I've been off the grid on my own little adventure, how are things going?
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Headed North - The Lemonade Tour
- Thread starter oomis
- Start date
His Spotwalla shows he made it all the way to Inuvik and is now touring around Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in Utah.
I've been through Badlands NP a couple of times before, and there are two main ways through it - the paved road (240) and Sage Creek Road, which is dirt. I had never done Sage Creek because my travelling companions are all dirt-averse. They'd say they're pro-pavement. And to be fair, we all live in the Greater Toronto Area, where like all mega-cities there isn't much dirt to practice on.
But this time, I was alone, and the Primitive Camp Site (their words, not mine) in BNP was only accessible via Sage Creek, so off I went.
I know there are folks who are either giggling or rolling their eyes, but there's a first for everyone, and this was my first real foray, after a decade of riding and hundreds of thousands of kms of touring, onto dirt, so it was kind of a big deal for me.
Yeah, I know. Perfectly groomed hardpack. WTF is this guy moaning about?
So my first impressions of the R1200GSW on dirt, with street tires?
Inspiring. Seriously, I found myself with so much confidence in short order, as soon as I realized the bike was doing all the work. It felt balanced, didn't skitter, and whatever black magic the BMW engineers did with the brakes, well, it was worth it. I got familiar with what the ABS felt like, but was I was impressed with was how much speed got scrubbed off BEFORE the ABS kicked in. I can see the Bavarian engineering team huddled around a boiling cauldron, adding eye of newt and hair of Sochiro. I'm sure there's a single word in German for "Well done, team, you exceeded expectations" and I'll bet it sounds like Poland being invaded.
Well, the "primitive" camp site was an unfair label. It was a beautiful site, with sites on both sides of a ring road that ran around a meadow in a sheltered depression. The only thing primitive was that there was no water, which I had plenty of.
Camp:
As I was getting dinner together:
another rider rolled up on an older GS (1100, I think). Lyle rolls up and asks if he can share the site - absolutely!
But this time, I was alone, and the Primitive Camp Site (their words, not mine) in BNP was only accessible via Sage Creek, so off I went.
I know there are folks who are either giggling or rolling their eyes, but there's a first for everyone, and this was my first real foray, after a decade of riding and hundreds of thousands of kms of touring, onto dirt, so it was kind of a big deal for me.
Yeah, I know. Perfectly groomed hardpack. WTF is this guy moaning about?
So my first impressions of the R1200GSW on dirt, with street tires?
Inspiring. Seriously, I found myself with so much confidence in short order, as soon as I realized the bike was doing all the work. It felt balanced, didn't skitter, and whatever black magic the BMW engineers did with the brakes, well, it was worth it. I got familiar with what the ABS felt like, but was I was impressed with was how much speed got scrubbed off BEFORE the ABS kicked in. I can see the Bavarian engineering team huddled around a boiling cauldron, adding eye of newt and hair of Sochiro. I'm sure there's a single word in German for "Well done, team, you exceeded expectations" and I'll bet it sounds like Poland being invaded.
Well, the "primitive" camp site was an unfair label. It was a beautiful site, with sites on both sides of a ring road that ran around a meadow in a sheltered depression. The only thing primitive was that there was no water, which I had plenty of.
Camp:
As I was getting dinner together:
another rider rolled up on an older GS (1100, I think). Lyle rolls up and asks if he can share the site - absolutely!
Lyle and I shoot the breeze, and it's great to hear his story. He's riding from Mountain View CA to Boston, and planning a sojourn through my neck of the woods in Ontario. I tell him not to get too excited about the roads back home, and give him some routes to get him around the epic traffic in Southern Ontario. He's a good guy, and it's nice to really connect with someone. It's only been a couple of days, but I'm finding the company really welcome.
At 6 am, the alarm goes off and I'm up. It rained overnight, but has mostly dried.
Breaking camp is always easier with 2 people, and we're done in no time.
I decide to join Lyle for breakfast at Wall Drug, and this is where my day started to go wrong.
Not because of the company, but because I started compromising my trip. I've been through South Dakota before, and rehashing that trip wasn't really on my agenda. My day ended up being a frantic re-hash of that trip. Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore, Iron Mountain Road (16A) and I even contemplated Sturgis.
And why? So I could take pictures of Chris the Gnome.
(just a little dirt nap in a parking lot. I told the people that rushed out to help me that BMW designed the bike to fall over like that)
Again, don't get me wrong, these places should be on everyone's list. Mount Rushmore is impressive, 16A is a beautiful road (when it's not clogged with a parade) and Crazy Horse is ... indescribable.
But as the day dragged on, I realized that on this trip, at this time, in this way, I wanted to be doing none of these things. What I wanted to do was to make time, to get myself closer to my ultimate destination, still so very far away. I was rushed getting from one place to another, tired from the heat and unhappy.
So &^%$ you, Chris.
Lunch in Culver's, a holdover from when I worked in Chicago and would do weekend riding trips in to Wisconsin. There's something magical about their frozen custard, I think they add ground up leprechauns and rainbows to them or something.
With a storm on the horizon, I stopped at a Radio Shack to buy and install a cigarette lighter plug on the BMW. The R1200GS comes with a BMW-style plug that's exactly the same as a Powerlet outlet, and while I had bought a converter to go from BMW to cigarette outlet, that outlet didn't provide the watts to power the air pump I was using to inflate my air mattress. Every time I tried it, it would trip a breaker and shut down. My planned fix was to use a cigarette plug attached to alligator clips that I would connect directly to the battery, which had worked so far. However, getting to the battery required removing a side cover, which isn't a big deal every now and then, but being familiar with Murphy's Law, I knew that I was going to lose the screw, or crack the panel, or some other such nonsense.
So with parts from the Radio Shack, in the parking lot with a huge storm blowing in, I did my wrenching.
