Fishing Camp

Bellies now full of a delicious halibut appetizer, freshly tossed halibut salad, salty and savory halibut main course and rich halibut dessert we slept contently.  And woke up to this view.  Lucky to be alive.

fishing camp

Halibut

halibut is the best tasting fish ever

Seward to the Kenai Fjords

We ride two up for the last 100 curvy miles to Seward AK with some "turn at the big tree, just after the waterfall" directions to get to the campsite.  We roll into camp @ 2am, after being up for 24 hours for the second time in 3 days.  Somehow we find camp and get about 4 hours of sleep.  Wake at 6, shower & eat, and get stuff down to the water taxi by 8am.

next 4 days

water taxi

Miraculously, we made it.  1,000 miles in 60 hours.  8 hours of sleep, gas flavored beans burritos and coffee. Our reward is relaxing on the 2 hour boat ride to our campsite and viewing the wildlife along the way, such as Dall's porpoise, who ride the pressure wave off the front of the water taxi.  Pretty neat.

This is where we will be spending the next few days.  Not too shabby.

Time to set up camp and take a nap before heading out in the kayaks to find some halibut.

Two Up to Seward

We wake up @ 2 am next to the river.  Ride in the rain towards Seward AK, gotta be there @ 5 pm. We stop in Anchorage at Brad & Emily's place to get gear for a 4 day kayak fishing trip in the Kenai Fjords Nat'l Park near Seward.  My dad has flown up from Minnesota and is meeting us in Seward, we've been planning this for a few months now.

About a half hour out of Anchorage, the sprocket issue has raised its ugly head again.  The chain comes off, and is completely wrecked.  We lay in the ditch at 4 pm, wondering how we are going to make the last 100 miles of curvy road to Seward.

After lots of phone calls, 2 wreckers, and some wonderful people named Ben and Stacie in Girdwood who let me store my bike in their shed, @ 11 pm, we leave Girdwood AK on one bike.  The water taxi leaves @ 8 am and we must be on it.

A huge massive big ups, thanks and gratitude to Ben and Stacie.  you rock.  

butt to nut.  must like fishing alot.

400 rainy miles, 2 sprockets, 1 chain, 2 tow trucks, packing for 4 day kayak fishing trip, 100 miles to go two up.

Sleep & Sprockets

I haven't posted for awhile, since January.  Hmmm, right about when I got a job.  huh.

I digress to scumbuckets riding south towards Fairbanks...  and start to notice that my bike is making funny noises.   We stop in Fairbanks for gas, its about 90 F and we haven't slept or showered in... awhile.      

we notice my sprocket is missing about half its teeth, and my chain has about 47 feet of slack.  not good.  when did this all happen?

It also turns out when you ride 1500 miles in 3 days on gravel the chain and sprockets take a beating.

time for scumbucket problem solving.  within an hour I've procured a spare sprocket, and the guy we got it from not only put it on, but also washed our bikes!  Alaskan's Rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We continue south with the paved road humming underneath us.... such a melody.

calming

soothing.

relaxing.

till we realize we're falling asleep.  while riding motorcycles.  on a public road.  time to stop.  still 400 miles to Seward, but if we keep going we'll surely die.  we find a place to sleep next to a river.  

wanna swim in there?

HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

24 hours to make the fishing boat.  must be in Seward by 5 pm tomorrow.  alarms set for 2 am.

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600 miles, 1 sprocket procurement and replacement, 1 gas flavored meal and 1 shower in 24 hours.  scummy.

Arctic Ocean Round Trip, day uh

Dalton Hwy, check.

scumbucket hoooooo!!!!!!!

scumbuckets wear sunscreen

even the engine is scummy

Arctic Ocean Round Trip, day 4 and-whatever

scumbuckets are continuing south.  still light out when we reach our previous nights, or was it days campground.  No need to think of what time it is, its light out, we're not wearing sunglasses, we gotta half pack of smokes, full tanks of gas.  Hit it!!!

Near Galbraith Campground

scumbucket shadow

what looks like a smudge is just a big mosquito

when they made the roads up here, alot of the supplies were flow in with helicopters.  due to the distances and weights, they needed to be re-fueled after dropping supplies.  A few got filled up about half way, before the construction crew realized that it wasn't a helicopter, just a big mosquito.

looking forward to Atigun Pass again

Every mile further south, the flora became taller.  No trees, but taller grasses.  We made the mistake of stopping, the mosquitoes tried to take me away.  Good thing I had 15 extra pounds of "food" in my stomach from the Arctic Caribou Inn, they couldn't get me airborne.  We couldn't even keep our visors open they were so bad.

The pass was shrowded in death clouds again.  As we approached, they cleared to let us through.

well used guard rail on Atigun Pass

But once we had stopped, the death clouds sensed another couple of victims, so they closed back in upon us in two seconds flat.

We sped out of the grasp of the death clouds and continued south.  There started to be trees!  That furthest north spruce tree again.  Every mile we could feel the weather getting warmer, the trees getting taller, the animals getting bigger.  many Moose, um Meece? Mooses? Meeses? Mice?  they are early risers, we see.  Is certainly morning, we begin t see cars.  Dang, we need to be in Seward, AK in 36 hours.

