Deadhorse: The Details

With 300 miles left to Deadhorse, it was time to get up and finish this off. And get up I did, considering that my body clock just keeps going backward and backward. If the sun bothered to go down, it didn't try very hard. So up and at 'em it was, at 5:30 in the morning. Since I was up so early, I took the time to make some coffee and enjoy some delicious freeze-dried eggs. I've never had them (not a big fan of eggs in the first place, but I eat them anyway for protein), so let's see how this is. First, they're scrambled. Of course they are. How the hell you'd freeze-dry "over easy" I have no idea, and neither does Mountain House (makers of fine freeze-dried camp foods). Pour some boiling water in the bag, let sit for ten minutes, and breakfast is served. Ya know, not too bad, actually. As I'm eating them, I flip the bag over and check out the nutritional information. One-hundred and sixty six percent of my USRDA allowed cholesterol. Yowsa, no wonder they're so tasty. I'll run when I get home, or something.

On to Coldfoot and get that last dribble of gas before the 240 miles to the next gas station. The distance won't be an issue, as I have about a 340 mile tank range as well as 0.75 litres in the can on the pannier. I get some stickers while I'm there, an Arctic Circle sticker and a CBX sticker that represents the call sign for the Coldfoot airport. Not that those stickers will ever see the side of my panniers, as I'm not a twelve year old girl doing scrapbooking. I mean, do what you want with your own panniers, but it's just not me. If you care where I've been, you'll ask.

The next 20-30 miles out of Coldfoot are paved. The Dalton, she's a strange one. Why this section is okay to pave, but not the remaining 220 miles, I have no idea. I get that most of the road is dirt, because dirt survives harsh winter better. But why bother paving at all?

After the pavement, the "real" Dalton Highway seems to begin. A little rougher, a little more gravel in spots, and mostly more randomly changing road conditions. One minute pavement, then "whoa", a big section of gravel mid-corner. Or smooth dirt, then the road is covered in wet gravel. Or the road grader just went through, that kind of thing. Keep one's wits about you and it's fine. Assume that it's a road maintained to Federal highway standards and you're going down.

A ways north of Coldfoot comes Antigun Pass. This, other than the construction shy of Deadfoot, is the one big variable for the ride. It had been snowing just a day ago, and probably last night. A guy in a minivan coming back from Deadhorse said, as we were at the gas pump in Coldfoot, that it had been plowed and was fine. Not to worry, then.

The pass comes up as a bit of a surprise. You saw the pictures in the last entry. So I'm looking at what you saw in the pictures, amazed at the big, snowy mountains ahead. Then I saw the road snake up into those big, snowy mountains. Ruh, roh. It looks positively scary. Pictures can't do it justice, and neither can my writing. It just looks...intimidating. I head on up and it gets even more intimidating. Snow from peak right to the road. But the road is clear, if wet and somewhat slimy in spots. It gets steep for a bit, the tires biting for traction, and the traction control even kicks in once or twice. I'm up on the pegs, putting weight over the front wheel so it tracks straight and true. Around the summit of the pass, I pass the road grader. Thank you *so* much for being out here and making this road passable.

It's 28F, I've got the electric liner turned on, the electric gloves cranked up *and* the heated grips on max. I've got cold hands anyway, but the gloves heat the tops of my hand and the grips do the palms. My hands are fine, but after a while even the electric liner has trouble keeping up. 

I want to get a picture, but there's nowhere to pull off and even if there were I saw signs on the way up saying "Avalanche danger, do not stop next five miles". I do see a pull out with a "Avalanche Safety Zone" sign, so I figure that's as good a place as any to get a pic. This is the worst part of the pass. The pull out is wet, it's got deep tire ruts, it at one time probably resembled dirt. Right now it's wet, slick slime and I'm fighting to keep the bike tracking straight. I don't dare try to get off and back on in this slop, so I take pictures from the saddle of the bike.

I head back down, ever so carefully, and the road starts to level out. Before me is the Brooks Mountain Range, covered in snow and beauty. I've had motorcycle wheels in 49 of the 50 U. S. states, and a lot (if not most) of Canada. I thought I'd seen all that North America has to offer. But I'd not seen this. Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was happiness of making it over the toughest mountain pass across which I've ever ridden a motorcycle, or maybe it actually was the shear beauty of it all. But I cried at the sight of it. I cried for miles. Ever see the movie _Contact_? Remember Jodie Foster's character? "They should have sent a poet." I get that now. And all I could ask to make it better was that Katherine were with me to share it.

