'I've never, ever seen roads this bad......' - Alaska-Yukon 16

Day Ten – Bryan goes hypothermic, Fran nearly dies yet.. we get to Fairbanks on time

I awoke with a slight hangover that may or may not have been related to kissing dead toes soaking in Jack Daniels. I also awoke to the sound of steady driving cold rain pelting my tent. The other guys were already up and about, packing up their wet tents and stuffing their sleeping bags.
We were now to take the Yukon ferry across this fast river… and go up and over the mountain range road named the Top of the World Highway which leads to Alaska and the Northernmost US Customs Station.

I got thoroughly soaked and chilled as I packed up my gear, but at least had the presence of mind to put on my heated jacket liner… but oddly did not use my heated gloves, my fleece pants liners or my Gore-Tex rain jacket. Perhaps I thought we’d ride out of the weather and experience a glorious warm and sunny run over the Top of the World highway.

Perhaps I was hung over and not thinking period.

Big mistake.

The weather got thicker and naturally colder as we gained altitude – it actually started to sleet. My favorite leather riding gloves absorbed the cold rain and sleet and my heated grips didn’t seem to make much difference. My heated jacket liner was literally my lifeline as visibility dropped to about 30 Feet and the temps dipped to 30 F – jacket heat cranked up full wasn’t making enough of a difference – but it kept me going.

I’d also forgotten that this ridge running highway is nearly 180 miles long. Limited visibility, sleet blowing horizontally on the stiff cross winds, and presoaked before I even got on the bike.

Dumb and dumber. Those guys got nuttin on me.

After a couple of freezing lifetimes, we arrived at the Poker Creek Customs office. Since Craig is Canadian with permanent work permits to live and work in the States, this occasionally causes the American Custom’s officers to double check his paperwork. Inside.



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The officer told us to turn off our bikes while we waited – thus cutting off my electric heat lifeline.

My core temperature plummeted like a stone and even as I stiffly dismounted I could feel myself starting to uncontrollably and deeply shiver and shudder– I couldn’t unzip my riding gear or even form words. Fran and Thomas saw my distress and helped me into the heated Customs office. I recovered in about 15 minutes, and went out and put on and connected my heated gloves.

I’m a complete idiot. I actually had all the right gear, I just didn’t wear it.



We got a few pictures and rode down and down to Chicken, Alaska…a three shanty + outhouse old gold mining ‘settlement’ that serves very expensive coffee, cinnamon rolls and hot coffee.





I wolfed down my coffee and pie… and started to feel almost human again – and it had turned sunny and mild outside!



I walked out looking for the rest of the crew but alarmingly Fran was doubled over on a picnic table and groaning in extreme distress. Then he staggered over to the edge of the parking lot retching and heaving.

This was really, really bad, and we had absolutely no idea what was happening with him.

There are probably 18 people who actually live in Chicken… and of course, none is a Doctor.

Fran was now assisted back to the picnic table where he gingerly lay back on the seat, clutching his side – white as a sheet.
I brought him a cup of tea and three Alieve tablets.

Not very helpful.

The owner of the Chicken Café called her sole employee to roust the local postmaster who was also their local EMT. This EMT was probably 20 years old, and he tried to assist – but Fran wasn’t giving very coherent answers. Craig suggested that the problem was possibly kidney stones – he’d had such a bout years earlier…but we were just guessing. The EMT tried calling an ambulance to fetch Fran and take him to Fairbanks, but for a variety of reasons which still escape me, that didn’t happen.

For two hours, we force fed Fran water and tea and waited for the pain pills to kick in. Eventually this terrible bout subsided and more or less faded away. Fran staggered over to his bike, got on with our assistance, thumbed the starter and mumbling something about ‘feeling better in the saddle’ headed on to Fairbanks… with us actually struggling to keep up.

This scene would reoccur at irregular intervals throughout the rest of the trip.

