Whitehorse to Dease Lake

We left Whitehorse under beautiful skies.  No rain predicted and temps in the low to mid-60’s.  

Easy ride on the ALCAN Highway, passing by places we’d seen on the way up.  

We made it to the Highway 37 cut-off…the Cassiar! We fueled up and ate lunch at Nugget City.  Ah, the memories…

Quick side story: I stayed at the Nugget City campground, at the corner of Highways 1 and 37, when I was here in 2014.  It stared to rain so I got in my tent and was reading.  My tent was moving around quite a bit, which I attributed to the wind and rain, so I ignored it.  I heard lots of yelling from fellow campers but ignored that, too.  A few minutes later, I heard two gunshots.  Didn’t ignore that.  

When I opened my tent, a group of campers came running over and told me that a black bear had been trying to get into my tent.  “Didn’t you hear us yelling?,” they asked? They’d called a ranger who’d chased the bear away, then shot it.  

When I spoke with the ranger, he told me that they spray paint “problem” bears and relocate them.  If those bears again interact adversely with people, they have to put them down. So, so sad.  

Anyhow, I saw the site where that occurred and it brought back that memory.  

We headed south on the Cassiar and immediately saw a couple bears, a black and a grizzly up close.  We started to look for a place to stay, either camping or a hotel, and ended up riding to the town of Dease Lake…a 400-mile ride today.  It started to rain just as we checked into a small lodge in town.  

Great day of riding.  We passed Marsh, Teslin and Dease Lakes. Each one more beautiful than the next.

We just might make Steward, Canada and Hyder, Alaska tomorrow.  

Photos to follow when I find some wifi or decent cell service.  

Tok, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

Today wasn’t the best day of riding, IMHO.  The day started out fine. The weather looked good, it wasn’t too chilly and we had pancakes and coffee before heading out.  

Then things went south.  To Canada.  🇨🇦 

We hopped on the Alaska Highway toward the Canadian border, 90 miles away.  You’d think that would mean 1.5 hours.  But no, with road construction and worse road conditions, we didn’t arrive to the border for 2.5 hours.  The immigration and customs process was fairly quick and we were down the road in minutes. FYI: We once again provided our travel details via Canada’s online travel site, ArriveCAN.  Painful but necessary.  

And speaking of the condition of the roads: That 140-mile portion, from Tok past the border checkpoint, had to be some of the worst we’d ridden.  And we’ve ridden some bad roads. It was 1/4 mile of bad pavement, then 1/2 mile of oily gravel..then repeat.  For over 125 miles.  The pavement was some of the worst I’ve seen, potholes that will swallow a bike.  

When we fueled up at Destruction Bay, we were told by the locals that the roads would improve significantly right away.  They did and they didn’t.  But the scenery around Destruction Bay was spectacular, truly. It reminds me of an angry Lake Tahoe.  

My suggestion for Canada: Use all of the money you spend on the thousands of road signs you place here and there (Bad Road Ahead, Caution: Gravel on Roadway, Rough Road, Motorcycles Please Exhibit Extreme Caution, etc.) and put that into real road repairs.  Geez.  

As well, we encountered a bit of wind.  Like hurricane force.  That was fun.  It’s tough to appreciate the mountains and lakes alongside the road when you’re being blown into oncoming traffic.  Nuff said.  

We arrived to Whitehorse, for no other reason than there was no other decent place to stop before that.  We grabbed some chow and local beers and a hotel.  The hotel is a whole other story…

Total mileage was a bit more than 400 miles.  Easy peasy.  

 

Anchorage to Tok

The first item on our agenda was to find a footpeg bolt for Steve’s bike.  We found a place before leaving Anchorage and eventually installed the bolt. We were on our way by 11:15. Because my front shock is being wonky, we skipped Hatcher Pass—65 miles of dirt road.😕

We stopped in Palmer for a great breakfast then made our way up the Glenn Highway toward Glennallen; it turned into the Richardson Hwy at that town.  

The ride was super nice.  Mountains and glaciers the whole way.  We stopped to look at the Matanuska Glacier and what an impressive sight it was.  

We dodged some ugly rain that looked like it was in Canada.  But really, the day was beautiful.  

We arrived to Tok by 6:15 and went right to Fast Eddie’s for their salad bar and a pitcher of beer.  

We stayed at Thompson’s Eagle Claw campground again, opting for a bunkhouse instead of tent camping so we could make an early start in the morning.  The owner, Vanessa, came by and sat at the fire with us for a while but the mosquitoes and no-see-ums got the best of us and we were in by 9.  

A solid 325 miles for the day.  

 

Two Down Days in Anchorage

We had to get our bikes serviced—routine maintenance and some broken parts.  So we made appointments with two repair shops—The Motorcycle Shop for my European bike and the Alaska Cycle Center for Steve’s UJM (universal Japanese motorcycle).  To be honest, we received quite different experiences and that’s too bad.  Hey, there are worse places to be than Anchorage, Alaska…

We dropped them off early (on Tuesday afternoon) and picked them up today, a day later.  Both shops did the bare minimum that we asked and were unable to do any extra work. Steve had the fork seals, an oil change and a bolt replaced on his Honda Africa Twin; I had the 24k mile service—a whopper, really—done on my BMW GS Adventure.  They didn’t replace another bolt on Steve’s bike, nor did I have my front shock repaired or replaced.  Still, it was enough to get us going, so it is what it is.  

We met up with an old friend for dinner—Dean, his wife and kids. It was just great spending time with Dean and his fam.  We spent the rest of the time catching up on other stuff and just relaxing.  Like my wife said, “You need to get off those motorbikes for a while.”  Fact.  

While it’s true we’ve been living on whiskey and ramen, mostly, we did eat pretty well lately—Mexican, pho, local halibut.  Also, raspberries are in season and they’re growing everywhere.  Yum!

We packed up the bikes and went out to dinner, planning the next few days’ route.  Depending on the weather, we may or may not do any of the off-road stuff we’d planned…like Hatcher Pass and Bella Coola. But we’ll see how that goes.  

Bikes and riders doing great.  We’ll be in Canada again soon.  

 

Homer to Anchorage…the cold, wet way

Yes, we wanted to see Anchorage—the largest city in Alaska by population—but we really just needed to have our bikes serviced.  

So we packed up between the drizzle and rode 180 miles up the Kenai Peninsula on a rainy day in the mid to upper 50’s.  Traffic was moderate and we were able to zip right along.  

Some facts about this city: Anchorage contains nearly 40% of Alaska’s population. At 1,706 square miles of land area, the city is the 4th largest by area in the US and larger than Rhode Island.  

Anyhow, we’d booked an AirBnB for a couple days so we arrived, ate some decent Mexican food and checked into the lodging.  We were both wet and cold so we sorted out our gear and enjoyed long, hot showers.  

We have friends in the area so we’re looking to meet up with them and see the city while our bikes are attended to.  

Note: It you’re keeping score of the parts that have fallen off our bikes, you can add a kickstand foot pad and a rider bell.  Dang…

Easy day at less than 200 miles today.