I'm trying to figure out how we are going to make it there.  I was told there would be no math on this trip, but it seems prudent to attempt some algebra now.  So if two motorcycles with scumbuckets are heading south at 50 mph, and they have 750 miles to go, can they make it in 36 hours?  I think to myself we need to just ride though the night... wait we already did that!  We need to ride through the day!  man, our schedules are messed up, that's when we should be sleeping.

We stop to eat breakfast and discuss if riding through the day is a good idea.

One bite into our typical beans, rice, cheese & hot sauce burrito, we realize something isn't right.  Could just be the long night, uh, day?... whatever.  A sip of coffee could help maybe.

BLEH!  nope, same taste.  what the hell?

We figure we need to ride the entire way without stopping to make it to Seward on time.  We think more of that awful taste.  Then we realize that Harper's awesome old-school stove was stored on top of the food and has leaked gasoline into everything.  the burritos, coffee, cheese, even the raisins taste like gasoline.  We are so hungry though, we force it down.  Uh.  Don't pack stove fuel and food in same saddlebag.  Uh.

Arctic Ocean Round Trip, day 4

I guess go south now. lame-a-tron.

brooks mountain range

scummy shadows

It was cold riding south too.

Arctic Ocean Round Trip, day 3 1/2

Deadhorse was neat, but uneventful.  It is a 100% work-gets-done-here-now kind of place.  The people are there for one reason - to extract oil from the ground.  That is, unless they are crazy scumbucket motorcyclists.

Anyways, we got there in the late afternoon, filled up the tanks wit expensive gasoline, and wondered "huh.  what now?"  food?  No bars up here to celebrate with, all alcohol is banned.  We were trying to figure out where to get food... all there is around there is raised gravel roads (the tundra itself can't be driven on with normal vehicles), work shops, drilling rigs, neat crazy tired tundra rigs, barracks to house the workers and that is about it.  No real maps are available, and everything is pretty well closed up tight, its not like a guy can walk up to these shops.  They need to keep out -60F weather with 60 mph winds in the winter!!!!

We were trying to figure it out, when a dude in a pickup pulled up and started a conversation.  Turns out he is a bush pilot who hauls scientists out to study whatever they study.  He gave us directions to a steak feed taking place tonight - $50 a head, but the best meal in town.  We opted for door #2, the Arctic Caribou Inn buffet.  But scaled back to salad and dessert only... $12.  It was the best tasting crappiest food I've ever had.

white-greenish thick paper to put sugary red salad dressing on followed by spongy yellow cake-like cushion (I think I'm going to use this as my next motorcycle seat) covered in bright red colored strawberryish gooey sauce topped by miracle whip?  no musta been cool whip... who knows.  I ate at least 3 servings of each.  Plus the first milk I've had for a long time.

Way. Too. Much. Food.

Rolling out of the place, I thought I was going to hurl.  Need to walk it off.

oil rig

arctic ocean redwood tree infront of oil rig

Everything up on the tundra is smaller, for instance the rare arctic ocean redwood tree as seen above.  The ducks in the water could fit inside the palm of your hand.

It was about time to start thinking about heading south.  weird.

Arctic Ocean Round Trip, day 3

Waking up in difficult and terrible, but exiting the tent this afternoon to a warm, slightly breezy day which keeps the mosquitoes at bay was a welcome start to the day.  Just like this terrible coffee...

Where's the starbucks?

Well deserved breakfast

Tundra

more north = smaller flora and fauna

more north = awesomer trucks

The road has went from hard packed to gravel mush.  The huge awesome trucks roar by at high speeds kicking up the 3/4- gravel rock and making huge ruts.  It is our goal to stay in the hardpacked ruts, but when the trucks come by we pull over to yield the way.  It is best to maintain a steady throttle and speed, not to upset the bike chassis on this road.  But the trucks will always win, so we heed way.

Transitioning from the safety of hardpack ruts to towards the non-existent shoulder, which is a 4 foot drop to the soft wet tundra, involves riding through gravel mush.  Slowing down, or entering the mush, or speeding up makes the bike become unsettled, swapping from left to right.  Its like knowing you are going to trip - you see the obstacle, attempt to miss it but don't, know its happening and then wait for the pain... and wait...  It feels as though the ride through the gravel mush is one long 100 mile crash waiting to happen.  Good thing the nearest hospital is 500 miles away.

The Franklin Bluffs are the only sort of topography on the Arctic Tundra.  A better image of them is here.  Being on a machine for days over crazy terrain, its nice to have flat nothing broken up by the awesome mineral colors of them.  it distracts us from the slow crash we know as riding the Dalton Highway.

Uneventful and unassuming, we all the sudden see "civilization" if you can call it that - of Deadhorse, AK.

Now we made it to Prudhoe Bay, the Arctic Ocean.  What are we going to do now???

Gratuitous oil rig picture at 10 pm

We got to see these awesome tundra crawlers...

such a cool place!!!!!!!!!!


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Google is amazing.  There is street view of Deadhorse, AK.  why did we even drive there, we coulda had such a warmer time with a beer in our hands infront of a computer.



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