Peenie Wallie: Day 12 - Teslin, Yukon to Tok, Alaska (Wed 7/30/14)

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July 30, 2014

Day 12 - Teslin, Yukon to Tok, Alaska (Wed 7/30/14)

(Wed 7/30/14)

Update: I am alive and well and resting peacefully in Tok (pronounced Toke), Alaska.

Starting Odometer: 18,314
Ending Odometer: 18,860
Miles Driven Today: 546
Miles Driven This Trip: 4,207

So, Ben got up early this morning and took off. He was up at something crazy like 6:30 a.m. and I was like..."have fun dude...keep the bottom side down" and he disappeared on his KLR. I think he said he was going down to Skagway to check it out.

I get up at some point and start packing up all my gear. The forecast calls for a 90% chance of rain in Whitehorse, and I hate riding in the rain, plus...it's freezing cold outside. I don't know how cold because people in this country don't understand Fahrenheit for whatever reason. And you can't convert Celcius to Fahrenheit...it's just not possible. Scientists have tried for years without success. But is cold. Colder than a witch's tit in a steel bra doing pushups in the snow.

I put together a little plan for where I'll get gas for the day:
Yukon Motel - Mile 772
Whitehorse - Mile 880
Destruction Bay - Mile 1046
Buckshot Betty's - Mile 1162
Alaska Border - Mile 1182
Northway Junction - Mile 1264

So, I drag my feet as long as I can and finally, some time after 10:00 a.m., it can be put on no longer and I climb on my bike and head out of town going the wrong way. This time though, I realize my mistake immediately. The new plan is to always have a town in the GPS so it's sending in the right general direction at all times.

I put on pretty much everything I have except my rain gear, and I'm still somewhat cold while riding. The gloves are not good. Holes in several places, and I bought them new for this trip. I have on my Wal-mart-grade fleece and I'm still cold enough that I have to do a sort of Zen mind control to stay on the bike and convince myself I'm having fun. At least it's not raining.

Drive the first 110 miles to Whitehorse, and I've got to do something about my hands. They're too cold. This is ridiculous. Who knew it was this cold up here in July?

Roll through town...find some store called something like Canadian Warehouse/Superstore - No Membership Required. Pull up out front, park on the sidewalk, and these girls are standing out front...

"Do you own this place?" they ask, condescendingly.

"Do you work here?"

Turns out they're just panhandling out front.

"Where can I get some gloves?" They point me to Wal-mart, so I run into Wal-mart, but they don't have cold-weather gloves in July for whatever reason. A kind woman in the parking lot takes pity on me, and directs me to a pair of sporting goods stores on 4th and Main, which I manage to locate.

The first store is Coast Mountain Sports I think....they only have like little gay thin gloves that are useless. The next store is next door. They don't really have any gloves in stock for reasons one can only imagine.

But then, one girl that works there insists that they have a box of winter gloves leftover from ski season that didn't sell. So, I follow her deep into the bowels of this store...underground to where the ugly people type away in obscurity at subterranean keyboards.

She pulls out a box of gloves...some of them are absurd...like boxing gloves...."I want these," I offer, holding up a pair of gloves that weighs about 14 pounds.

"Those are for climbing Mt. Everest...you don't want those..."

Finally, we find a pair of North Face gloves that look like they'll work. They're waterproof, cold-weather, winter gloves. Then, I tell her I need something for my neck...and she finds me a synthetic thingy that goes around your neck.

Now, I'm rolling north and west out of Whitehorse as it begins to rain. Stop and put on my rain gear and now, this is it. This is all that I have. If I get too cold, then I'm royally screwed at this point, and I roll back out into the wilds of the Yukon Territory.

It's really hard to describe how primitive and raw the Yukon Territory truly is. Like...I don't pass anyone else on the road. There are no other vehicles out here. You see another vehicle about ever 10 minutes or so, maybe.

It's raining on me, but I'm staying dry and warm. My Frogg Toggs were beat up pretty badly in the wind yesterday, so I repaired them with duct tape in the room this morning.

Surprisingly, I'm not cold anywhere. I do feel some cold air around my left boot, but other than that, I'm in pretty good shape.

The Yukon scrolls past me, as I duck down low on the bike and run through the cold summer rain. Basically, I run at about 80 -90 mph - "confiscation speeds", as they call it here. But, I don't really care. Like, if the pigs want to stop me and take my bike, at least it will get me out of the rain.

I imagine driving out of the rain. What a great moment that would be. If the deep grey skies would ever part, and allow a ray of sunshine through, then I'd be able to drive out of the freezing rain and into a warm sunny day. What a dream that would be.

But just nothing but dark grey clouds, of course.

About 160 miles later, as I roll into Destruction Bay, the skies part and the rains cease.

Destruction Bay is just stunning. Maybe more so because it's where the rain ended on my ride. But the rain stops and now I'm staring across this bay...it looks like an oil painting...and now the road follows the bay, hugging the shore. Breathtaking.

