Less than 10 kilometres from Coldfoot we are stopped for more road works. We get talking to the stop/go girl and she tells us that Obama was born in Kenya and shouldn’t be president. We’re clearly in Sarah Palin territory.
Shirl walks away, and as it turns out it’s a good thing. The stop/go girl goes on to tell us about a couple being airlifted off the road yesterday after a bad motorcycle crash. Shirl doesn’t need to hear that. She’ll just worry.
The pilot car leads us through the dirty, dusty and muddy road works. The tanker’s watering the surface making it even more hazardous for us. The trucks gouge out deep ruts and any false move could throw us off.
Up here the truckers have right of way and they drive like lunatics. Looking in my mirrors you can see them coming, a cloud of dust on the horizon. The only thing to do is pull over as far as you can and let them pass. We’re travelling up to 120 kph and the trucks regularly pass us doing over 130 kph.
Bouncing over the deep corrugations left by the trucks can be jarring on the bike. You need to find the right speed. Too fast or too slow and it’s uncomfortable and a bit tricky.
•
We get to Atigun Pass and the road is clear. There was no need to worry. The snow’s well above road level. This is the highest pass through the Brooks Range, about 4,700 feet. It’s a steep climb up the valley and even though it’s all dirt we manage to travel up to 100 kph. Before we know it we’re over the top and down into the tundra. The Brooks Range is like a dividing line through Alaska. Above it there’s barely a tree.
From here there’re a couple of long stretches of road works, one goes for nearly 30 kilometres, and we have to follow a pilot car. The pilots move us up behind them for safety but some of the trucks don’t understand and drive really close to us, trying to push us faster. Through the sloppy road works a false move can mean disaster and this does mean we have to travel fairly slowly.
Shirley: We’re covered in mud and dirt. The mud and dust sprays up from under the bike and coats us and everything on the bike in brown mud. In some ways it’s a badge of honour.
The pipeline has been with us most of the way again today. When we get close to Deadhorse, the oil town at the end of the road, we see a grizzly bear wandering, nonchalantly under the pipeline.
We do a U-turn to see him better which attracts his attention. He stops, looks and then keeps on walking. When we move again to get alongside the Landy, he shows at lot more interest in us. Will he run at us or away? We’re ready to move when he turns and runs off up the hill.
There are herds of caribou alongside the road and a mass of large dark brown lumps that turn out to be musk oxen.
Camping is discouraged up here because of the polar bears, so we’ve booked into Deadhorse Camp. It’s a higgledy-piggledy mass of portable buildings, nothing flash about it but we’re a captive audience. The room costs US $199, dinner is US$20 per head and breakfast US$15.
Work goes on 365 days a year here. The dark months of winter don’t hinder the workers. There are huge lamps on caterpillar tracks parked at the side of the camp, ready to light the way in winter. They also use GPS to track their way through the buildings and traffic when it’s impossible to see.
It’s David’s birthday tomorrow so Nicole and I try to get a cake from the Deadhorse General Store. They don’t have cakes but a big cookie will do the job. A loaf of frozen bread for tomorrow is $5. You know we’re a long way from civilisation.
The servo is self-serve with a difference. There are four metal boxes on the wall with the pumps inside. You fuel up and go into the office where there’s just a credit card machine. Not a soul in sight.
In the street there are structures with power cables hanging down. Apparently it gets so cold up here car engines are fitted with heaters and you have to plug your car in so the oil doesn’t freeze. I can’t imagine what it must be like living up here during the interminable days of darkness.
Brian: We’ve made it as far as the bike can go. Tomorrow we’ll get an oil company bus to Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean.
We’ve travelled 49,201 kilometres since we left home: 22,199 in South America, 6,083 in Central America and 20,919 from Texas to Deadhorse Alaska.
Our Circle to Circle ride is complete.
Shirley: Now we get the bus to the Arctic Ocean. We’ve all submitted our passport details and been approved as appropriate people to take the bus through the oil fields and on to the ocean.
