186km

Yesterday opened cold and cloudless, and we headed out early. The area around Whitehorse is 'semi-arid' which isn't to say it's a desert, but that the riotous growth is shorter on this side of the mountain. It kept us dry though, which became a mixed blessing  as the day wore on. The highlight today was riding around Kluane Lake, a vast body of water about 150 square miles. The highway follows the southern shore before cutting through the shallows on a narrow bridge. It was stunning to see the mountains ringing the lake reflected in the still waters. Also I saw a bald eagle, but that hardly counts because it was Canadian.

The road took a turn for the worse early on. The first warning was a sign that read "road construction -- 186km." The surface soon turned to a patchwork of gravel, mud, and potholes. There were short reprieves of blacktop,nbut these sections werel ittered with frost heaves, sections where the permafrost had buckled the road. We shook our way to the Alaska border on dirt. It was tricky keeping the bike upright on gravel while dodging potholes. I lost my walkie-talkie over the side when I came over a heave into a deep hole. We fished it off the side of the road unharmed, but we took it a little slower from there. We kicked up a lot of dust, but there wasn't a lot of oncoming traffic, so we didn't have to worry about being blinded by some big rig's cloud.

As we rode between a few ranges we watched clouds begin to collect as the air coming down the slopes mixed. Before long we could see that it had begun to rain ahead of us. We can't catch a break when it comes to weather. After a short stop to gear up and get everything covered we headed into the storm. It was a short one, thankfully, and not especially hard coming down. The road turned a few degrees north around another peak and we circumnavigated it. At least the rain kept the dust down!

Crossing the border took even less time than it took into Canada. The suit looked at our passports and wanted to know if we had guns, then he waved us in. It turned colder as we approached Tok and the rain started again. We stayed at my relative's cabin, but we won't see them until Oregon. We finished off the night at a folk concert at one of the local RV parks, my relative's friends' children play a mean banjo and fiddle. I'm hot and cold when it comes to folk music, but it was pleasant, although by the end my road fatigue was biting pretty hard. It felt good to get back to the cabin, pull the black-outs against the sun and call it a night.

Menagerie

What a great ride! This was the first day on the trip without major precip, we got maybe five drops on us in the afternoon, but the entire storm was about one cloud, we got out from under it quickly.

We started very early this morning, out the door around 6. It doesn't really feel early up here. The solstice was yesterday so there was barely any dark last night and we're both still living in a more eastern time zone. It was cold and foggy but nothing was coming down so we counted our blessings and headed out.

Within the first hour and a half after leaving Fort Nelson we saw almost every large mammal in Canada! First we saw a black bear (the first of many!) I thought it was a log at first, before it turned it's head to look at us then ran for the tree-line. Then a moose standing in the road, then a mountain goat sauntering down the opposite shoulder, and at last a caribou, who loped his gangly self out of our way as we passed.

The terrain took a turn towards the awesome. As we climbed up into the foothills the road grew narrow and twisty. It was the rally section at last! We spent most of the day rolling through beautiful country, through mountains and valleys, over rivers, and past beautiful crystal lakes. Peaks like Stone Mountain thrust their rocky tops against the sky on either side. It made up for the flatlands we'd gone through in Kansas, Montana, and Alberta.

We also figured out the limits of my gas tank. A lot of roadhouses on the Alaskan Highway are either seasonal, or have just shut down in recent years. Near the end of the day we hit a long dry spell for gas, every spot we went passed had closed up shop. We knew there'd be gas in Teslin, but we weren't sure if my bike would make it. Before long my engine started to sputter so we pulled over and busted out the emergency tanks. Very glad dad packed those! We wound up being only 2 clicks out from the next spot, but I couldn't have coasted that far through the hills.