Here I am looking at one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen, able to afford and riding a piece of the finest two-wheeled machinery German engineering can produce, backed by a wife who just let's me pick up and take off for two weeks to do crazy shit while she holds down the fort. Let the so-called 1% have their money. Mitt Romney and Warren Buffet never rode a motorcycle to Deadhorse, Alaska and probably never will. They're missing out. I, yes I am amongst the most fortunate in this world.

I'm not a poet, so you'll just have to go. Do what it takes. Don't do it in a car, don't take a tour bus, ride there. Don't know how to ride? Take a course. Don't have a bike? Buy one. Can't afford a new BMW? Buy an old Honda C90. It's been done, they have hilariously entertaining YouTube videos of their trip (well worth a view even if you care nothing about crazy motorcycle rides). But do it. Do it before you're too old, and do it on two wheels.

Preferably your two wheels have an engine attached. But that's apparently too easy for some. As I move on toward Deadhorse, I see something in the road ahead. Too small for a truck or even a car. A moose? As I approach, it's a group of a half dozen cyclists coming from Deadhorse. I repeat, I am not an adventurer. I have 125bhp under my ass. Every ounce of weigh I add to the bike is barely noticed with such horsepower on tap. A good cyclist can maybe produce 3/4 of a horsepower, and that for only five minutes. There is nothing, I repeat nothing, between Coldfoot and Deadhorse. Pull outs and pipeline access, that's it. No place to buy a Gatorade, not campgrounds. Nothing. So these folks, still almost 200 miles from Deadhorse, had to be just plopping down a tiny tent by the side of the road at the end of the day, eating and drinking whatever they can carry with them. I've been sleeping in the finest tent that Hilleberg can make, but at ten pounds no cyclist would carry one. Others might view my accomodations as primitive, but these riders would probably kill, or at least seriously maim, for a night in my tent.

Not much to say from here. I saw the last of the pavement at Coldfoot, save for one small section. And then, 20 miles from Deadhorse, the flood reconstruction begins. Oh, no, here we go. If you saw the pictures on the Alaska DOT's Flickr page (go look now), the road was not just washed over with water, it was GONE. Washed away, nothing but a ditch left. And the condition of the road now? It's what I thought the entire Dalton Highway would be like when it was in good shape.

Maybe I set expectations too low. But once I got my "Dalton legs", I was cruising 50, sometimes 60 mph a lot of the way out of Coldfoot. In the construction zone I had to slow to sometimes 20, but it otherwise just wasn't that bad, or at least not as bad as I thought. A huge shout out to the Alaska DOT. Those folks must have been busting some serious ass these past few weeks, and it showed.

Unless you work for an oil company or drive a truck, you have no business being in Deadhorse.The only touristy thing in Deadhorse is the general store where you can get the obligatory picture in front of the "End of the Dalton Highway" sign, and get some stickers and shirts. I get my picture, handily taken by Mario, one of the riders from Mexico. As we're finishing up, a lady asks where we're from and then apologizes for the state of the dirt streets in town. Apparently Deadhorse got flooded as well, and the streets are just now getting fixed. I don't mind, but she has reason to apologize as some parts of the streets are kind of scary with thick, wheel-sucking gravel.

On to find the only gas station in town, then on to the Prudhoe Bay Hotel for the night. You heard the story last entry, I pay my $160 for my closet-with-a-bed, get stuff off the bike, take a shower and get ready for what will be the most delicious supper I've had in days.

I normally grab the panniers off the bike and take them to my room. There is no way in hell I'm dragging what are now nasty, mud-caked aluminum boxes through their hotel, so I grab what I need and carry it in. Everything I touch that has been on the exterior of the bike makes my hands dirty. Everything. Even just opening the pannier lids leaves dirt spots on my fingers. It's a hard life up here, and I'm up here in summer sun. What started out as adventurous with everything so dirty and adventury looking is now starting to get annoying. If you wear shoes that have seen the exterior of the hotel, the hotel makes you put booties on in the entry way before entering. Perhaps it becomes just routine after a while if you live and work here, but I just want to get to my room.

Shower, supper, a call to the awesome wife, then it's time for bed in preparation for what might just be a one-shot trip back to Fairbanks. The weather is supposed to be good (60F in Deadhorse the next day, says the report), and the road was far, far better than I expected. We'll see.

Oh, in case you're wondering in preparation for your own trip, the Prudhoe Bay Hotel has what is probably the best hotel WiFi I've ever experienced. Go figure.