On board we get the story of the oilfields, chapter and verse. There are several companies working the rigs and pumping millions of barrels of oil into the pipeline to Valdez for shipment to all points south.
The guide takes us to the local ‘forest’ which is just one cardboard tree, the oil company’s idea of a little joke. He explains that they freeze the ground under all the buildings so the permafrost doesn’t thaw, causing the buildings to collapse. This can’t be cheap, but they’re obviously making squillions from the oil.
The wildlife up here is as unusual as the environment. There are snowy owls that live and hunt on the ground because there aren’t any trees. We see a couple and you can’t tell if they have their backs to us, until they open their eyes. There are Arctic foxes and the Canada geese that will soon be heading south for the winter.
At the Arctic Ocean we’re not allowed off the bus straight away. Brandon, our guide, has been telling us that the polar bears have begun arriving from the sea ice. One arrived a few days ago and all outside work had to stop while the bear slept on the sand. Even though polar bears see man as a food group, they’re protected. The oil workers can’t disturb them.
Brendan gets off the bus with his binoculars and scours the horizon. It’s safe for us to leave. There aren’t any bears around. It’s all a bit of theatre.
The coastline is windswept and it’s cold, around 2°C, and the water temperature is even colder. A French tourist nearly died of hypothermia taking a dip in the Arctic Ocean so the oil companies banned swimming. Brian seems to be the only one who’s disappointed.
He swam in the Antarctic and now he wants to swim in the Arctic — rules or no rules. He’s worn his bathers so he strips off his bike pants, socks and shoes and wades into the water.
He’s crazy, but I love him.
We all get our photos taken with a special one of us with Christian and Nicole. We were together at the bottom of the world and now we’re together here. It’s bloody marvellous.
The rest of Alaska
10 – 25 August 2012
Shirley: As if we aren’t dirty enough from the ride up here, an idiot thinks it would be fun to spray us from head to toe with even more sticky mud by driving straight into a puddle next to us. Bastard!
The ride out of town is worse than yesterday. It’s colder, it’s still raining and the road is very sloppy. The surface is really like porridge now and Brian’s doing a great job making it as comfortable as possible.
Mind you, it’s going to be hard to make either of us have a bad day today. We’ve achieved something incredibly special. We’ve ridden a motorcycle from the bottom of South America to the top of North America. That’s one hell of a ride. Now we just have to get home to Australia.
And that’s a bit of an issue. I’d like to head home right now, shipping the bike from Canada or the US. Brian would like to ride home through Africa. There’s going to be lots of discussion about this.
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It’s 5.00 pm before we stop for a very late lunch on the side of the road after being battered by the icy wind since we left Deadhorse. The hot noodle soup Nic and Christian whip up never tasted better.
Atigun Pass is still clear and it’s even more beautiful heading south. Now we’re not concentrating on getting to Prudhoe Bay we can enjoy the scenery. The mountains and the barren tundra of the north give way to some trees. They’re scrawny fir trees and only grow a few millimetres a year because of the harsh conditions. It’s amazing anything grows here at all.
There’s a herd of caribou on the
side of the road. The truck ahead of us stops to let a couple pass then moves off. We’ve got all the time in the world to enjoy this. The trucker probably sees them every day. For us, it’s a wonderful sight to watch the herd of about 20 including young ones gambol across the road.
Over the last two days we’ve seen lots of hunters wearing their camouflage gear. This love of hunting is all still a mystery to me. Some of them are family groups with kids shooting animals in this wide, open environment. We’ve seen a couple of small helicopters that seem to herd the animals towards the hunters. Now, that’s just not fair.
•
Moving south we head back to the Marion Creek campground. It’s party time tonight, celebrating David’s 59th birthday. He seems very impressed with the cookie complete with candle that appears as we all sing ‘Happy Birthday’. We crack out the wine and whiskey and talk the night away.