Lunch, however, ended up putting me to sleep, and I had to stop early in Gillette, WY at a hotel. It cost more than I wanted to spend, but I recognized the signs that I had to stop. I had stopped thinking, and that's when mistakes happen.
Wifi in the restaurant let me take care of pictures and Facebook, and a crash into bed.
At 6 am, the alarm goes off and I'm up. It rained overnight, but has mostly dried.
Breaking camp is always easier with 2 people, and we're done in no time.
I decide to join Lyle for breakfast at Wall Drug, and this is where my day started to go wrong.
Not because of the company, but because I started compromising my trip. I've been through South Dakota before, and rehashing that trip wasn't really on my agenda. My day ended up being a frantic re-hash of that trip. Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore, Iron Mountain Road (16A) and I even contemplated Sturgis.
And why? So I could take pictures of Chris the Gnome.
(just a little dirt nap in a parking lot. I told the people that rushed out to help me that BMW designed the bike to fall over like that)
Again, don't get me wrong, these places should be on everyone's list. Mount Rushmore is impressive, 16A is a beautiful road (when it's not clogged with a parade) and Crazy Horse is ... indescribable.
But as the day dragged on, I realized that on this trip, at this time, in this way, I wanted to be doing none of these things. What I wanted to do was to make time, to get myself closer to my ultimate destination, still so very far away. I was rushed getting from one place to another, tired from the heat and unhappy.
So &^%$ you, Chris.
Lunch in Culver's, a holdover from when I worked in Chicago and would do weekend riding trips in to Wisconsin. There's something magical about their frozen custard, I think they add ground up leprechauns and rainbows to them or something.
With a storm on the horizon, I stopped at a Radio Shack to buy and install a cigarette lighter plug on the BMW. The R1200GS comes with a BMW-style plug that's exactly the same as a Powerlet outlet, and while I had bought a converter to go from BMW to cigarette outlet, that outlet didn't provide the watts to power the air pump I was using to inflate my air mattress. Every time I tried it, it would trip a breaker and shut down. My planned fix was to use a cigarette plug attached to alligator clips that I would connect directly to the battery, which had worked so far. However, getting to the battery required removing a side cover, which isn't a big deal every now and then, but being familiar with Murphy's Law, I knew that I was going to lose the screw, or crack the panel, or some other such nonsense.
So with parts from the Radio Shack, in the parking lot with a huge storm blowing in, I did my wrenching.
Lunch, however, ended up putting me to sleep, and I had to stop early in Gillette, WY at a hotel. It cost more than I wanted to spend, but I recognized the signs that I had to stop. I had stopped thinking, and that's when mistakes happen.
Wifi in the restaurant let me take care of pictures and Facebook, and a crash into bed.
My plan today was to ride from Gillette, WY through Beartooth pass again. I rode this ride the last time I was out this direction, and this road is on lots of people's buckets lists for a reason. It's spectacular. For all my grumbling yesterday about not really riding my ride, I can't really be this close to such an amazing road and not hit it.
I was going to take 14 and 14A across Bighorn National Park, but a local at a gas station told me about a dirt road he recommended I take instead. Said it was all graded and then pulled a map out of his truck. It seemed pretty straightforward to me, so for some reason I didn't bother to pay that close attention to his directions, figuring that it seemed so obvious that I'd have a tough time missing it.
And here's where GPS's don't work as well as a good paper map. Trying to find the road on the GPS was next to impossible. Because it was such a small road, I had to zoom way in, and then scrolling around the screen was impossible. I'd get to a fork in the road, follow one of the forks and have no idea if it was the right one. Going back was difficult sometimes, and it was just overall a pain in the ***. I told myself I was just going to use my common sense and stay on the well-graded road that had the right bearing, more or less.
At the start of the road, I was held up by a flagman who was waiting for a logging truck to come down the road - it wasn't safe for traffic to be going up, and as the truck passed us finally, I was grateful for the holdup. I couldn't imagine coming around a corner in the dirt to find one of those in my lane.
But as I was maneuvering the bike in the line, I found myself on an incline, in loose dirt, on street tires. I had quite a bit of difficulty just getting up this little incline from a standing start, and it got me feeling a bit nervous about getting in over my head in the dirt in a remote section. Street tires, very little experience on my part, a heavy, overloaded bike...
In the end, however, it was fine. I wasn't sure about a couple of forks in the road, but I tried to keep pointed in the right direction and follow the more well-used road. And there was some traffic coming in the other direction, which gave me confidence that they must be coming from SOMEWHERE...
2 things....
1. I had my Wal-Mart salad in a meadow in the middle of the park. This meadow just opened up in front of me, with big boulders on the side perfect for resting. It was both serene and surreal, and one of those moments where I knew I had to stop. This was my stop...
This was my view:
2. As I came bombing around a corner a bit later, I was overwhelmed with the smell of lilac. It was like running into a wall - BAM - so thick I could taste it, and it didn't take long to see where it was coming from.
Every once in a while, the GPS hands out a little gem like this one:
Sure enough....
In the end, the suggestion was a great one, getting me off the beaten path, giving me a road that I had never done before, and restoring a bit of the sense of adventure....
In the afternoon, Beartooth Pass was beckoning...
Click for crappy video:
Beartooth was as amazing as I had remembered it, but there was some serious weather off in the distance
click for crappy video
That put a bit of a damper on things for me, but it was what it was... it didn't make the road any less amazing.
There was still plenty of snow
In places, the cut through the snow was well over my head
In the end, the weather didn't end up bothering me too much. After Beartooth, it was west again.
I found my thoughts drifting today. What if I don't get another job? What if the reason that it didn't work out was because I had failed somehow? Would I be able to provide?
