Problems

Hi everybody--
1.  Here's the latest map:

2.  I'm in Pendleton, Oregon tonight.  This is the northeast corner of Oregon.  Way out in the wilderness.

3.  In case you didn't hear the news, I lost my laptop about 10 days ago in Seward, Alaska.  Don't ask how that happened.

4.  I haven't been able to do any blogging without the laptop.  I probably won't be able to make regular updates for the next two or three weeks.  But eventually I'll get this all sorted out.

5.  Since I last wrote about Denali National Park, I've visited a lot of places:

Talkeetna, AK--  Flightseeing trip over Denali and the Alaska range.   Awesome views of the climbing routes on Denali.

Anchorage, AK--  Boring.  Don't go there.  It's a useful place to stop if you need to make an emergency visit to Best Buy.

Seward, AK--  Whalewatching trip in the Kenai Fjords National Park.  Saw several humpback whales.  Hiked along the Exit glacier.  Saw a black bear on the hiking trail.  Laughed in the general direction of the black bear.

Seward, AK--  Lost my computer.  Rode motorcycle through a rainstorm to retrieve the computer.  Had no luck finding the computer.  Met a nice lady at a B&B who told me about how her house burned down.  Met a man from Belgium who survived the Dachau concentration camp when he was seven years old.  (This seriously happened.  I am not making this up.)  Then I stopped feeling so bad about my laptop.

Tok, AK--  Nearly ran into a moose.  The moose must have been about 11 feet tall.

Haines, AK--  Loaded my motorcycle onto a ship.  Sailed the Alaska Marine Highway all the way to Bellingham, WA.  Arrived in Bellingham last Friday morning.

Hope, British Columbia--  Rode through the town where the original Rambo movie was filmed.

Nakusp, BC--  Attended a motorcycle rally over the weekend.  Met a guy from Sri Lanka who has been riding around the world for the past 26 months.  Listened to advice on how to steal an AK-47 from tribesmen in Ethiopia.

That's all the news for now.  I'll let the world know on facebook once my blog is back in business full-time.

Denali

I haven't been keeping the blog up to date lately.  Sorry.  I was busy surfing reddit.  Anyways, so last time that I wrote a blog post, I had just survived the Dalton highway.  Then I spent a couple days hanging out in Fairbanks.  And then I rode south to Denali.  There's only one road going to Denali.  It's the north-south road that connects Fairbanks to Anchorage.

I arrived at Denali National Park last week on Wednesday.  That first night, I camped outside the park alongside a river.  I think it was the Susitna river.  But it could have been the Toklat river.  Your guess is as good as mine.  I did see one moose on Wednesday evening walking just off the side of the road.  But I don't have any moose pictures.  I was riding the motorcycle and didn't really have an opportunity to whip my camera out.

Moose antlers:

I also stopped at a grocery store and picked up a supply of food for a few days in the park.  I bought a bus ticket and reserved a campground.  And then I was ready to go.

One of the disappointing aspects about Denali is that there is really no way to enter the deep interior of the park without riding the bus.  You have to take a bus along the 80- or 90-mile road that travels from the eastern park entrance to the park's center.  Personal vehicles are not allowed.

First view of Denali (it's the big white mountain in the center):

A closer look at Denali:

The park guides told me that seeing Denali on such a clear day is a REALLY BIG DEAL.  Only 30% of park visitors actually see the mountain.  The other 70% have to look at clouds and imagine that a big mountain is behind them.

More mountains of the Alaska range:

So to go to the interior of the park, you ride the bus.  And the bus is filled with tourists.  Not tourists who are going camping or hiking in the park.  Tourists who just ride the bus and take pictures.  Tourists who annoy more serious people like myself.  Forgive me if I sound like a snob.  I am a snob.  Whatever.  In any case, I endured.  Somehow I survived the bus journey.  After a short 5 hours, I rode from the park entrance to the campground at Wonder Lake.  And I said goodbye to the tourists.

The bus of doom and suffering:

If you look closely, you can see two tiny white mountain goats at the bottom of this photo.  My camera couldn't zoom in any further:

More goats:

Oh my gosh, it's a grizzly bear.  Eating blueberries.

And one more grizzly bear, way in the distance:

A caribou:

I spent two evenings camped at Wonder Lake.  In the daytime, I went hiking around the McKinley river and picked wild blueberries.  The blueberries were everywhere.  I also spotted a few caribou.  I met a park ranger who talked about the park's history, and he also gave out advice on how to meet a French wife.  I met two hippies from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and they told me stories about other hippies.  According to legend, some hippies have become "breatharians."  A breatharian is a person who does not eat food.  Instead, he nourishes himself (or herself) strictly with oxygen absorbed from the air.  So, yeah, I don't know many breatharians who live a long time, but apparently that's the next big thing in Jackson Hole.

The Kantishna airstrip, inside Denali park:

By Saturday morning, I had had enough of Denali.  There's really not much to do in the park.  Sometimes you can see bears and caribou, and that's alright.  And you can get decent views of Mt McKinley/Denali if the weather cooperates, and that's alright.  But that's really it.  You can go hiking in Denali, but there are very few actual trails.  And in the interior of the park, there are none.  No trails.  It's all just wilderness.  It's nice to preserve the wilderness, but it's all very inaccessible.  It just wasn't really exciting.

A closeup of Denali:

There are actually two summits on the mountain.  The pointy summit on the right is the North summit.  The lumpy summit on the Left is the South summit.  The South summit is the taller one.

Saturday afternoon I was back on the bus.  I rode all afternoon to the park entrance.  Then I jumped back on the motorcycle and rode south in the general direction of Anchorage.  I stopped for the night in Talkeeta.  Talkeetna is very cool, but I'll tell you about that in my next blog post.  Maybe tomorrow...