The most I can say about David’s birthday party is we were all overexcited about making it to the top of the world. What happens in the campground stays in the campground. It’s still light when we go to bed, but that could be anytime, really.
It’s a very late start in the morning.
Brian: We’re all a little second-hand after last night. Breakfast at the Coldfoot camp is just the hangover cure we need. There’s a table of hunters in the corner of the café. Shirl gives them a wide berth, but we get talking. Seems they’ve shot their quota of caribou and are on their way home. They’re not taking their full quota home, though. After they’d killed and cut the animals up, a grizzly appeared at their campsite. Grizzlies are protected in Alaska so the hunters had to stand back and watch as the bear helped itself to a hindquarter of caribou and then loped away. Their pickup had become a takeaway store for the bear. When I tell Shirl she thinks it’s poetic justice.
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We all feel much better after something to eat, ready to take on the 400-kilometre ride back to Fairbanks. The weather’s just about perfect. The sun’s shining and the road isn’t too bad. There’re a couple of patches of road works with one really long stretch under pilot car where we have to take it slowly through the mud. The road works are just part of summer life this far north.
Back at Go North Jens and Kati are our welcoming committee. We’re all very proud of our achievement. We’ve made it from Ushuaia in the south to Deadhorse and then Prudhoe Bay in the north. Some days have been hard, but really it hasn’t been as hard as we expected.
The last four days have been brilliant, made even better by sharing the experience with David, John, Nicole and Christian. They’re good travelling companions but it’s time for us all to go our separate ways. We need to head to the lower 48 and decide about getting back to Australia — by plane or by road!
Shirley: First things first: we need to get all the mud off our gear. The only cleanish clothes we have are the ones we’re standing up in. At the laundromat a local asks if I have any change. I offer him a couple of quarters and he points out they’re Alaskan ones. I didn’t realise that some quarters incorporate state symbols. Brian probably won’t be delighted with my new plan to collect a quarter for every state we visit.
We leave a huge mud bog at the bottom of the carwash bay when we finally get the mud off the bike. At $1.00 per minute we spent more than US $15.00 washing and scrubbing the mud away.
Back at Go North I have to use old-fashioned elbow grease to get the mud off our waterproofs and the luggage. Scrubbing away I hear some squawking and look up to see a flock of Canada geese in formation, flying south for the winter. Seems we made it to Alaska just in time.
David brings his Fairbanks’ Match.com date to see our camp. He knows my aversion to hunters so his introduction to the young lady is prefaced with a warning look. They’ve been out to the hunting store so she could buy a pair of camouflage boots to go with her camouflage hunting outfit. Always prepared for action, she carries a crossbow in her car, just in case she spots a moose on the way to work. David didn’t need to worry about me saying something he’d regret. I’m speechless.
•
It’s our last supper together before heading our different ways. The experience we’ve shared has forged a lifelong bond.
Brian: I’m not sure how far to go today so we just hit the road. We’re on our way to the Kenai Peninsula, a couple of days ride south.
We get so close to Anchorage I keep going to the Harley Davidson shop’s free campground. It’s a really good set up with a large grassy area for the tents and a bathroom with a hot shower and toilet. There’re even the all-important power points to charge up our batteries.
The first person we see is David putting up his tent. We didn’t get far without bumping into him again.
There are also three bikers from the lower 48, Steve, his wife, Linda, and their buddy Bobbo. They’re all riding Harleys and are dressed for the part wearing jeans and chaps; another thing we don’t understand, chaps. They’re not youngsters and the boys have long white beards. We look like brothers.
•
I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep when Shirl wakes me to tell me it’s dark. She’s been up to the bathroom and wanted to share the darkness with me. I don’t really need to know this, even though it’s the first time we’ve seen darkness for weeks.
Shirley: I think I’m up to my limit when it comes to camping. A room soon would be nice. We’re not even going to get one on the ferry through the Inside Passage from Skagway, Alaska to Prince Rupert in British Columbia.
