(still) on the road: dawson city>>inuvik>>dawson city>>fairbanks>>p

[Charles Earl]

(Still) On the Road: Dawson City>>Inuvik>>Dawson City>>Fairbanks>>Prudhoe Bay>>Haines, Alaska Date: Aug. 31st, 2004 Location: Public Library, Haines, Alaska Milege of Motorcycle: 27150 Miles since Santa Cruz: 6893 Weather: Clear, sunny and warm. Finally out of the smoke!! Greetings everyone! It's been awhile since I last wrote. About August 13th I believe. I left off Dawson City, YT. The next morning I gassed up at the Klondike River Lodge and headed up the Dempster hwy. I had put the bike up on the centerstand and filled it all the way (so far, no leak from cap despite warning, hey that's another 20 miles!). I also topped off my MSR fuel bottle (all 11 ozs of it). No gas can needed on a KLR-650. At mile 19 my first black bear on the Dempster ran across the road and stopped at the edge and let me go by about 7 feet away. The road is chip seal for a few klicks and then good gravel up to Tombstone Mtn. Then it becomes everything you have heard. Exposed, razor sharp shale beds, deep loose gravel, inch deep powdery dust and hardpan clay (the best when dry, the worse when wet). Everytime you hit one of these fast sections, you have to be ready for the corners, which are almost always loose and deep, also banked steeply. And of course a semi could be waiting over every rise. It was a long, hard ride to Eagle Plains. The smoke was thick, as it has been since Watson Lake. Unfortunately, many of the mtn. views were obscured. The smoke is inconvienient, but it is also nature at work. I made the 244 miles without going to reserve. I keep the rpm's under 3000, except when I had too. You get used to "skiing" with your motorcycle on this road. Sometimes you have those narrow tracks between deep loose gravel, and you have to ski your front wheel over it and throttle the back to follow. The truckers were good to me, but sometimes it would be zero visibility until the dust cleared. Extra big, triple axle trucks on this road. In Eagle Plains, I camped with a klr exactly like mine parked across the lot. Turned out it belonged to KLR-lister Richard Cullison out of Maryland. We talked, traded notes, had a few drinks and told a few lies. I got a great interview with him on film describing his experiences. The next day I contined up the road. The road before and after Eagle Plains is especially bad for the exposed shale. They use local rock, shale in this case, to build up the roadbed over the Permafrost. Eventually the gravel wears down. This shale is razor sharp. I swerved around some pieces that were like knife blades pointed at you. I swear, they look like they would go through your tire and tube and then come out the back of your rim. You see many, many flats on this road. I took the two ferry crossings over the mighty Mackenzie and Peel Rivers. Unbelieveble, I got off the first ferry and went up into a big parking lot to check out some shops. Through my earplugs and helmet, I suddenly hear this ferocious barking. I look to my left, to see a huge (90+lb) village dog closing in on me, slobber flying, teeth showing and aiming straight for my leg. I'm in first gear and start doing a circle around this lot, rpms climbing as he gained. I look down and I'm at six grand and headed for the loose stuff. I start to turn and slow, he gains, and just as I am about to flop over I hit it hard which straightened it out. The side benefit of this, was that a huge roost of biggie marble size gravel caught this cur right in the face. No more villege dog problems. Nonetheless, I almost ate it because of this mongrel. I'd like a second shot at him, this time with a big stick. I'll be back mutt. Between the two ferries is some of the roughest part of the road. You and your bike really get a workout on the Dempster. After the second ferry, the road is the best of the whole run, unless it is wet. Hardpan clay and gravel, 60-70 mph. I blazed into Inuvik just before dark, and after a quick check of the local hotels (I felt I deserved a room) and their average rate of 150. for a shitty single, I opted for the campground back a few klicks. No reserve needed, about 249 miles. The next morning, I went into town and met some interesting people. I had breakfast and then, in a remarkable stroke of luck, was allowed inside the Russian Orthodox "igloo" church. This is rare. The keeper was there and even he doesn't always have all the keys. I was allowed in and allowed to film the interior. Then, he took me and another couple upstairs to the very top!! I saw the original, handdrawen blueprints. This building was built by hand with no architect, using what ever materials availible. They did a remarkable job, its almost all plumb and true. I then hit the road and made time back to Eagle Plains. A couple I had been leapfrogging since Watson Lake bought me my congratulatory drink. These folks left their trailer in Dawson and rode their BMW CL (heavy cruiser) up the Dempster. And they made it. He dropped it only once and she had to walk a few miles through construction sections. One of those sections was super knarly. Fresh, 18 inch deep dirt and rip-rap dumped with only a truck tire track through it. Honestly, their were 8-10 inch rocks in this tire track. I just stood up on the pegs and barged it. The klr rules. I woke up, stiff and hurting all over. Nonetheless, it's another 250 mile day back to the junction of the Klondike and Dempster hwys. A couple more bears ran across the road, about 5 total on this run. It's a good thing I didn't do the Canol and Campbell hwys, my rear TKC-80 Twinduro is almost shot, and the surface of the knobs looked like someone had taken a razor to them from the shale roads. The Dempster is a major crash and burn road, a couple of German boys in a rented gmc yukon passed me at 140 k per hour and two hours later rolled it 3 times down a 15 foot embankment. A japanese family rolled their 2 axle trailer in the loose stuff. A klr rider the week before went over the handlebars in a loose corner. Just another day on this road. I made it back to Dawson around 10pm. 4 very long, rough and dirty days. Arriving in Dawson is like downtown Pagossa Springs at this point, it feels like the big city. I had crossed the Arctic Circle, crossed the continental divide 3 times, changed time zones and crossed provincial lines (nwt's) From Dawson I bailed over the top of the world hwy to tok jct. Entire mtns burning on each side of me. Thick smoke, live flames on the side of the road. I camped in tok and then the next