Dempster Highway, North West Territories, July 4, 2011
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Poor weather did ultimately change these plans quite a bit, both in terms of the specific route taken, and in terms of the duration of the trip, which I reduced from a planned 12,000 km over 4 weeks to 9,200 km over a bit more than 2 weeks. I had to give up on the Dalton Highway doe to tire wear and bad weather, and I did not end up going all the way to Inuvik, but I did get across the Arctic Circle, to Ft. McPherson in the Northwest Territories.
Unfortunately, on the last day of my trip I lost both my wallet and my travel log, so all text here is written up after the end of the tour.
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I got started early and to nice weather on the first day. The road to Osoyoos is quite familiar to me, so it took a while to get into the rhythm of a multi-week, long-distance tour - it just felt like a daytrip for most of the first day, but started to settle towards the end of the day, with more unfamiliar terrain, less traffic, and the first wildlife sightings (a number of deer on the last leg of the day, out to Cranbrook).
I ended up staying in a nice, inexpensive motel, the Almo Court in Cranbrook. In hindsight, this would have been the best night to camp - the weather was nice, and there were opportunities around, I jsut hadn't purchased any food, and so opted for the easier option. Overall, a very enjoyable, relaxed first day.
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The second day started out like the first one - nice, warm weather, stunning scenery. This was actually my first time going up this way toward Radium Hot Springs and Lake Louise, and I enjoyed it very much. I started early enough to see some moose by the road before Radium. In Lake Louise I made a little detour to the lake for the obligatory tourist photo of the lake, but didn't stay too long - too many people.
Going up the Icefields Parkway towards Jasper was brilliant - motorcycling at its finest. Almost no traffic, nice road with a few twists, great weather, and awesome scenery.
After Jasper, though, the weather started to become increasingly cloudy, some thunder in the distance. After the mountain ranges, the landscape heading towards Prince George seemed more bland, so I just kept pushing on so I would make it to Prince G. before being hit by a thunderstorm. I made it just before the first raindrops started to fall, and took a room in a motel downtown.
Once checked into the motel I had to revise my travel plans for the first (but not last) time on this trip. Highway 97 up to Dawson Creek had been closed off for several days due to a major washout after torrential rain. I had hoped that it would open again before I got there, but the latest predictions were that the highway would stay closed for up to 2 more weeks. At this point, I decided to head up to the Cessair Highway to Stewart the next day and Watson Lake following day, and then come through Dawson Creek on the way back.
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The next day, I got started to fairly heavy rain in Prince George, which held up most of the way to Burns Lake. I passed a fellow biker at a light in Prince G., and later met him again at the gas station in Burns Lake at the gas station. We had a long chat - he wanted to get some tire patch system before heading up the Cessair Highway. I recommended he should head for Stewart (which he hadn't really planned), since I liked it so much there three years ago. I expected to see him in Stewart later that day.
The weather improved past Burns Lake, and by the time I hit the Cessair Highway it was quite nice again. I saw my first black bears of the trip, and then re-enacted the glacier photo I had taken 3 years ago. Checked into the Ripley Creek Inn in Stewart - the weather wasn't stable enough to make camping really attractive, and of course the RCI is a well-known haunt for bikers, so that made it quite attractive. Unfortunately, I didn't actually end up meeting anybody that night
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Another early start. The weather was mixed for the first half of the day, heading to Bell II Lodge and Iskut, but cleared up after. I saw probably a dozen black bears by the side of the road. Coming over a hilltop, I spotted a bear mother and two cubs a few hundred meters ahead. I believe they might have been grizzlies rather than black bears (the mother seemd to have the hump), but by the time I had stopped and started to pull out the camera, they had disappeared.
Later that day, I had a quick stop in Jade City. Mostly I wanted to have a coffee and warm up after some rain and single-digit temperatures in the mountains, but then I ended up spending quite some time shopping for Jade artefacts at the store. There goes the travel budget.
Just after departing Jade City, I noticed that I hadn't changed the batteries on my GPS, so I stopped a few hundred meters on. Within seconds, there was a fox right by my bike, begging for food. And sure enough - a few minutes later, some RVs came down the opposite direction, screeched to a halt, and started feeding it.
I really like riding the Cessair - there is almost no traffic, the few RVs that are on the way are easily avoided, and there is just so much to see in terms of landscape and wildlife. Last time I was there, three years ago, there had still been a few longer gravel sections. This time those had been reduced to a single section of maybe 1-2 km in length, and a few short stretches with active construction going on. I suspect in a few year this will be an all-paved highway, which is a bit of a shame.
