Ride To Alaska

[Mrs. DantesDame]

   Yay! I love Alaska photos.    I really want to get to the NWT someday...

You and me, baby...  

but at the speed you ride I'll be coming back while you're still heading north...

[bluepoof]

but at the speed you ride I'll be coming back while you're still heading north...

Don't make me punch you in the kneecap!  

[jwhite518]

thanks for the pics finally!!!

looks like you had a fantastic trip....absolutely fantastic.  

I can't bring myself to look any anyone's Alaska pix right now. It just makes it too painful for me because I want to GO, not look at pix.

But Scratch and Redfox, you guys are awesome! I am so frickin' jealous of you. Congrats on doing it.

[Redfox]

Slacker eh?

so like how do you post images here?
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[Scratch33]

Slacker eh?

so like how do you post images here?
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Not like dat - like deese!

[Redfox]

thankyou for the most helpful demonstration

[Scratch33]

You're welcome.  Gimme a call if you want another one - your pics need to be larger; like deese:

[Redfox]

Thats Renton Cycle who kindly accepted shipment of our bikes and stored them until we arrived. Their only charge for this service was that we say good things about them on the internet.  They are absolutly the largest bike shop I have ever seen and dealt with us on a personal level that I much appreciated.

[Scratch33]

The flight from Baltimore to Seattle on 'AirTrash' was long, boring and uncomfortable; even though we opted at the last moment to upgrade to bizness class and drank plenty of.... um... fluids prior to boarding and afterwards.  



The next morning the hotel graciously offered us the use of their courtesy limo to get to the dealership.  Our driver was "George", a grandfatherly Ukrainian type who managed to drive, converse with us, and talk constantly in his native tongue with his nephew on his cell phone all at the same time.  "Boris... must find Moose and Squirrel!"

Renton Motorcycles was indeed huge.  They have the same size building as your standard WalMart, with a parking lot big enough to accomodate rider training - when we arrived there was a group of Gold Wingers doing some kind of riding exercises.  They also have a restaurant overlooking the sales floor.  Unfortunately Jim Ackerman, the Service Director was absent when we arrived.  We did spend a bit of time talking with the other staff and bought a few things, including a replacement visor and bike lock.

[Redfox]

I like the notion of saving hotel costs, tires and oil changes by flying, but Air Trash and most others are sooooooo hard on the butt. Note to self; my Beemer is so much more comfy although it does take me more than seven hours to ride it from Washington to Washington.

[sharkey]

I luv hearing Alaska stories.
Me & a buddy made the trip to Anchorage from Dallas bout 12 years ago.  We did it in a F350 Diesel P/U though. Spent 2 weeks getting there stopping in Moab for 3 days to Mt Bike.  We stopped in Prince George BC for a day to Mt Bike and that seemed to be the last big city before we hit Anchorage.  We spent the evening watching the movie - Breakdown which I don't recommend when traveling.  I remember eating breakfest in some Mobile Home in far north Canada.  They kept giving us the eye since we were outsiders.

The Yukon was was awesome and I have a great picture of Dawson's Lake.  The best pizza I ever had was in Tok Alaska at about 2am in the morning.  We drove quite a bit that day so maybe I was just real hungry and tired.  We stayed a week in Anchorage and dropped the P/U off w/ a friend who we purchased it for.  He took us King Salmon fishing, hiking, and Mt Biking despite the fact that his wife had their first child the day we arrived.

The memories gained from that trip are simply priceless.  The only way it could have been better was if we had rode up there (maybe).  Congrats, to both of you.  I'm sure your memories will last a lifetime.

[Scratch33]

After getting our bikes from Renton we bugged out of Seattle and slabbed up I-5 north towards the border.

The border crossing was comical - we wound up in the one lane that had a border guard standing outside the booth.  He was young, kinda overweight, in need of a shave, and appeared to have a special innarest in the motorcyclists ahead of us; directing a couple cruiser riders over for inspection.  I pulled up first and recall the standard inquiries went pretty well until:  

Guard: "Are you bringing any weapons in to Canada?"

Me: "Nope."

Guard (Raises eyebrows):  "Are you sure?  No knives?  No pepper spray?  No firearms?"

Me: "Nope."

Guard (smirks a little):  "You really mean you didn't you bring your GUN?  Most of you people seem to think you need one up here."

Me, speaking slowly and making full eye contact:  "What do you mean by 'you people'?"

