Day 13 (July 10, 2013)
After a restless night filled with anticipation and
adrenaline, we wake up and began packing the bikes and taking our extra gear to
the front desk. We were supposed to check out by 10 pm, however, with all the
day light and lack of sleep we kind of lost track of time. We ended up checking
out by 11. No worries though. However, that wasn’t entirely true. One thing
that was on my mind was the tires. We met a fellow riding a R1200 GS A in Delta
Junction that was running knobblies on his bike. When we found out where we
were going, he stated that we won’t make it on the Metzler Tourances that I had
installed prior to leaving for the trip. Of course he had just come off the Dalton
highway and it had been raining pretty good for the past 2 days... so I thought
that was why he was so adamant. The trie choice was something I wrestled with
for quite a bit. Before leaving home, I was advised by my mechanic to stay away
from knobblies for Johann’s bike as he was a new rider and where we were
heading, it usually has lots of rain and wet pavement. So I took a conservative
approach. Besides I have had good experiences with them. I rode on Tourances
quite a bit in “dry” gravel in central B.C on 2 different trips and had no
issues. But, we were expecting wet and muddy conditions that are very, very
slippery and having driven on the Dempster highway in the Yukon/NorthWest Territories,
I knew exactly how nasty the road could get. More so than just about any kind
of gravel road in the lower 48 US states. Once at Fairbanks, in the University
parking lot, I noticed nearly all the riders there had a new set of Heidenau
K60s installed. Once again, my anxiety level rose. These riders were telling us
that they were strongly advised to put the knobblies on. Oh boy, I didn’t plan
for this in the schedule and the finances… and besides where could I get tires
in such a short notice? The heck with it I thought. If it got too bad and unbearable,
we’ll turn around. We are adventurers’ to the core. If we can handle the Donjek
route from 2 years prior, I said to myself, we can measure up to anything this
country can throw at us. We can handle it
I kept saying to myself. So off we went. I didn’t mention this at all to Johann
as I didn’t want to give him any worries. As a parent and the leader of this
expedition, I had to show confidence. I couldn’t let my worries transfer to my
son.
We ended up having a breakfast-lunch kind of meal
(brunch?) before we left Fairbanks. We gassed up before leaving town as we were
unsure of the fuel situation the farther north we went. We had gone about 70
miles when Johann began to worry about fuel for his bike. I told him not to
worry as we had enough to get to Coldfoot, but somehow, I got the feeling he
didn’t quite believe me.
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| Rest stop just after Livengood |
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| Typical views on the way |
The ride up to Livengood was pretty cool. Lots of frost
heaves and lots of trees. We began to see the pipeline appear alongside the
road shortly after leaving Fairbanks. This was a good sign as it indicated to
me that we were heading the correct direction.
I was actually too tired to ride any distance today
without some more rest and soon after we passed LivenGood, I began to look for
a rest area to take a little nap... which I did. Surprisingly, Johann closed
his eyes a bit as well. I fell into a pretty deep sleep and didn’t notice that
a couple of semi-trucks had pulled for a bit and left the engines running. I
only noticed them when I awoke, not from the noise, but more so from the hard
pillow I was using ( a large square beam that was lying on the edge of the
parking lot.). My neck was beginning to hurt and I needed to change positions.
Once I noticed the trucks, there was no getting back to sleep. Oh well, I had a
good 20 minute nap and I felt pretty refreshed. So onward we rode until we came
to the start of the Dalton hwy.
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| We arrive at the start of the Dalton Hwy |
It seemed that the actual start of the Dalton hwy was
still a long ride from our nap stop. When we arrived, we could see that the
sign was raised higher than what I saw in my research pictures. And there were
less stickers on it. Hmmm, they must have raised it and cleaned some of the
stickers off.
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| A more inviting sign up the hill provides a formal welcome |
We were duped however, as we rode less than a mile up the
hill and there was a more official sign carved in wood that stated “Welcome to
the James Dalton Highway: Gateway to the Arctic –The Road to Prudhoe Bay”. This
was a much better welcome than some nondescript metal sign. We stopped for a couple of pictures and went on our way.
The road was initially dirt, but very solid and very easy to ride on. The sun
began to come out and we yelled for joy. This was the first time on the entire
trip when we had sunshine without the high humidity and high temperatures. It
was the perfect temperature for riding. We could really soak in the scenery. I
couldn’t believe that we made it. All my fears and anxiety from the night
before melted away with the clouds. Tires a problem? Heck no!! Not if it stayed
sunny like this the next 4 days as the weatherman predicted. We were going to
have on heck of a good ride.