The Dalton Highway

I arrived back in Fairbanks last night.  So I'll try to recount everything that happened on the Dalton Highway, from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay and back to Fairbanks.

Total distance = 1000 miles

4 days of riding, 1 day of resting

Here's the latest map:

On Thursday, August 2nd, I departed Fairbanks.  The paved road lasted 80 miles, until the town of Livengood, Alaska.  Then the dirt and gravel roads started.  It began to rain somewhere in the first hour or two of riding.

The first major landmark I reached was the Yukon River bridge, 120 miles north of Fairbanks.  On the north side of the bridge is a gas station, restaurant, and motel.  Here I stopped to get gas and eat dinner.

I ran into these guys on Harleys in the Yukon River parking area.  I think they were from Georgia:

They had ridden as far as the Arctic Circle and then turned around.  The roads were too difficult for them to continue on those bikes.  Notice how muddy it is in the picture.

Here's what the Yukon River bridge looks like:

And here you can see the trans-Alaska oil pipeline which parallels the road for the length of the Dalton Highway:

By the time I reached the Yukon River, it was early evening and I was tired from riding on the dirt roads.  So I camped at the Yukon River on Thursday night.

On Friday morning, I started north again on my own.  The roads were still wet and muddy.  I reached the Arctic Circle about 180 miles north of Fairbanks:

At this point, I was more or less ready to turn around and ride south.  The roads were horrible and getting worse, and the weather was horrible and getting worse.

While I was taking pictures, another guy on a bike showed up.  He was Renato from Brazil.  He had ridden a 1200 GS Adventure from Brazil to Alaska in 33 days:

Renato says, "Are you going to Prudhoe Bay?"
I said, "Uhhh, maybe.  No, I don't think so."
Renato says, "We go to Prudhoe Bay together.  We leave now.  You come with me."
I said, "Uhhh, OK."

Renato saw another guy driving a Jeep, Matt from Switzerland, so Renato recruited him to join our group too.  So then we were three people riding north together.

At 250 miles from Fairbanks, we reached the town of Coldfoot.  Coldfoot is the last possible place to get gas and food until reaching Deadhorse, approximately 240 miles further.  I brought an extra 1-gallon gas can for that section of road because I wasn't sure if my bike had enough range to Deadhorse on a full tank of gas.  Here Renato and I are filling up the bikes:

We ate a late afternoon lunch in Coldfoot.  Then we got back on the bikes and continued riding north.  About 70 miles north of Coldfoot we entered the Brooks Range of mountains.  Here is the beginning of the Brooks range.

At the center of the Brooks range, the Dalton Highway crosses over its' highest point at the Atigun Pass, about 4800 feet of elevation.  As we approached Atigun Pass, it started raining heavily, and the weather got significantly colder.  It was very difficult to see through my helmet visor because of all the rain and fog.

We continued down the north side of the pass very slowly.

Around 8:30 at night, we came across a group of Caribou hunters parked on the side of the road.  They were spending a few days camping and bowhunting and drinking Jack Daniels.  Here I am standing on the roadside with the hunting camp in the background:

I was no longer happy to be riding at this point.  I was wet, muddy, and tired.  I nearly laid my bike down three times going through deep mud prior to reaching this point (we're about 100 miles north of Coldfoot, and 140 miles from Prudhoe Bay).

Renato was determined to continue to Prudhoe Bay that evening.  So we rested for a few minutes and continued riding late into Friday evening.  I was getting very frustrated.  The roads were insanely difficult for me to ride.

Around 10:30pm, Renato continued ahead on his own to Prudhoe.  He was energized and capable of riding much faster than I could at this point.

Matt stayed with me in the Jeep.  Around 11:30pm, we stopped here, probably 25 miles from Prudhoe Bay.  This was our final resting point:

You can see the road and the Arctic tundra all the way to the horizon:

Matt and I continued.  We arrived broken and exhausted in Prudhoe Bay around 12:15am on Saturday morning.  Here I am looking at the Prudhoe Bay airport:

On Saturday we rested.  We filled up on gas and food again.  And we took our victory photos:

At the Deadhorse post office, there is a nice lady who takes polaroid pictures of all the motorcyclists and cyclists who reach the end of the road.  My photo is on the top row, third from the left:

Here I am on the bike.  Matt from Switzerland is standing on the right:

On Saturday we wandered around Deadhorse and looked at all the vehicles and things:

Here again is what the tundra looks like in the summertime:

Caribou sometimes wander through Deadhorse camp:

 On Sunday morning, we took a tour of the oil fields around Prudhoe Bay.  Here are two drilling rigs:

And the edge of the Arctic Ocean:

The Arctic Ocean.  I guess I can't ride any farther:

 At noon on Sunday, Matt and I departed Deadhorse and headed south to return to civilization.  Here we stopped on the north side of the Brooks Range:

Here's a picture of the pipeline running through the Brooks Range:

The pipeline and the dirt road:

The road as it approaches Atigun Pass:

On Sunday evening, Matt and I camped near Coldfoot at the Marion Creek campground.

Monday morning, we started south again.

At lunchtime on Monday, we reached the Yukon River camp.  Here we found three Mexicans on Harleys who had visited the Arctic Circle:

Here are all the bikes at the Yukon River camp on Monday:

80 miles from Fairbanks, I reached the paved road again:

And that's it.  Safely back in Fairbanks.  Adventure over (for now).

Next stop will be Denali National Park.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwe-pA6TaZk

http://vimeo.com/21475389