The night before the line stretched 30 vehicles long. But now
we drove right on and were delivered across to the opposite
bank without delay. The Yukon River flows here with such force
that they keep a Caterpillar tractor on both banks to maintain
a passable surface for landing the ferry platform.
We
proceeded onward to the Top of the World highway, which would
take us to the US border. This was a stretch of land that I
really looked forward to seeing. Once again smoke filled the
sky, but even more so than any day prior. The Canadians keep
this road well maintained, it being the major sight seeing route
for the Holland American cruise line's inland bus tour.

Much of the 65
miles to the Alaskan border was recently restored with 6"deep
of 2" crushed stone. This made for a bit of a treacherous
ride. We had to continuously keep up a speed fast enough not
to sink into the stone bed but slow enough to keep from launching
our motorcycles off the sheer, unguarded drop-offs that line
most of this route. The beauty that this mountain pass is famous
for was hidden in a guise of haze. Huge pastoral drops vanished
into an ocean of miasma, leaving us only to imagine what we
were missing. We arrived at the border crossing about 40 minutes
earlier than its opening. This was one of the explanations for
the lack of a line at the ferry.
The
other reason was that this road had been routinely closed down
to traffic for the past 3 weeks due to fires on the Alaska side.
About 15 minutes before the crossing opened a guy in his 60s
pulled up behind us on a R1150GS Adventure. We spent the time
until the border opened exchanging stories.
Forty miles past the crossing is the little town of Chicken,
Alaska (population about 25). We were given warnings that Chicken
was closed due to the fires and we expected to just drive past.
Well, Chicken was a buzz when we pulled up to its 7 or so buildings.
There were people hustling around all over. When we got inside
the restaurant we could see why. Firefighters were using the
town as a basing facility. We got in line behind about 20 firemen
for placing a breakfast order. We seemed to be on the tail end
of the sitting, which allowed us an indoor table. Jeff and I
again met up with our new acquaintance from the border, Mr.
Adventure.
While we ate our caribou sausage and eggs, I pulled out my camera
to show off my bear shots from the day before. Mr. A took a
look at the images and then looked back at us and said we were
lucky to be eating breakfast that morning. He went on to say
that what we saw was not a brown bear, but a grizzly bear and
if our story about being 30 feet away from her cub was true,
we were fortunate that she did not tear us into pieces. Jeff
and I gave each other a "you learn something new every
day look" and went on with our tales. Best I can figure
out is that the mama grizzly saw 4 opponents to take on; Jeff,
the two motorcycles and me. About the time we were finishing
up our meal some loud-talking tourists came walking through
the canteen. They had to know everything about the firemen and
their efforts. We did not pay much attention until just before
they left, one walked up to our table and asked if she could
take a picture of us.
Jeff and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders in
an "OK" fashion. By the time she walked out the door
I realized that she had mistaken us for firefighters. Her parting
words tuned me into this: "You're going to be on the front
cover of our home town paper." I looked over at Jeff in
his Hi-Vis Aerostitch suit, which he had left on for the meal,
with all the dust and mud now part of its constitution, and
realized that he was a dead ringer for the part. So somewhere
out there our mugs have graced the pages of some small town
paper with the headline "Our Heros". Riding south
on the Taylor Highway gave us a taste of what the real heros
were up against. This 60-mile journey on the Taylor to the Alcan
had us running through some of the most oxygen-depleted territory
we had been through so far. Several times we had to pull over
to gain back our breath and wit.
Near the junction of the Taylor and Alcan Highways is the town
of Tok, Alaska. This RV haven was the start of a very disappointing
stretch of roadway. Let there be no doubt that this is where
man has placed his footprint on this, the land of bogs. Yes,
there are hundreds of miles of forest, but what stands out most
in my memory are the areas where man has made his mess, Tok,
Delta Junction, the North Pole and Fairbanks.
Not to mention the Army and Air Force bases. Having dreamt of
Alaska most of my life, what a buzz kill it was to find the
same mercantile crap there that you can see almost anywhere.
This was a disappointment to say the least. To be fair we did
not travel into old Fairbanks, but from the highway
well,
as they say, Marshals anyone? And if Santa Claus is held up
in North Pole, Alaska it must be against his will. Heading north
of Fairbanks became immediately more interesting. From Fox to
Livengood the paved roadway gets twisty, with broad sweeping
turns. This area is where you start to see the pipeline pop
out in the distant green mountain backdrop. After that fun we
hit the James Dalton highway, a rock encrusted dirt road wide
enough for two trucks to pass. This is the road to the end,
Dead Horse. Back at Tok I had made a call to the BMW owners
message service to hear if Joe had left a note for us. He had
and the message went something like
"I'm in Fairbanks
staying at the Hotel Something or other" and he left a
number. OK, he made it there safe last night and I guessed he
was well on his way to Prudhoe Bay. It was about 11:00am and
we speculated that he had bitten off at least 200 of the 500
miles he would be driving that day.

