#atl2arctic

We hit on out of Dawson, rode the 25 miles to the Dempster’s entrance, snapped some photos, steeled ourselves with a few one-liner comments, and headed on over the bridge, the veritable Rubicon. 

The first mile is deceivingly paved. Once you crest that first hill, you start getting an idea of what the Dempster holds in store for you.

Here’s an idea of what much of the road looks like:

It’s a 460 mile dirt and gravel “all weather road” that appears to have been paved back in the 60’s or 70’s and never repaved since. In lieu of repaving, they have been grinding and grading layers of dirt and gravel into the roadbed.

The road is 1-2 meters above the ground, sometimes much higher, with NO shoulder or guardrails. You slip on that ball-bearing like gravel, you are just gone. Bye Bye. Better ride with a buddy, because noone will ever see your bike in some of those trenches, 4-7 meters down, or further. It’s built up so avoid impinging upon the permafrost. Impact the permafrost, the road will sink. Simple.

What’s really really fun on the Dempster? Riding with the large trucks. Oncoming trucks kick up a dust storm in their wake, completely blinding drivers behind the truck AND drivers approaching the other direction and heading into the dust cloud. Now that is FUN.  I almost died twice, I mean DEAD, died. Spotted oncoming tractor trailers in a split second of time. Angels were watching over me. Thank you Mike Siano, Rae Holliday, Judith Hosseini, and Alan Katz. I am sure you all had a lot to do with those Angels that were vigilantly looking after my safety. On that note, I had tons and tons of Providence moments on the trip. Won’t go into to it, but I knew I was on the Right Course all the time, even when others worried about me.

So, the Dempster is dangerous, and something to be taken VERY seriously.  New riders should not even consider riding it. You will get hurt. Your bike will get all dented and scratched, and you will probably try to sue someone since you could not possibly take responsibility for not doing your homework on a epic road like the Dempster. It’s one thing in a car with rugged tires. There’s a reason we call car drivers Cagers. You are safe in a cage. Balancing a 700-850 lb bike at 50-70mph on gravel? That’s a whole other ball game.

[Managed to insert a photo gallery at the bottom. It took all night to upload those photos.]

Wow. Where do I start? We went all the way to Dawson riding the Yukon Highway from end to end. The Yukon Highway is as pretty as everything else up here. Just that one drive would be a vacation for some folks. Just that one highway. Let alone all the other highways in these parts that are as majestic, remote, and “iffy” in terms of critters, weather, road conditions, and remoteness.

Dawson was a walk back in time to Jack London’s days, and the Gold Rush. It is very real, and businesses still maintain the Gold Rush days look and feel, right down to the plank board sidewalks and the packed dirt streets  two or three feet down from the sidewalks.

We went out to the Downtown Hotel’s Saloon. It is actually a real Saloon. A real one. Piano. Velvet Wallpaper. Saloon Doors. All it lacks is guys with deringer’s playing poker. However, it does have the Captain.

The Downtown Hotel is a must do. They have The Toe. Don’t Go if You Don’t Know. I will not link to a story. Figure it out. We all earned our wings. You will also know more or less what means. Oh well.. if you really need a link… (Ha Ha.)

Moving on.

We all went to bed early, anticipating a drive up the Dempster Highway. The Dempster is an all dirt and gravel, “All Weather Road”. It stretches 460 miles from the Yukon Highway to the current terminus at Inuvik. We had hoped to ride the recently completed, but not opened to the Public, stretch all the way to the Beaufort Sea on the Western Arctic. As it is, we had to satisfy ourselves with Mackenzie River delta estuary in Inuvik, close enough. It’s like Savannah versus Tybee Island, or Charleston versus Folley Beach. Actually, it’s more like New Orleans and the tip of the river at Venice LA, about that same distance, but who really cares? It’s the friggin Arctic Ocean. If you don’t agree, ride all the way up here on your own bike, and then taste the brack in the water.

*ahem* (It’s late here and I am playing catch up on the blog, so.. these next few posts will be “Below Standard”. You are forewarned, and that’s forearmed! )

We awoke, loaded up, checked out of the “hotel”, aka The Bunkhouse. We rode the 25 miles back to the entrance of the Dempster. We rode past this entrance last night. I was frankly scared, and that road looked forbidding, foreboding, and forewhatevery.
Like the Arches of Death. The Gateway to Mordor. I was pleased to ride on by, and head the extra 25 miles into Dawson. I needed to get my Mind Right before heading up that Highway. And that meant.. the Toe.

