Picto Diary - 13 June 2017 - Haines Highway
Above: Fighter's bike. R1200 GS. Fast Eddy's. Tok, AK. 13 June 2017.
"Fighter" is the founder of the "Dust to Dawson" motorcycle rally, held this year in Dawson on 15, 16 June 2017.
"Dust to Dawson" has an iconic reputation for adventure riders. Remember the German couple from Cologne in Teslin BC, riding the disabled PD with a busted starter? "Dust to Dawson" was where they were headed.
Above: Bishop, Fighter and Jerry. Young's Motel. Tok, AK. 13 June 2017.
Chance meeting.
Fighter, a retired Anchorage school teacher, is the founder and current impresario of the "Dust to Dawson" motorcycle rally.
Jerry, his riding buddy, is an Anchorage architect.
All of us are riding the Alaska Highway south today. Fighter and Jerry are riding to Whitehorse, YT, about 400 miles. My ride will veer south from Haines Junction to the Haines Highway and take me to Haines, AK... total 440 miles, about 300 of which will be in Canada/Yukon.
Its a funny thing. I'm riding 440 miles from Alaska to Alaska, through Canada! Or, stated another way, I'm riding from Canada, 300 miles south (!), to get to Alaska! Check the map. The geography and road system of this area is interesting!
Above: Jeff, on phone, next to his Ram and trailer rig. Willard's Towing, Tok, AK. 13 June 2017.
Jeff and I had breakfast together at Fast Eddy's. He told me his story.
"I didn't get in last night until near midnight.
I was making my 49th annual run bringing up a load of building siding from Seattle when my Ram truck just stopped. I was 80 miles south of Tok just this side of the Canada / US line. The truck just stopped. This has never happened to me in 49 years of doing this every year.
I don't know what I'd have done if the break down happened in Canada. Neither Canada nor the US will allow tow trucks from the other country into their own country. I guess I'd have had to get a Canadian tow truck from Beaver Creek, YT to pick me up, take me to the border and then hook up with an American tow truck from Tok.
I was lucky. There were a couple of locals who stopped and asked if I needed help. They had a land line at their remote house, five miles away. They let me call Willards. There is no cell coverage out there.
I live in Soldatna, Kenai Peninsula. I called my wife. She said she had gone fishing in the Kenai river yesterday and caught six salmon. She told me, 'we'll see you when we see you. I'm going fishing again.'
Look. I was pretty close to the weight limit. I was worried that the inspection station on the US side of the border was open and that I would get stopped because I was overweight. Fortunately the station was closed.
All of this on top of the fact that I got food poisoning in Seattle. I was really sick driving up. I tried to keep hydrated drinking everything from Coke to Insure. Finally, I saw a doctor in Fort Nelson, BC. He castigated me for not seeking help sooner, gave me a prescription for antibiotics, and sent me on my way. I've felt a little better since being on the antibiotics.
I don't know how long I'll be here in Tok. Willard doesn't have a good reputation for working fast on stuff. He gets to it when he gets to it."
Another story along the Alaska Highway.
Above: Mike, Oakland, CA, and Bishop. Beaver Creek, YT. 13 June 2017.
Mike riding a Kawasaki KLR 650, coming from the south. Mwah (sic) was riding my BMW F800 GS coming from the north.
Serendipitous meet-up in remote Beaver Creek, YT of two solitary riders along the Alaska Highway.
Like Mwah (sic), Mike had ridden up the Cassiar Highway to link up with the Alaska Highway in Watson Lake, YT. He was on his third solitary ride to Alaska.
I had thought it was going to be sunny today, but Mike said, "you better don your rain gear. There is rain on the way down the road."
Mike said he'd been riding the last three days in the cold and the rain, the same period I was holed up in Tok, waiting out the rain. Mike says, "I'm not sure how many more times I want to do this [ride a motorcycle to Alaska]. Its been damn cold!"
I put on my rain overpants and rain gloves. My Klim riding jacket is water proof.
Above: Gas stop. Pee break. Destruction Bay, YT. 13 June 2017.