These were exactly the thoughts that I was trying to stave off with this trip. I didn't want to beat myself up too much, to internalize too much guilt. But I knew in my heart of hearts that I needed the distraction of this trip to be able to buy myself some time. Without that, I'd be in a bad place...
The day ended in Laurel, Montana. The main employment in this town was a refinery, and as such, all of the mom and pop motels were taken up by tradespeople who were basically living there full time for weeks or even months at a time while they came in from far out of town to work at the plant. The place I ended up at, the Russell Inn, was sketchy. The room, for $55, was maybe 8x8 and looked like a murder scene. In fact, it wasn't so much 'whether' there had been a murder there, but rather how many. I could have sworn I took pictures, because I like to show off the classy places I stay, but I can't seem to find any.
In places like this, where the guests are basically residents, there's a different vibe. Instead of everyone being travellers, it can sometimes feel like you're intruding on their home. I really don't like staying in places like this, but tonight I had little choice. I was going to camp at the campground by the river, but it was closed to camping. Day use only. I considered stealth camping, but decided against it. So Bates Motel it is.
There were some characters outside the room, at first glance redneck types. Southern accents are dripping all over the place. They knew each other, from working at the refinery, and were bbqing and drinking beer. I'm an introvert, so I was really zoned in on the residential vibe, really feeling out of place, but I decided to get over it. I pulled up a chair outside my room, and I'm very glad I did.
So here's my deal - I'm a born and bred Canadian, visibly mixed race, with a very middle eastern name that reminds folks of terrorists. It's caused me problems when travelling, both in the US and in Western Canada, and so I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder. When I introduce myself to people, I watch their reaction to my name. Sometimes it sticks in their throats - as they repeat it back to me I can tell it tastes bad. Racism, overt or not, sucks. And I don't need another barfight (I'm looking at you, Brooks Alberta 2005).
I know that mostly people are cool. And I want to be the kind of person that gives the world the benefit of the doubt - after all, how can I expect people not to stereotype or judge me if I'm doing the same to them.
Mostly, people are cool. And so are these guys. They introduce themselves, and my name washes over them like it ain't no thing and I'm reminded that sometimes it's better not to drag experiences forward.
These two guys are from Oklahoma and Louisiana, respectively, and they're skilled tradesmen. They offer me a beer, and we settle into a conversation. They follow the work and Louisiana hasn't been home in 2 years. Oklahoma has been home only 2 weeks this year. They're both married with families, and this is how they like it. They work long, hard hours and are focussed on making as much money as they can - they're talking 70 - 90 hour weeks with crazy overtime. Again, it's just how they like it.
The night ends early for me - a good night to them and my head is filled with things to think about.
I was going to take 14 and 14A across Bighorn National Park, but a local at a gas station told me about a dirt road he recommended I take instead. Said it was all graded and then pulled a map out of his truck. It seemed pretty straightforward to me, so for some reason I didn't bother to pay that close attention to his directions, figuring that it seemed so obvious that I'd have a tough time missing it.
And here's where GPS's don't work as well as a good paper map. Trying to find the road on the GPS was next to impossible. Because it was such a small road, I had to zoom way in, and then scrolling around the screen was impossible. I'd get to a fork in the road, follow one of the forks and have no idea if it was the right one. Going back was difficult sometimes, and it was just overall a pain in the ***. I told myself I was just going to use my common sense and stay on the well-graded road that had the right bearing, more or less.
At the start of the road, I was held up by a flagman who was waiting for a logging truck to come down the road - it wasn't safe for traffic to be going up, and as the truck passed us finally, I was grateful for the holdup. I couldn't imagine coming around a corner in the dirt to find one of those in my lane.
But as I was maneuvering the bike in the line, I found myself on an incline, in loose dirt, on street tires. I had quite a bit of difficulty just getting up this little incline from a standing start, and it got me feeling a bit nervous about getting in over my head in the dirt in a remote section. Street tires, very little experience on my part, a heavy, overloaded bike...
In the end, however, it was fine. I wasn't sure about a couple of forks in the road, but I tried to keep pointed in the right direction and follow the more well-used road. And there was some traffic coming in the other direction, which gave me confidence that they must be coming from SOMEWHERE...
2 things....
1. I had my Wal-Mart salad in a meadow in the middle of the park. This meadow just opened up in front of me, with big boulders on the side perfect for resting. It was both serene and surreal, and one of those moments where I knew I had to stop. This was my stop...
This was my view:
2. As I came bombing around a corner a bit later, I was overwhelmed with the smell of lilac. It was like running into a wall - BAM - so thick I could taste it, and it didn't take long to see where it was coming from.
Every once in a while, the GPS hands out a little gem like this one:
Sure enough....
In the end, the suggestion was a great one, getting me off the beaten path, giving me a road that I had never done before, and restoring a bit of the sense of adventure....
In the afternoon, Beartooth Pass was beckoning...
Click for crappy video:
Beartooth was as amazing as I had remembered it, but there was some serious weather off in the distance
click for crappy video
That put a bit of a damper on things for me, but it was what it was... it didn't make the road any less amazing.
There was still plenty of snow
In places, the cut through the snow was well over my head
In the end, the weather didn't end up bothering me too much. After Beartooth, it was west again.
I found my thoughts drifting today. What if I don't get another job? What if the reason that it didn't work out was because I had failed somehow? Would I be able to provide?
These were exactly the thoughts that I was trying to stave off with this trip. I didn't want to beat myself up too much, to internalize too much guilt. But I knew in my heart of hearts that I needed the distraction of this trip to be able to buy myself some time. Without that, I'd be in a bad place...
The day ended in Laurel, Montana. The main employment in this town was a refinery, and as such, all of the mom and pop motels were taken up by tradespeople who were basically living there full time for weeks or even months at a time while they came in from far out of town to work at the plant. The place I ended up at, the Russell Inn, was sketchy. The room, for $55, was maybe 8x8 and looked like a murder scene. In fact, it wasn't so much 'whether' there had been a murder there, but rather how many. I could have sworn I took pictures, because I like to show off the classy places I stay, but I can't seem to find any.
