Saturday, July 4, 2009

Thurs thru Sat - Fairbanks and beyond

OK, so it seems I've been missing in action. I haven't. The truth is that there are no services for Internet or cell north of Fairbanbks, even though I expected some at Coldfoot. So let's catch up on things.

Thursday later morning I decided that I was spending too much time pussyfooting around and getting spoiled by the creature comforts in Anchorage. I set out to travel north to Fairbanks as planned. The fact is that as we go even further north, the daylight gets longer. Even when the sun sets, it never gets darker than a cloudy day at noon. It's tough on the circadian rhythms.

On the way north out of Anchorage, I started getting the "nods" at about 11:00 AM. I didn't sleep well last night. My body and my rhythms have been shuffled up by all the changes, and we know it isn't nice to fool Mother Nature, so I pulled over to take a nap on the ground on the shady side of the bike. The trick here is that it is enough shade to fall asleep, but when the sun shifts, it's wake-up time. About an hour and a half and I was good to go.

Stopping for gas in Fairbanks, I noticed something missing. Hmmm... where'd my tent go? I guess I didn't secure it enough at the last stop. I found a great place called Sportsmen's Warehouse. OMG, a toy store for hunters, hikers, etc. Picked up a nice little one man hiker's tent and a few extra supplies I might need on the North Slope. Double-checked my load this time and headed out, planning to spend the night at the Yukon River crossing just north of Fairbanks. It was so light out, I was feeling great. There were no cell or web services at the Yukon River anyway, so I decided to press on. I could catch up with the details at Coldfoot.

Not too far further north of Fairbanks, I had been travelling on great asphalt road surfaces all the way. I saw the sign marking the start of the Dalton Highway (a.k.a. the Haul Road). I thought" could this really be it? Am I finally on the road that has haunted my dreams, taunted my fears, and challenged my senses of responsibility for years? Before I could waste even a small portion of my consciousness waxing philosophical, I was shaken by by the stark reality of the situation before me. Almost instantly after passing the zero mile marker, at about 65 mph (that's all I'll admit to anyway), the road became deep gravel. I'm not talking about chip-seal, hard-packed gravel, or anything closely resembling civilized road surface. I'm talking about deep, loose, uneven gravel that seemed to have been freshly dropped there waiting for the 18-wheeled "haulers" to finish the job of compacting the stuff. I only have two wheels and they don't have much of a contact patch compared to even a small car.

My front wheel started oscillating when it first hit the new stuff at highway speed. I thought I was going down. Damn my inattention! All this planning, dreaming, and hoping was going to be wasted because my euphoria and adrenalin was pushing me? I needed to react and quickly. First of all, I got my weight transferred to my floorboards for better weight control; got a better grip on the bars to offset the front-end wallowing, and let the bike slow down on its own. Absolutely no brakes were employed. Good; still vertical, down to third gear at 35 mph, still with a handful of handlebars and weight on feet. Maybe this is just a freshly repaired section. Surely this can't last for the 200 or so miles to Coldfoot!

Now it's about 10:30 PM and no sign of change in the surface. No problem staying awake here, but I needed to turn my attention up a notch or two. I used one of my old tricks. I talked to myself out loud to involve more of my senses in the process. The conversation went something like this:

OK Dave, hill coming up... need a few more miles per hour so you won't need too
much throttle on the climb... don't want to spin your tires here... Come on! get
off your ass, weight on feet, concentrate. Give me about 40 MPH at bottom of
hill... C'mon not 35, I need more... That's it, now control the bike to the top, minimal throttle inputs... make the crest at 30 MPH... great job! Keep it up. Crap, now we have a steep decent, and twisties! Third gear, let engine do some of the
braking, but not all of it. Drag front brake ever-so-gently. Maintain 30 mph
through this. You can do it! What's this, pavement? Great, we made it! Wait,
what's up with the road ahead? Different color, not pavement, not sure, better
slow it up. Wham, back in the deep gravel! OK that was a trap. Five miles or so
of nice road just to set me off guard. The setting sun in my eyes isn't helping.
Almost got fooled.

