Day 10

Watson Lake, YT to Whitehorse, YT

This is how we spent the day...every 50 minutes for 10 minutes.

Yukon Yamaha was waiting for us when we got to Whitehorse. What an amazing shop. They stayed open late just to make sure we had arrived safely, then booked us in for first thing the next morning to take a look at Dave's tire.

We spent the night at a great campsite in Whitehorse called the Robert Service Campground. 2 minutes from downtown, walk in only, no vehicles (except for motorcycles).

More to come on that. Bed time

Day 9

Buckinghorse River Provincial Park to Watson Lake, YT

What a great ride...despite the fact that we came close to dying. More on that later.

We left the Provincial Park and drove to Fort Nelson, BC. for breakfast at the legenday Fort Nelson Hotel. In fact it says legendary right on the sign.

Some truly amazing roads on the way to the Yukon border, most of them with truck traffic.

There are also Bighorn Sheep that live in the area. We know this because three of them almost killed us. As we were passing a truck (who had waved us past), three bighorn sheep bounded down the slope and in front of the truck. Single lane in each direction with the lake on one side and the slope on the other. He swerved left to avoid them, very nearly crushing us and sending us into Muncho Lake. By the time we managed to avoid all the confusion, we were about 16 inches from the side of the truck....

 Every now and then there would be a sign that warned of impending gut churning terror for motorcyclists:

This sign lets you know that the upcoming bridge has steel decking. The ones that cause the tires on your car to hum as you are going across? They make the entire bike shimmy and wiggle like a possessed thing. It's not much fun at all...

We got to the Toad River lodge, which is a traditional stopping place for motorcyclists on their way to the Yukon or Alaska. A great place with amazing ambiance.
Unfortunately, this is also where we discovered that Dave had a back tire issue...

He developed a slow leak at Toad River. We noticed that the tire was flat just before we were ready to leave. We spent an hour looking for the leak, as we have all the gear needed to fix a leak....assuming we know where it is.

We couldn't find a leak anywhere, so we aired the tire back up and waited. After 20 minutes it was still holding pressure, so we pushed on.

This is how we spent the rest of the day...

Despite the delays caused by stopping every hour to inflate Dave's tire, we finally made it to the Yukon. It really is larger than life.

Of course we took a picture of the SignPost Forest in Watson Lake, YT

After a long day, we checked into a motel and managed to get the last available room. One room. Dave snores. A lot and loudly.

Enough said.

Day 8

Day 8 was...interesting.

We figured out where to take John's bike, which was a dealer in Fort St John. Unfortunately, the tires were either in Edmonton or in Beaver Lodge, AB.

We got his bike onto a flatbed (thank you, CAA) on it's way to Fort St John, BC. I went in the other direction to pick up tires in Beaver Lodge, as there was no way to get the tires from Edmonton to Fort St John in time. One company we called wanted $2,000.00 dollars to dispatch a driver...

So we all ended up together in Fort St John at about 5pm, with the tires.
Almost 500km of riding for me, with only a little forward progress, but we managed to get a friend sorted out and on his way. Well worth it. In fact, there wasn't really any other possible outcome.

At the end of a long day, we had a good meal at Buckinghorse River Park.

Day 7

Day 7

Today was a great ride with Dave and John, who decided to join us for the first day. We left with much fanfare

The ride was pretty, right up until we saw that John had torn out the centre of his tire about 1km short of Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway.

There was no joy in camp that night, as the mother of all thunderstorms roared through at about 8pm. We huddled under the tarp, staying reasonably dry, until the storm passed.
Oh, and when I saw "storm" I'm really not kidding...this tree was standing before the storm...

More tomorrow about the running around trying to get tires shipped to where John's bike was going to be. The best that can be said is that no one died.

Day 6

Day 6

A quick run on major highways to get to Edmonton.
Today was the hardest day so far, as I had a killer headache for most of the day. Need to remember to hydrate more often.

This is what 6 days on the road looks like from my perspective...

Dave and I have spent the last 2 days getting everything in order for the next leg,which is going to be Edmonton-Inuvik-Edmonton.

Stay tuned...

Day 5

Today I went from Rock Creek State Park in Montana up to the Sweetgrass-Coutts border crossing.

Montana is a beautiful place...

Another great day comes to a close in another pretty place.

DAY 4
From Fargo, ND I ended up in Rock Creek State Park, Montana. That was quite a long day...

North Dakota was horrendous. It is one huge oil camp along US2 now that they have started extracting oil. I have never seen so many large trucks, all going 120-130km/hr. Not a relaxing ride. I was originally supposed to stop for the night in Williston, ND but it wasn't a very pretty place.

I learned something, though. Did you know that Rugby, ND is the geographic centre of North America? They have a sign, so it must be true.

When I arrived at Rock Creek State Park in Montana, it was getting late. I was expecting an Ontario style provincial park, with some basic services....
This was the front gate of the State Park. What the hell is this...?

I was tired and the road to the camp ground was 6 miles of the nastiest, loosest gravel I have seen. As I came over a rise in the ground, I discovered why the front gate looked like it did...it's a cattle grate, because ranchers are allowed to graze their cattle on State land...

Yeah, cows on the road. I came close to dropping the bike a couple of times on this gravel, bovine infested 'road'

I met Garvil and Byron, brothers who plied me with food and beer, after questioning my sanity at having taken that road on that big bike. They were serious about camping...

End of a long day...in a very pretty place.