Ice Road Bikers -- Not!

Today was the day that we had planned to follow the Elliott and Dalton Highways north to the Arctic Circle.  Starting out, I think that both of us were a little apprehensive, since we had held a couple of horror stories the day before.  Like the one Biker John from New Hamphire told (and kept telling) of fighting mud and clay all day to travel just 50 miles.  Just between you and me, I think that he was full of himself as well as full of something else.  Despite what we heard, today was forecast to be dry and we had to find out how it was for ourselves.

With temperatures in the lower seventies, I started off in full leathers.  The wind was calm and the sun was shining.  You couldn't ask for a better day to ride, unless you knew you could trust your GPS.  The route that we were instrudted to go would have taken us on 200-mile dead end trip to Circle, Alaska, but we realized something wasn't right and turned around after about three miles and got on the correct road (turns out that the GPS had the road right, but called it by another name).

The Elliott Highway meanders over pine-covered hills and through the valleys of Alaska's interior.  We seldom saw another vehicle and, when we did, about half were other motorcycles.  It was also on this road that we got our first glimpse of the Alaskan Pipeline.

Jeff leading north on the Elliott Highway.  The Alaska Pipeline is on the left.

About 70 miles of this road eventually led us to the John Dalton Highway, or the haul road to Pruhdoe Bay.  Immediately we saw the signs indicating that the pavement was ending and that heavy industrial traffic would be expected.  We blew past the signs determined to reach our destination.  That determination began waning at mile marker one and by mile three, we decided it just wouldn't be worth it.  Although the road is hard-packed gravel, the recent rains had wash boarded the wash-boarded the surface so bad that finding a groove to ride in that wouldn't jar the fillings in your teeth was nearly impossible.  And that was at 30MPH when the speed limit is 50MPH.  I didn't want to chance ruining something on the new bike, so we decided to turn around and make some other plans.

On the way back down the Elliott Highway, I began to wonder why we hadn't seen much wildlife.  In a day and a half of riding, I had seen exactly one bald eagle and a long-legged jack rabbit.  In many of the valleys we had traveled earlier in the day, I had noticed streams and decided to stop along side one to see if we could see any fish.  I saw none.  We got back on the bikes and headed back to Fairbanks with Jeff leading.

About five minutes later, I noticed something rustling in the ditch on the right hand side of the road about 100 feet in front of Jeff.  A split second later, out popped a HUGE mother moose and her calf and both bounded out across the road in front of Jeff, the mother high stepping all of the way!  He locked up the back tire and veered off to the left of the scene appearing right in front of him and came to a halt with Mama Moose on his left and her baby on the right and each went their separate ways.  I am sure that the skid mark Jeff left on the road is only slightly longer than the one he left in his pants!

We were hoping that the two would make a serious attempt to get back together, but they stayed on opposite sides of the road calling to each other as a small crowd gathered to try to get a glimpse at either of them.  Mama was in the woods about 150 feet from the road, so I snapped a picture of her from where I was and we proceeded with our trip.  We will sure to be extra careful in looking for things on the side of the road, especially immediately after talking about what we'd like to see...

Since we were unable to get a picture of us at the Arctic Circle, we made a little side trip to (the) North Pole, Alaska, and took some photos there before heading back to the hostel to get some much needed sleep (for me, anyway) before the ride tomorrow.  We plan to make it to Destruction Bay, Yukon and if we make it, we will have ridden 424 miles for the day.