We eventually arrived in Fairbanks and the Garmin Genie led us right to the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus where I had reserved a graduate student Condo for us for three nights…. that stretched to four nights after an ambulance ride and ER visit…but I’ll get to that.

We met my son, Drew, who had flown from NYC to Anchorage, rented a BMW 800GS from Nancy and Keith at Alaska Motorcycle Adventures, great folks and they've ridden all these roads http://www.rentalaska.com/ shod with knobby tires and aluminum panniers. He’d ridden up that day, visited Denali Park and generally had a great time riding in the sunshine and mild temps – even as the other members of the original team were cold, wet and miserable and two of us hanging around death’s door.


Note - This bike may never be this clean again

Note to future riders – accommodations for a small group like ours are available through the UAF website. These nicely furnished sunny multistory condos have two large bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and large bathroom. Free laundry facilities are available just a few feet away. For our purposes, this temporary base camp let us leave a lot of heavier gear behind for the marathon to Deadhorse.



Mediocre Pizza and beer were procured and consumed…. we hit the hay early – tomorrow would be the run up the Dalton to Deadhorse on the Arctic Ocean. This road is never the same two days in a row – and this time was no exception.

In fact this trip dealt us the worst road conditions I’ve ever encountered in over forty years of riding.

Dempster

Hi met you guys in the camping spot in Dawson. We headed up the Dempster the next day and made it to Eagle Plains and than the following day to Inuvik. What a difference a day makes, Road was absolutely great in fact we rode back from Inuvik to Dawson in one day.

keep it coming please

completely enthralled by your RR.

Luvin the read !

Your making me glad I never made it to the Yukon this year

...and I am glad I stopped this July before going further north in the Yukon with my RT. Gravel is one thing but the stuff you describe with rain and chemicals mixed in is not for the faint of heart!

Great ride. I'm in!

dudo here too.

Day Eleven – An easy smooth ride…until we vanish into the clouds at the Brooks Range



We rolled early, on our now lightened bikes, grabbed breakfast at McDonalds and headed North. We stopped at the Dalton sign (now raised to an absurd height in an attempt to avoid being further stickered) got the mandatory group picture.







The long roller coaster grades on the South end of the Dalton were generally smooth and fast – the skies were blue, the clouds puffy and the temps were moderate. A HDTV worthy array of wildflowers bloomed along the road – their scent wafting into our helmets.



The forecast was for some clouds and occasional light rain on the North Slope.

Dead wrong.



The Arctic Circle arrived quickly – a few more pictures were snapped – next stop Coldfoot, Alaska…a wide spot in the road with gas, diesel and food. We gassed up there, got some soft drinks and stretched our legs.

Looking good. This was going to be my fastest run up the Dalton.

Wrong again.

We reached the base of the Brooks Range and encountered the two shell shocked riders I started the story with. Refugees fleeing Syria probably look better. Mud, shattered fenders, broken panniers held in place with wire and zip ties…one rider dismounted and just lay down on the gravel road. I had walked over, chatted quietly with them and issued the orders of the day.

‘Gear up…this is going to be bad’

Drew complied – deferring to my experience…. and probably the obvious condition of the riders and bikes just a few yards from us.



The road over the Brooks Range itself wasn’t awful – the usual mud, mist and gravel – but the clouds swirled around us and then the light rain started. And the clouds/fog got thicker. I kept hoping we’d ride out of this soup once we reached the North Slope…instead it stayed with us providing a weird twilight light, limited visibility, and raining just enough to force a continual wiping of my face shield.



The Haul Road – for the next 180 miles – consisted of 3” deep calcium chloride saturated mud – not the wet slurry of the Dempster – this was about the consistency of pretty freshly poured concrete. But even the slightest twist of the throttle caused the rear tires to start to violently slew from side to side.

And it never ended.

