North to Alaska
By Neil Mitchell

As many of you know, I have been talking about and actually planning a trip to the Arctic Circle since last Summer. I had two reasons/excuses for attempting a trip of this length and duration. First, Alaska is the only state where I have not ridden a motorcycle. Second, My best friend from the Marine Corps, Kent Mills, and I had been emailing back and forth about such an “old guy get-away” adventure and he had put a deposit on a new BMW. Tragically, Kent was diagnosed with cancer and died only six weeks later--with no previous symptoms! So, even though I am about as sentimental as a kick stand, the whole plan was now the “Kent Mills Memorial Motorcycle Trip”.

I decided early on to take the “alternate bike”, the 06 K1200GT BMW because it cruises faster and gets better mileage than my 100 HP 03 Road Glide--even with a six speed on the HD. I rode the Beemer to Florida in December and got 40MPG running 80MPH on the Interstates. In April I got a 6,000 mile service and a switch to all synthetic oil. When I mentioned to the service tech that the words coolant or radiator did not appear in my tiny owners manual, they said “Just ride it--don’t worry, it will never over heat”! In April I also took the Experience Rider Course (for at least the sixth time) on a fully loaded bike--tent, bag, clothes, tools, etc--to see how the bike handled with a load. I couldn’t tell any difference in cornering or low and high-speed control running down 95 and maneuvering through the ERC with a top-heavy bike. This later provided some peace of mind when I encountered my first 10 mile long stretch of gravel road!

The books I read about motorcycle travel to and in Alaska said that finding a motel could be a problem and that 50% of riders took the three-night ferry ride at least one way from Bellingham, WA to Haines, AK. From Haines, you immediately have to ride through 250 miles of Canada to get on the Alaska Highway and into the state at Tok, 230 miles South of Fairbanks. Having puked my way to Vietnam and back a hundred years ago on relatively large Navy ships, I blew off the ferry idea immediately! Being prepared to camp seemed like a good idea, and added a few hundred bucks to a growing trip-preparation Master Card bill (new tent, pad, stove, etc). I hired the same teenager from last Summers trip to take care of the yard and help Nancy out and put my clients on hold at the gym. Finally, on 30 May, I was ready to roll!

On the road at 0600, I headed straight North to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the Canadian border. By day two, I had logged 1000 miles and was camping on Lake Superior on US highway 2. US 2 runs across the entire United States along the border (who knew?) For the first time on a cross country trip, I was on no particular schedule, except I had to get a new back tire at the BMW dealer in Calgary on the 5th or 6th of June. On the 4th I was camping in Glacier Nation Park in Montana, and showed up at the dealer on the morning of the 5th. My particular BMW at least, eats tires at a must faster rate than any of the six HD’s I have ridden. I was told to expect eight to 12,000 miles on both tires, versus the 10,000 on the rear and 20K or more on the front of a HD.

While waiting on the tire change at the dealer, I talked to two very interesting guys. The first was a fellow old guy bringing in a Kawasaki super bike for a 1000 mile service--while he an his wife went on vacation in France for three weeks. When the service tech pulled up his record, 20 bikes popped up on the screen! He owned and was riding 20 different bikes! Is he our poster-boy or what! The second guy standing around was big, good-looking guy bringing in a huge BMW adventure bike to be shipped to Alaska for a ride all the way to Prudhoe Bay. Prudhoe Bay is 450 miles North of my destination at the Arctic Circle and the furthest North you can ride or drive in North America. We were talking about our trip plans when the most beautiful human female I have ever seen up close walked up and gave the guy a kiss before going inside the building. His wife, from Trinidad, and he were starting a long-term adventure ride to the tip of South America--to be made over the next five Summers!

I was on the road again by noon and on route to Banff and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies--written as being one of the most beautiful spots on earth. Concerned about credit card acceptance further North, I stopped to get $500 worth of Canadian money. The exchange rate was one to one! No more of the good old days when Fran and Lee led us to New Brunswick and the Canadian dollar was worth about 70 cents. This and the fact that gas immediately went to $4 a gallon when I crossed the border reinforced my plan to help out the Canadian economy as much as possible!

As I entered the mountains West of Calgary, a cold rain started that would persist for the next two days. At my camp grounds at about 1900, a raven about the size of a small vulture got into my tank bag and fanged open a granola bar, while I was trying to find a site with the least snow! I sat up in the rain, cooked in the rain and broke down the tent and got on the road the next morning in the rain. Even this far North, it never really got dark. At 2300 in drizzle, you could easily read a newspaper in the tent. By the time I would reach Fairbanks, official sunset was at midnight and sunrise was at 0350! To sleep in the tent or a motel, I resorted to pulling a stocking cap down over my eyes to provide some darkness!