In places like this, where the guests are basically residents, there's a different vibe. Instead of everyone being travellers, it can sometimes feel like you're intruding on their home. I really don't like staying in places like this, but tonight I had little choice. I was going to camp at the campground by the river, but it was closed to camping. Day use only. I considered stealth camping, but decided against it. So Bates Motel it is.
There were some characters outside the room, at first glance redneck types. Southern accents are dripping all over the place. They knew each other, from working at the refinery, and were bbqing and drinking beer. I'm an introvert, so I was really zoned in on the residential vibe, really feeling out of place, but I decided to get over it. I pulled up a chair outside my room, and I'm very glad I did.
So here's my deal - I'm a born and bred Canadian, visibly mixed race, with a very middle eastern name that reminds folks of terrorists. It's caused me problems when travelling, both in the US and in Western Canada, and so I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder. When I introduce myself to people, I watch their reaction to my name. Sometimes it sticks in their throats - as they repeat it back to me I can tell it tastes bad. Racism, overt or not, sucks. And I don't need another barfight (I'm looking at you, Brooks Alberta 2005).
I know that mostly people are cool. And I want to be the kind of person that gives the world the benefit of the doubt - after all, how can I expect people not to stereotype or judge me if I'm doing the same to them.
Mostly, people are cool. And so are these guys. They introduce themselves, and my name washes over them like it ain't no thing and I'm reminded that sometimes it's better not to drag experiences forward.
These two guys are from Oklahoma and Louisiana, respectively, and they're skilled tradesmen. They offer me a beer, and we settle into a conversation. They follow the work and Louisiana hasn't been home in 2 years. Oklahoma has been home only 2 weeks this year. They're both married with families, and this is how they like it. They work long, hard hours and are focussed on making as much money as they can - they're talking 70 - 90 hour weeks with crazy overtime. Again, it's just how they like it.
The night ends early for me - a good night to them and my head is filled with things to think about.
Same for me. For years every time I fly or cross a border I was the one getting the probe. My partner is white and blonde and she would just skip through the border patrol, while they take me to the rubber room and ask me questions about my father's grandfathers middle name and it didn't help that my lineage is from a country that has a violent past.As I get older I find that more often than not, people are great, sometimes they are just doing their job and vetting me and almost never are they mean about it. It used to bug me, but now I just smile and shower them with kindness.
Oh and nice report
So hot today. As hot as 38C on the bike, and I've busted out my cooling vest today.
This trip is starting to feel like it revolves around McDonald's, but in fairness, I get a lot accomplished in a visit.
Ice
Coffee
Free Wifi (important in the US because roaming costs so much)
Clean bathroom
Food-like product.
With the exception of food (though I do have a soft spot for Egg McMuffins) it's a 2x/day thing - once for breakfast and then again in the mid-afternoon when I need a coffee. Since I'm not carrying a lot of paper maps with me and using the GPS to plan the trip on the fly kinda sucks, the wifi and the iPad are key for planning out my day.
All interstate today - necessary, I suppose. There was tons I would have liked to have stopped for, but I have the north on my mind. Bozemon MT seems like a town I could spend some time in. Hipster college town, I suppose. Glacier NP got a pass this trip as well - I suspect I'm going to regret that...
For all your used cow needs...
Click for crappy video:
At any rate, I landed in a campground (later edit: I think it was the Lake Roosevelt National Park Recreation area, though truth be told I'm not sure).
The camp isn't busy by any stretch, but most of the sites right next to the water were taken. I find one that isn't, next to a family that's car camping.
I got the feeling right away that they were grumpy that the empty site next to them was taken - there wasn't much privacy between the sites. And as I made camp and enjoyed the late afternoon light, I took stock of my neighbours. I'm not a hardcore camper by any stretch, but it seemed like these guys brought everything but the house with them. A portable DVD player blared a Louis CK comedy route over dinner... *shrug* different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
What I found odd is that they weren't interested in me. I know how egotistical that sounds, but I like meeting new people, and the chitchat that happens all over the place is something I really enjoy. That stuff often turns into the highlight of the trip, and more often than not I get the heads up on local information that I wouldn't have otherwise - like that road through Bighorn NP.
When I've camped before, someone always wanders over to make conversation - it's a pretty social scene. And so here I am, 20 feet away from them and they're not even making eye contact. So be it - on with my swimming shorts and it's a short scramble down the little cliff to the water's edge to enjoy a beer and a cigar, and in for a dunk in lieu of a shower.
A quick and dirty dinner for me tonight - my friends, that is the best chicken chili ever to come out of a can that I had with me at the time.
And in a little bit, I'm humbled again. The family has made a big ol' dinner, and over walks the father with a plate for me. Still doesn't say much, but it's made me realize that again I've been quick to judge. Despite having already eaten dinner, the second plate disappears in very short order. Afterwards, I catch his eye and repeat my thanks. Still not terribly conversational, but it's all good.
As the sun set, I try and get some shots of the colours on the river
Last edited:
So I'm writing this ride report in retrospect, and for this day of the ride my notes are super light. Here's the totality of my entry:
___
July 13
Was up early, decided not to fight it. Was at the border in Carlisle WA at 7:45 am, border opened at 8 am.
Easy Peasy
Some nice roundabout roads back up to the interstate to Spokane.
So hot. Saw 39.5C. I was cheering for 40C.
Landed in Wildwood Campground.
___
That's it. That's all. I have other memories and some pictures from the day, but it goes to show how frazzled the heat left me. I wore the cooling vest again today, but it can only do so much good. So without great handwritten notes to lean on, let's see what story my pictures tell.
