Denali National Park

Big mountains!!  Private visitors are only allowed so far into the park.
then the pavement ends and only tour buses continue from there.  So we signed up for one of the "shorter" bus tours - one that didn't go all the way to the base of the Big Mountain, but still took seven hours.  We were done Done DONE when it was over.  I was worth doing,  even if tedious.  I enjoyed the other tourists on the bus.  Everyone was from cruise ships and wanted to see wildlife.  We saw more riding our bikes  to the park than at the park.

The tour buses on the dusty road.

Funny sign on the way to the park

Saw this near the park, too

Our driver/guide, Manuel

Geno loving it

Click to see Manual flying a kite at  one of our stops.

View in the park

View in the park

View in the park

View in the park

Flowers in the park

Flowers in the park

Yours truely

Geno taking a break

That night we stayed in a wall tent at a hostel.  

Slept like a rock

Each cot had an air pad, big thick sleeping bag and a mosquito net.

Alaska Highway - Redeaux

I've had some time to locate photos from the Alaska Highway.  Explanations are with the photos.

Dawson Creek - Beginning of the Alaska Hwy.  There was a pioneer village museum.

Gene goes back to school

The area is famous for burled pine

Caribou hanging out on the highway

Waterdrome fishing flights at the lodge

Bison on the hwy

A bear heads for the bushes after running in front of me

Breakfast

Sign city

More rain coming

Arctic Circle

This leg was quite an adventure.  From Fairbanks to the Circle wayside and back was right at 400 miles, about a third paved.  The rest was gravel, or dirt, or mud, or construction.  The permafrost plays hell on the roads.  Even fairly recent pavement is crumbling and  buckled.  A cruiser crashed right in front of me on the slippery mud in a construction zone.  I had just switched off the helmet cam.

At the start of the Dalton Highway

We had so many conflicting reports of fuel stops along the way that we went and bought spare gas cans for today's run.  Turned out that we really didn't need them because the fuel stops were about 140 miles apart.

With the crappy road in mind, we had new tires mounted by a guy who does this stuff out of his house, 24/7.  The price was reasonable, his workmanship was good, but those attributes were offset by a tirade of BS so deep it was over our boots.  I'm amazed how someone who never stop talking long enough to learn anything can be an expert on everything.  But it was worth it as the tires proved their value today.

Getting tires and an abundance of advice on bikes, politics, guns, society . . .

May not need this tread for the rest of the trip, but today it was well worth it.

The two roads that took us from Fairbanks to the Arctic  Circle, the Elliot and Dalton Highways, follow the Alaska Pipeline as it travels from the North Shore oil reserves at Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez.  I could see it along much of the road today and there's a place where it's open to the public to check out.

Not that I had a desire to do this

A cleaning pig that goes through the pipe too clean it

Cooling fins to keep the permafrost frosted

View of the pipeline along the road

My mission today was to pour Curt's ashes at the Circle.  It was a solemn event and my emotions caught me off guard

So many nice people.  Phil and Amanda took the photo of Curt and I

The Coldfoot visitors bureau (really!!) was passing out Circle certificates.  Gotta have one of these babies!

Close up of the certificate

This place wasn't open for business

Then we stopped at the Hotspot Cafe

Where we had good food, met lots of fun people.

It was really more fun than it looks!

The out house.  For real.

Closeup of the outhouse sign

The urinal was an inverted bleach bottle with the bottom cut off. 

It had instructions

This was the gas we found. 

Wooden planks on the bridge over the Yukon River

Fairbanks, AK Lead-Bottom Mile 4114

Out of the bleak Yukon today and back in to the USA. Magically the bad roads turned good and the rain stopped, just barely.  Again, not much to photo today since it was cold and cloudy.  Oh, let me sing of GorTex and Gerbing.  When planning the trip, the trip planning software said 3,800 mikes.  We've actually traveled 4,114 just to Fairbanks.  Must be all those wrong turns Gene has warned me about.

A much better Yukon sign between Alaska and Canada then the one on the BC border so I took more photos.  I have to admit, the Yukon sign entering from BC is more appropriate for the place.  Not much going on there at all.

And just to add something different, I've included links to some helmet-cam videos that aren't very good or exciting.  The first one is the grand tour of Beaver Creek, YT, where we rented a room to dry out.  They ran the room heat from a central wood stove from 8:00 - 10:00.  Good thing we weren't cold and wet . . .  Don't blink too long.  Where do these folks get groceries?  The closest town is 100 miles in either direction and they aren't any bigger.

The second one is a lake in the crappy weather.  How nice.

Bench at the border

Nice sign!

Not as appropriate as the first Yukon sign

Now I've logged all 50 states!

Construction aftermath

Had a Grand Slam at the most northern Denny's. I think that's a dog sled on top of the sign, not sure.

Click here for Grand tour of Beaver Creek

Click here for dreary, cloudy view of lake and landscape near Tok