Arctic Circle....

Well we rode most of the day Tuesday in fairly good conditions. The Dalton Highway doesn't start until a good ways north of Fairbanks. But when it starts- it starts.  The sign reads "Dalton Highway" and 10 feet later, it is dirt.  No messing around -  the paved road ends and this gem of the north begins.  My first encounter with a truck was about 500 yards into it.  The road, sorry -  "highway" -  goes uphill slightly and hits a somewhat hard left turn.  For the truck, it was downhill and to the right.  We met in his favor.  It startled me, but I continued on and it was a nice ride.  No rain, not too much traffic.  A few big trucks, but nothing crazy.  I think Kevin was getting used to to his rental.  It's a G650GS.  This means it's a 650cc single cylinder motorbike.  It is tall, has very little power, and was somewhat loaded down.  All that combined meant he was not keeping up with the 1200.  I was fine with that and I took it easy and just rode the ride, happy to be exploring.  We finally made it to the Arctic Circle.  The pull off and the sign were the give away of course.  Otherwise, unless you had a GPS fix and just knew exactly what and where the Arctic Circle is, you would never know you'd hit it.  We lined the bikes up and got a few shots together.  I was happy to have fulfilled the "Arctic" part of ATLtotheArctic.

Kevin and I smiling away:

After the hooray of achieving this goal, we rode north to the Yukon River.  The bridge that crosses this river is cool.  It's long, downhill, and has a wood plank surface.  We fueled up there and headed to Coldfoot, and as we did, the rain began.  It did not stop until an hour ago.  I'm writing this the day after Yukon, meaning it rained for more than 12 hours straight.  Needless to say, Kevin was more than happy to pay for our tiny room at the Coldfoot camp.  It was a basic crew quarters for workers and travelers - small and basic.  The GoPro captured the whole place in one shot:

This morning we woke up and it was still raining.  It looked something like this:

for many, many miles.  I was into it. I told myself,  this is it, this is how it is and nothing I can do about it. The road was slick.  Like ice slick.  I'm not saying it was frozen, but so slick that it was hard to ride on.  With no end in sight to the rain.  We were cold.  Kevin was having a harder time than me.  I've gotten used to the big GS and he was relearning a new bike in the worst possible conditions.

We stopped and I decided that we would ride a bit more and stop again and eat.  We still had not eaten breakfast at this point.  Kevin was ok with it and we pushed on.  We made it the the Chandalar Shelf, about 63 miles north of Coldfoot.  It was raining harder than ever and cold.  I pulled off the road and shut the bike off.  This far north, the industrial traffic had picked up.  Kevin arrived a few minutes later and he got off his bike.  He said he was inclined to turn around, that he had just almost wrecked his bike and he had enough of all this.  I thought to myself...We have only ridden 63 miles in 3 hours... at this rate, it would make for a long day all the way to Deadhorse.  I wasn't going north alone in this weather and I didn't want Kevin riding alone to the south since it was was no better.  I told him I'd ride to the top of "the Shelf" and see what was what on the other side.  He stayed behind and waited.

I raced up the hill.  Third or fourth gear maybe.  I wanted out of the rain and if Kevin was to keep riding north, so did he.  I rode to the top and beyond a ways.  It was a bit dryer on the other side and it flattened out some.  I knew he wasn't in for any more of this.  At least not another 180 miles of it.  So I snapped a few pics and rode back down.

Accepting defeat for today.  At the time I was convinced that I'd lost my chance to get up to Deadhorse and back.  When was I ever going to be up here again?  Next year?  I just couldn't be certain and I was feeling pretty low.  We rode back to Coldfoot.  Logistically, we had a problem.  If Kevin wanted to head back to Fairbanks, and I wanted to finish the out the ride, he would have to stay in Coldfoot tonight.  There was not enough time in the "day" for him to make it back down alone.  If he left, I'd have to go with him, since I had all the camping gear.  It was a dilemma.  I had a heartfelt talk with myself on the ride back into Coldfoot, not knowing what to do.

We ended up eating and taking a minute and getting a plan together.  Tomorrow, I will ride north to Deadhorse.  Kevin will ride south to Fairbanks.  This gives each of us a full day to not feel rushed and make it to where we each want to be.  I will meet back up with him on Friday.  I will camp tomorrow night in the Arctic someplace, and then ride back to Fairbanks on Friday.

I was relieved to have made a deal.  One that works for us both.  He doesn't have to fight his motorbike all the way up to Deadhorse and I can finish the leg of the trip, knowing that even through all the diverse ups and downs I've had that I stuck to my goal and stayed strong.  I won't lie though, it was pretty miserable riding.  Raining, cold, slick.  It was just a mess.  The trucks were even having a hard time.  We were just risking too much at that point with so much rain and the road was straight up a mud pit.  I'm ok with heading up tomorrow alone and getting it done.  I'm glad Kevin has remained positive and he even stated he was having a great time despite all the weather and poor road conditions.  If he had felt more comfortable and it was not raining so bad we would have no problems, but considering what we were dealt, I understand his notion to not want to risk it and wreck the bike or himself.

Tomorrow I will head north, SPOT turned on, make it the Deadhorse and then south a ways. 

 David, I will look for the keychain.  I have not forgotten.

Tonight we are in Wiseman, 12 miles north of Coldfoot.