I was up early - a couple of time zone shifts has left me asleep and awake early, so I decided to make the most of the day. I was at the border crossing 15 minutes before it opened
I do remember the roads being underwhelming. After all of the majesty of the badlands and the Rockies, the roads I rode on this day blending into each other. Riding in a broad valley, with forest on both sides, it's easy to lose perspective on things. The vast forest just because a sea of green in the background.
The roads were nice - looking at them on the map there seems to be a number of roads I could have chosen that all looked amazing. It must be great to be a rider in an area like this. But it was so hot that all I wanted to do was make time. I was grateful for the Camelbak I was riding with. Ice and water goes in at every opportunity, and I'm making sure to take in water all the time in little sips.
I have no real plan now but north. I have the GPS set to Dawson City and I'm just making whatever time I can.
I stopped for some relief in a Tim Horton's (hooray for being back in Canada) in Kelowna, and for the first time in a long time had to deal with city traffic again. At the Timmies, with the wifi and the iPad, I set about trying to figure out where I'm going to live tonight. Spaces between towns is increasing, and I don't have the luxury that I had in the US of being able to find a mom and pop motel wherever. I need to do some more planning, or I'm going to end up stealth camping, which I don't really care for. I'm also aware that I'm in bear country, and that adds a whole other dimension to camping.
So the Wildwood Campground looks good to me.
As I rolled up to the campsite office, another lady in an RV was also checking in. She told me that I had passed her earlier in the day, and then again in the afternoon (I guess they drove straight through lunch). She gave me a good-natured "be careful, motorcycles are dangerous" speech that I'm familiar with from matronly types, and I assured her that I was.
The guy running the site was a character who snuck me the wifi password without charging me the $5 he was supposed to and I set up camp. As I was doing so he came over to shoot the breeze.
I told him about what I was doing and what I was aiming for, and he started talking about "up North". I stopped him because it seemed to me that it was ridiculous that he didn't consider where he was to be "North". But he didn't. The moose up North, he said, were like dinosaurs compared to the little moose (meese?) he had around the camp. Step right over a fence, they would.
We talked about the forest fires that were burning in the area - plenty - and I started hoping that there would be no road closures along the way. He had a story about some guys that had rode into Yellowknife recently (where all the fires were), only to have the only road out of town closed because of the fire. They ended up being stuck there for a bit and chartering planes to get them back home. I suppose they would have come back for their bikes at some point, but I can't imagine being separated...
The campground was really nice. Chris was back among his people. The beer bottle is classy, Chris...
The campsite is the best I've been to so far, with a lounge for folks to hang out in when bad weather strikes, big clean washrooms.
Across the street is a store, and so I load up on the essentials:
Mexican beer this far north? Sure! That collapsable bucket made for a great ice bucket. I also got to try out my favourite farkle
Yup. Works as advertised.
Another very light day in my journal, because at the end of the day I was just done. It's so hot that it's dangerous. I'm not inclined to strip off my jacket and pants and just ride NOGATT. I'm not used to it, it leaves me feeling exposed and vulnerable, and I'm running on a 2 lane highway at 100+ kph with limited civilization and blah blah blah. In the end, I'm a bit of a gear nazi but I think that the most important safety feature we have as riders is our heads, and if my head is occupied with thoughts of vulnerability, well, who wants that. So it's a war to keep cool - the vest works for a couple of hours at a time, there's ice and water in my Camelbak, the vents are all open and I'm doing the best that I can.
I found it astounding that I can make so much mileage but still have so far to go. As long as it takes to get across the country, it takes as long to get up. I get why there are so many european tourists here - the vastness itself must just be mind-blowing.
Riding in this vastness takes a different level of awareness as well. Cell service is spotty, at best. Medical services can take hours to arrive. Gas is not uncommon, but I don't let my tank get under half. I can't imagine doing this trip on my FZ-1 - I can get 180 kms out of a tank if I go down to the fumes, and that's it.
Also, that bike pretty much crippled me when I rode it to Utah, so by now I'd have knocked it over, set it on fire and hitchhiked home.
In Prince George, I decided that daddy needed some bear spray. Cause, you know...bears. So I found myself an outdoor outfitter store and asked about the spray. A pretty young lady brought me to a counter and unlocked the spray. Fessing up, I told her I had no experience with this stuff and didn't know how to use it and without blinking she gave me the low down.
1. Do not spray the perimeter of the campsite with the bear spray. It's made of pepper, which will ATTRACT bears. It's not an invisible fence.
2. If confronted by a bear, do not aim for the eyes of the bear, especially if it has reared up onto it's hind legs. Back up and put out a cloud at chest / groin level. When the bear comes for you, it'll drop down on all fours to charge, and you want the cloud where it's head will go through it as it's chasing you down to eat you.
3. Keep the bear spray on you, because common sense.
4. Because this spray has enough kick to cause pulmonary arrest (it'll choke your *** to death) you have to register it, and yourself. Using this on a person constitutes assault with a deadly weapon. So go ahead and don't do that.
All this has me nonplussed about camping in bear country. Having had my campsite ransacked by a juvenile black bear in Arrowhead Provincial Park (damn right I went into the woods after the bag) I've learned all about bear-proofing a campsite. When I explain it folks, I get one of two reactions.
1. Yup.
2. Hurrrr durrrrr what a waste of time - as if a bear is going to come so close to people, where's my beer.
Bears are scavengers, with an amazing nose and serious curiosity. If they smell something unusual, and it doesn't have to be a food smell, they will take the time to investigate. So here are the rules of bear-country camping that I observed.
1. Anything that smells gets locked away. In a bear locker if it's available, in the panniers of the bike if not. This means food, drink, and any cosmetics - soap and shampoos.
