and while eating we found John and Peg. John and Peg are the two people traveling on their 1992 Goldwing for their 50^th wedding anniversary with whom we lunched in Delta Junction last week. After hugs and catch up conversation we agreed to try to meet up in Homer for diner but Julia and I did not make it there. We hope to see them again; they are such neat folks. Outside the restaurant, we spoke with two riders (Triumph California and Honda Rebel) and Julia got an offer for her bike on the spot.

Anchorage, AK: services, friends and crowds

On Friday, as we neared Anchorage, the “hub-hub” of the freeways and the city shocked us; we had ridden the lonely road away from the crowds for quite a while and liked the feeling. But, on Saturday, a sunny day, we did enjoy Anchorage and its people; in the end it is not a “big” city, it is very livable.

We will remember Anchorage fondly. Curt picked us up in town to spend an evening at his and Claudia’s house (they are one of the couple we befriended on the ferry). They have a heavenly location (figuratively and physically) way above the city. The view is phenomenal. They have invited us to stay in their guest cottage on our way out of the Kenai Peninsula and we are looking forward to it.

The BMW/Kawasaki/Triumph dealer on West Potter gave us fantastic service at very reasonable prices; thank you Brandon for coordinating this for us. Julia says: “it’s a mighty fine tune-up”.

We walked around Lake Hood – the largest base in the world for pontoon planes/hydravions – the sheer number of planes is baffling. I did not realize there were so many De Havilland Beavers still in use in the world -- in just one basin I counted ten of them. Neither did I expect the preponderance of Super Cubs; I expected to see more Huskies and Scouts replacing the aging Cub fleet. Airplanes on floats look good, especially when there are many of them in the air and on the water at the same time. Personally, I think Cessnas 170’s, 185’s and 207’s look their best on floats.

We enjoyed good Vietnamese food at a place on Spenard Avenue with an unlikely Vietnamese name: Ray’s Place.

On the return from Kenai, we stayed with Kurt and Claudia. As mentioned above, their log home – they built it themselves – commands a panoramic view over the Turnaround Arm (the bay south of Anchorage) and the Kenai Mountains in one direction, over downtown Anchorage then beyond over the Alaskan Range and even Mt McKinley! The place is very cozy and quiet, we loved it. We stayed in the cute log guest cottage; it was great. As always, friendly fellowship with German folks is filled with good hearted laughter and this was no exception. Brad and Karen (the other motorcycle riding couple we met on the ferry) came down for a dinner and good times. We toyed with future two wheel “odyssey” destinations for the six of us…

Kurt gave me the run of his garage and his help to fabricate mud flaps for the front fenders of our motorcycles. It will help in the next few stages as we go through road repair sections and a 100 miles un-paved stretch between Chicken, AK and Dawson City, YT.

Denali, AK to Talkeetna, AK: Hide and seek with Mt McKinley

We left Denali before 8 AM, in the COLD of the morning. Throughout the ride we have to adjust our clothing to the change of temperatures, sometimes it feels like we do a lot of dressing / undressing and opening / resealing the luggage to pull things our or to stuff things back in.

This is a scenic ride in every way and the suspense is whether or not Mt McKinley will be in or out of the clouds. The cloud condition changes quite rapidly so that from an area where the mountain can be seen from the road to the next we cannot predict it appearance or disappearance. Or how much of it we will see. Mt McKinley is so big that yesterday I counted 3 different layers of clouds along its flanks.

At one of the look-outs we met a Swiss family who had flown to Whitehorse, YT, rented a crew cab ¾ ton Ford pick-up equipped with a camper and had been cruising around the Al-Can and Alaska.

At another, one of the ubiquitous cruise company buses was meting out lunches to its passengers so that they could picnic in this nice area before moving on. We asked the driver if he had extras and if we could buy a couple from his company for our lunches (places to eat are few and far between). He said that he indeed had extras but could not sell them, however as “Alaskan hospitality” he and his company would gladly give us lunches. So we too picnicked on free lunches; God bless this driver and his company. (P.S. it is against Royal Princess policy - for obvious reasons, but they sure are very friendly people.)

