Dan's Travel Adventures

“College” in this case, was just a boarding house that reminded us all of dormitory living. A little snafu meant we booked two rooms at The Bunkhouse, Dawson City. Each room held two twin beds and a small table. The yoga mat consumed all the rest of the floor space – no kidding, we barely had room for the boots. Hygiene consisted of communal bathrooms and showers down the outdoor walkway. If it had been 40 yrs ago, there would have been a guitar, Joannie Mitchell and someone passing around something. We handled our lodging with smiles, and even managed a good meal, some ice cream and a stogie.

Back at Whitehorse, we decided to change our original route in order to take advantage of a rather rare week of mostly dry days. We would travel Top of the World Highway now, rather than on our way back from the real golden ring of the trip, Prudhoe Bay and the town of Deadhorse. Deadhorse is the furthest north you can travel in North America by road. So immediately out of Dawson City (Day 19), we took a 9 minute ferry ride across the Yukon River, and started to ascend the Top of the World Highway.

Like so many places you explore, we learned of the Top of the World Highway from other riders. Everyone raved about the views…but it was not to be, for us. Rain set in as we set out on the ferry, and the first 30 miles of road was a rutted, muddy, slippery mess. Picture riding through peanut butter wearing a helmet which is fogging so badly, the visor appears to be coated with milk. A quiet quickly falls on us, aside from the occasional colorful outburst as a front tire finds a new hole, filled with marshmallow fluff and elephant snot. The bike wants to pirouette before finally straightening itself. Every reflexive fiber is commanding your throttle hand to roll off, but you know it’s imperative to keep the bike stable with more throttle when it slips, not less. This isn’t fun riding, it’s anxiety, interrupted by mild annoyances and nagging thoughts such as “why are we doing this?” and “who told us this would be great?” When the rain ends and most of the fog clears, we are at elevation, and find a place to pull off and regroup. Perhaps beyond the fog there were vistas to take your breath away – we never saw it.

Somewhere along the Top of the World Highway, it dried out and we were treated to smooth blacktop macadam. We came to the border crossing, and entered Alaska. The remote crossing has a couple of log cabins, built decades ago to house the border guards, who only operate the crossing when the road is open, Jun-Sep. It is the northern-most point to cross from Canada to the US, and vice versa, and is at 4500 feet of elevation. We postulated it might be the worst assignment for Customs and Border Control Officers, but they were all smiles, and that never happens.

From there, we head to Fairbanks, and the roads are mostly uninteresting. Fairbanks, however, is a pivotal point in the trip. We must decide whether we have the weather window, and the will, to do the 1,000 roundtrip miles of the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay and Deadhorse, which is mostly dirt and gravel. It really has come down to this moment, and it’s time to commit.