2. If it can't be locked up, it gets hung up in a net 100 ft away from the campsite in a bear bag where the bear can't get it.
3. No cooking or eating at the campsite.
4. No trash that smells.
While I was in Prince George (or Prince as the locals seemed to call it) I also took the time to find another post office and mail another box of crap home.
Here are some random pics I took that day. Nothing special. Again, the scenery really fades away to me - the landscape is so huge, so vast that one loses context.
The end of my day was Smithers - again one of those decisions where I could have kept riding for a bit, but I either stop early or stop later, and I choose early. It's been another hot as balls day, and it looks like Smithers is a big enough town that I can resupply in the am easily enough.
After checking out a place in town - Riverside RV Park and Camping, I decided to head just out of town to Glacier View RV Park. I got a snarky vibe from the host at Riverside, so I left.
Glacier View lived up to its' name - this was the view from my site
The RV park was fully enclosed by an 8 foot fence, with a gate that was locked at night. With bears on my mind, I was grateful for this.
My notes for the day:
"37 to 37A to Stewart, BC. Bear Glacier. So tired. King Edward Hotel"
I'm as verbose as I am handsome.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but again it was another agonizingly hot day. I have journal entries in the subsequent several days covering this day, but on this day I just didn't have it in me to write.
At a gas stop, where for the first time I filled up my MSR Dromedary Bag with gas, I stumbled upon some totem poles. I think these are the first real ones I've ever seen.
So - the MSR Dromedary Bag was my solution to extra fuel. I looked at carrying a jerry can, but it was too bulky and a bit of a hassle on deal with on a daily basis (think loading and unloading the bike every day). I looked at Rotax fuel packs, but the info I got on those was that they were bulky for the little volume they carried. And then I started looking at fuel bladders. The fuel-specific bladders that I saw were all very expensive, but then a ride report turned me on to the MSR Dromedary bag
It's lined with polyurethane, which is resistant to gasoline, and a little bit of marine grade JB weld secured the flip-up spout on the top. When I didn't need it, which was 90% of the time, I could roll it up and stash it and not have to think about it. When I did need it, a caribeener or d-ring in each of the 4 reinforced grommets provided a great tie-down point.
The only downside was that as the bag heated up in the (incessant) sun, the gas expanded inside. I would fill the bag to about 80% capacity and bleed the vapours at every stop. In the end, I'd highly recommend this system, though I can't speak to the bag in the long term - I gifted mine forward later in the trip.
A cheaper option, as my campground host at the Wildwood Campground a couple of days ago suggested was a clean, empty 2L pop (soda for you southerners) bottle. It's made of polypropylene, which is even more stable with gasoline than polyurethane, and it can be crushed down and sealed so it doesn't take up as much space. Anyway, that's enough chemistry...
A well travelled rider friend of mine pointed me at Stewart BC, saying I needed to go. She's well travelled, and so when she points at a place on the map and says "you need to go" I generally listen.
But I'm tired. It's been well over 6000 kms so far, with no breaks. It's been all about making time, and this heat is just grinding me to pieces. In a way, I'm trying to make the most of the good riding weather. I was prepared for cold and wet, but I wasn't really prepared for so much 35C weather.
And so I'm cranky. Everyone is in my way - these stupid, bearproof RV's just wallow everywhere and while I don't hate them all in particular, I do hate them in general.
37A was a beautiful road, I just wasn't in the mood for it. And I was cranky because I was riding someone else's ride. I wouldn't have otherwise bothered, and so I'm not riding this detour for me.
If I could have done it all over again, I would have ridden to Stewart, found a hotel and just called it a day. Taken a shower, a nap and enjoyed the town.
Instead, I suffered through crap like this:
Bear Glacier
Lunch was at the King Edward Hotel in Stewart.
For lunch was Atlantic Cod. I was amused to find Atlantic Cod about as frickin' far away from the Atlantic as one could get, so that'll be it for me.
Sitting at lunch, doing some writing in my journal, I'm really feeling the miles and the artificial sense of urgency. I have no reason to feel this itch, but there it is, and the closer I get to the north (wherever THAT is at this point, cause have you seen Stewart BC on a map? It's north.) the worse the itch feels.
All I've been doing is making miles, and for no real good reason. It's not like I have a job to get home to. My family is completely supportive of this adventure, I have 30 days give or take, and if 30 turned into 40 it wouldn't be the end of the world. How many people have this sort of luxury? I'm blessed, and while I know this in my heart, I can't shake this twitch.
This is where travelling with a companion would be better, I think. Someone to mitigate the destination with a focus on the journey. But that person would have to put up with me for the whole trip, and what a drag that would be. Chris the Gnome and I are barely speaking at this point.
It's only when I get to Watson Lake, YT that I realize that I've ridden the Cassiar Highway. It was on my list, and at the end of the day I found out I had done it unknowingly. I have to say, it's a great sport-touring road, especially the north end of it. The road rises, falls, twists and turns with almost no signage to mar the view.
Interestingly, hauntingly, beautifully, the highway runs through miles and miles of forest where wildfires have torn it up. In places they have signage with the date of the original fire so you can put the recovery into perspective. I thought it fascinating that the forest fires up here don't consume the whole tree - because nutrients are so hard to come by up here and winters are so harsh, the rings of the trees are really densely packed. Between the super dense wood and the fact that there's not much on the ground to sustain a burn for a long period of time, the fires don't burn hot enough or long enough to consume the trees.
So what's left are hectares upon hectares of blackened skeletons. Like a dead army standing guard over ruin.
Only it's not ruin - the burn cycle is part of the cycle of rejuvenation, and the ecosystem depends on it. I wish I had stopped for some pictures, but you know, I'm itchy.
I had two scares on the Cassiar. The first was a blind corner with a rise - an oncoming rider had blown the corner, coming around really wide. It was as close to a head-on collision as I've ever been a part of.