Talkeetna has a striking view on a very scenic portion of the Mt McKinley range, including Mt McKinley itself. The town has become a staging point for those hardy ones from all countries who attempt to climb the mountain each summer. It has an extremely busy airplane based industry ferrying supplies and climbers on skis-wheel equipped airplanes (there are no roads). It also provides tourist with rides to, around and into McKinley, including glacier landings. The price for the rides is rather steep when considered simply from an outlay point of view; however when factoring in all the operating costs of the machines, pilots it is quite reasonable. Talkeetna does not slumber when the climbing and tourist season winds down; salmons and other fish species crowd its three rivers and another brand of visitor requires catering to: the fisherman. So, floatplanes are buzzing too. We are on the back side of the climbing season, but on the high side of the tourist season and also at the beginning of the salmon run so even for a flying enthusiast like me the areal activity is a little overwhelming. Tonight we are staying in an old log cabin (a B & B) that is on the same lot as the garage used by the glacier flying legend Don Sheldon, and as I type I am looking at his original short and narrow strip (still in use today). The commercial operators use the modern airport/strip a few blocks away and the lake, but the old gravel strip still has a Super Cub and a Champ calling it home… and there is still a sign at the end of the runway – down town that is – that says: “no airplane parking beyond this point”.

Today's ride was a mellow 140 miles or so. We do not have a deadline so we stop a lot and visit with people a lot.

Denali National Park

We have been told that 70% of the time, Mt McKinley is hidden from view by local clouds. 30% of the times it is visible but only 3% of the time is a “picture perfect day”. When we woke up in Fairbanks, there was not a cloud in the sky. We could not leave early because I had an appointment for a blood test first thing in the morning when the lab opened; so we rolled out at 9:40 AM. However, not twenty minutes outside Fairbanks, there it was on the horizon: Mt McKinley over and above all the surrounding green ridges. Julia was whooping with joy and I got such goose bumps that from that point on I was cold.

There is a fair amount of road work done in the summer in Alaska (and the northern provinces of Canada) and the crews are usually friendly and interesting. The fellow holding the Stop/Slow sign in the hills outside Fairbanks had come to Alaska in 1975 from Ohio. In the conversation he asked what my accent was and upon my answer he switched to a fluent and easy conversation in French. He has a masters degree in French!

The highway outside Fairbanks rises onto a ridge and follows it for quite sometime. It is spectacular because we can see out of both sides. This day one could see forever. On our left our ridge overlooked a wide valley hemmed in far away by sharply defined mountains. On our right large parallel hills resembled the scenery in New Hampshire around Conway (but without any villages). Texas felt big, really big to us when we rode through its breadth … Alaska? Let me just suggest that Alaska’s purchase must have been sponsored by a Texan who felt constricted at home!

We made Denali our goal for the day as it is the gateway into Denali National Park. So after a somewhat short ride (130 miles, or so) we arrived in Denali, AK. Upon arrival we booked a trip on the official Park Bus into Denali then we began looking for a place to stay. We asked a local where to spend the night; he suggested doubling back to the next services 11 miles up the road (our time was running short as we needed to eat lunch and be back at the bus stop in 90 minutes). As we thanked him and pondered our options, a man walked to us and introduced himself as the nurse in the health center next door. He had heard our conversation because he had stood close by on his smoking break. He offered the use of his desk phone and the list of the local businesses from his offices. The first few tries brought concern (and a wasted 20 minutes): no vacancy except a room at $360.00 a night! So, Bo, the nurse said: “Don’t sweat it: I have plan C for you.” He offered us his trailer for the day and night as he would be sleeping in the clinic that night. So we had our lodgings for free! God is good.

The ride into the park was very interesting as regard to flora and fauna: the guide/driver was knowledgeable and spectacular as regard to vistas. The park is a 6 million acres preserve originally set aside for the protection of the Dahl sheep. We saw ptarmigans, caribous, snowshoe hares, Dahl sheep, ground squirrels, one cow moose and eleven grizzlies (5 sows, the rest were cubs and yearlings).

Tok, AK to Fairbanks: Making new friends

After last night’s storm, we awoke to clean skies and dry roads. We took the time to wash the biggest chunks of mud off the motorcycles and to re-lube the chains before saddling up and moving on.

Just a few miles out of town, a yellow hot-rod passed us as if we were standing still and a few seconds later a black one did the same. In seconds they were gone. We stopped at Delta Junction (the official end of the Al-Can highway) for fuel and lunch. As we were fueling and asking the locals for a recommendation as to a place to eat, we met a couple on a Goldwing and invited them to join us for lunch. As we rode to lunch, two V-Strom’s – identical to mine – passed by; we found them again at the restaurant. So, Larry from California, Willie from Mc Call, ID (the V-Strom riders), John and Peg from the mid-west and us ate together and had a whooping good time of laughter and tales. Larry and Willie are two former motorcycle racers (they settled down to responsible lives in the early seventies); they are going to the Arctic Circle. John and Peg had decided that for their 50^th anniversary, rather than a big banquet/reception at a hotel, they would fire up their 1992 Goldwing and ride up-to and around Alaska! Way to go - dream big and keep the romance going!

Somehow in the conversation, Larry and Willie mentioned that the night before they had a fun dinner with two guys: Bruce and Bob who also were going to the Arctic Circle but in hot-rods. When asked, they verified that one was yellow and one black: the very ones we saw.

We exchanged phone numbers with Larry in order to “try to get together for dinner in Fairbanks if practicable”.

Fairbanks was hosting its Golden Days so rooms were either all taken or at a steep premium. Julia and I were referred to a Bed and Breakfast. There we found the two hot-rods. Bruce – the owner/driver of the yellow one – mentioned that the night before they had dinner with two V-Strom riders and actually hoped to connect with them for this day’s dinner. We asked if they were Larry and Willie … to make a story short, Larry and Willie, Bruce (Grants Pass, OR) and Bob (Napa, CA) and Julia and I all ate together at the Pad Tai House on College Drive (the best Tai food any of us ever had). We laughed a lot and listened to hot-rod stories. Both Bob and Bruce had been mechanical nuts all their lives and raced since they were teenagers (I think that to this day they would raced anything, anywhere, at anytime of the day or night). They had finished exchanging engines and transmissions on the two hot-rods (originally Ford 31’ and 32’s) only the night before they began their journey. Normally they run tricked-up engines and transmissions that dyno at or just short of 800 hp! For the trip they deemed it wise to run detuned versions at respectively 500 and 570 hp. They drive them as open buckets: they do not have tops … rain or shine. Their ages? … hard to tell, but Bob has a magnificent head of white hair around a wrinkled, kindly, bespectacled face and Bruce has been retired from Chrysler for years and years! Since the “hot-rodders” and ourselves “lived” at the same address that night we joined them for after dinners and more stories, time flew and it was 11:30 PM (and still quite light out) when we all decided to retire to bed.

The day before, we had played tag with another team of travelers: Suzy and Kathy who are traveling into and around Alaska in an SUV. We kept running into them at refueling stops, potty stops, lunch, etc. They even shared their candy with Julia. Too bad we lost them in Fairbanks; we will miss their smiling faces.

Total mileage for the day: 225, scenery spectacular.

Burwash, YT to Tok, AK: Through Yukon to Alaska

Later start today: 10:30 AM, we needed the rest. The scenery remains just as spectacular, even more so when we reached the inland plateau around Beaver Creek, YT and into Alaska where all notion of distance disappear and everything opens out yet remains crisp visually.

The road is trickier because the respective highway departments are patching the bad areas. We had been warned to keep a sharp eye for the frost heaves but these are not a problem on a bike (actually some are rather fun: like a roller coaster) but they sure give fits to large vehicles especially those with trailers. The spots that were difficult for us were either the stretches of raw dirt being flattened: this dirt when wet is very slippery and the bikes take on a mind of their own. The others are the stretches where new gravel has been laid. These come in various degrees of difficulties depending on how thick the gravel is, on whether or not the road has a lateral slant to it or not and whether the road climbs or descends. We learned new skills today. You should see Julia’s bike this evening; you would not believe that underneath the mud there still is a shiny metallic cherry red body!