day blazed up to fairbanks. There, I changed my oil and filter and installed the new rear Conti I had ups'ed to me. As usual, it was a sob to do. Breaking the bead was a major pita. It's a good thing I did though, because I needed every millimeter of those knobs for the Dalton hwy. The Dalton/Elliot was closed for the first 2 days I was in Fairbanks because of fires jumping back and forth across the road. Have I mentioned that this fire is absolutely huge? About the size of a small state. The road opened, the travel advisory said not to go up it (in a car). Disapointed and irritated at this attempt to deny me the Dalton twice in a row (rained out in 2001), I headed up the road having no idea what I was going to do. The smoke was very bad. Visiblilty down to 50 or less feet at times. I have video of my bike with flames burning next to it. The smoke was really bad up to the Arctic circle. They are paving this road fast. There are now 90 miles of chipseal leading to coldfoot. I made it to Coldfoot and Marion creek campground. On the way up, I followed an engineer who works at Prudhoe Bay and had decided to do his commute on his klr. I shot an hour of headcam behind him. Awesome. The road is similar to what you experience on the Dempster, maybe not quite so bad, esp. with the chipseal. But there are way more trucks, after all, it is the "Haul Road." Long sections of slippery clay where water trucks had come through. The next day I headed further north and crossed the Brooks Range and Atigun Pass. That's when it became cold. 30 degrees f. That's without the wind. When I arrived in Prudhoe, I was so cold I couldn't feel the clasp and remove my helmet. By the way, there are grizzlys and the occasional polar bear running around town. Every bldg. has warnings inside the doorways to look out first for bears on the steps. Sometimes the polars hide under the steps and wait for you (the bldgs. are on stilts for the permafrost). I spent an extra day in Prudhoe. I took the tour to the Arctic ocean. very, very cold. in the low 20's at night. When I left, it was 28 degrees. With the windchill, I was easily riding in subzero temperatures. Like going on a ski trip, on your motorcycle. I had on everything I owned and it still wasn't enough. But I survived. In the 36 hours since passing through, it had snowed in the Brooks range down to the road level. But the road was dry. Good thing, you do not want to camp there, or god forbid, have a flat or worse). Sidenote: when I left Deadhorse, I thought my front tire was flat, but it was simply the cold combined with my airing it down on the way up. I leapfrogged a couple from Anchorage who rode 2-up on their 95 klr. They did good, but were even colder then I as they had less coldweather gear. I made it back to Marion Creek campground and felt a great sense of accomplishment. Now my body was really aching after the Dempster and Dalton back to back combined with the other 4 thousand miles of riding. The following day I rode back to Fairbanks, the smoke was even worse. At times I seriously thought I was becoming asphyxiated, I felt nausous, faint and had a raging headache. Just when you start to think you might make some time, you are going 10 miles and hour straining to see the 10 inch wide track with deep loose gravel on each side in front of you. Oh yeah, several times out on the tundra, caribou were on the road. Up to 8 one time. I also saw muskoxen in the distance. I made it to fairbanks late and was grateful to be off the gravel. The mold injection marks on my new rear were gone before reaching Deadhorse. all the way to the outer edges. It's not so new looking any more. I left fairbanks 2 days ago and went, in order, to tok river rec. area cg (2 moose in road on the way, one a huge bull with a full rack), then past haines jct. to catherine lakes cg (kluane nat'l park). Yesterday, I made it here to haines, ak, but not before getting caught in very heavy hail, high winds and hard rain. Then it cleared up and was beautiful. Oh, I finally left the smoke after tok jct. Thank god. I hadn't taken a deep breath for 2 weeks. Your lungs would burn from all the smoke. Not fun. So I'm in Haines, had I knowen (my own fault for not checking), I could have caught a ferry at 4:45pm to Skagway, but I missed it and am now camped down the road in Chilkat State Park. I will catch the ferry tomorrow at 12:45pm. It is winter schedule now. The Haines>>Bellingham ferry is now 700$. I will blast from skagway back to the cassier again. I want to catch the mtn view from the southbound perspective, also, all the fall colors are starting to show. The filming is going great. I have captured almost 20 hours of footage now. Scenery, fires, bears/animals, motorcyclists, multiple interviews with motorcyclists, headcam in the lavabeds, telegraph creek, dempster hwy and dalton hwy to mention just a few. It's going great. Can't wait to start editing it. Filming is a very dificult and labor intensive job, off a motorcycle you can times that by ten. I feel like I earned every second of that footage. I haved showed up late every night to camp, risked fires, been swarmed by insects including yellowjackets, been rained and hailed on and generally sweated my ass off getting this footage. Sometimes it is quasi-combat conditions, you get the footage as fast as you can and get the hell out of there before the road is impassable, it is dark or you are about to be burned alive. I lucked out, this was an unusually long amount of internet access. I have been out of touch lately. Too remote for computers, and to a large extent, phones. Look for more updates/dispatches. I hope this finds you all well. Let me know how you are doing. Oh, did I mention it, there are gizzlys feeding on spawning salmon a few thousand yards down the road from my camp. They are wandering around. I think I'll hang my food in a tree. I have a beautiful campground on the lake (I didn't last night, but this morning the rv that had taken the lake site across from me, left. I immediately went into tactical mode, transfering all my stuff and confiscating the firewood they left behind. I think I'll have my first fire of the trip tonight. They have either been banned, I was too tired to do it, or was already breathing way to much wood smoke. Sidenote: the fires are so bad, the tundra is burning on the dalton. huge swaths of land blackened and smoking as far as the eye can see. I hope to be home by sep. 15th. Take care everyone. Charles Earl cdearl1@... __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail