Sunday - Tuesday June 28 - 30 Ride Report

Originally, I had hoped to ride past Whitehorse through the night to pick up some of the time lost earlier in the ride. However, it was raining lightly east of Whitehorse becoming heavy as I entered the Wolf Creek Campground. Since I still haven't been able to fix my faulty electric vest, I was getting the shivers and was getting a bit wet under my rain gear. Cold and wet are not my two favorite feelings, and the original plan was to use Wolf Creek anyway, so Wolf Creek was where i stayed.

I had been riding the latter part of the day with Canyon Evans whose route has been cris-crossing with mine since we met at Calgary earlier in the week. We both left Ft. Nelson in he morning and headed off in the same general direction. It's funny how that seems to happen when you have so many people going in the same general direction for many days. A sort of informal community develops. Canyon was plagued by similar electrical gremlins and he was every bit as cold as was I. Canyon is a 6'8" tall red-bearded young man who had a great knack of chatting up new people and extracting lots of information from them. He had some sort of sheet of graph paper or something like that, which was chock full of information about towns and camping options along the way. How about that! I've been planning this trip, doing on-line research, buying books, and burning up computer gigabytes plotting my routes on Garmin and in this blog. Then along comes this kid without a plan, and in a few days of asking questions, has more data on his little sheet of paper than I could imagine! Ladies, there actually is a guy out there who actually stops to ask directions! Canyon Evans is his name. One of the folks he spoke with told him that Dawson City Yukon is quite the location, with old western shows complete with show girls and all their trappings (or whatever is is that showgirls have going on) So Dave, the old guy with a plan, is going to freeze half to death riding through the night to Anchorage, while Canyon, the young man without a plan is going north to be warmed by the Dawson City experience. Maybe sometimes old ain't so wise after all.

Overall, the ride from Ft Nelson to Whitehorse was mostly interesting for its wildlife. Northern BC and Southern Yukon Territory is a beautiful countryside with more wildlife per mile than anywhere else on our continent. I spotted several black bears, including a mother and two cubs just of the road to my left. Mama bear was trying her best to keep track of the two little ones while trying to eat her meal of grass and weeds in peace. I pulled over for a picture or two, but didn't have the telephoto mounted at the time and If I took the time to dig out the telephoto lens, I might have lost the moment.

A bit later on, I saw a rather dark object beside the road which turned out to be a big old male black bear. I pulled over to the side, keeping the motor idling and the bike between me and the bear. Again, I had the wrong lens and the bear was kind of big so I took what I had and will crop and expand the picture before posting.

When I crested another hill There were four horses just standing in the breakdown lane. One of them had a slight limp. Maybe they were waiting for a tow truck.

I was kind of excited to cross back into the states when I entered Alaska mid afternoon. I would have made better time had I not needed to stop frequently to thaw out in the occasional diner along the way, but I was determined to make it to Anchorage on Monday, even if it would be late at night.
The interesting thing is that as I move north, the days get longer. Stopping about 120 miles east of Anchorage on the Glenn Highway, I was treated to a colorful sunset at about 11PM, and a half-moon suspended over the tops of the mountain ranges to the south. Taking pictures in this sort of lighting condition is difficult to figure. I hope they turn out OK. If not, I'll still be in Anchorage for and extra day and will try it again. Basically Tuesday is a rest day, shopping day, getting new tires on the bike day, with not much else to report. I'm staying at a free campground behind the Anchorage Harley Davidson Dealership, which is open to riders of all brands. I'll take my time leaving tomorrow.

Speaking of which, I'd better get to work in the pics so I can post them.