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This segment took me up to Fairbanks
and then north up the Dalton Highway to just above the Arctic Circle. The road
conditions on the Dalton were the most challenging of the trip, but the
experience at the Arctic Circle was unforgettable.
Day 21 - Thursday, June
21
-
Arctic Circle
I left Healy, just north of
Denali Park, this morning and rode north to Fairbanks. I wanted to ride the Haul
Road (Dalton Highway) up to the Arctic Circle, but I wasn't sure my big LT could
make it. I had been getting widely varying reports from locals, and those who
had ridden it lately. I decided I would have to check it out for myself.
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Before leaving
Fairbanks I wanted to look up Trail's End BMW. George, the proprietor,
is something of a legend. You can see here that his establishment is a
bit out of the ordinary. |
One of my goals for this
trip was to get above the Arctic Circle. That meant riding the Haul Road (Dalton
Highway) that was built in the 1970's to construct and then service the pipeline
from the north slope to Valdez. The Haul Road is legendary - muddy and slippery
when wet, dusty when dry, and always under construction. Big trucks create dust
clouds and kick up rocks as they pass. I thought about riding all the way to
Prudhoe Bay near the Arctic Ocean, but that was over 400 miles on gravel road,
so I decided to leave that for another time.
| I rode west out of
Fairbanks on the Steese Highway to the Dalton Highway. The Dalton
started fairly good, but I soon reached an 11 mile section where they
were rebuilding the roadbed. You can see here the size of the rocks -
and they were loose. I almost dropped the bike several times, but
hung in there and made it through this section. |
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The arctic tundra
has a beauty and remoteness that is something to behold. The first 50
miles or so were boreal forest, and then it was tundra, as you see in
this photo. The pipeline is on the left, and the Haul Road is on the
right. Views like this extend for miles and miles, and knowing that
there is no one there except for people on the road gives one the
feeling of being really alone and in a different world. I love the
feeling of being in remote, northern places. |
| Fifty-six
miles up the road I crossed the mighty Yukon River.
The headwaters of the Yukon are south near Skagway, where the gold
prospectors went to take the Chilkoot Trail across the mountains to get
to the river that would take them up to the gold fields at Dawson City
in the Yukon. An alternative route was to sail north on the Bearing Sea
to the mouth of the Yukon and then take a paddle wheeler up the river to
Dawson City. |
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| Here is another view of the Haul Road
and the pipeline. Trucks and tourists are the travelers of the road.
The trucks supply the oil drilling facilities at
Prudhoe Bay, and provide support for the pipeline. |
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Fireweed
is plentiful along the Dalton Highway. It is one of
the first plants to grow in areas where forest fires have been, as you
can see in one of the photos below. The low light this evening (around
10 p.m.) made for some beautiful views of the landscape. |
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I reached
the Arctic Circle, milepost 115 on the Dalton
Highway, at around 10 p.m. I had seen photos of other bikers at
this sign, and now I had made it myself. I felt a
sense of accomplishment knowing I was
actually in the Arctic, and
being there on the summer solstice added to
the experience. I was filled with anticipation and excitement. I
was a bit overwhelmed... |
| My GPS verified that I was at 66º33'
latitude, which defines the Arctic Circle. |
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I decided to ride
north another 17 miles to Gobbler's Knob to watch the solstice. It is at
the top of a ridge looking north with the Brooks Range crossing the
horizon. I was not alone. Folks from Michigan, California, Alaska and
elsewhere had come to watch the solstice. This photo was taken around
midnight and, as you can see, it was not at all dark. |
| The mosquitoes were bad. I decided to
put up my tent to provide relief, and I could watch the solstice from
inside... |
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The mosquitoes were thick!
Actually, this was an unusually low time for
mosquitoes, owing to the relatively dry spring weather and it being
early in the season. Locals describe clouds of mosquitoes, particularly
further north where there are many pools of standing water atop the
permafrost. I didn't escape entirely, however - I'm scratching a few
bites this evening as I write this. |
| I met Dave, from Florida (on the
left), and Paul, from Australia, at gobbler's Knob.
Dave rode his 1978 R90S Beemer up. Paul flew to San Francisco and bought
a used Suzuki V-Strom. He plans to ride up to Prudhoe bay and then
work his way down to Panama over the next six months before returning to
Australia. These are just two of the interesting people - bikers and
non-bikers - I have met on the trip. I expect to see Dave at the BMW
national rally in West Bend, WI in mid-July on my way home. (This photo
was taken around midnight.) |
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I took this
photo sometime around 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. on June 22. I
had to use a tree to block part of the sun so the horizon would be
distinguishable. The mountains are part of the Brooks Range. |
| This time-lapse
photo from an interpretative display
shows nicely what I saw this evening. The sun just
skimmed along the horizon, never dipping completely out of site, and
then eventually (around 3:00 a.m.) began to rise. I finally drifted off
to sleep... |
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Day 22 - Friday, June
22
-
Arctic Circle
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This morning on
the way back to Fairbanks I stopped for gas at the Yukon River. Complete
services were available, including food and rooms along with gas. This
was the only gas available until outside Fairbanks, about 130 miles
away. |
| This is the first time I've seen a
crossing stop for air traffic. The road parallels a
landing strip and curves around it at each end. No sign of any air
traffic, however. |
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The pipeline is an
impressive engineering feat. It's probably 4-5 feet in diameter and is
built above ground much of the way - in areas where permafrost is an
issue. The oil is heated to keep it moving easily, so the pipeline must
be insulated from the supports to keep them from melt the permafrost and
sinking. The pumping station north of where we watched the solstice
actually had to slow down the oil as it was coming down the mountains. I
hope to learn more later on, as I will be paralleling the pipeline most
of the way down to Valdez, the southern terminus. |
| This morning -
or was it afternoon -
the solitary beauty of the arctic country
continued to
amaze me. |
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I got to Fairbanks around 6 p.m.
and pulled into the parking lot of a small motel (and
florist and beauty shop). Insoo (on the right here) met me in the
parking lot and insisted I eat with them - she was cooking fresh salmon
for a group of guys who had stayed there for the week. It was delicious!
We ate in the kitchen Insoo built for her mother apart from the house.
Insoo, didn't want the smells of her mother's traditional Korean cooking
in the house. Of course I was reminded of my good friend and colleague,
Insoo Kim Berg, who died recently. Both Insoos were very friendly and
outgoing. |
| It got to be 11 p.m., bed time, but I
didn't seem tired. The
reason why - it's still very light outside up here and people are
walking around as if it were 7 or 8 p.m. back home. I have to monitor
the time and get myself to bed when it's time, or I sleep much too late
in the morning and don't get on the road until nearly noon! |
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Day 23 - Saturday, June
23
- Fairbanks
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Today was a day
for laundry, drying out my boots, preventive maintenance on the bike,
catching up on sleep, and... updating my web site. That involves
selecting the images I want to post, converting them to a format for the
web, constructing the actual web pages, then uploading them to my site.
As you can see here, gin and tonic (in the coffee cup) makes the task
much more enjoyable. |
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