Downhill, uphill…. it ranged from awful to horrible and back to just awful. Hours of tense concentration took its toll on all of us. Even stopping and standing clogged our boots with this sticky mud. I don’t recall a lot of truck traffic – in hindsight I think we were on pretty freshly graded roads that had been flooded with Calcium Chloride just hours before.

I do recall seeing a man, pulling a bicycle style infant carrier, a dog’s face peering out as we passed going North. They appeared out of the mist and disappeared the same way.



Bizarre. And on reflection, I'm sure he thought the same about us. At least the dog had the right idea.

The 39 degree cold, the rain and damp started to soak in and penetrate everything. We were all tired, and eventually were spread out across several miles of the Haul Road each guy riding his own ride and pace.

Drew and I eventually emerged together from the fog and clouds and back into the perpetual wan sunshine just 20 miles from Deadhorse…. and encountered a flag guy standing by his pickup. The next section of the Dalton North of us had been submerged under water all of last summer and there were a couple of construction companies raising probably 15 miles of the road by at least 18 – 20”. This elevation is accomplished by thousands and thousands of dump trucks loads of rock and mud being spread and graded on top of the existing roadbed. Very strangely, one of the companies was also placing hundreds of thousands of 2” thick insulating foam board under the fresh rock, presumably insulating the permafrost from the roadbed. ‘Like that’s going to last long.

Riding conditions unfortunately degraded even further as the construction companies decided that using 3-5” oval polished river rock should work just fine as roadbed.

Smooth oval rocks laying on and into the mud.



Great.

Eventually the pilot pickup arrived to ‘guide’ us through the shifting maze of giant trucks, graders and bulldozers, mud and rock ahead of us. This Inuit pilot truck driver had never ridden a motorcycle in his life… and hadn’t a clue as to where to guide us.



I took point (as if I knew how to ride over slippery smooth river rocks in slick mud). Every yard was a battle, I leaned into the handlebars with more or less equal pressure trying to maintain direction… and to avoid having the bars ripped out of my hands. I stood on the pegs, I sat on the seat – nothing made any difference. Speeds were maybe 15 MPH as we hammered and pounded our way North, trying desperately to find a compacted easier line in this shifting, slippery rock and mud….all the while avoiding the giant Volvo Dump trucks.

Eventually I crashed – my front wheel veered suddenly into a windrow of 18” deep rounded gravel and mud, the rear came around and I highsided my bike, smashing my helmet into the rocks hard as I was thrown from the bike.

The pilot truck driver and my son assisted me in both righting my bike and turning it again Northward. It turned out that I was just one of five bikes that crashed just that evening – Craig – riding ahead of us - was another of the victims.

Thomas actually got his bike stuck in the deep mud and gravel right up to the axle, but somehow managed to get it freed without dropping it.

Only Drew and Fran came through unscathed.

Drew and I arrived at the Prudhoe Bay Hotel just 15-20 minutes after Thomas, Craig and Fran got there. As we registered, I was vaguely aware of the clerk showing us pictures on his phone of a 600 pound grizzly that had walked and trashed the hallways of this hotel two nights before.

Which given that the washrooms are down that hallway, will give you pause if you need to get up during the night.

I shed my muddy Aerostich on the floor of the restaurant area – so exhausted I could barely focus. This had been a 16+ hour ordeal. I ate something, and drank water and coffee.

Drew reached into his duffel and produced his Canada Goose parka. I looked at him quizzically – he explained that he wanted a photo of him in the Arctic actually wearing this coat, so he could prove that he wasn’t one of the ‘poseurs’ wearing arctic gear just to grab an Uber in New York City.


This picture was taken at Midnight.

The bikes were a muddy mess – I grabbed my basic kit off the bike, found our room and was instantly dead to the world lying across my bed, dreaming of that Grizzly stalking the narrow hallways of the hotel lit by the eternally buzzing fluorescent tube lights overhead.

God, I dreaded the next morning.

Great RR, please keep it up. You write very well and, like a good novelist, make me want to "turn the page" to see what happens next.