On the Dalton Highway, Jeff and I were almost immediately baptized
with a stone shower delivered by an 18-wheeler doing at least
50 MPH past us and showing no mercy. Amen. Here the pipeline
was running parallel to the highway, now and then disappearing,
and then seen again on the other side of the roadway. The smoke
and fire persisted, although not as intense. At one point we
saw a fire directly below the pipeline itself. The firefighters
apparently knew about the flames but felt other areas were more
vulnerable. We later found out that the pipeline is built to
withstand the heat. About an hour into the Dalton we found a
section of road reconstruction, which ran on for at least 15
miles. The crews were done for that day and in an effort to
keep the dust down, the whole distance of the project had been
watered down - making for a mud bath far more difficult than
the Cassiar had been 6 days before. I could tell Jeff was not
thinking this stretch was amusing. All day long our CBs kept
working fine, so I got on the radio and gave him turn-by-turn
instructions. This method actually worked great. By the end,
Jeff had built up his confidence and I believe it was his turning
point as a journeyman rider.
After
hitting dry roadbed again I took off ahead of Jeff to give him
less dust to inhale. I'd drive up ahead and then stop for a
while until we made contact again. At one point I ran into two
guys from New York City (small world) on BMW R1150GSs. I pulled
over and introduced myself, then stayed until Jeff showed up
for his intros. They said that this was their second time up
there on motorcycles. One of the bikes had a cool video set
up. There was a camera attached to the tank, so that they could
ride and turn the view 240 degrees. We ended up playing tag
with these guys for the next hundred miles. After crossing the
Yukon River (yes, it flows over here also) we came to a place
to get gas. It went by the name of Hot Spot, Alaska. I'm not
sure if that's official or not. The place offered gas, food,
souvenirs and rooms to sleep. The entire compound was crafted
out of shipping containers.
We
were about 60 miles from the Arctic Circle here in Alaska and
I knew that we would be in need of a place to stay that night,
so I inquired with the good innkeeper if there was the possibility
of a room we might secure for that evening. Indeed, the innkeeper
was more than delighted to accommodate our request. With that
task out of the way, we gassed up and headed north to the AC
for our portrait at the marker. It was about 9:30pm when we
pulled out of the Hot Spot lot. The light was still in the sky.
Interestingly enough the road becomes paved not too far from
here. The more north we went the more bleak the landscape got.
Again
the smoke was cutting out the vistas, allowing us to focus on
only the near at hand. Getting to the AC was monumental for
several reasons. First, this was the most northwest point we
planned to travel. From here on in we'd be heading back home.
Second, this was Jeff's birthday, which I didn't let on to him
that I remembered. While at the Hot Spot gift store I picked
him up some Arctic Circle and Hot Spot, Alaska mementos and
surprised him by gifting him there at that moment. It had been
a just a little more than two years ago that Jeff had first
proposed the idea of learning to ride and going with me on this
trip. In that moment, he had made his mark for the task. In
turn, Jeff had a surprise for me. Throughout the trip, he had
held off on telling me that his wife Jessica was expecting twins.
Jeff felt safe in making this announcement here at our most
distant location from home because he knew that if I had known
this a few weeks earlier there was a chance that I might have
tried to talk him out of the trip (not wanting the responsibility
of looking out for the future father). We were really having
a great time at this place. Unlike the AC marker in the Yukon,
no one was around. Very strange because the park services here
were much more accommodating than they were in the Yukon. We
set up our rides in front of the marker and I had Jeff stand
in place. The plan was to take two digital shots and combine
them to look like we were standing in the same photograph. I
snapped off about 6 shots and had Jeff stand in the same place
I had been. I got in place and Jeff fired away. Well, he tried.
After about a minute back and forth on how to press the button,
it was discovered that the battery was dead. To make matters
worse, Jeff's camera went dead back in the Yukon. Ah, all this
way and no photo - I considered taking out a pen to sketch the
scene! Just about the time we had resigned ourselves that life
was just not being fair, the two BMW riding New Yorkers pulled
in.
We talked for a while and shared in eachother's achievements.
The dead battery predicament came up and to my surprise, our
new friends had a solution. That video camera setup they had
on their bike had been running off an inverter. All I needed
to do was plug in my charger and hot dam, I was back in the
photo business. These guys were planning to set up camp at the
Arctic Circle Park where we stood, so while the battery charged
we discussed the different camping areas at the site and, of
course, the possibility of encounters with grizzly bears!

We made it back to Hot Spot at about 12:00am. Not far from turning
into the driveway, I saw a large dog-like creature cross my
path. It was a beautiful dark gray wolf. The next day while
talking to the road crew it was confirmed that a large gray
wolf lived in the area. Besides the family that ran the hotel
I think there was only one other person staying in the storage
container compound that night. The noise of the generator purred
in the background and satellite TV awaited us in our rooms.
I went in to take a shower. As I stood there at the spray in
all my nakedness, an explosion that sounded like a stick of
dynamite came from outside and then rain like you have never
seen. My mind turned immediately to those poor guys up the road
at the AC campgrounds. I guessed they would not have to deal
with the bears if they had any bit of the storm we were experiencing
(bears are too smart to come out in rain like that). Including
the ride back from the AC we road 660 miles that day.
The next day we
woke up to spotless, power washed motorcycles and a sky as clear
as they make them. We walked over to storage container #4 to
pick up breakfast. That's when we noticed that this site was
also being used as a base camp for the firefighters. The lightning
we experienced the night before is typically how the forest
fires get started. Without the flooding rains after such an
event the flames spread rapidly in the dry conditions of this
30-year cycle.
Heading south we again ran into the road crew and were stopped
by a very friendly sign operator. Besides confirming the wolf
sighting she told us that the State of Alaska was in the process
of paving the Dalton and that within ten years the entire length
would be installed. This is fair warning to those of you interested
in real adventure; it's now or never. Who knows, someday soon,
a McDonalds may replace Hot Spot?