Adventures Down Under: 2011

Oops, I forgot to show you our route on the last blog post. So, here you go...green marks our route from the Yukon into Alaska.

Next up: north!

Day 12: Fairbanks to Coldfoot
Sunday, July 17
After being disappointed in our attempt on the Dempster Highway, we decided to try the Dalton Highway, the 414-mile haul road that follows the Alaskan pipeline up to Deadhorse. This road takes you as far north as you can drive on a public road.

We'd heard lots of horror stories about this road. Like the Dempster, when the weather turns pear shaped, so do the driving conditions. We were all pleased the sun was shining.

The road was lined by spectacular patches of fireweed...

As we moved towards the Arctic, the vegetation became more sparse and stunted. We began to fondly call these trees "asparagus trees." They had a certain Dr Seuss-like quality to them.

The road accompanies the oil pipeline the whole way. The sight of the shiny tube snaking its way along the road became strangely comforting.

The sky got bigger and bigger the farther north we rode.

And then before we knew it we were at the Artic Circle!

It was clear that the road had a bit of a reputation...

But we made it without incident to our first stop, pitched our tents at the Marion Creek Campground, and settled in for a good night's sleep before we tackled the next leg of the highway.

Day 13: Coldfoot to Deadhorse to Coldfoot
Monday, July 18
By 10am, we were back on the road, which stretched on for miles and miles ahead of us (240 miles, actually). The ride north was long and meandering for the most part, with the exception of Atigun Pass, a steep windy climb followed by an equally steep and windy descent.

Here we had our only bike incident of the day. Coming down from the pass is one of the very few and very short sections of paved road, and after all the miles of slippery tricky gravel, it was here that Mike managed to find a pothole nearing big enough to swallow his bike. He got the front wheel clear but the rear rim got a little bruised.

The Dalton brought some of the most breathtaking scenery we'd seen yet....

Fifty miles from Deadhorse, the road tested our resolve to make it to the end. Apparently to keep dust down, they regularly put down calcium chloride, which when wet turns to something like Vaseline. Not only had they just put down this lovely road-conditioning material, but they had sprayed the road with water, just to test us! It was more than an hour of white knuckle riding, making arrival all the sweeter!

This is as close as we could get to the Arctic Ocean—short of paying a bundle each to go on a "tour" with a token 20 minutes to dip our toes in the ocean. We settled for the river that flows to it.

It was about 6pm when we arrived. We gorged at an all-you-can-eat buffet and then turned our bikes around, to take in the scenery all over again.

We stopped to check out a herd of muskox...

And then again to explore the tundra...

And then again to pose with our bikes as the sun started to set...

And the sun kept setting....

And setting....

And setting some more...

Until we realized it was probably rising by now...

We stopped briefly at a campsite partway back, at about 3am...

And we were without a doubt pretty sleepy...

But it was just too beautiful to stop.

And then it was back through Atigun Pass, where we were swallowed up by heavy fog.

And finally, at 5:30am, we rolled back into Marion Creek Campground. Not quite 24 hours of riding (and stopping for photos). Exhausted, we were asleep within minutes of the tents going up.

Day 14: Coldfoot to Fairbanks
Tuesday, July 19
After a few hours of sleep, we were back on the road.

It was time to say goodbye to the pipeline...

And return to Fairbanks. First priority? Washing off the mud!

If there was any one part of this trip that topped the rest, the Dalton was it. It was a magical, breathtaking, surreal experience.

When we last left you, we had just spent our first night in the Yukon. It's time to get to Alaska already!

Day 7: Ross River to Klondike River Campground
Tuesday, July 12
The day dawned sunny and stunning yet again. How’d we get so lucky with the weather? (Note to self: I should have touched wood and had my fingers crossed when I thought that!)

It seemed in all of the exuberant gravel riding (and the occasional pothole) of the previous day, Sarah had managed to snap off the spring on Bella’s kickstand. So, the day started off with what would become a familiar sight: the three boys, heads down, bums up, all peering and poking at the yellow bike, trying to get it roadworthy once again!

Kickstand sorted, it was time to be off. First we popped down to check out the river in the morning sun.

Then it was a zippy ride along the rest of the Campbell Highway. Love love love this road! BUT...Bella did not. At the end of the gravel we stopped for a Twizzler break, and Sarah noticed that her right boot was very wet. Odd, since we hadn’t seen a drop of rain. Oh dear…that’s oil. Fork oil, to be precise—a blown fork seal. More bike work…Ken tried valiantly to fix it by pushing a card down alongside the seals to try to clear the grit...

...but to no avail. It was at this point that Bella Butter Horse was rechristened “Bella Lemon Horse.”
There wasn’t much that we could do, so we pushed on, heading north on the Klondike Highway.

Back on pavement, we were pretty bored for much of the way, but we did find some scrummy espresso flake ice cream!

Sarah also explored alternative transportation options (please excuse the terrible helmet hair)…

We arrived at the Klondike River campsite, just outside of Dawson Creek, at 11pm. Once again, the daylight tricked us into thinking it was much earlier. We rushed through our now nightly rituals: put up the tents, light a fire to ward off the mosquitos, hang our food to avoid attracting bears, and banish Mike's socks to his handlebars so we'd have enough oxygen in the tent to survive the night!

Day 8: Klondike River Campground to Dawson City
Wednesday, July 13
We didn’t do a lot of itinerary planning for this trip. Our goal was “north.” But, if you had asked any of us our secret ambition, it was to get to the Arctic Ocean, and the Dempster Highway to Inuvik was the adventurer’s way of doing it: long, remote, wild, and potentially dangerous in the wrong conditions.

Today was the day! A short 20-minute ride took us to the start of the Dempster from our campsite. Weather forecasts didn’t look good, but the sky was mostly clear and the weather gods hadn’t let us down yet.

Then we talked to a trucker who had just come off the Dempster:
Us: “We’re headed up the Dempster today. Any idea what kind of condition it’s in?”
Trucker: “Bad. It’s really bad.”
Us: “Oh. Really? How bad can it be?!”
Trucker: “I mean it. Bad. Think mud mixed with Vaseline, several inches deep.”
Us: “Well, we have knobby offroad tires.”
Trucker: *laughs a mocking laugh* “Really. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it. You’d be crazy to try. And the last thing we need is another dead biker on that road.”
Us: *stunned and depressed silence*

We didn’t have time to wait around for a better weather window, so we consoled ourselves with some photos of the signs...

Begrudgingly, we made our way to Dawson City, with visions of laundry rather than adventure in our eyes.
When we arrived in Dawson City, the skies opened up and it was clear we had made the right decision…

Dawson City is a picturesque yet touristy town full of gold rush memorabilia. It made the perfect place to escape the day’s onslaught of torrential rain and take our first hotel of the trip. We bathed, washed, drank, ate, and played pool with some local characters.

Side note: The next day, Mike talked to two guys on KLRs, bikes much more suited to offroad riding than ours. They had decided not to heed the truckers' warnings. Not even 100 miles in, they ended up having to turn around and spent 13 hours crawling their bikes out in horrendous conditions. At times, they didn't think they would make it out.

Day 9: Dawson City to Tok
Thursday, July 14
After what had been effectively a day off from riding, it was time to hit the road again. The sun was back out! We started by taking the ferry from Dawson City across the Yukon River to the start of the Top of the World Highway.

The Top of the World Highway is a road in dodgy repair but full of grand vistas (that we somehow forgot to take pictures of). As we headed towards the Alaska border, Ken spotted a side road (Sixty Mile Rd) that looked like it connected back up with the main highway. This was the first of the “Ken detours”—his GPS was a little overly optimistic about what qualified as a “road”!

We had some time to kill so decided to try it. We spent a couple of hours exploring mining roads that all eventually petered out into impassable narrow tracks. We had fun though, checking out abandoned mining equipment, dodging rocks, and crossing streams.

Then someone looked at a watch and realized the border closed in just two hours. Oops…time to head back. We "officially" entered Alaska at the most northerly border crossing in the world.

It quickly became clear that the roads in Alaska were even worse than those in the Yukon. However, the views were spectacular, and it definitely now felt like we were somewhere remote.

We arrived in Chicken (yes, that’s really the name of the town), fuelled up, and pushed on in search of a halfway decent campsite.

Close to 10pm, we rolled into Tok and found a campsite just for motorcyclists! Can you tell it was run by a woman? I thought the flowers were a nice touch.

Days 10 and 11: Tok to Fairbanks
Friday, July 15 to Saturday, July 16
It was time to do something about Bella’s leaking forks. After a morning spent on Ken’s phone, Mike arranged for the parts to be sent up from Anchorage to Fairbanks that day. We jumped on the bikes and headed to the city. It was a long and boring ride (more pavement…sense a theme here?), but the sun never stopped shining.

Fairbanks let us reminisce a little about our college days. Every summer the university opens its dorm rooms up to travelling motorcyclists. The residence halls were perfect for a cheap, clean, warm night’s sleep.