Once arriving at the intersection with the Alaska Highway near Watson Lake, I decided that the weather was still not reliable enough to make me really feel like camping, and that the day was still young, so I could in fact keep going a bit further, maybe to Teslin - a week after the summer solistice, daylight really isn't an issue in the Yukon...
Once I got to Teslin, now close to 8 pm, I found both motels booked, so I kept going, searching for either a lodge or some camping spot along the road. Finally, in Johnson's Crossing, I had the option between either camping or motel, and I chose - wait for it - the motel. What can I say. It'd been a long day at that point.
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The trip up the Klondike Highway to Dawson was pretty uneventful, except for a thunderstorm (with hail and everything) near the summit maybe an hour before Dawson. The Klondike is mostly chip seal surface (rough pavement), but there are some gravel sections along the way, which was good practice before heading onto the more challenging highways in the following days.
Dawson itself is an interesting lookign town - of course it is quite touristy, but it has a lot of old and well-maintained wooden houses, the roads are all gravel, and in most places there are wooden sidewalks. It feels like fresh out of a Western movie. I checked into the Downtown Hotel for 2 nights, so I could spend Canada Day here and explore the town a bit more.
I checked in with the Western Arctic Visitor Information Center, where they told me the Dempster is currently in good condition. At the Center, I also met David, an older rider from Calgary, who was planning to take his BMW 650 GS up the Dempster on the 2nd, like me. Also like me, he was planning to stop in Eagle Plains the first night, then Inuvik for two nights, take a trip to Tuktoyaktuk, and then head back over the course of 2 days. With plans this similar, it was clear that we'd bump into each other again on the road.
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There was a short but nice parade in the morning, after which I spent the day walking around town, cleaning some gear, and preparing for going up the Dempster Highway the following day...
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Started at 7:00 this morning and backtracked to the head of the Dempster Highway. Due to the early start, there was basically no traffic on the Dempster at all. After all the fast riding on paved roads, the gravel took some getting used to, but since the road conditions were near perfect (dry and hard), I was pretty comfortable after 15 minutes or so. It wasn't until I arrived at the Tombstone Interpretative Center just before 9 that I saw the first other vehicle (an RV). We had to wait a few minutes for the center to open, but it was well worth the wait - it was quite interesting to chat with the park rangers about the wildlife in the area.
Just after the center, the road goes up into the mountains, and the landscape changes from forest to tundra. Absolutely stunning landscape - I stopped frequently to take photos, but it is hard to capture the vastness of the land in an image.
The weather held up very well through the Richardson Mountains, and all the way to Eagle Plains Lodge, the halfway point of the Dempster. Just as I pulled in, however, it started to drizzle. I decided to call it a day and checked into the lodge for the night. Later that night I met a number of bikers, including two gals from Alaska, one riding a Harley, which I found a peculiar choice of bike for this type of road. Dave, was also there but we chatted only briefly that night.
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The next morning, I tried again for an early start but it had rained all night, so I was waiting until it at least died down a little. The rain really changed the riding experience. The road had turned slippery, and on my (worn) mixed-use tires it was fairly tricky in some places, with constant drizzle and fairly strong winds in the more exposed areas. I stopped briefly at the Arctic Circle, and then again at the border to the North West Territories.
Into the NWT, the riding got really tough - deep muddy sections in some places, and steep crowns in the road in other places. It was a constant battle not to drift and slide into the ditch at every turn. Finally, about 20km before the ferry and going about 30km/h, I did lay the bike down in a foot-deep mud pit that went on for a couple 100 m. After all the chip-seal surface, my tires only had about 1 cm of trading left, and this was clearly not enough for these road conditions.
As I started pulling the luggage off the bike to lift it up again, a pickup-truck passed by and the driver lent me a hand. Trying to set off again, I just couldn't get any grip on the rear wheel, and almost dropped the bike again trying to tip-toe through the mud. Instead, I then decided to walk the bike, but even that turned out to be hard, with my feet getting stuck in the mud. It took me another 20 minutes to get clear of the mud pit and continue the trip; both bike and rider thoroughly crusted in mud at that point.