Now begins the road construction.

Basically, at this point, the paved road deteriorates into loose gravel at sporadic and poorly marked intervals. So that, one minute I'm rolling through the mountains at 85 mph, and then suddenly, I'm on loose-pea-gravel, fighting to keep the bike from going down.

The rain returns occasionally, but not nearly as steady or persistent. Eventually, I just blow through the pea gravel without slowing down. I go through it like the world is on fire. Like, if I crash, I crash, but I've got to get these pineapples through to Hawaii. I'm tired of dilly-dallying around. I can drive further in a day than I have been doing. Much further.

The guys in the Hoka Hey were very clear on this point.

And suddenly, this dawns on me. I got away this morning at something like 10:15 a.m., which is a near record for me. And, I was able to get in my first 100 miles before noon...or by 12:15 p.m. anyway.

Now, I'm blowing through all of this soaking wet pea gravel and road construction nightmare that is the Yukon. The Alaska Highway really does suck here. Really bad. Like, even where it's paved, you're thrown up in the air by invisible swells in the pavement. It's not a good road.

And, I'm looking for this place where I'm supposed to fill up. But I'm not seeing it. I think it's supposed to be here when my odometer hits 140 miles, but it's still nowhere to be seen at 160 miles and my fuel light is on and this is scary. Like...the mind plays all sorts of tricks on you. "Why isn't the gas station here? It was supposed to be here. Where is it? Maybe you passed it. Maybe you're driving off into a black hole where there's no gas for 300 miles...."

All of this runs through your head as you're blowing through this 3rd World Country of Canada in the Yukon. Finally, in the middle of a very gnarly construction project, the KTM comes to a grinding halt.

No problem. It's out of gas. I hop off the bike, untie the 2 gallon gas can, and promptly pour the gas into the left KTM gas tank. Now, I can go 80 more miles. But how far to the next gas station? Who knows?

The construction men are walking around, they get in a truck...I want to ask them "How far to the next gas station?" I'm guessing it's probably 900 miles or so. The men drive away before I can ask them where the next gas station is. But I drive about 5 km and there's the gas station I was looking for all along. Now...why was it 30 miles past where I thought it was? I'm not clear. I have no clue.

Now, I get gas, and there's a motel. She wants something insane like $130 CAD for the night.

"How far to the border?"

"18 miles."

"Are there rooms there?"

"I don't know."

That's a lie. Of course she knows where the next hotel is. My guess is that a) she knows there are rooms there and b) she's lying about it.

I decide to push on and go ahead and cross back into the U.S. I need to start pushing myself more. I should be driving 500 miles a day instead of 300 miles a day.

One way to cut costs is to look for cheaper rooms, but the other way to cut costs is to drive further every day so this adventure doesn't drag on until November.

I decide to make a mad dash for the border.

Now that the rain has stopped, and I have a full tank of gas, the sun gets low on the horizon. But the days are so much longer up here you just can't imagine. Right now, it's 11:00 p.m. and broad daylight outside.

Finally, I come to the border. I leave Canada by going through Canadian customs, and on the other side is just nothing. I drive for maybe 20 km before I come to the U.S. customs agency, but there is no Immigration office. It is, essentially, an open border. Only you have to go through customs.

"Where are you heading?"

"I"m driving to the Arctic Circle."

"When will you be leaving?"

"I'm not sure. I've been on the road for about two weeks. What day is it?"

"Today is Wednesday."

"Hmmmmm."

"OK. You can go."

"Are there any motels up ahead?"

"There's a motel about 3 miles up the road. Other than that, you have to drive into Tok. About 90 miles."

"Thanks."

I decide to bee-line into Tok. I've got to start getting some miles behind me or I'll never make it to the Arctic Circle.

Finally, I roll into Tok at about 10:00 p.m. Broad daylight, of course. If you can believe it.

And I immediately start talking to every motorcyclist I see. I'm got to glean all of the information from these people I can.

Apparently, I have to go to Fairbanks first - there's a KTM dealership there....get new tires...then take Highway 11 the Dalton Highway north to the Arctic Circle. There's a little town near there. Cold something or other.

If it's wet, I'll be in trouble. I'll need knobbies for sure. The one guy I'm talking to went down and had to fly back east for 5 weeks while his broken ribs healed back in Connecticut. Now, he's back to continue his adventure.

Also, some guys are having their bikes shipped back from Anchorage. They ship the bikes to Bellingham on the Marine Highway, and from there, they're driven overland in trucks to the final destination. So this is also an option. They're getting the bikes shipped back to Atlanta for $1,700.00.

Every biker I talk to puts another piece of the puzzle into place.

Go out for dinner, now I'm going back to try to get some rest so I can get up and do it all over again tomorrow.

Photos in the Extended Entry.