The Alaskan Highway was built in months in 1942 by the US Army to counter a Japanese invasion threat to Alaska. It is now fairly modern and paved all the way and ride able by any type of motorcycle. However, as you go West and North through two time zones and 1500 miles, the road is constantly under construction. One -way traffic delays are frequent and gravel roads a reality. From the start of the highway at Dawson Creek, through Northern British Columbia and the Yukon Territory(about 1000 miles), I clocked about 150 miles of gravel road. Some of it was 45MPH pea gravel over a hard surface, but some was bigger rock over washboards. By this time my cell phone rarely had a signal an 911 didn’t exist beyond the last bigger (10,000 people) towns. I had towing insurance through HD, AMA and BMW, but a pick up could cost as much as $5 to $10 per mile, each way! I also had helicopter medivac insurance that I learned about in Motorcycle Consumer News. Dropping your bike and getting hurt when you are off the grid could get very expensive in the blink of an eye. Waiting for someone to come along to get help, a multi-hundred dollar pickup for your bike, and a $10K to $20, 000 helo medivac would ruin your excellent vacation pretty quickly! This never caused me to slow down much, but it was on my mind all the time.

I reached Fairbanks on 9June and got a $150 a night Comfort Inn. The next day was a Sunday and I left for the Dawson Highway and the Arctic Circle run at 0800 in perfect 55 degree weather. Fifty miles from the motel, a sign announced the start of the Dawson, frequent gravel roads and the next gas 118 miles away! It took four hours of fairly white knuckle riding to reach the Yukon River and the one pump gas stop and restaurant. Another two hours of mixed gravel and bad asphalt and I reached the pull-out containing some outhouse toilets and the sign for the Arctic Circle. In six hours and 201 miles, I counted three other vehicles going North, and 18 (mostly big trucks) going South. My mileage at this point was 5315 from Woodbridge and I had been on the road for 10 days and about 100 hours on the seat. I got the picture, declared a semi-victory and bought the T-shirt at the Yukon River on the uneventful return. I was lucky with the weather since a little rain would have turned all the gravel and dust into road from hell. The bridge over the Yukon was over 400 yards long and had a board surface that would have been like glass if wet. Also, since it was a Sunday, there were fewer of the huge semi-trucks hauling stuff to Prudhoe. Even then, the dust clouds they threw up were blinding while trying to keep on track in the 70 miles of gravel each way.

I spent the next few days camping and touring along the 1000 mile loop from Fairbanks to Anchorage and back out to Tok. The scenery was jaw dropping in and around Denali National Park where I saw more moose and caribou. I spent two days in an around Anchorage, again in a $150 a night chain motel. What you have read about high prices in Alaska are generally true. Everything must be shipped or flown in as the winters are too cold to grow or raise anything. Even a raising a chicken is prohibitively expensive, as you have to import the feed and heat the chicken house. You would end up with $100 a piece birds you would have to name and bring in the house for pets!

I talked to a lot of natives about the winters. They all said it wasn’t too bad, since it was “dry cold”. Have we heard this before from people in Arizona and their “dry heat”? A woman in Tok, said it was no problem taking a walk in 20 to 30 degrees below zero, if you had good boots and gloves. She said they didn’t close the schools until it got to 50 below! Tok has the record for Alaska, and maybe all of America, at 78 degrees below! The other winter “problem”. is that, since it never gets dark in the Summer, it never really gets light in the Winter! I was told the sun kind of comes up about 1000 and disappears around 1500. That, combined with the cold, would have people lining up to jump off the nearest bridge, except the rivers are frozen solid!. The winter weather might explain why every gas station from the Yukon on North sells any kind of alcohol you could desire.

After a 400 mile plus ride up from Anchorage and just across the Canadian border in Beaver Creek, I got an OK motel where there were several other bikers from all over the US. They were all riding down to Haines and taking the ferry to Washington. I was facing backtracking almost 2000 miles over the same roads I had ridden up on last week! So the first lesson learned on this trip would be to take the ferry one way, probably on the return.. From the water you can see a lot things you cant see from the few roads in the enormous state (Alaska, at 550,000 square miles is bigger than England, France, Spain and Italy combined--and has fewer people that DC). Suspicions confirmed that the ferry is not cheap. A guy and his son from OK said he was paying $1500 one way for two people and two bikes, no food, no room, and camping on the deck! Even with $5 gas and $100 “cheap” motels in the North it is still cheaper to ride both ways--but mind numbing.

The other revelations were that motels are available along the route up through Canada and in Alaska and a credit card was accepted everywhere. I didn’t really have to camp, but the plus side was that I did save a few hundred dollars and talked to some interesting people in the campsites that I would have never met in an anonymous motel.

After a fast and grinding four day ride South, I stayed with my son in Portland for a couple of days and am now with my daughter and her family in Santa Rosa, CA. The local BMW dealer worked me in for a 12,000 mile service (3,000 overdue) and another rear tire. I am looking at a final 3000 mile ride home via Route 50 in Nevada, the Colorado Rockies, Kansas, relatives in Illinois and finally Woodbridge. I would definitely do this ride again, but only with another rider or two to mitigate the risk if something happened--and someone to share the experiences with, both good and bad! I am looking forward to seeing you all at the July meeting. Hope all went well and the VA rally.