Mile 1

4800 miles from home and we're in Fairbanks Alaska. We weren't planning to come this far north but we wander a bit I guess.

We finally had a rainy day on the ride from Whitehorse to Dawson City YT. We waited until 11 to leave and had a good dust free ride across the Top of the world highway between Dawson YT. and Chicken AK. Good road conditions, we averaged over 35 mph with stops.

We gassed up in Tok and said to each other Fairbanks is only 200 miles might as well go. Made it here around 7:30 local time last night.

Raymond

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Tom up ahead crossways on the Top o world highway in CA.

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Looks like you swelled the population of Poker Creek.

I hope you don't use the same rational for the 500 miles to Prudhoe Bay .
:)









p
 
Update for the thread, were both back in the USA. Tom is headed across the hot plains and I'm working my way down the west coast. We were very lucky with less then 3 hours spent wearing rain suits.

We never even saw a drop of in Hyder and it always rains there they say.

Over 8,000 miles since leaving home and Tom has to over 10,000 by now. He installed a new rear tire in Edmonton and my double darkside tires are on great shape.

What a trip, all I can say is if you've ever thought about going to Hyder DO IT! That gorge to the city is full of step mountains and glaciers.

Maybe more picture links when I get home.

Raymond
 
I was up in that country by car back in ?92 and I really enjoyed the Top of the World Highway. How did you find riding your ST on that road (I assume it's still gravel)? I get along with my ST well but anytime I have had it on gravel roads I find it a real handful and somewhat stressful.
 
I personally thought the top of the world was better then the Alcan where it was gravel. The TOW is a "packed" gravel road in Canada and we hit it perfect timing wise, the day after a rain had packed the dust down. Probably half of the Canada side is paved (poorly (dirt and oil)) and 28 miles of the Alaska side was newly paved just this month! It was a 70 mph road. I timed the crossing and we averaged 30 mph with the photo stops included. From Chicken AK on west it's 90 percent paved. My ST was running 45 to 60 on the smooth "gravel" parts. There was no area I would call a true gravel road, it's all a northern hard packed road. They grade and sheeps foot or roll most of it.

The worst roads for my bike with the car tire on the rear was the paved parts were frost movement made waves longways to the road. I had to hold the bars tight in some spots to control the sudden change.

Don't ask about that sudden change from pavement to moderate gravel at 75mph that surprised us where the US TOW new pavement ended. Let's just say the knuckles were white for about 200 yards as the speed bleed off.

Raymond
 
That's some funny sh**. Got some good recommendations when you get to Seward!!! I'm jealous
 
ZIAMON said:
I personally thought the top of the world was better then the Alcan where it was gravel. The TOW is a "packed" gravel road in Canada and we hit it perfect timing wise, the day after a rain had packed the dust down. Probably half of the Canada side is paved (poorly (dirt and oil)) and 28 miles of the Alaska side was newly paved just this month! It was a 70 mph road. I timed the crossing and we averaged 30 mph with the photo stops included. From Chicken AK on west it's 90 percent paved. My ST was running 45 to 60 on the smooth "gravel" parts. There was no area I would call a true gravel road, it's all a northern hard packed road. They grade and sheeps foot or roll most of it.

The worst roads for my bike with the car tire on the rear was the paved parts were frost movement made waves longways to the road. I had to hold the bars tight in some spots to control the sudden change.

Don't ask about that sudden change from pavement to moderate gravel at 75mph that surprised us where the US TOW new pavement ended. Let's just say the knuckles were white for about 200 yards as the speed bleed off.

Raymond
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info on the TOW. I look forward to going back up into the north country one day but am a little undecided as to whether or not I should do it on the ST.
 
My portion of the Alaska trip was a little over 11,000 miles (GPS track attached), 24 days, camped all but 2 nights. We crossed the Alaska border from 4 locations, Hyder, Skaggway, Tok- Beaver Creek, and Top-O-the World Highway: the northern most US land border crossing. Attached pic of the northernmost border station. Plenty of wild life (bears, moose, elk, arctic foxes, etc). Weather and Raymond's company couldn't have been better. GREAT trip!!!!

This is the third time I've done the entire trip on a motorcycle, 2000, 2004, and 2014; by far this was the best weather. As Raymond has said we probably saw 4 hours of rain total the entire trip. It was even blue skies and dry in Hyder. As I've done this trip before, I just wanted to take a motorcycle ride not a tourist site-seeing trip, so I had NO desire to re-visit Anchorage or the Kenai Peninsula (Seward, Homer, Whittier, etc.) where the viscous humidity ALWAYS resides.

Roads were in fairly good shape, temps were great, even the mosquitoes were cooperative. Dawson City to Chicken and Tok was still my favorite ride with the Cassiar a close second. I also prefer BC and the Yukon to Alaska but it all was good.

The Explorer performed flawlessly, a new rear tire needed at Edmonton on the return as the Shinko was shot at about 8,500 (at least to the point I knew it didn't have 2.5K left). The front Shinko still looks brand new at 11.5K.

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Thanks Tom & Raymond for all the great pics of your adventure. Glad you all made it back OK...I assume you're home.

Look forward to hearing more about it at ArkanStoc.

Semper Fi....John
 
Wow! What a cool trip, thanks for sharing the photos.

Gerhard
 
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