Dan's Travel Adventures

We’ve been kicking around this question about several pieces of this ride. It asks you to arrive at a decision that might be unpopular – NO could be interpreted as it having been a mistake; YES could mean a commitment to plan another trip 🙂

In the matter of Prudhoe Bay/Deadhorse, it’s a decidedly unanimous answer – no. NO WAY, even. At least one of us is glad we did it, I suspect one wishes we hadn’t, and I am a bit mixed. The cons were many – horrible housing, nothing to do beside fueling the bikes and bodies once there, fairly treacherous travel conditions (although it could have been much worse), and a significant toll on riders and machines. There wasn’t even that much great scenery, although there was some. And cost. It will probably account for 20% of the cost of the whole trip, and about 8% of the time.

There were some nice aspects, of course. As with many of our experiences traveling, the people you encounter are so often open hearted, kind and genuinely curious about us. When a bike is dropped, riders and RV’ers all stop to ask if they can help. If you ask about a cookie or treat, but don’t buy it, people often surprised us by insisting we take it, anyways. The kindness of others could fill a whole post (hmmmm, I’ll stop with examples here, and perhaps write about this later).

Other positives were the experience of riding on tough gravel and dirt roads. It’s hard to get 1,000 miles of that in 4 days, and it has made all of us better riders. Learning to get comfortable with the bike moving around on soft terrain, learning that yes, you can turn on dirt. Figuring out that slimy mud, while terrifying, does provide some traction if you wrap your mind around the parts where it doesn’t. It would take me five seasons of a lot of riding to gain that, and doing it in four days has locked it into my riding DNA more securely.

I think you also gain some great life enhancement by meeting other people who are pursuing something as hard as this. The two young men on dirt bikes, tackling Alaska, but later, South America. The young couple bicycling across Canada. Over and over again, people just surprise you with what they dream of, and how they go after those dreams. We read about these people in school, but have a cup of coffee at a folding table in a galley kitchen in Deadhorse with one of them, and you find yourself absorbing life lessons, even if you didn’t come for that.

Lastly, with respect to this trip, but very much so about the Deadhorse round trip, “hard” has a new threshold. We have been rattling off 350 mile days for over a month. We all see 100 miles left on the day’s route and think “just about there”. 20 miles of gravel? Yeah, I got that covered. And there were firsts for all of us. The dirt riding and mud riding was a quantum leap in my skills. For my riding partners, changing the six wheels in Whitehorse, twice, and changing the oil in a hotel parking lot for three bikes was a black box. Easy for me, given my experience, but for them, it was a daunting obstacle. We tackled it together, they rolled up sleeves and got dirty, and I think they’re better for having tried it. There might be a dirty rag in their back pocket some future weekend…

So Deadhorse is a definite – never again. It’s nice to arrive at that place, but to do so without regret.