Alaska 2014 - Part 2

[Charles Scappaticci]

The next morning, Bruce, Danny and I grabbed some breakfast, paid our hotel
bill and headed north to Jasper, around 200 miles north.  Since Danny had
never been to Banff, and Bruce hadn't been north of Lake Louise, we had
decided to make this an easy day and do some sight seeing.  We stopped at
Lake Louise to see the sights and take some pictures, then headed to the
glacier fields for some more sight seeing and some lunch.  Next stop was
Jasper where we easily found our hotel on the northeast end of the city,
cleaned up and headed to a nice Italian restaurant I've been to a few times
before, then headed out to walk around and see the city and shops before
turning in for the night.  Total miles, about 201.

The next morning, we had a very good breakfast at the hotel, packed the
bikes up and headed northwest to Prince George.  Highway 16 goes all the
way to the west coast at Prince Rupert and is one of my favorite roads,
good pavement, old growth forests and lots of mountain scenery, including
Mt. Robson, the highest point in Canada.  I think this mountain is more
spectacular than McKinley because the base is much lower in altitude and it
stands nearly alone vs. in a group of peaks, a jagged chunk of rock and
ice.  From there, we enjoyed the ride into Prince George, had some Chinese
food and then continued west to our next stop in Smithers, a very nice,
Vail style ski town.  It rained on us the last 70 miles so we were glad to
find our hotel and get dried off.  This was the first rain we had
encountered as the rest of the trip had been beautiful weather wise.  The
total mileage today was 486.

Tuesday morning we dried the bikes off and headed west to our turnoff at
Kitwanga where we fueled up and headed north up Hwy 37.  There had been
lots of towns and gas stations on the way and once we headed north we knew
the search for gas would be harder.  The road got smaller as we headed
north to our next hotel at Dease Lake.  Our first fuel stop north of
Kitwanga was at the junction of hwy 37A which leads to Stewart, my
destination in 2012.  The store at the intersection was undergoing a major
renovation and the gas pumps were closed, but fortunately they had set up a
temporary tank and pump where we were able to fuel up and head on north.
The next fuel stop was at a wet, rainy restaurant north of Bell II and then
on through more rain which eventually stopped. We fueled up at a store on a
reservation (CYA) and then on to a wet Dease Lake stop where we got a room
for the night and grabbed a good sandwich at a small portable restaurant.
Dease Lake is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and is a very small
town, but the lake it is named for is huge.  Total mileage: 387.

Wednesday was a nice and sunny day and our goal was to reach Whitehorse in
the Yukon.  We had been warned about road construction north of Dease Lake,
and sure enough, you would crest a hill and there would be several hundred
feet or more of dirt and rocks, then back to the rough pavement.  This went
on for some time before it got better and we saw some large lakes and
scenic views.  The stretch from Kitwanga to Watson Lake and Highway 1, had
an amazing number of bears, I probably saw over a dozen over the two days
we were on this road and a similar number on the way back.  Highway 1 was a
good road and we made good time to Teslin where there was a very spooky
metal bridge over a river, had lunch, fueled up and rode on into
Whitehorse.  We made it to our hotel, unpacked, cleaned up and found a nice
restaurant and celebrated making it this far.  Bruce was glad to make it as
I had pushed him much farther than he would normally and he was grateful I
had.  Danny was hot to ride into Alaska with me, but since their plans were
made he stayed.  Total mileage:  421.

The next morning, Bruce and Danny helped me pack up and I headed on west to
my next stop at either the Alaskan town of Tetlin or Tok.  Bruce and Danny
had made arrangements to have their bikes serviced and then they would head
to Haines the next morning.  A few miles out of Whitehorse I hit more road
construction and had a dozen or more stretches of dirt and rock roads
before the pavement settled out.  The rainy roads headed northwest past
Kluane Lake, which is huge by Colorado standards, past Destruction Bay,
where I got gas and some warm coffee and then on towards the border.  About
150 miles from the border I hit the worst roads I have ever ridden on, with
the possible exception of my error earlier in the trip.  About 75 miles of
this 150 were mud, dirt and rocks, all wet from the on and off rain.  There
were two sections that were about 20 miles each of just dirt and rocks.
The GPZ isn't great on wet slippery mud, and being heavily loaded only
compounded the problem.  I almost crashed several times and was basically a
nervous wreck by the time I came to the last little town before the border
where the construction basically ended.  Apparently, they don't bother
trying to pave most of this road due to the frost heaves and earth
movement, and there were sections where there was pavement that was so
jacked up, cars hit bottom on the bumps, crazy!!  I continued on to Tetlin
and the Tok before saying "what the heck" and deciding to make a run for
Fairbanks.  This would make this a 600+ mile day, but would save a day,
just in case of a breakdown.

Charles S.