Beemer01 said:

I do recall seeing a man, pulling a bicycle style infant carrier, a dog’s face peering out as we passed going North. They appeared out of the mist and disappeared the same way.



Bizarre.

Click to expand...

On a side note, the guy walking to Texas may have done this before. A Greg Hindy trekked across the lower 48 for a year beginning in June 2013.
Yale grad Greg Hindy walks 9,000 miles across the country in 1 year without speaking or using technology

Beemer01 said:

The bikes were a muddy mess – I grabbed my basic kit off the bike, found our room and was instantly dead to the world lying across my bed, dreaming of that Grizzly stalking the narrow hallways of the hotel lit by the eternally buzzing fluorescent tube lights overhead.

God, I dreaded the next morning.

Click to expand...

Great ride report - don't leave us hanging!

Awesome trip report! Thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

Yeah, this is a great ride report. Looking forward to more. Thanks!

Wow. This is starting to look like riding the Road of Bones.

Day Twelve – ‘The tale of two roads’…or what a difference a day makes

We’d drawn the blackout shades at midnight the night before – necessary as the sun never ever sets this time of year. I was pretty sore from my ‘get-off’ so dug in my toiletries for some Tylenol and gulped two down dry. Grabbing a towel from the coat rack, I opened the door, checked for 600 pound brown bears, and walked stiffly down the hallway to find the showers.

Thirty minutes later, I felt almost human again and found the rest of the crew already in the breakfast area – Fran was working his eternal chick magnet charm on a young lady who’d also ridden up the evening before ahead of us.

She was part of a couple actually – he was a young 28ish Aussie, who’d quit his job, sold his stuff and was on an extended ‘walkabout’. He’d flown into Vancouver a week or so earlier, bought a Kawasaki 650 KLR bike and when he was riding through Anchorage he’d met this lovely young lady – and evidently offered to take her for a ‘bit of a ride’ to Deadhorse.

She’d borrowed a helmet, donned three sweaters and an REI windbreaker, grabbed her fuzzy woolen mittens and hopped onto his bike.



She never ridden on a motorcycle before.

Evidently being a young, good looking Aussie lad -with a great accent- can be pretty compelling.

Her first ride consisted of precisely what we had gone through…… and hearing her new friend yelling ‘**** – ****- ****’ repeatedly as the KLR clawed, pounded and slammed its way up the Dalton.

Evidently his considerable skills extended to riding as well because they didn’t fall.

They left heading South down the Dalton – he aiming towards South America….. I’m not sure where she was going to get off.

After breakfast, we grabbed some tank bag food and gassed up our bikes and fuel cans. My motorcycle evidently had as much trepidation as I did about the return trip as the ABS system refused to activate, leaving me with almost no brakes. I turned it off and restarted it and rode it around several times to no avail. A quick call back to Chicago to my mechanic didn’t resolve it either – it looked like I’d be removing the fuel tank to access the ABS pump buried in the frame of the bike…something I was NOT looking forward to doing in the gravel and mud parking lot.

I crossed my fingers and restarted the bike a fourth time and it worked perfectly. And stayed working for the rest of the trip.



Drew and Fran went over to the General Store for a photo op …..and soon we were heading back into the hell we’d left just ten hours earlier.



Except it was fine. These roads change every hour – ‘The Tale of two Roads’ to paraphrase Dickens.

I was counting down the miles and the road was perfectly manageable, with just a couple of dicey sections which I frankly regard as SOP.

1. The Calcium Chloride had generally set up and hardened.
2. The project manager for the construction crews must have gotten the word about bikes crashing left and right in the construction area and special attention was taken to create an actual ridable lane.

