June 17th, 2014 – Happy Valley, AK to Prudhoe Bay, AK ~90 miles
Like every movie franchise in Hollywood nowadays, I’m going to split this post into two parts. There’s just too many photos to get through in this day to cover in one sitting, so I’ll split it up into the last 90 miles to the top plus the tour, and then a separate post for heading back down, even though it was all in one long ~600 mile day: So here we were – finally, the day had come where we’d get to the top of Alaska.
Unfortunately for my lazy ass, that required waking up at about 4am, when it was still…completely light outside.
Along the way, I hit a milestone of 6’s.
During this trip, Bui and I both got a lot better at handling the dirt on big bikes. We’re doing 70 here but there are definitely portions where you can easily top 100, if you’re feeling frisky.
Unfortunately, that extended high-speed running started to take a toll on my bike. One of the bolts holding in my mudguard rattled out, and that caused additional stress on the plastic, which cracked. Bui fixed it with zipties, and I figured that’d be the end of it.
The last few miles got a bit muddy, but we had a reason to celebrate – We made it to Deadhorse!
There were a few other bikes here from the previous night – note that my stupid mudguard broke again, despite the zipties.
We had left earlier than necessary that morning just to give ourselves some time. We got in touch with the security guard who controls the Arctic Ocean Tour attendance, and he was kind enough to let us switch from the afternoon tour (3:30pm) to the morning tour (8:00am), giving us the possibility to try and banzai back to Fairbanks after the tour was over. We had about 90 minutes to kill, so we decided to run a couple of “errands” in town.
First, time to get gas. It’s so cold here that they protect the gas pumps with roll-up doors.
They’re also hyper-sensitive about fuel spills, so all filling has to be done over or inside these little containers.
Everyone was incredibly friendly – this guy wanted to hear all about our trip. He was an ex-motorcyclist who now does quite well for himself working 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off up in the oilfields. The infrastructure that’s been built here is pretty impressive. I didn’t realize it until we were about to leave Deadhorse, but I actually had some of my best cell phone reception on the trip right here, in this town of 4,500 in the middle of nowhere.
We also figured that we had to get the classic photo in front of the General Store. It’s a rite of passage, right?
Even had to get one with the increasingly-dirty Baby Jack.
Underneath the General Store sign there’s a plaque commemorating Juan Carlos Storchi. It was put there by his son Gabriel, who drove a 70s Chevy from Ushuaia to Deadhorse. Unfortunately, the website on the plaque is no longer working, but here’s the only link I could find in English with a little bit of information.
There were a few exceptions, of course, but nearly every bike there was a BMW GS with Heidenau K60 Scouts, so it was nice to see this Ducati Multistrada rocking some TKC80s.
For security reasons, private citizens aren’t allowed to cover the last 3 miles of the road. You have to reserve a shuttle/tour at least 24 hours in advance (so they can run a background check on you), and pay $59. But then you hop on a van:
And they take you on a surprisingly educational tour, with little jokes sprinkled in like this “National Forest”.
We also got to see a fox, which I wasn’t expecting to see in 28 degree weather.
Eventually, you’re rewarded with an arrival at the Arctic Ocean. Great success! Even though it was the middle of June, the ocean was still snow and ice. Considering the temperature, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
And as you’d expect, Baby Jack made it to the top, too.
Go to Day 14, Part 2
June 17th, 2014 – Prudhoe Bay, AK to Fairbanks, AK ~500 miles
Go back to Day 13
Day 13 – June 16th, 2014 – Fairbanks, AK to Happy Valley, AK ~410 miles