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| Alright... 389 miles to Deadhorse |
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| The Yukon River.. |
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| Looking good |
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| Heading to the Yukon Crossing |
We rode through about 17 miles of construction near the
start of the hwy. I was getting a bit worried as we were moving slow, and I
feared that more construction lay ahead and we weren’t going to make it to the
arctic circle until the next day. We did, however, make it through the
construction zone and we came upon pavement.. What the heck? I thought the
Dalton was all dirt with the exception of about 30 mile stretch near cold foot.
We made good time from there all the way to the Yukon Crossing. They were doing
construction on the bridge and we had a bit of a wait there. The flagger told
us that there maybe gas across the bridge. Once we got across, Johann headed
directly over to check on fuel. He was really worried about gas. I think we had
gone about 110 miles at this point and he gets a bit testy around the 200 mile
mark when the fuel light comes on his bike.
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| Flagger on the bridge giving us good advice |
Not only did they have fuel (at $5.30/gal), they had a
restaurant there and we grabbed a couple of burgers. As we left, a couple of
guys we met at the dorms in Fairbanks were gassing up and told us about the
Hotspot Café just done the road. They claimed that they had burgers the size of
dinner plates and that we should’ve gone there. OK we said… on the way back
we’ll have to give it a try.
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| The "famous" HotSpot Café |
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| Typical hwy views |
Off we went. The riding was magical. I took lots and lots
of footage with my GoPro (There will be a video coming). I noticed a huge burn area and the pipeline
went through it. I wonder how the pipeline fares in fires.
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| The pipeline snakes its way through valleys, rivers and mountains |
The road winded through the forested spruce, up and down
big valleys and crossed many creeks with the pipeline almost always in view. We
began to climb higher and higher in elevation, ever so gradually.
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| Finger Mountain |
Eventually, we could see in the distance a unique rock formation. Awe, Finger Rock, I said to myself. I forgot about this in my research. The area is known as Finger mountain, but is more like a high plateau. The rock formation itself, is granite and seems somewhat out of place this far north. We stopped and hiked the area for a bit. I believe it must have been about 7:00 pm by now, but we couldn’t tell by the sun as it was still high in the sky… 24 hours of daylight. Johann and I took another rest and enjoyed the serenity of it all. All the while, I was thinking that this would be an incredible start point for a multi-day hike along the high plateau. One can see for miles and miles. I would imagine that it would be great for wildlife viewing as well.
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| From this view, it looks almost phallic in nature :-) |
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I took my riding gear off and slipped on my hiking shoes.
Good place for a walk. |
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| Johann taking a much needed rest |
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| The high plateau had expansive views in all directions |
After a long stay at Finger rock, we made our way north.
The ensuing valley was pretty spectacular with expansive views north and many
nice lakes could be seen in the distance, dotting the tundra landscape. We had
perfect lighting. We arrived at the Arctic Circle a bit later. Of course we had
to take a complimentary picture to prove we were there.
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| We made it! Arctic Circle |
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| View from Gobblers Knob, Pump Station 5 |
From there the scenery got even more beautiful. We were
still on the high ridges and stopped at one of the pullouts, Gobblers Knob, which
offered great vistas. We could see one of the pump stations (pump station 5) in
the valley below. Again we were puzzled by the partially paved road this far
north. We could make good time here if we wanted, but with dazzling scenery and
warm weather, why waste the opportunity? We eventually made our way into a
valley, heading deep into the Brooks Range. We stopped at Grayling lake and
noticed a couple giant moose feeding in the waters on the opposite side. Too
far for good pictures, but we could see that they had huge antlers. It was an
amazing area.
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Beautiful Grayling Lake nested in the valley
Marking the start of the Brooks range |
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| Huge Moose were feeding in the lake |
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| Nearly to Coldfoot |
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| The road as we approach Coldfoot and our camp for the night |
We headed north to Coldfoot. We arrived there around
10:00 pm. We just missed visiting the The Arctic Interagency Visitor Center. We
will have to catch it on the way back. I guess our casual scenic motorcycle
tour was taking a toll on the schedule. But, no worries, we are on vacation
after all. We grabbed some gas and a couple of sodas and headed about 4 miles north
to Marion Creek Campground. It is a fantastic place to camp. However, we had
one problem. The well was still frozen and we had to get water from the Marion
Creek. Since one of our gas containers had yet to be used, we filled it up with
water from the creek. We had a very late dinner and tried to sleep in the midnight
sun. Both of us had been feeling a little “loopy” for the past few hours… a
combination of the lack of sleep, the adrenaline rush and the long hours on the
bikes. Before fading off to sleep late
into the night, off in in the distance we could hear wolves howling. Pretty cool
way to end our day.
Stay tuned for Day 2 on the Dalton...
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