Fairbanks to Tok

Today we had to make a really shitty decision.

Over the last 4 days it had been raining in Coldfoot.

Coldfoot is 400km from Fairbanks on the Dalton Hwy, but the driving time is 9hours. Add another hour onto to that for riding because you need to take rest stops. As the road is a critical supply route to the gas and oil concerns up north, it's constantly being maintained. Here in the US, roadworks often means you have to wait for a follow me car. We have read reports of bikers waiting up to an hour for a pilot car to arrive. This also blows out the time you have to spend on the bike. The longer the time in the seat, the more tired you become, and the more 'off your game' you are.

The Dalton Hwy (or Haul road) only has about 70km of paved road, the rest being a maintained gravel that is used heavily by large trucks and road trains. During summer, the road is routinely and liberally treated with calcium chloride. The calcium keeps the dust down in the road surface, and also helps the road stay together. Unfortunately when it rains, the reserved dust and calcium chloride combine to make a very slippery sludge that has brought more than one biker to a painful end. In 2011, a British couple slid off the road 2-up on a bike similar to mine. It had been raining and the road was covered in the chloride sludge. The guy did not survive and died at the scene.

There is no phone service, internet, radio or anything else short of a satellite phone should anything go wrong. Your only option is to wait to be found, and then a helicopter out, and a quick end to the trip in the first week. If you survive the off.

When we checked the weather forecast on the morning we were supposed to depart for Coldfoot, they had recorded 1.5" of rain so far, with the rain due to continue for at least the next four days. The rain was to the east of the highway, and was due to move across the whole area. There were flood warnings for all of the rivers in the area, the flooding compounded by Spring snow melt.

All in all, it was just to big of a risk to take. or maybe I'm just getting old. If I was by myself, I probably would have taken at least a shot at it, but having Megan's responsibility on my shoulders as well, it's just too big of a risk. I could not live with myself if she came off her bike and it was my fault that pushed her into riding an already dangerous enough road in the dry. We still have a long way to go, and there are still loads more beers we haven't tried yet.



We thought about doing it in a rental car, or waiting for the rain to stop.
Fairbanks is fucking expensive.
It would cost us over $1500AUD in accommodation to wait a week for the rain to stop and the road to dry out, with no guarantees the rain would stop in that time (every forecast over 3 days is a guess. YES - EVERY - ONE)
not to mention, we would also lose a week of trip time, which costs us money just to be here every day...

Hiring a 4wd was possible, but we would also need somewhere secure to store the bikes, like renting a storage unit. and then get cabs to get around.
AND
You're not covered by the rental car company for driving on the haul road. You have to purchase a separate insurance policy.You can guess how much that was for 4 days on top of everything else.

So.... gutted...

We decided to turn East and head towards a place called Tok ('Toke'). This was already on our schedule, but we were meant to go there after the Dalton Hwy.

With a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach all morning, we headed out on the Richardson hwy for Tok.

The highway was a bit like Australia fora lot of it, save from the hills - it was dead straight for about 200kms! We saw another Moose on the side of the road... I happened to be filming with the head cam at the time and slowed down to get a better/closer shot of him. Not thinking, I throttle blipped on the downshift (like always) and the bark from the pipes sent him scurrying into the bush.

We passed loads of bikes going the other way, and everyone waved to everyone, even the guys on Harley's. Seems that Harley riders here don't have the 'tough guy' machismo like they do back home. Have also seen lots of guys riding without helmets, including a guy in Anchorage in full cowboy outfit. YES- WITH A FUCKING COWBOY HAT AND CHAPS!! and to top if off, country music blaring out of his stereo. unfortunately he turned off before I could get a pic from the cab window.

The road to Tok eventually went twisty and we were treated to some great views of the base of snow capped mountains, and an endless carpet stretching to the horizon of Pine and Birch trees, it was very green and quite 'Scottish' for a while there.

After a while we ran into some road works, and had to wait for about 10 minutes for a pilot car to turn up. A guy on A Triumph Tiger pulled up behind us and we chatted about the usual things bikers always talk about- where have you been, where are you going? where are you staying tonight? what is the road like between xx and yy etc etc.

The road works were uneventful, except having to ride very slowly (very hard on a loaded up bike on an un-even surface) behind the GARGANTUAN convoy of Winnebago's, 5th wheeler's and caravans. oh my fucking god, I have never seen so many. And nearly all of the Winnebago's are bus-sized and are towing a Jeep 4x4 behind them... you know.. so you can run to the shops for milk or something. Jesus Christ. now I know why everyone carries a gun. Its so you can shoot yourself in the face when you see a convoy of 5 identical ones the distance. (actually happened. The Winnebago's - not the face shooting).

After a few more twisties, we rolled into Tok at about 3pm. we got fuel, and had dinner at the attached restaurant to our motel (more on this in the next blog).

Rest stop on the road to Tok

mountains at the rest stop

Bikes resting at the Motel

Fast Eddys - 1 state trooper and a Trans-am short of a cliche

Tok Outfitters -  Guns and Jerky mostly

Tok main Street

Dis-used Shed and truck. Probably still covered in DNA evidence from the last murder.