Date: 07/07
City: Wiseman, Alaska
Kilometres ridden:
Cumulative kilometre:
Street: One land highway, dirt road
Weather: Sunny, warm/ cloudy, drizzle

When we started from Fairbanks there was still thick smoke in the air, which made it hard to see the surrounding mountains.

After 100km we arrived at the Dalton Highway.

We were surprised that the highway was in such good condition, it was even partially paved. A couple of hours later we arrived at the Yukon River Camp, one of the few places where we could get petrol.

The camp was built near a bridge over the Yukon river. When we went to the river bank, we noticed that there was a barge on land, not sure what the story was, maybe they are waiting until the river is flooded to get the barge back into the water :P.

When we left the Yukon River Camp, we noticed that the road deteriorated and we got more and more average gravel stretches. A couple of hours later we arrived at the Arctic Circle, from here on, the sun won’t set at night.

Not long after that we arrived in Coldfoot, the last petrol station before Dead Horse. So we filled the bikes up and drove to our accommodation in Wiseman.

Date: 08/07
City: Dead Horse, Alaska
Kilometres ridden:
Cumulative kilometre:
Street: One lane highway, dirt road
Weather: Cloudy, fog, rain

During the night I could hear the rain pounding on the roof for an hour. That was bad news; if the road is wet it will be very slippery. When we got ready, there were still clouds around, but the ground didn’t look too saturated, so we hoped for the best. When we started, it started to drizzle, and when we drove over the pass, the visibility was really bad; the road was completely covered in fog. It didn’t get better the whole day, it was either drizzling or raining or we were in fog. The road was very slippery and the spray from the road covered our visor in no time, so we had to stop and clean them frequently. On one of these stops, Sigrid’s bike refused to start…. Oh Oh the starter motor didn’t make a sound…. After multiple attempts we -finally- got the bike push started. What a relief!

On any of the subsequent stops we left the bike running.

When we finally arrived in Dead Horse, the temperature must have dropped quite a bit, our Gerbings were on full blast. That made it just berable but not really warm.

The bikes were covered in Calcium Chloride, which turns hard if it dries, as you can see on the engine block.

We had problems to open the zipper of our boots, I guess I have to find a pressure washer to clean at least the oil cooler and the fins of the engine block.

We were happy that we made it in one piece! These were the most difficult 400km of our entire trip. After we checked in we had a look at the weather, forecasted was ‘a possibility of snow’…. We decided to stay another night…

 

Date: 09/07
City: Dead Horse, Alaska
Kilometres ridden:
Cumulative kilometre:
Street: Muddy dirt road
Weather: Cloudy, snow, rain

Got up at 4AM, had a shower and then we had breakfast in the food area and took a picture of our motorcycles, it was daylight after all!

At 9AM we made our way to the camp where the bus to Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean would leave from.

On the way to Prudhoe Bay we passed the Prudhoe Bay National Forest 😛

 

Finally we arrived at the Arctic Ocean and we got ready for our Polar Bear Challenge – a dip in the Arctic Ocean. Somebody from the bus was nice enough to take a video and a picture of us when we were in the water.

Both of us were happy when we were back in the heated bus, it was a cool experience though :P.
Since we fullfilled our dream to travel from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia, we thought it’s time to share a bit of the journey with the following video, enjoy.

In the afternoon we meet Jacob, he organized a pressure cleaner for us, so I could free the fins of the engine and the oil cooler.

We also found the petrol station and filled up both bikes, so they are ready for tomorrow.