We arrived at the The Bunkhouse, and my rear fender was falling off again, another bolt missing despite red goo LokTite on the bolt. At the bunkhouse were these two frenchmen from Marsailles with Trippy custom sidecar trikes.. The guys from Marseilles.. I didn’t mention them yet?  They had a great vlog trip website, that makes this blog look like a chalkboard in the 1800’s. There site is http://moultipass.tv/

They had full toolkits, entire extra wheels with tires to swap for the ride up the Dempster. Serious Players these two. Luckily, my french was good enough to earn me use of their Box of Random Bolts. I found 3 that fit, and asked if I could borrow the extra 2 since it would guarantee the bolt would never come loose, rendering the extra two bolts superfluous. They agreed with the logic, and invited us to dinner at the end of the first stage at Eagle Plains “Lodge”.

We awoke. packed. Headed back to the entrance of the Dempster. I trailed behind fueling intown. Paul fueled at the entrance, since he has a MUCH smaller gas tank, and need’s every microliter of fuel range. I like paying cash, and you can’t pay cash at an unstaffed automat gas station like the one at the Dempster. So it was that I arrived 10 minutes later, to see him unpacking. I am like “Oh heck”.

Turns out.. he had worn out the brake pads on the rear. He had two new sets for the front end brakes, but none for the rear. We limped back intown after being defeated by the cold hard facts of my BMW GS repair manual.. front and back are NOT interchangeable.  Why would that ever be a design consideration for a bike designed to go into the far reaches of the Earth, where no dealership is anywhere nearby?! There are lots of “funny” things on a BMW GS that in that category of questionable design and engineering. You need a special plastic doohicky to take off the oil cap to add more oil. Don’t have it with you? No worries, you can just ride until you find a BMW dealership who has one. Or how about the Oil Filters that need a special cookie cutter wrench. It’s the ONLY thing that tool is used for on the bike, and it’s ONLY on BMW’s. Loose the tool? No problem. Drive until you find a BMW Dealer with it in stock, and then pay around $50 for the tool. There is a workaround. Buy K&N oil filters with a standard bolt head. I told Bentley Motorrad to install a K&N, and if they did not have one, to use one of the two that I had in my tool box on the bike that brouyght 3500 miles from Atlanta. So, when I get to Whitehorse and change the oil, guess what? They totally ignored my request, and put one of the proprietary oil filters on the bike. Yes,  I can spear it with a screwdriver and remove it, but that’s not the point is it?

Moving on.

So this brake thing looked like The End. I was not about to leave Paul on his own in Dawson. I just met him, but that’s NOT how I roll. Others might, and Good luck with those choices!

I was not going to ride the Dempster alone. Not a chance.

So. We checked into the Downtown Hotel, of Jack London Fame, and exhausted our resources of flying in parts from Whitehorse, from Calgary.. etc. We then started to “enjoy ourselves” since.. it appeared we were stuck here for a few days, This being a Sunday, and most bike shops are also closed on Mondays, and BMW dealers are ALWAYS closed on Mondays. Always. It’s a cultural thing? I don’t know.  I really don’t. And no, you can’t irder online, not easily at least. It’s best to order via a dealer.

So.. we ran into Joel Hidalgo from Calgary, who was camping with two ex-pat Canadian resident Brits, Brian Williamson.. and his pal who shall rename nearly nameless.. Bentley.. *ahem*.

They had been riding, and one crashed, and the other crashed into the first.. so they had some nice battle bruises. Black eyes, a few cuts. We were all feeling a bit, umm, festive. So, we all did the Toe. I, having visited the toe the previous night, was appointed Court Recorder, and filmed the proceedings.

(Uploads are excruciating and painful in these parts.. so they will come later. Judging by upload speeds, the Universe may come to and end before Hostgator’s upload speeds will complete the photo albums I am trying park in this blog. Avoid them. I will relocate when I finish this trip. Terrible these days, used to be great, 4 years ago.)

Some trundled off to bed, and I went on out with some Swiss guys to the casino, Diamond Toothed Gerties. It was fun, but I don’t go into Casinos.

Afterwards, we headed over to where the locals hang out. I won a game of 9 ball at a place called The Pit. They had a band doing an amazing rendition of Talking Heads’ Psychokiller.. nearly as good as the live recording Stop Making Sense. The crowd was Krazee Canadian. These are some generally happy people. I felt like I was back in the 80’s in New Orleans before the First Gulf War happened. Those were the Good Days. Anyhow, I was ready for bed, even though, around 3am, it was still twilight.