That's Fighter in the image, futzing with his bike at the gas pump. My F800 GS is at right.
Destruction bay is 220 miles south of Tok on the Alaska Highway.
Mike, from Oakland, was right. It rained intermittently from Beaver Creek to Destruction Bay.
There was four miles of construction. I had to ride the first half of the construction segment through newly graded, wet dirt. The surface was soft and mushy. This was not fun. The second segment, was not fun either... hard pan reduced to mud. Squiggling and squirming me 'n the bike made it through.
Last year on this same road segment, there was forty miles of construction dirt. But, I had an easier time on that forty mile dirt segment than I did on this year's four mile newly graded and mud segment.
Its cold. The thermometer shows between 45 and 50 degrees, depending on elevation. I have a fleece under the Klim outer jacket. My body core is starting to cool a bit... but, I have a high threshold of "pain." I keep riding. I'll don another layer in Haines Junction, 65 miles down the road.
Well, the weather didn't get as good as I thought it would when I decided to stay an extra day in Tok. But, at least the rain is now intermittent and, periodically, there are pretty good scenic views newly snow capped peaks to the right, in Kluane National Park.
Above: Haines Highway. Yukon, Canada. 13 June 2017.
Stunning road!
Two full sized black bears hanging out on my side of the road a few miles back.
I rode the Haines Highway in the same direction about this time last year.
Superlatives don't do justice to either the road engineering or the relentlessly spectacular, unfolding scenery. The entire 150 mile ride of the Haines Highway goes quickly because at each turn a dazzling view floods the mind.
Today, before picking up the Haines Highway, I rode the 300 mile long section of the Alaska Highway from Tok, AK to Haines Junction, YT. But for the four miles of construction mud, the road was "ok" but full of frost heaves, filled pot holes and patching.
The Haines Highway road surface, by contrast, was smooth as a baby's bum for its entire 150 mile length.
For fifty miles, the Haines Highway runs southward along the eastern border of Canada's Kluane National Park. There are turnouts for scenic viewing. Though I couldn't see it today because of cloud and mist occlusion, the 18K foot Mt. Logan is in Kluane.
So, 10 of 10 for road quality and 9 of 10 (today because of mists) for scenery.
Because of the remote location of this highway, built during WWII as a supply route from Haines port to the Alaska Highway, few will ever get to see it.
Addendum:
Super.
Many thanks for sharing . . frequently share with my family.
Hand,
San Jose, CA
Steve, another excellent book you should check out is Into the Silence by Wade Davis. It's about George Mallory, and the efforts to climb Everest. Mallory was a fascinating character, and WWI features prominently in his story. I learned more about WWI than I ever wanted to know from reading this. Davis is also a superb writer.
As an aside, about 30 years ago, we did an Alaska cruise aboard the Noordam.
Zookeeper,
Williamstown, MA
Love your summaries. I am more of a WWII aficionado. Just finished an excellent book about a major part of the war that is often forgotten, the Italian front. It is, Beneath A Scarlet Sky, by Mark Sullivan, based on interviews with the main character/focus of the book -- a bigger that life true hero. Pino Lella lived a long time and continued his colorful life. At the beginning of the war he starts off as just a kid leading Jews across the Alps to escape into Switzerland. Ends up as a spy and driver of the Nazi general who is chief of logistics in Italy. It is a factually based novel, with mostly real names, incidents and places. Good read.
Jarhead,
Cabo St. Lucas, Mexico
Steve,
I tried to visualize your Thomas Jefferson writing desk on motorcycle. Good review.
For those who like to say "I did not read the book,
I saw the movie:" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/great-war/
The Cardinal,
Los Angeles, CA
Thanks. Good analysis of what makes the Reacher books so terrific and the movie just so so. I've read all of the Reacher books too but was not going to buy this one figuring it contains stories that never developed into novels. I'll buy it now (after I finish reading 3 history books I recently started - Churchill, Hawaii, Knights of Malta).
Nathans,
Massapequa, NY