We marveled at the endless scenery – now that the clouds and fog had vanished. You can see the pipeline snaking away over the horizon – several herds of grazing Musk Oxen with calves all shedding their shaggy winter coats, families of Caribou with their tall velvet covered antlers…. startled by our bikes and sprinting off over the tundra…and the sky and the puffy white clouds. That color blue of that sky is absolutely unique to that part of the world….. that cameras just can’t capture.













We eventually crossed back over the Brooks Range, refueled at Coldfoot, saw the usual number of Grizzlies wandering around and generally arrived 500 miles later back in Fairbanks in pretty good shape. Thomas notably and strangely was lagging behind – several times Drew and I pulled over so he could catch up. I did point out that he had the fastest and best outfitted bike in the group…






We again dined on pizza and beer (better pizza and better beer) and I went to bed with the smell of the distant forest fires burning near Tok, wafting through my open window.

Craig woke me up – they’d called the ambulance for Thomas.

Dehydration, exhaustion and prescription drug interactions had set him up for collapse. I rolled out of bed, grabbed my sandals and was walking out the front door as the EMT rolled in. Thomas was in bad shape with severe cramps, digestive problems and gasping pain.

In short order, the ambulance pulled up and we assisted him out and onto a waiting stretcher. I accompanied him to the ER.

Thomas, a decorated US Army officer, never, ever, ever complains. I actually had no idea he was in such a condition. The local hospital treated him and sent us home in a taxi a few hours later, prescription in hand with stern instructions to REST for a day. This was actually OK, since Drew had completely blown out both fork seals and ruined the front brakes on his rented BMW 800GS on the Dalton and these sorta needed attention too.

Day Thirteen – R&R&R …… Rest, relaxation and repair

Trail’s End BMW got Drew’s rented bike in at 8:00 and out by 5:30 with new seals and front brake pads – Drew slept - Thomas slept - and Craig and I sat out front of our unit, smoked cigars, drank beer and generally annoyed the student staff all day.



Thomas' old friend Larry's family, had been tracking our adventures on Spot and overnighted a 'Care Package' to us! It was packed with thoughtful items including home made brownies, small repair kits and asprin! Very welcome!



Tomorrow - dust storms, fields of flowers, icy lakes, forest fires and towering mountains

Beemer01 said:

Trail’s End BMW got Drew’s rented bike in at 8:00 and out by 5:30 with new seals and front brake pads – Drew slept - Thomas slept - and Craig and I sat out front of our unit, smoked cigars, drank beer and generally annoyed the student staff all day.

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HA!!! Campus housing at UAF was one of the areas for which I used to be responsible. In my day we certainly would not have tolerated such loutish behavior and hooliganism from our motorcycling guests. Students yes, of course, but guests never.

Kevin -

We first met back in 2009 when I was a newbie up there! The program is still in place and in our defense we smoked outside and diligently cleaned up before we left. Fran, however, is the guy who decided to ride his bike up the handicapped access ramp and park by the door for packing. I'm not even sure how he accomplished this stunt.

No tire marks, or cigar butts were left behind.

Beemer01 said:

We first met back in 2009 when I was a newbie up there! The program is still in place and in our defense we smoked outside and diligently cleaned up before we left. Fran, however, is the guy who decided to ride his bike up the handicapped access ramp and park by the door for packing. I'm not even sure how he accomplished this stunt.

No tire marks, or cigar butts were left behind.

Click to expand...

Not as bad as the student that cut a hole into the drywall covering the space under the staircase in his apartment so he could store his CBR600 inside all winter. His plan was to repair the drywall in the spring, but since he was caught in flagrante delicto it cost him over $1,000.

Day Fourteen – Good Pavement, dust storms, forest fires, icy lakes and Chinese food

Up and out, all bikes running fine and Thomas more or less back to normal. We headed South out of Fairbanks…. passed through Tok, where they’d been battling the forest fire I’d smelled earlier, crossed the border back into Canada and refueled at ‘earthquake alley’ Destruction Bay just South of the now shuttered Burwash Landing resort – where in 2009 a self proclaimed arms dealer tried to sell me an AK-47…. chambered for 9MM NATO rounds. Actually, He had several models to pick from, but given that I was on a motorcycle he thought the folding stock version would be most appropriate.