I woke up feeling a bit.. slow. Paul had been Making Hay. He somehow managed to cut and machine one pair of front brakes to fit his rear end. There’s a bit more in’s and out’s to this, but Paul can fill in the details in a Comment, if he is so inclined.

We left around 1pm, and headed on up the Dempster Highway.

At Muktuk, I met another solo rider, Paul. He was heading up to Inuvik, but would rather have the safety of riding with another rider. Paul and I discussed the In’s and Out’s of riding together, and I decided to cut the stay short at Muktuk, and take off to Dawson Saturday Morning, instead of staying thru at Muktuk at least until Sunday.

We rode the next afternoon the 5-6 hours to Dawson from Whitehorse. We stopped and had lunch at a picnic area on the Yukon River where loads of people were pulling the laden canoes out of the river, having been on extended camping expeditions using the canoes as Portage.

The ride was gorgeous, as usual. The road was rougher than any yet encountered, a nice test for the Dempster, since there were long wet, gravelly dirt sections, with 3 small rain storms along the Yukon Highway.

As we approached Dawson, the heavens opened up into a bad storm with lightening, but we broke through without stopping to gear up for it, and made Dawson by 6:30pm.

I visited the Muktuk Sled Dog B&B.

Here are the photos from my visit! 

At first, I was taken aback. When I drove in from the 4km long dirt and gravel road off the Alaska highway  a short drive West out of Whitehorse, I was confronted with a huge yard with dogs all chained up. What in the hell was this? And this was a tourist attraction?! I was seeing thru “Georgia Eyes”, where back at home tethered dogs are dogs that are neglected and exist in a living hell, and amounts to felony cruelty.

I quickly learned how far I was from the truth with my first impression.

Over the course of my stay,  I watched teams of volunteers and employees waiting on these dogs hand and foot, I am guessing at least a dozen times a day. There was always someone out there, cleaning up dung, refilling water, putting down more food, playing with them, releasing them to run, putting them back on tether, and so on.

The dogs are cycled into free running sessions and allowed to range through the vast acreage to the river where they swim and chase rabbits. They are also rotated into large paddocks, about a half acre each,  where the better behaved ones are allowed to do whatever they wish, surrounded by trees, grass, and bushes. Ones that are grouches get time off tether, but are handled with more care, while not exposing the other dogs to their grumpy fangs.

The ones let loose to run to the river were loosed about 200 yards away from our guide. Yet, out of the 153 dogs, she knew their names on site. All of them. Every one. Seemed to me that all the folks working there knew ALL the dogs names on site.

Three litters were in progress, one 7 week old, one 10 days old, and one 5 days old. These folks were on top of managing the mom’s, making sure they were supported and not overwhelmed by all that a litter of puppies entails. We were encouraged to handle them, so as to more easily socialize the dogs as they mature. The 7 week old puppies loved it. A 5 day old puppies nuzzled into my arm, and basically was not going to move unless I put him down, falling fast asleep, nose buried into my elbow’s crook.

I really do not know how they do it at Muktuk. Day after day. 153 dogs.. and managed like a swiss watch. These dogs were happy, healthy, and fit. All of them. They even sprinkled in, I guess, a dozen or so rescue dogs and had some boarders mixed in as well.

Anyhow, if and when I go to dog heaven, this is pretty close to the mark.

As for the lodge, it was a wonderful. They had everything, comfy beds, nice bathrooms, a good cook, coffee on tap, hot chocolate, and a guitar that was in tune.

I really slept like a log, and did not want to leave the next day. I have not been sleeping well this entire trip, and the time leading up to it, and this has caused me stress related headaches. I slept like a baby.

I will visit again on my way back down towards the US.

I also plan to book a week of actual sled dog training, training for me.. they do a full week culminating in a 2 or 3 day full on wilderness sled dog camping experience.

Sign me up.

Brrrrrrr.

It will be COLD.

Whitehorse, in Yukon Territory, is a city of ~25,000 people, representing 80% of the entire population of the Yukon.

Since the last post, I ran into the guys from Mexico on my second night in Stewart. We drove out to Watson Lake that morning. We camped the night before at Boyo Lake. We scored campsites on grass right on the water, We were fly fishing, catching nothing but a few imaginary strikes on the line, but enjoying the view, nonetheless.