On the ferry across the Peel River, the ferry operator helped me clean the bike with a hose, so at least the wheels and brakes were clear of mud again. I continued into Ft. McPherson, with conditions still miserable and wet. Ft. McPherson looks like an arctic expedition camp. I decided to call it a day and spent a whopping $200 on staying in the one and only motel - like all other buildings in town essentially a container on stilts. Black garbage bags taped over the window to protect against the midnight sun. Cozy.I spent almost an hour pulling all my luggage off the bike and getting it all inside without turning the motel into a mud pit as well. Another two hours of cleaning everything, before I collapsed on the bed and fell asleep. The weather the next day would determine whether I would continue to Inuvik or backtrack down South.
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The next morning it had dried off a little. It was still drizzling but not quite a gray as the day before. The forecast, however, called for a lot more rain over the next days, and this sealed my decision to turn back rather than push on.
Due to the improved conditions, the return trip was a lot easier than the way up, with the exception of one construction site. A big construction truck had tried to turn on the road, but had gotten stuck in the mud. I watched for 5 minutes as a backhoe helped push the truck back on track. afterwards, the road resembled a freshly plowed field, and promptly dropped the bike again trying to go over that section. But this time, with the help of the backhoe operator, it was just a matter of seconds to be back on the road again.
Just before Eagle Plains I saw another R1200 GSA being pulled out of a 3 meter deep ditch and loaded onto a pickup truck. They had at least 5 people present, so I just slowed down but, after being given the thumbs up, didn't stop to help.I arrived in Eagle Plains just past noon, and checked into the lodge again. A few minutes later, the pickup with the bike arrived, and I could see that the crash bar had bent so badly, it had cracked the engine housing. Ouch. I later learned that the rider had broken his collar bone and had been flown out. I also heard that the Eagle Plains folks had towed out another 2 bikes that same day, which made me feel a bit better about my own performance.
I spent much of the afternoon cleaning my bike by chiseling away dried mud from the wheels and break pads, using only trace amounts of water. Eagle Plains doesn't have a well, so they ship all water in and don't like anybody to use a hose on their vehicles.
Later that evening, Dave checked into Eagle Plains again as well. He had made it all the way up to Inuvik the day before, but because of the lousy weather had decided to not stay for a day-trip Tuktoyaktuk (as both he and I had originally considered). It seems that over the course of the past 3 days, Dave had been the only one to actually make it to Inuvik. He was also the only one to sport knobbly tires rather than mixed-use touring tires like everybody else. There may be a lesson to be learned here...
The two gals from Alaska were still at the lodge waiting for better weather. They were planning to finally give it a try the following day. I am not sure how they imagined they would get the Harley up that road, especially after they, too had heard all the stories about riders who had to turn back, but I guess they had to find out for themselves.
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Down South the weather had cleared up a bit - after 2 days in the mud, the ride back to Dawson was both enjoyable and relaxing. Again I was able to enjoy the amazing tundra landscape.
Reaching the intersection of the Dempster and the Klondike Highway once more, I was able to thoroughly clean my bike with a power washer. here I also met Dave one final time before we parted ways - where I wanted to head West to cross into Alaska via the Top-of-the-World Highway, he wanted to head East on HW 4 to Watson Lake.
Back in Dawson, I checked into Downtown Hotel again. A few hours later, the two gals from Alaska arrived there as well. They had made it to the Arctic Circle (about 40km North of Eagle Plains), but had then concluded that the trip couldn't be completed on the Harley and had turned around. A few beers were drunk that night, and we met quite a few more bikers from all over the place.
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Early rise to make the 7:30 ferry across the Yukon River. I didn't have a reservation, but as a bike it was easy to get on anyhow. Coming off the ferry, however, I was stuck behind several RVs crawling up the hill. Once I had managed to pass them one-by-one, the ride on th e Top-of-the-World Highway turned very enjoyable, however. Part chip-seal, part well-maintained gravel, the trip to the US border was technically easy, and I got to admire the scenery along the way. The highway is appropriately named - it passes straight over a number of mountaintops, so the view is stunning in many places.
After the border crossing, which is just a little hut on top of a mountain pass, the road turned into gravel-only with a fairly narrow road surface and soft shoulders. Not a big challenge on a bike, but the RVs and even tour buses coming the other way were visibly struggling.I had lunch at an RV park / tourist gold mining site just before Chicken, and got to chat with a retired guy from the southern states, who spends his summers panning for gold in Alaska. According to him, this was a record wet year, with river water levels too high for mining in most places.