We all marveled at the omnipresent dust storms blowing out over Kluane Lake from the vast wash areas at the South end. Fran initially thought this was ice fog – but it’s just fine dust.



I’d camped on the shores of this lake on past trips – at one time they’d operated commercial net fishing operations out of Burwash Landing – it’s a very, very big, very deep lake. The old wood fishing boats have been pulled up on shore and left to decay and return to the earth.

The fields of blooming Fireweed backed up by towering snow covered mountains were just fantastic – the camera can’t do this justice – but take a look!



At this point we’re riding East South East across some of most breathtaking lands in Yukon. It’s difficult to describe.



We eventually wound up in Haines Junction. The local Chinese restaurant had changed ownership again, the food had improved a bit and the local beer was cold and welcome.
The dilapidated private campground there seemed to be on autopilot, I never saw anyone in a management role when we were there, I slipped a $20 through the door slot of the closed and locked main building, having no idea who would get the payment in the end.

Tomorrow, Fran goes down again - and we almost miss the boat.

Day Fifteen – Ocean going Ferries and the scenery…. and Husky puppies!



We rode down to Haines and went in to secure our tickets for the short ride to Skagway. The agent looked up quizzically – “Do you have reservations?” Oh Shi*, I'd forgotten to make these reservations. I suggested that the last time I'd been here WITH reservations, they hadn't produced a ferry.

Good, now I have all the diplomacy of Donald Trump.





Fran elbowed me aside smoothly and took over negotiations actually getting all five bikes and passengers standby tickets for the 1:30 sailing. The irritated agent told us that it’d be a 50/50 shot if we’d even be squeezed on board.

So we waited in the parking lot for three hours killing time. Fran’s stomach/kidney pains had returned… so he assumed a prone position on the pavement.

Our collective tension mounted as they filled the hold of the ferry, jockeying around trucks, cars and campers – but managed to squeeze all our bikes in…a very tight fit but we made it!

It’s well worth it – this short 60 minute ferry ride on the inside passage saves seven hours of riding.



The rear upper deck is mostly open and a great place to relax (if you can locate a chair)…..and the steep and pretty technical road up the mountains out of Skagway is amazing.



In this part of coastal Alaska the dramatic mountains literally rise right up out of the sea, soaring to lofty snow covered heights. Eagles, bears and all sorts of wildlife can be seen from the ferry if you watch carefully.










The climb up from Skagway was dazzling - literally from sea level to high alpine meadows in less than an hour!



It seemed like we were crossing borders a lot – twice this day. As we approached Carcross, YT we saw a sign proclaiming Husky Puppies! Drew loves dogs…. and his first and only dog had been an adopted Husky/Shepherd mix – to which he’d been deeply attached.

He was a little disappointed when we arrived in Carcross and failed to observe open fields populated with thousands of tumbling, yowling and howling Huskie pups.
I felt a twinge, I knew this is where we’d have to part company with my son….we were heading more or less East and South back to Watson Lake and Drew heading North and West to get back to Anchorage. I hugged him, told him to ride safely and to have a safe flight back to New York.

Drew is a great guy, a good son.... and a natural rider. He also wound up misjudging distances on the map and rode 17 hours further to get to Anchorage!

The rest of the team made it to Watson Lake and back to the Air Force Lodge – but in the late day sunlight and deep shadows on the road had more than a few ‘moments’ dealing with over graveled sections of the Alcan Highway under seasonal repair.



After all we’d been through, at one point Craig was convinced that Thomas was going down when his bike began to violently fishtail in this gravel…this section was gravel spread over chipseal – think marbles dumped on concrete.

Lots of fun.



Tomorrow the Cassiar Highway South.... and three of us try to get Hyderized!