Day 11: Whitehorse, YT: 631 km

July 09, 2013

Well, well, well.  If yesterday was the most challenging day so far, today would be a close second.  We stayed at a nice B&B in Tok, AK.  We had a nice relaxing evening, filmed some video recollections of Mr. Dendog and fell asleep pretty early.  It seemed today was not going to start out perfectly when I awoke @ 5:00 a.m. (local time), to the sound of rain hitting the roof.  I changed the alarm from 6:00 to 7:00 to let Dendog sleep in a bit and hopefully the rain would be over.

No such luck.  We were on the wet roads by 7:45 with rain and a temperature of 11 C.  The Alaska highway in Alaska is not in great shape.  Frequent substrate changes, heaves, holes, washboard and all twisty.  In the rain, it wasn’t much fun.  We did go through a wild fire area but were fortunate that the fire was far from the road.  When Canada, the temp had dropped to 6 C as the rain continued. By the time we got to Whitehorse, it was mostly sunny and 16C.  It felt beautiful.

We went through a very long section of gravel guided by a pilot vehicle.  It was decent, but wet gravel isn’t too much fun.  We hit another section that was pretty loose gravel and my bike just drifted to the wrong lane (no cars were there).  I just stopped, pointed up the slope and got back on track.

Dendog’s ratchet strapped Givi pannier held up well.  The pannier and his ankle are victims of a small “off” he had in the mud the day before on the Taylor Highway (no pictures will ever be shown).  His ankle is OK (he insists). Upon reflection, I think I didn’t fall due to a combo of the Michelin Anakee 3 tires and the really good Yamaha traction control system.

We stopped to get gas at the start of Kluane Lake.  The nice guy at the gas station turned on the furnace for Dendog while I went into the garage, stripped down and put a new layer of 260 wt Merino wool LJs on.  There was another customer at the gas station at the time.  He is in the hotel room next to us.

We have discovered our “waterproof” Rev’It Summit H20 gloves are in fact, not waterproof.

Kluane:  Oh my! (cue George Tekai).  Somehow the skies cleared enough for us to see the lake and a significant part of the mountains.  Amazing.  Just amazing.  We didn’t stop for photo ops as we were cold and tired. Hopefully we have good GoPro video.  Driving around Kluane is a must do.

I met a couple of BMW riders in the hotel.  They are heading up the Dalton to Deadhorse.  They are getting knobbies installed in Faribanks.  They didn’t know the name of the Dalton.  I suggested they watch BWOM:  Pirates of the Arctic Circle on Youtube tonight.

We are in the hotel, doing laundry and drying things out on the heater in the room. Not going to be a late night!

Tomorrow is another long ride down to Muncho Lake.  We are staying at a Lodge.  Before we go we have to wash the mud off the bikes, get some air in the tires and book some service in an upcoming city.

So why so short in Alaska?  Our goal was to get to Alaska.  On our way we discovered our pace was too high to have much extra fun.  So we are taking more time to get back.

Keep it real.