Fascinating how the deep-purple wildflowers in the fields beside the road at a flat angle made the fields look almost painted. The low angled side lighting of the setting sun gave the petals a luminescent glow. Got to take some pictures of this on the way back tomorrow.

Slap! Wake up Dave! Worry about the artsy fartsy stuff later. We have a job to do here! Get back up on the balls of your feet... concentrate...

And so the conversation went on under my helmet between myself and I for about three hours, and more than 100 miles. My quads were burning from bearing my weight, my eyes were burning from staring into the setting midnight sun for hours until I stopped at Arctic Circle for a photo and to camp for the rest of the night.

While pitching camp at the Arctic Circle camp site, I became aware that my wallet was missing from its usual pocket. Maybe I filed it somewhere else on my bike because I was wearing my outer rain pants. Sometimes the pocket of my jeans is difficult to get to with the rain pants on, so I've been known to put the wallet in one of the pockets of the motorcycle luggage. I checked everywhere to no avail. This is serious stuff now. The wallet had all my credit cards and a small amount of cash in it. I'm at the Arctic Circle, about 230 miles from the nearest gas stop to the south. I only had about 1/2 tank of fuel and the spare fuel jugs I was carrying had already been transferred into the bike's fuel tank. Turning south was no option. I needed to get to Coldfoot, 71 miles north of my location. Checking my side pockets yielded $20.00 in loose bills, enough to fill the tank and almost fill the two spare jugs at Coldfoot. While there, I could contact credit card companies, etc.

At Coldfoot, I was able to fill the containers and the tank. Based on the condition of the roads and the information passed to me by other riders (including a phone call earlier in the day from my friend Canyon Evans who had reached Prudhoe on his dual-sport bike), the chance of reaching Prudhoe on my heavyweight cruiser was a long shot at best. The only prudent thing to do was to cut my losses, be glad to have reached the Arctic Circle, and return to Fairbanks, so I could call to have cash wired to me. With mixed emotions - relief that the torture will soon be over, and disappointment that I had to cut back on my goal - I pointed my front wheel south and headed to Fairbanks.

When I got to Fairbanks, I called Rosie to let her know the situation, and within an hour, the clerk at the Western Union outlet was counting out cold, hard cash into my hand. I bought a new wallet, promising to keep better track of this one and continued south back to Anchorage. Rosie, I owe you big time! What can I do to make it up to you when I get back? Need a new addition on the house? A new kitchen? Whatever it is, just add it to my honey-do list.

I'm now camped out at the free motorcycles-only campground provided as a courtesy be Anchorage House of Harley, pondering my plans for tomorrow. When I know, you'll know. Right now, it is 1AM Alaska time, and sleep sounds like a great idea.

3 comments:

  1. Congratulations on making it to the Arctic Circle!!! Can't wait to see the pictures!

    Warm bed, food ,shower waiting should you decide to swing through here on your way homeward. I am sure your bike could use some attention in the shop as well....

    Godspeed Brother!

    Max

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  2. A story told with an eloquence only Dave could muster!

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  3. Thanks Smitty, I was posting in the dark with a flashlight and partly delerious from the heat and fatigue. I read it today and I couldn't understand it myself.

    BTW, I picked up the BT-20that you tracked down for me. I had to give him the SKU you sent me as he was trying to tell me there was no such item, it made no sense, bllah, blah, blah. Gave him the SKU and he produced the item with a red face. I'm having trouple pairing it though. The old Pharos unit used com 6. I deleted it and tried to assign com 6 to the new unit, but I get an unavailable error. The only other drop down option is com 2 which doesn't seem to work. I'll keep trying to mess with it tonight. Maybe I will let the GPSed software find it rather than the BT wizard on the phone.

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