"It's twoo, it's twoo!"
Lilly von Schtupp (Madeline Kahn) in Blazing Saddles
For several days, we had been debating whether or not to ride up to Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay). After all, we were on FJRs not on dual sports. Three factors ultimately played a major part in the decision to press on to the north. First, we had been monitoring the weather by internet during the entire trip and it looked as if we were going to have two or three days of good weather. Of course, we did “shop” the forecasts a bit. If Weather dot com did not have a forecasts that we liked we checked out Weatherbase or Wunderground looking for better news. Second, John Ryan had just run the road a couple of weeks earlier on an FJR so we knew that it could be done and Ryan was running much faster than we intended to run - and he had done it in the rain. Then again, it took Ryan four tries (snow, flat tire and rock through oil pan) to complete his up and back journey. Still, it was, the empirical evidence suggested, do-able, Third, get this close and not give it a shot? What, you’re gonna’ kick yourself for the rest of your life?
We did not pause at the intersection. At least I did not, as Steve was ahead of me and when I got there he was nowhere to be seen (he did stop a few miles up the Highway).
Here are some views of the southern section of the Dalton as we began our trek. For some reason an old Allman Brothers Band song, that I could not quite place, kept playing in my head. Why was that?
Our first fuel stop was at the small "town" of Yukon River located, not surprisingly just on the northern side of a bridge that crosses the Yukon River. We actually rode right on past it without realizing that we were seeing the town which is, essentially a prefab building with a restaurant and some rooms and a fuel pump off to one side.
The next milestone we reached was the Artic Circle. The Arctic Circle. We definitely were not in Kansas anymore. We took a break and snapped some photos. The sign is pristine from the front. Apparently, all of the vandals, and those who wish to leave a symbol of their passing this way have a code of honor or sorts and exhibit their handiwork on the back of the sign.
We also performed a symbolic ritual while stopped at the Artic Circle and, while I do not feel it appropriate to post the photos here, let’s just say that one of our dear, departed friends did, indeed, make it to the Artic Circle and that he left something of himself there, too. Those who might want to see the photos are welcome to PM me.
The Dalton Highway is a very interesting road. The road surface changes often. We rode on pavement, chip seal, hard-packed dirt, hard pack with loose gravel on top, and firm gravel. We also rode on loose, thick gravel and, when a dirt section was wet, something that resembled snot on glass. It did not rain while we were on the highway (yeah!) but every once in a while we came upon a section where water trucks had soaked/were soaking the hard packed dirt and steering got pretty damned vague. Oh, and potholes. Any surface, any time. Big enough to blow a tire, bend a rim, leave one stranded by the side of the road waiting for the grizzlies to come say hello.
Here are a couple of photos taken south of Coldfoot, where we stopped for fuel and food (surprisingly good at the truckers' meeting place that you see on Ice Road Truckers). Coldfoot is roughly half way up the Dalton.
…and the road goes on forever (yes, that was the song).
The thing is that if you could see the horizon you knew that you were going to ride that far. Until you reached the Artic Ocean. And speaking of seeing, when trucks went by going the other direction the dust they kicked up left you blind for three to five seconds. The best one could do was set up the “pass” so that you knew that the road ran straight for a while after you went by each other and hope that the dust cleared before you needed to perform a course correction.
Our plan was to ride to Wiseman, just north of Coldfoot and spend the night. The next day we planned to ride to Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay), take a short break and then ride back to Wiseman.