Camping in a park here is pretty different than at home. The lady who manages the campground was cheerful, polite, and helpful. You will not see that from the grumpy old man in the trailer at a Georgia state park, right? They had a lot of canoes and kayaks for rent on an Honor System basis. You left some cash in the envelope with a signed Release, grab a paddle, and a life preserver, and go seek your Bliss. Noone steals the boats, paddles, or preservers. Noone seems to beat things up, or wear things out. Everyone fills out the form and pops money into the bin.

Imagine that. People behaving honestly and responsibly.

I am writing this blog post from a room overlooking the Yukon River and the town’s trolley station. The whole area is a sportsman’s dream. It has a few dark sides. I saw a couple of people passed out drunk on the sidewalk, a drug addict was aggressively pan-handling us in the A&W today. All that said, most of what I have seen here is just squeaky clean, polite, and mostly reasonable.

Until now, I have been reading Jack London’s books White Fang and Call of the Wild. I will also have to grab a copy of Robert Service’s writings. He is a legendary poet and writer from these parts.

We drove from Boyo Lake to the junction of the Cassiar Highway and the Alaska Highway. Cassiar ends at the Alaska Highway, and I actually drove the entire length of the Cassiar. This is not actually unusual, since there are no roads that leave the Cassiar from end to end that actually go somewhere as a highway would, just a bunch of short jaunts like to Stewart BC.

The last stretch of the Cassiar was a little depressing. Several Wildfires over 3 -10 years have left large swaths devastated for miles in every direction. However, amongst the burnt husks of the pines, the Aspen and Birch are thriving and generating a short, but thick blanket of forest everywhere.

The last stretch of the Cassiar was rough on my tires, being a rough road surface that chews up tires. By the time I reached Whitehorse, my Metlzer Tourance tires were flat as a pancake. I leaned the bike a lot, and had some good wear, but I simple could not even out the wear on these long straight stretches on rough road.

The Alaska Highway was even more epic than the Cassiar, but of course, had a lot more traffic. You come over a hill, and you see the road winding thru dozens and dozens of miles of low pine forest hills until the next mountain range over 50 miles away, maybe a 100. Who knows? Without the luxury of reading a real map while I ride, I am left to guess what I was looking and judge the distances by Dead Reckoning. Vast. Epic. Enormous. Empty.

Primordial, perhaps. very very very little signs of development besides the road itself. You can go 30 miles and not see a structure anywhere ,except maybe right alongside the road, here and there, but rarely.

Reaching Whitehorse was for me an accomplishment. I am very sure most adventure riders will just roll their eyes. I don’t really care. 5500 miles in a couple of weeks is a lot of riding, no matter how you slice it.

It’s my first time on a long ride. I have to ride at least that amount just to get back home, which seems all to very far away.

I love getting all the texts from folks, and those call while I am on the road have kept me in good company on many a long mile.

I must admit all these encouraging Texts from home like “Be Safe”, “Have Fun”, “What an Adventure”, “So Amazing”. hmm. The truth is I am wracked tired nearly all the time. If that’s fun, then I am doing it wrong. Then, there is the gear to manage. I have to pack and unpack the bike at least once or twice a day and then constantly play the Search the Bags  game for every little thing. Yes, I organize where I put things. When you are road tired at the end of a long day,  you simply must mine in the bags for what it is you need right then.

So.. while it is truly a big adventure, there is a side to it that is a grind. I try to keep my eyes on the adventure.

The plan for today is to ride from here to the Yukon on the Cassiar Highway, Stewart, BC, as far as we can, with the destination being the intersection with the Alaska Highway near the town of Watson Lake 21km to the east of that junction.  9 hours without stops..

I managed to get one more video posted: https://youtu.be/8g7MgSCYrsc

Uploading takes a lot longer than downloading, so it’s all I can do to even get short videos up and online. It takes many hours for just a 6 minute video to finish uploading.

The Cassiar Highway is British Columbia most remote highway, running the length of the eastern side of the Coastal Mountain. The road is pretty rough, with one small gravel section, and the rest a rough road surface with grit and gravel on top of tarmac.

Cassiar is a mining ghost town. Allegedly, Cassiar was a asbestos mine. Needless to say, that product is not in high demand these days. I didn’t realize it was a product that could be mined straight from the Earth. I will have to read up on that topic later.