Guard (hesitating slightly): "Americans"

Me:  "No.  As I've already answered.  I have no weapons."

Guard (miffed): "Proceed"

I rode on up a bit, pulled to the side of the road and waited for Tam; imagining what she was going through.

Guard: "Are you bringing any weapons in to Canada?"

Tam:  "No, just bullets.  HE'S got all the guns..."

[Redfox]

We've crossed the border a number of times on our trips and crossing the border with Scratch is never boring. We once woke a US customs guy in Montana up from a good mid afternoon snooze and he seemed quite irritated that we could find time for long riding vacations when he couldn't. One thing is for sure, the Canadians are generally way more serious about their border than the US is about theirs.
I loved Vancouver with its perfectly spaced green glass buildings and electric buses. But I liked route 99 even more as did my stuffed traveling friends...

nope they are not roadkill but hey I fed 'em once and then they started following me around...

[Scratch33]

Our first stop after leaving Seattle was Vancouver.  As Tam remarked, it's a nice town, very clean and modern-looking.  I'd like to revisit it and spend a few days sometime, mebbe get over to Vancouver Island as well.

The next morning (Sunday IIRC) we left early and rode outta town to Highway 99, aka the Sea To Sky Highway.  I'm glad we rode it on a Sunday because every couple dozen klicks it seems there was road construction going on -- luckily few of the sites were active.  Other than that it was a great road; a wonderful preview of the scenery to come.   We rode it all the way north to the end, and stopped for the night at Cache Creek.

[Redfox]

I could live almost anywhere in that stretch (hint hint) Cache Creek, Kamloops. Revelstoke, heck even as far east as Calgary would be fine with me.

I was also amazed at the damage wrought by the Northern Pine Beatle. Apparantly BC has had ten warmer than normal winters allowing the Beatle to attack older pine trees (those older than 80 years IIRC) The damage and number of dead trees is astounding.



Anyway didn't it start raining as we headed towards Prince George and the Cassiar highway? The warm weather caused a rapid melt and coupled with rain made a lot of trouble for BC.

[Scratch33]

I remember that on the northern stretch of Highway 99, the scenery changed from snow-capped mountains to that high desert terrain; just like Kamloops when we rode there in 2005.  

Yeah, we hit rain going north up Highway 97 to Prince George, and I think we had rain the following day heading west outta P.G. on Highway 16.   A combination of rain and snow melt from the warm weather was making life miserable for everyone in that region - when we rode in to Smithers on Highway 16 the golf course on the edge of town was flooded to the point that that all we saw were the tops of the flags at each green.  The bridge into town was nearly topped by the river, and traffic was getting backed up.  News reports were that Terrace, the town further west, was cut off due to a mudslide and flooding - bad deal for all the folks trying to get to the ferry at Prince Rupert.

We pressed onwards another 45 miles or so New Hazelton, where we stopped for the night.  A word of advice: if you're on the same road, stop in Smithers instead.  Quite a few more choices to be had there in terms of dining and lodging.  Our dinner in New Hazelton consisted of a hamburger at a Chinese restaurant.  Afterwards, we rode to the 'old town' section to take in the soggy sights.

[Lawn Dart]

Simply gorgeous.

[Scratch33]

The next day we continued west in the rain on Highway 16 a short stretch to Kitwanga, then turned north on the Cassiar Highway.  Stewart was our next stop - just a short ride, less than 170 miles.  

I remember that as we turned left at the turnoff from Highway 37 onto the spur road (37A), we passed by a lone highway maintenance worker, with a push broom and wearing a hard hat & reflective vest.  He had long grey hair and a long scraggly beard, and looked to me like a cross between Bigfoot and the Monty Python "It's" man.  We exchanged friendly waves as we rode by.

The fog closed in as we rode down the narrow, windy road to Stewart.  The scenery was all steep mountains, covered with snow.  Along the way, we stopped to admire the glacier (the first glacier I've seen in my life).





  

[Redfox]

When we travel, weather forecasts are always the very first topic of news so we followed the story of Terrace BC for a number of days. One slide had closed the only road and it turned out buried a pickup including its occupants. They weren't found for a number of days and had perished. The road from Smithers closed behind us due to flooding.
Our only choice was  north up the Cassiar towards Stewart in heavy rain.

[Scratch33]

We stopped at the welcome sign just outside Stewart for the obligatory welcome sign just outside (insert name) photos:



Then rode in to town.  I thought Stewart was small, that is until we rode through Stewart and further on down the road to Hyder.