Arctic Ocean Round Trip, day 1

We wanted to get to the North Slope oil fields, located on the Arctic Ocean.  From Anchorage it is about 2,000 miles round trip.  Half of which is on the Dalton Highway, or North Slope Haul Road, made famous mostly by its awesomeness, but also in popular culture by the ice road truckers.  Since we had a fishing trip to planned for the evening of June 29th in Seward, AK, we had four days to do the round trip.

The only people who normally make this trip are paid to do so.  Paid alot.  We met one trucker who gets $1,200 to haul a single axle truck with propane up.  So a 18 wheeler?  one can only guess...  Of course, the scumbuckets are doing it for free, but we got nearly free tires so its cool.

We left Brad & Emily's in Anchorage after sufficient pizza nutrition and beer hydration.  We drove past Denali again, this time in the sun!  The sky got big as we passed The High One, and large friendly stratus clouds escorted us northward...

Top Gun crazy eyes already?

After we passed Denali, the ominous storm clouds scared away the friendly stratus clouds as we started towards the alley of rain.  The air began to reek of rain and wind, not allowing us time to take shelter.  Before we knew it, we were wet, the temperature plunged and one motorcycle started acting funny.  hmmmm, maybe this isn't a good idea?  nawww, it'll go away.  Onward, scumbuckets!!!!

Mt McKinley, maybe?

We approached Fairbanks the storm clouds left, and the sun began to set.  At 12:47 AM.  June 26th 2010.  Every sunset seems better than the previous.  I can't say anything about the sunrise, because we were usually sleeping by the 3 AM sunrise.  every day, riding a little longer into the morning and sleeping a little later into the afternoon.  Nearly 24 hour sunlight has made schedules obsolete.

We spent the night (or morning, actually) in the University of Alaska - Fairbanks dorm rooms... easy to find, cheap, clean, showers, on a beautiful campus.

first day of North Slope route

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