Dan's Travel Adventures

Day 21 opens with us up early, and doing our morning exercise routine. For me, this is either the set of exercises I have developed from the various caregivers I saw before departing, or a 14 minute video I follow along from Jonathan Ferguson, the structural therapist who worked on my body for a few months prior to the trip. Mitch and Tony have the added possibility of a few yoga routines from a Chatham yoga instructor, available online. In our tiny rooms, we move everything we can, set up our exercise mats, and grunt through the routines like the old men we are. It keeps us rolling, so compliance is a must.

Coldfoot puts on a breakfast buffet, and we partake, knowing there are no meals until Deadhorse, and we aren’t even sure what that will be. Fueled up, both bike and body, we pull out of Coldfoot camp in a drizzle, and hope for the best. We have met some great biker brothers and sisters along the way, and two young guys on Honda 300cc dirt bikes have left just before us. Back at camp, we heard their story, and shared ours, all of us marveling at the adventures the others have chosen. These two will head back to the states after this, work briefly, then leave for South America, to continue their journey. For now, our much bigger bikes overtake them while we’re still on the small section of pavement, but we’ll see them at various stopping places, again at Deadhorse, and then back at Coldfoot.

Soon enough, we approach Atigun Pass. We ride for a long time along the valley floor between two sets of peaks in the Brooks Mountain Range. The landscape is changing, but it’s a tundra, so not huge trees and forest, but meadows and shrubs, where there is any vegetation. We can see the road up Atigun in the distance, and it’s a bit thrilling thinking of the climb. The pass is not terribly long, nor terribly high at 4700 feet, but it’s all dirt and gravel, and it’s dicey going up and down 11-12% grades on loose roadway. The temp drops, and the one time we stop for a pic lets us know we got lucky in how/where we stopped, as getting our big bikes rolling again up that steep grade is challenging. The pass is grand, but stark. There is snow on some peaks, but not much is growing here. We see a few trucks and this is clearly a place they know they must go slowly and in low gears. Their climb is high stakes, and even a wet surface means they may have to put chains on their tires to gain traction. Any doubt we had about switching to dirt tires is answered here. As we descend, it’s almost disappointing that the challenge is over, but we’ll see it again the next day.

The rest of the way to Deadhorse is mostly uneventful. There is a final section of beautiful pavement just before Deadhorse, and it feels sublime to be on it after all that dirt. Of course, in this environment, even this two year old blacktop has been torn up in spots, and one break in the pavement is filled with very large, loose stones set just below grade…you hit it at about 70mph, and your blood runs cold as the bike dances all over and the front wheel wants to bury itself and pull sideways. I stay on the throttle, and make it out, and watch in my mirror as Mitch and Tony do as well, perhaps aided by whatever I have shouted in helmet comms. Amazing how even “OH SHIT” a few seconds before a hazard helps those behind. We hear that at least one rider went down here that day.

Deadhorse is bigger and more industrial than Coldfoot, but no more hospitable. The lodging is more modern and much better run. There are no stores or restaurants, except one place that sells parts and materials to support the trucks, earthmovers and oil rig. Our Deadhorse camp has a kitchen that looks like a ships galley, and the whole camp shows up for mealtime, and we compare stories and adventures. Our distance, NY to Deadhorse is among the longest, and that we’re on bikes raises eyebrows. There are probably hundreds who do it every year, but for those who were on the same road in a 4wd vehicle, you can almost hear the inner voice saying “that’s just nuts”. They’re not wrong.

Accommodations are something between eastern bloc communist housing and run down dormitory. We’re being treated to one of the only rooms with three beds, with bathrooms down the hall. This is a bargain, apparently, at somewhere around $300/night. We take it, and immediately plan where we will roll out the mats. A coffee machine down the hall, near the “gym”, and we can kibbitz over coffee before moving the gym equipment, laying out our mats and firing up the laptop, first thing in the morning. A decent breakfast, and we mount up and look for the only fuel source in Deadhorse. Unmanned, you navigate an ancient digital screen to fire up your pump, and dispense the liquid gold. Sure, it’s taken out of the ground a quarter mile away, but it’s still $7.50/gallon.

There are many reminders here that it’s a tough place. Parking areas offer hanging extension cords, as every vehicle that will get shut off has a block heater, so it can be restarted in the frigid cold. Gas pumps have an additional shut off valve, the purpose of which remains a mystery. Oil tanks are kept 5 feet off the ground, ostensibly so they won’t sit in snow. There aren’t a lot of regular cars here, as they simply wouldn’t survive. In Fairbanks, companies rent 4wd vehicles to do this run, and they come with special equipment and two spares. We’re getting out as quickly as we can, as it seems the short summer could be over any second.

On the way back to Coldfoot, Atigun Pass is breathtaking under clear skies. We saw it just yesterday, but in the dry and slightly warmer weather, we see all the majesty. Helmet comms are quiet except for frequent utterances like “wow”. We’re more comfortable on the dirt now, so we can also look around and see what we missed. That someone figured out how to pump thick crude in a 4 foot pipeline over this terrain is confounding. Still, we are treated to caribou sightings, as well as a musk ox.

Rain gets us wet again as we come into Coldfoot, but passes quickly, and we’re back in our dingy digs, but smiling more, as it’s almost over. We brave a cigar, hoping it will ward off the mosquitoes, but no dice. Mitch is fetching in his mosquito net, smoking a fine Honduran.

Morning again, breakfast buffet again, packing again, $7.50/gal again, and we head for Fairbanks. We stop at Yukon River Camp again, but are too early for lunch, so we munch some goodies, enjoy the coffee and talk to the visitors. We had seen a man at this camp as we were on our way up. He had enormous blisters on his heels, and both knees were wrapped. Two days later, we saw why – he was walking from Prudhoe Bay to Fairbanks (and I suspect, many points further south). As we passed him and waved, I was simply awestruck by such an undertaking. The bear encounter danger alone is reason enough to shy away. It’s always nice, when doing something a bit crazy, to find someone else you can point to and assert “yeah, but THAT guy is nuts”.

We arrive Fairbanks, and matriculate back into civilization. Somehow, this feels too easy.