The 15th was cold and rainy. I had about 4 pairs of gloves with me, but no combination of them could keep my fingers warm when the temperature dropped. It warmed up when we rode through Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon, which seemed like a nice town. My rear tire was getting pretty worn by this point, but I wanted to wait until I got to Alaska to replace it, where I could get a better price. We stopped at Pine Lake Campground, near the town of Haines Junction.
We played frisbee on the beach for a while and then met Mike, who said there had been a bluegrass music festival in town over the weekend, and several of the bands were camping there. We stopped by their site later in the evening and listened to a bunch of musicians from different bands, jamming for a long time. I talked to a guy named Oliver who sang and played bass in a band called Outlaw Social, from Victoria. Also there were some guys from Cadillac Sky, a band from Texas. Both bands are really good, and can be found on MySpace. Random groups of 6 or 7 people would pick songs and jam together for long periods; it was a great time. I wish I'd heard about the festival earlier, so we could have tried to arrive in time for the whole thing.
The morning brought nice, warm weather with clear skies. Later, dark clouds hovered over nearby mountains but we managed to sneak by them without getting too wet. We rode by some beautiful mountains, part of the St. Elias range I think. Then we stopped for a while by Kluane Lake.
Then the roads got bad. There were lots of construction areas where we had to stop and wait long periods for a pilot car to come and lead us down the road. The gravel sections were either terribly dusty or wet & muddy. My bike had never been so filthy. It was slow going, but we finally made it to Alaska on June 16th.
The border crossing was surprisingly simple. They ask if you've got any tobacco or alcohol, and Cyrus admitted to having half a bottle of rum, but the guy just waved us in. The roads improved only slightly, still had a lot of gravel sections. We stopped at a campground outside of Tok, the first real town. I got cell phone reception for the first time in 5 days and let the parents know I was okay.
The next day we saw our first moose on the side of the road, on our way to Fairbanks. I couldn't believe how many people were driving RVs across the country, especially with gas prices the way they were. I can't imagine how expensive it would be to drive an RV on a trip like we were doing. For that kind of money you could fly to Fiji and spend a month surfing and scuba diving, with cash to spare. If sitting in a bus, watching the world fly by your window is your idea of a vacation then have at it, but you'll never sell one to me. I think I'd rather have a sail boat; I hear they get great highway mileage.
Forgotten River Towns Tour
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