The second was all me - fiddling with the camera, I took my eyes off the road and when I looked up, it had shifted to the left, leaving my tires about 2 inches from the soft shoulder at about 90 kph. The soft shoulder was not very wide, with a grand drop-off to scrubby trees and boulders 4 or 5 feet below. That crash would have ended me.
So the camera that I almost died for - I carry it in a BlackRapid SnapR case. I can attach the camera (an older Canon G11) via the tripod screw hole (hee) in the bottom of the camera so it won't fall away. And I can rest the camera on top of my tankbag in front of me. I have it pre-set to "sport" mode so the shutter fires quickly to compensate for all my movement and there you go.
At any rate, I was making like hell for Watson Lake. The smarter thing for me to do would have been for me to stop and camp earlier, but in my head I had visions of rewarding myself for all this mileage and heat with a hotel room in Watson Lake, but there was none to be found. There was some sort of international softball tournament going on, and not a hotel room was to be found. Not for any price. My only option was camping, which I did not want. Another long, hot, tiring long-mileage day and I just wanted a bed and a shower.
I had visions of camping when I was planning this trip - of campfires and beautiful evenings and food that tasted so much better than it should have. Of sitting with a beer and a cigar and unwinding at the end of a day. Except that's not what it's like, at least not for me on this trip.
Instead, it's just kind of a pain in the ***, where I don't get to shower after sweating all day, where it's probably rained overnight and I have to break camp in the damp and wah wah I'm a huge crybaby. I have been riding like a madman with visions of a bed and a shower and now I can't have what I want.
Anyway, heartbreak and sadness aside, the campground is a ways away from Watson Lake. I'm pretty sure it was a territorial campground (as in Yukon Territory, not First Nations) and as I rolled up, instead of doing what I always do, which is to scout the whole area first to find the campsite I want, I headed straight into the first of two sections. I see a campsite open next to a pair of bikes and I dive into it. The rest of the camp is almost completely deserted.
My tent goes up as quickly as I can get it up - these sites are boggy and the bugs are really bad as the sun goes down. There's no breeze either, which doesn't help. For bug repellant, I have the good stuff - there's so much deet in this crap that I'm sure it causes cancer, but it's about as effective as Drakkar Noir.
After camp is made, I discover why nobody is here. There's no water in this section, and I don't have much water with me. And oh yeah, bears, as evidenced by the huge bear lockers and the common cooking / eating area. Dinner is a cold can of chili eaten directly from the can while pacing to keep the bugs away. All my crap goes into the bear locker. I'm kinda done with camping. I have a film of grunge all over me right now that just bleh.
The two riders, on a Versys 650 and a Gen1 DL1000, are firefighters from California on their own bucket list trip. They're on their way home, having ridden to Prudhoe Bay. They started out as a trio, but their compadre had a bad accident on day 1 - he crashed right into a storefront window. They're still not sure what happened, but they think he fell asleep on the bike. Yikes.
One of the CA riders is wearing a bug hat, and doesn't believe me when I tell him that he can drink a bottle of beer right through the mesh. Rookie.
It was nice to swap war stories with fellow riders. It would have been nicer to take a shower. I'm so far north at this point that the sun is setting very, very late. So on goes my eye mask to block out the light and my stinky *** falls asleep pretty quickly.
I'm cross-posting to here and advrider. Two different audiences, for the most part.
Was not being critical, just having fun. Yes, two different audiences! Enjoying the report.
I had passed the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake yesterday, so a quick trip this morning was in order. Besides, I wanted breakfast, and couldn't bring myself to deal with the bugs at the campsite.
At the Signpost Forest, a sign indicated over 18,000 signs currently up. I was impressed, and as I wandered around I'll confess I got turned around a little bit.
The Signpost Forest is pretty much a staple on a trip up this way, a function of location, as in it's pretty much on the way no matter which way you come up. In reading ride reports in prep for this trip, in the dreaming that happens in the winters, the Signpost Forest comes up again and again in pictures as others pass through this area.
The Signpost Forest has a great visitor's centre. For me, that was key because my grimy self needed a clean bathroom. But as I was in there, they announced that they'd start a film in the auditorium on the building of the Alaskan Highway. Since I had a short-ish day today, I decided to stay, and I'm glad I did. I'd recommend this film to anyone going through the area.
I didn't know much about the Alaskan Highway before this film. I didn't realize that until it was built there was no year-round road connecting the Far North to the rest of the world in the south.
The road was built at the beginning of the Second World War, as the Americans realized the threat they faced on the Pacific front. Being able to more easily send supplies and reinforcements to Alaska was seen as being key to fending off a potential Japanese invasion, and while the idea of the Alaskan Highway had been bandied about for years previously, the cost had remained a barrier.
WWII changed all that.
I suppose there's two ways of looking at what happened next, but the reality was that the Americans began building on Canadian soil before official Canadian governmental approval had been given. Well before.
One way of looking at it could be that there was a gentleman's agreement between the Canadian Prime Minister at the time (William Lyon MacKenzie King) and the US President (Roosevelt) and that it was a way of circumventing the typical government red tape, which would have delayed a project that couldn't afford to be delayed.
Regardless, Canada got a good deal - the terms were such that the US bore the full cost of construction, and that jurisdiction and maintenance of the road would be turned over to the Canadian government from the US Army Corps of Engineers after the war ended.
The road was built so quickly that the best route wasn't always chosen - it was literally built with brute force, more or less going in the right direction most of the time. A bit of an engineering marvel, all things considered - the boys that built the road didn't have it easy.
Politics and sovereignty aside, it looks much better now than it did then.
It was a quick ride up to Whitehorse, where I had a set of TKC-80's waiting for me. New shoes for my girl...
