According to many other people there was between 50 and 80 miles of roadworks depending upon who you spoke to in our direction today. I went out to pack the bikes and found them covered in rain spots. Not a good start! After yesterdays rain, and the sun coming out the afternoon before, I was hoping that we had seen the last of the rain. But it was back... and the sky did not look good.
It was only spitting, but we decided to put our rain gear on straight away. The thing about motorcycling is that if you get wet, you stay wet all day, and it can make you freezing cold, tired, sore and miserable. It generally fucks everything, and it's best to just try and stay dry from the start. The rain gear in uncomfortable, and the velcro scratchy on you neck etc, and you sweat like mad when your stopped, but it so much better than sitting for 3 hours in wet undies!
It was a good decision, because as we fueled up, the heavens opened proper, and we got the heaviest rain of the whole trip so far.
We rode about 25km before the road started to deteriorate, starting with just patches of gravel about 30m long. Pretty soon it was continuous, and we were dodging graders and heavy rollers on a very loose surface. We had dirt biased tyres fitted to the bikes for the Dalton hwy and so were well prepared for it, but it's always unnerving to have the bike wiggle around underneath you.
The roadworks ended for a while and suddenly a Black bear and two cubs wandered across the road in front of me!!! I had taken off my helmet cam because of the rain (water on the lens makes it pointless to use) but I slowed down and pulled onto the wrong side of the road to signal to Megan something was up. I pointed frantically to the right hand side of the road so she would look and hopefully would film them, but alas - I cant seem to find the helmet cam footage with the bears in it, even though she swears she filmed them. Maybe I need to look more carefully when I have more time...
Pretty soon we were waiting for another Pilot truck to follow, and the longest stretch of roadworks with 3 other bikers. A guy on a Goldwing with a trailer! - no idea how he rode that big pig through the dirt especially with a trailer, and a couple of Dual sports. The Dual sport guys road really slow - not sure how much dirt they had ridden before, but it's much safer and easier going if you hit the gravel with a bit of speed. Going slow there is more chance of washing out, and the bike seems to sit in a better line. The goldwing guy complained of overheating, and passed all of us, and I was stuck riding behind a girl who was going too fast for my first gear and too slow for my second. After a million gear changes, she finally ran through a line of 5 potholes that I also had to hit, and I decided that she was rubbish at 'picking the line'. I pulled out, Meg followed, and we caught up to the guy on the gold wing.
He waved us past, and we dropped in behind the pilot car and pushed him to go a bit faster.
After the road works was done and dusted and the rain had eased off a bit, I decided to stop at a rest stop for a breakfast of chocolate. As we pulled in, a girl jumped into a truck and left, leaving us to have the stop to ourselves.
We pulled up and ate some chocolate and I went to take some pics. After about 2 minutes, I heard Megan yelling for me to come back to the bikes. I wandered back over to see her furiously putting her helmet back on and saying Mitch there's a Bear - get your stuff on lets go! I said where? and she said THERE! and pointed to the driveway we had just came through about 30metres away.
Right at that moment, a huge (fucking HUGE!) female grizzly crashed out of the bush with two cubs in tow, and turned around and looked at me... and then slowly turned and continued on. It was a surreal moment, and I started to put the camera away and get my gloves out of my tank bag... This wasn't quick enough for Megan who was now on her bike and ready to ride away. I kept my eye on the bear who was now continuing up the side of the highway. She had determined we were not a threat or we just not worth bothering about or whatever. Anyways - I got my riding gear on, told Megan not to panic and we road back out the driveway across the path the bear had just taken, but by this time she was about 15 meters past the rest stop drive and was now looking at the Semi that had stopped on the highway to take a look at her. It was an amazing, (albeit a little unsettling) encounter.
About 20 minutes later when I was still replaying the event in my mind - I remembered the people in the truck when we first pulled into the rest stop. They had left in a hurry. The girl had run to the cab and jumped in fast - I thought she was just messing about - but they must have spotted the Bear when it was right in the rest area.. right next to where we had parked!...So - thanks for the fucking heads up about the bear assholes!
I am still amazed that we saw 6 bears in one day. I wonder if Canadian Tourists say the same thing about Kangaroos :)
After that encounter the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. it rained and stopped, then rained some more and stopped - you get the idea. We rode round an amazing lake and mountains, and eventually wound our way down into Whitehorse about 3pm. We saw loads of Prairie Dogs running the gauntlet across the highway at one stage, including a fair few flat ones that didn't make it.
We rolled into Whitehorse about 3pm, washed off the roadworks and then went our for beer and dinner that night, and had Elk Carpaccio and Bison steaks!
I am also sorry to say that Hipsters have not yet been hunted to extinction in the Yukon yet. (2 craft beers $23 - Fuckyou Beardzilla.)
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| The rest stop with the giant Grizzy. It's in the bush directly on the right hand side out of frame |
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| Waiting for yet another Pilot car |
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| Apparently - this perfectly good road must be destroyed |
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| Riding in the roadworks convoy... |
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| Yukon River at Whitehorse Looking North |
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| Yukon River at Whitehorse looking south |
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| 1985 or so F150 V8 Custom - Manual. If this was a crew cab I may have had to steal it. The temptation to go full redneck is very strong |
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| Giant Moose head at the local hunting store. Told you... FULL redneck. |
it seems the "thredbo 5" has made its way to the northern hemisphere! hope it was a decent beer for that outlay?
ReplyDeleteDude, steal the F150 anyway - you can always trade it in for a dual cab later on ;)
ReplyDeleteI'd still be cleaning out my undies after the grizzly. Shame you didn't get a photo.
ReplyDelete