Day 6, 7, 8

Today is Friday, the 8th I think, although my netbook says Sat 9th.  I'm sitting in a Mc'D's in White Horse, in the Yukon territory, because I'm starving and they have wifi!

I've spent the last three days riding in the pouring rain and everything is wet to the core. 4 pairs of gloves - soaked, along with camping gear etc.  Raining?  Seems like good camping weather to me, although setting up and taking down and packing the bike can be a little tricky.

The bike did go down again, due to all the rain. Every shoulder, turnout, rest area and most gas stations are dirt and gravel, rutted, potholes, etc.  Bike was parked and just sunk in, and once again, there is no way I can pick it back up with completely unloading everything in the rain. To boot, since it was on it's side, gas was pouring out of the overflow tube and losing gas around here is no joke. If you don't carry a spare can, quite often you find the next (open) station with very little gas left. Luckily a guy stopped and helped. He told me he had 6-7 gallons in his trailer and just flag him down if I ran out.

I hit Dawson Creek the other day, Mile Marker 0 of the Alaska Highway. Had a guy named Terry take a picture of me and the bike in front of the sign, who happened to be from El Cajun (sp?) CA.  I asked him if he had heard of Bob Greer Electric, but had not. So Bobby, if you ever get a call from a guy named Terry for some work, ask him if he's been to Dawson Creek.

Yesterday was a long day, I think I did about 575 miles and it took pretty near 14 hours. The Alaskan highway goes through the Northern Rockies and climbs and drops and twists and turns and has awesom views, when I could see them. I had hail, wind, rain, whiteout fog, rock slides, etc. Spent part of the ride standing up on my flooboards, face shield up, going about 15 - 20 miles an hour. I probably had 10 - 15 feet of visibility. By mid afternoon yesterday, the rain let up and though it is still drizzly and overcast, the ceiling raised to what looks like about 1,000 feet.

When I say I've been riding in the rain for 3 days, that's just me. I think these folks have been living in the rain for about 2 weeks!  It has taken its toll on the roads.  There are numerous potholes, road repairs and even washouts. I was around Lake Mugo, pulled over for a break and a trucker pulled in who had come from the North. He asked, are you staying here tonight?  I thought it was an odd question from a stranger. I guess I looked at him kind of funny and he said that they were getting ready to close the road down in about 30 minutes, because a river had over flowed the road just up around the corner.

I took off to check it out and sure enough, the river was indeed taking the road for a short cut. It was about a foot deep, maybe 50 feet wide, muddy and moving fast. I had no idea what was below the surface of the water- was road washed out, big rocks? And it was dumping into a big river right on the other side of the road! The flagger said they will be closing the road, if they can't divert the water, then the road could be closed for 2-3 days. Yeah, no, I couldn't afford that. Its not like you just take another route, you are pretty much limited to whichever of the couple roads north that you happen to be on.

He had a small camper go through and I followed it. I'm not sure that helped any because if the camper lost it and I was right behind it, I wouldn't be able to go forward, backward, turn around or anything. I may as well lay the bike on its side and start hitch hiking home! I made it through okay and also through the next one as well. The second on ended up closing the road and when I stopped for gas about a hundred miles up the road, there were signs everywhere that said the road was closed and the rooms were full.

I made it to Watson Lake and was going to call it a day as it was late afternoon and I was pretty tired. No good camping options that I saw and the "cheap hotel" was $119 plus. Whitehorse was only about 4.5 hours up the road, and when I asked a kid what time it got dark around here, he told me it doesn't.

I made it to within about 20 miles of Whitehorse and found a Yukon Provincial campground. No water or electricity, but decent bathroom and $12 a night. I pulled in, made camp and did a few things. I noticed it was pretty quite there, so I checked the time and it was 11:20. Looked like 3 in the afternoon. I hit the rack and woke up about 4:30 am and it was either still light, or light again.

I've seen a bunch of bears, horses, buffalo, deer, etc., but no moose yet.

There are about 4 other adventure riders sitting in here, McD's for the wifi.  The guy to my left is from Toronto and has been all through Alaska and is heading home. He said he has dumped his bike 7 times. Once he was at a gas station and the kick stand went down, he started getting off and the bike went down. He said there were two young girls laughing at him, he told then that's how he does it and walked away into the store.

Guy to me left has been on his phone for an hour setting up a gold mining operation, people charging phones and checking mail. Another couple guys talking about the highway being shut down and everyone flocking to Watson Lake for a room, but they are filled up.

Alaskan Highway starting point

visibility pretty good here at about 75-100 feet. Shrinks right down when  you are moving

once on each side so far

Watson Lake sign post forest. There are thousands of signs

This is where I washed my pan last night, in my front yard

campground view last night

One of the many steel grate road suface bridges. There is a degree of pucker factor on a bike when these are wet and and you come up on them at about 60 mph unexpected.

I think I'll head to Tok, AK, then Fairbanks tomorrow. May do the Top of the World highway into Dawson after that .... not sure because I think it may be 100 miles of dirt and gravel. Depends on the weather and road reports.