Tires were one of my biggest concerns on this trip. I've had more than my fair share of tire trouble on long-distance rides, so much so that I don't ever travel without an inflator and a tire repair kit. Some photographic evidence:
If you look carefully, you can see a neon orange cock spray painted on the rock in the background. I pick the classiest spots to break down - this was a trip up to James Bay. And because I'm a classy guy...
You're welcome.
I had called ahead, and Yukon Honda of Yellowknife was really, really helpful. They had a set of TKC-80's waiting for me, and another set of street rubber waiting for me to make the trip back home as I passed back through. Expensive? Yeah. I mean, wow. But short of hauling tires with me the whole way, which would have just been a colossal pain in the neon orange cock, what choice did I have?
There was still lots of tread left on the tires that I had ridden up on
But everything is relative, right? And with BMW requiring a 10mm wider tire on the new liquid cooled GS, the usual places that I would go to for a tire didn't have reliable stock, so planning ahead is key. But there's lots of tread there, I can't just throw them away, could I?
$40 or so to ship them home, thank you Canada Post!
I found out later that others have bought cheaper tires local to them and shipped the new tires to Yukon Honda to have them install them. At the time I spoke with Yukon Honda, they were fine doing this for customers, so pro tip for future travellers - contact Yukon Honda and make arrangements to ship your own tires to them.
So as the bike is in being serviced, I'm trying to find a place to live. As much as I didn't want to camp yesterday in that bug and bear-infested wonderland, I want to camp that much less today.
But once again, no room at the inn. There's some event happening in town and all the rooms are gone. This seems to be the way it goes - it's common to have an event on the weekend, and because there isn't an oversupply of hotel and motel rooms (the season is so short, after all) capacity gets taken up really quickly.
On the phone with one hotel, he mentions that he has heard that there's a room available at the Beez Kneez backpacker's hostel. Desperate, that's the next call I make and yes, they have a bed available in their dormitory. SOLD. My first hostel.
It was a really nice place, and I can't recommend it enough as an alternative option for folks passing through. It had a good energy, I suppose.
It wasn't really what I was expecting, though. I had this image of a hostel being a bit of a party central, a super social environment, but that's not what it was. Don't get me wrong, it was really nice, but almost nobody talked to me. Shrug - no worries, perhaps this is just a transitory sort of environment...
The dormitory slept 4, that's my bunk on the bottom.
Laundry facilities were available, so I took the opportunity to do some washing. Another pro tip, when packing for a long trip like this don't bring anything that has to be washed separately. Sounds silly, maybe, but being able to throw everything into one machine is convenient.
While the laundry was going, I took the opportunity to do some writing - though I brought an iPad (that has a bluetooth keyboard) I like to do my writing all by hand in a journal, old school. A notebook doesn't require power, is resistant to water (to a point, obviously), won't break if you drop it...and there's always the story behind the story in the actual writing. A coffee stain, frantic handwriting vs. relaxed...I think handwriting is a bit of a lost art (said the guy typing on the computer).
Laundry done, I decided to walk downtown. I popped into a bookshop and struck up a conversation with the cashier. She was from Ottawa, and bemoaning the fact that nobody in the area could pronounce the word "poutine" properly.
It's pronounced "poo-tinn". Not "poo-teen". And it's not fries and gravy and cheese. It's fries and poutine sauce (which is a magic mixture of gravy and some sort of bbq chicken dipping sauce) and cheese curds.
She then told me that the best poutine in town was served at a comic book store, just up the street. That's a whole lot of weird, so naturally I had to check it out.
Up the street, down a flight of stairs, to the nerd-dungeon that was a greasy spoon kitchen, comic book store and and internet gaming cafe.
Really? Internet cafes still exist? I suppose it makes sense - everything is so expensive up here, including high speed internet, so I guess it's cheaper to go to a place like this to get your halo/orc fix. The poutine was just ok.
Next stop, beer. There's a bar called the Gr8ful Spud. I was offered my choice of a red or gold - huh? Oh - the local brewery, Yukon Gold or Yukon Red, I get it...
There was a girl singing and playing an acoustic guitar. The room filled up pretty quickly after I got there - timing is everything, and I got to revel in people-watching. Old people, young people, everyone calling each other out by name and hugging - it was so casual, so friendly - these people are just themselves. The good folks self-select, and the bad apples are known entities. There's no anonymity in a town like this, no safety in a crowd like I'm used to in a city of almost 4 million people.
I suddenly, for the first time in the trip, start feeling really, really lonely. I had started missing home some time ago, in the usual way, but this scene was making me wish for these times back home.
As I listened to her play, I started to feel better. She made me feel good, welcome, like the world was full of potential. Like this trip was a good idea. She wasn't playing to me, the room was full of her friends and family, but her performance hit me hard, in a good way. I teared up.
I tore out a page of my journal and wrote her a thank you note. I wanted to let her know that her music, her performance made a difference to one person. After all, isn't that what music is for? To connect people?
If I was her, I'd treasure that note. One person saying thank you directly and personally is worth the anonymous applause of a hundred strangers. I don't remember what the note said, something along the lines of "I'm a long way from home, and you made me feel less lonely tonight. Thank you for that". I asked the waitress to give the note to her - the waitress gave me a bit of a smile. Perhaps she thought I was slipping the singer my phone number or something silly, but with that I slipped out and made my way home. I didn't want a response, didn't even want her to know it was me, because that didn't matter.
It's 10:30 pm, and the sun is still up and shining strong. This'll take some getting used to...
Back to the hostel, it struck me that I didn't really know what hostel etiquette was. What do you do when someone in your room has the light out and is sleeping, and you need to turn a light on to get at something in your bag?
I tried to be as considerate as I could, but aren't these young people, out having the time of their lives? WTF were they doing asleep at 10:30 pm?
Kids today...
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