Brian’s booked deck class where you can sleep on the sun lounges in the open-air lounge at the back of the ferry, in your sleeping bags. They don’t even mind if you pitch your tent on the deck. It’ll be an experience.
•
We bump into Nicole and Christian in town, on their way to Seward on the Kenai Peninsula. Back at the campground, John’s arrived. It’s like old home week. The three of us will head to Seward together tomorrow and maybe catch up with Nicole and Christian down there.
Heading south we’re surrounded by mountains and water. Clouds hang over the mountains and the sun shines through a break, like a torch light on the grey sand and dark water.
Then we hit the Kenai Peninsula and the scenery is out of this world — snow-capped mountains, rivers, trees. It’s so beautiful, but it’s cold. The 200 kilometres seem to take forever. We pass Nicole and Christian, heading north now. They didn’t last long at Seward.
We’re running low on fuel and it’s touch and go if we’ll make it to Seward. Peering over Brian’s shoulder I see the warning lights flashing.
This gives me something to worry about rather than thinking about how cold I am. At the service station the bike takes 34 litres, which is all the tank holds. Yep, we were on vapours.
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The boys agree it’s too cold to camp so we get a room in town. It’s warm. It’s got a bed. It’s magnificent to stretch out. And there’s a TV. Woo hoo!
•
One of the locals tells us that summer is ending soon and they’re expecting the termination dust any time now. This is the first dusting of snow on the mountain-tops. This, with the end of the fireweed, means summer has gone and the long winter is here.
It’s not so bad down here at Seward. They have daylight from about 10.30 am until 3.00 pm at the height of winter. Up north the sun sets in October or November and doesn’t come back for 90 days. Add to that a temperature of –50°C and you have a harsh environment. Down here they break out the shorts and flip-flops when the temperature gets to 4°C.
In summer the daylight just goes on and on. We laugh about parents in Australia complaining about how hard it is to get kids to bed when daylight saving starts. How do they manage to get kids to bed up here?
Brian: We ride into some of the worst weather leaving Seward and heading to the Portage Glacier on our way back to Anchorage. It’s raining heavily and the icebergs floating by the glacier’s visitor centre makes us realise just how cold it is. We won’t see anything, so a ride to the glacier i
s pointless, but John wants to take us to the town of Whittier while we’re in the area.
Built on the other side of the mountain during World War II, the only way to it is through the rail tunnel — on the bikes. It’s only one train track wide and 4.2 kilometres long. They open the tunnel up to the town on the half hour and back on the hour.
While we wait for the tunnel to open Shirl reads the safety leaflet. She’s a good worrier so this gives her something to worry about. John and I don’t bother. She’ll tell me if I do something wrong.
It’s narrow, slippery and slow, but it’s an amazing experience. I take the track between the rail lines, riding cautiously. A sudden rush of air gives me a hell of a fright and moves the bike around. It’s the air duct pumping fresh air into the tunnel. I wonder if they’re mentioned in the safety brochure. This is a real one-off experience. You don’t get to ride a railway track every day.
We make it through to the quaint town of Whittier unscathed. There are a few shops and cafés on the waterfront but it’s pretty quiet in town today. The harbour’s still open and there’s the tunnel, but the tourists have stopped coming. Next month Whittier becomes a virtual ghost town. A local tells us, ‘We roll up the pavements in September and all head back to Anchorage.’
We do that too, head back to Anchorage. The weather’s lifting and we get glimpses of a rather beautiful glacier and some impressive waterfalls.
•
John’s got problems with his rear shock and his rear tyre is shot after running with little air to Prudhoe Bay and back. This gave him better grip from his road tyres up there but he’s paying for it now. There’s a rental bike business next door to Harley that fits every hire bike with brand new tyres. For US $20 and a six-pack of beer they give John a second hand tyre, that’s barely been used. It’s certainly a good buy.
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