Dalton Highway

  Planning for a trip like this is essential, that is until it rains all night and it turns the Dalton Hwy into a mud cross, an event that I have zero experience at. But there I was, a short distance from Fairbanks and already putting on my rain jacket. What I didn't, and couldn't know was that it had been raining all night just north of Fairbanks where I was staying with friends, waiting for a window in the weather.

Riding the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay has been on my list for sometime now, so when I turned onto it from the Elliott Hwy I was excited, but also nervous. I'm a pretty caution person, and my intuition has may times payed me back in aces, but yesterday morning, in the rain, there was no time for contemplation. I was riding a muddy, sloppy, mess of a road, and not to sound dramatic, but just trying to survive.
The Dalton is a narrow road filled with pot holes, and if it was in my back yard, and if I had been with a few buddies, yesterday would have been a laugh. But the Dalton is a working highway roamed by speeding semis hauling loads in and out from Prudhoe Bay. At one point early into the fifty-six miles to the Yukon crossing, I round a left hand bend, start up a steep hill, and heading at me is a speeding big rig taking up most of the road. Mud sprays several feet from its churning tires, and behind it is a cloud of muddy water and flying rocks. Its like seeing a huge charging beast coming at you, and it prompts the same emotion and flash of fright. I pull as far right as I can, but because I'm going up a steep muddy hill I don't want to stop. When he passes me I duck my head at the last instant to keep my face shield from being coated with mock, and I feel the wind blast hit the bike. This happens to me several more time before I reach the Yukon.
Once past the bridge, and seated in the restaurant with a cup of coffee, I weigh my option. The Arctic Circle is sixty miles away. Wiseman, where I have a place for the night, is about one hundred and thirty. While there I get talking with another motorcyclist, Paul Smith, who is heading for the Arctic Circle, and so I decide to at least get to there.
The rain had stopped for the most part, but I do get another cold shower at Finger Mountain Wayside, and from there to the Circle I ride in a light drizzle. All this time the landscape around me is dark, devoid of color and feature, unwelcoming.

Paul and I at the Arctic Circle.

Once at the Arctic Circle the rain stops, and after lots of picture taking, the clouds begin to lift revealing the broad landscape to the south I have ridden through. But to the north the clouds still hang low and lay on top of the distant mountains. For sometime I think about which way to go. I get no positive feeling about going further north and so turn south.

Rae thanks for the Jack.