The wet weather caught up with me by the time I reached the Alaska Highway near Tok. While I'd had to deal with constant drizzle on the Canadian side, here the rain came in heavy showers that in no time got me wet to the bone despite rain gear. I pushed on to Delta Junction (the northern end of the Alaska Highway) and decided to stay there for the night. Examining the forecasts for all of Alaska that night, I decided to scrap all plans of riding to Prudhoe Bay or camping in the Denali National Park. Instead of being miserable in heavy rain for a few weeks, I instead decided to head back South and hope for better weather in the Yukon and Northern BC. Especially given the degree of wear on my tires, I didn't think it was a good idea to spend more time on long gravel roads, especially if it was going to be wet.
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I started the day in mixed weather, heading straight South from Delta Junction on the Richardson Highway, which I didn't have a chance to travel on my first trip up here back in 2008. Going up into the mountains, it turned fairly cool, but also dried up, and I ended up having a lot of fun going on a very good road with barely any traffic at all. I saw a few moose and reindeer but didn't have a chance to photograph any of them.
Later on HW 1 to Tok, there was much more traffic and also quite a few construction sites causing delays and the rain started again. By the time I got to Tok, I was eager to get back to Canada, so I raced to the border, and crossed back into the Yukon. A couple more construction sites with long gravel sections between the border and Destruction Bay. Not very challenging, but quite dusty due to the large number of vehicles on the Alaska Highway. By which I mean 5 or so RVs between me and the horizon at any given point in time, which feels like downtown Vancouver when you have been out in the middle of nowhere for a few days. On the plus side, the weather was markedly better here than in Alaska.
Destruction Bay is a bit of a traffic hub so that night I had a chance to talk to a few more bikers passing through in both directions. I decided that the next day I would just take the really short trip to Whitehorse and spend the afternoon there. I had passed by that city 3 times before without really exploring it, and that was going to change the next day.
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A short, uneventful ride to Whitehorse, with an early lunch stop in Haines Junction. After checking into a motel in downtown, I spent the rest of the day walking around the downtown core shopping around the various arts and crafts stores, and having a nice cup of americano for the first time since the beginning of my trip.
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I had been looking forward to this stretch of the Alaska Highway. Just as I remembered from 2008, the amount of wildlife in this area is simply breathtaking. I saw at least a dozen black bears that day, several herds of bison, reindeer, moose, and so forth. What a day!
I pulled into Fort Nelson just as a major Thunderstorm ripped through town, roads were temporarily flooded with a couple of cm of water, hail came down etc. It was so bad I actually delayed pulling my luggage off the bike until it was all over.
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At this point in the trip I reached the point where I just wanted to get home as fast as possible. The washout on the Highway 97 between Chetwynd and Prince George, that had caused my change of plans on day 3 of the tour, had been partially repaired and the road was open with alternating single lane traffic. I therefore decided to just do it all in two long days.
This decision was helped along with the experience on the first leg of the day, down on the Alaska Highway toward Fort St. John and Dawson Creek. After all the excitement in the North, this was frankly bland and boring, and I didn't enjoy the level of traffic (especially commercial traffic).
As I was approaching Fort St. John, signage indicated
Once past Chetwynd, and back on the 97, however, the alternating traffic section turned out to be a much bigger deal than anticipated. The single lane traffic stretched over a distance of 70-80 km, with hundreds of vehicles in front of me, many of them RVs and trucks crawling up and down mountains on gravel at 35-40km/h. This was some of the most frustrating riding I have ever done. This stop-and-go slow traffic also consumed a lot more gas than planned so that I finally arrived in Prince George running on fumes.
All in all, not my favorite day.
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I started the day by pushing hard towards home, and with decent weather I was having some good fun. By the time I reached Cache Creek for a last fill of gas, there was yet another highway closure (this time due to an accident), nixing my plans to return to Vancouver via Hope. Instead, I backtracked to Highway 99, Lillooet, and the Sea-to-Sky Highway.
While taking a short roadside rest along the Sea-to-Sky, I noticed that I had left my backpack open in Cache Creek, and both my wallet and my trip log book had fallen out. Bummer! The good news was that I had enough gas in the tank to make it back home without having to worry about money before I got there.
Once back, I received the second good news in form of a voice message from the Cache Creek RCMP on my answering machine, telling me that the wallet had been found. I would pick it up from the Vancouver Police office a few days later. My trip log would remain lost, however.
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I'll definitely do this again, hopefully with better weather next time!