Iskut to Tok: 886 miles. 50-55 deg F all day today- in other words, cold. (View in Google Maps)

I woke up to rain in Iskut. Pretty depressing to hear rain slap against the tent, knowing I'd have to take it down in the rain and put it away wet. I had a headache first thing, so I went back to Iskut for a bite of breakfast (a roll and a banana). As I was standing outside eating, some of the locals walked in. They were probably 18 or so, but it's hard to tell. They were curious about the bike, seemed surprised to see a human on Cassiar, and went in. Well, except for one of them. We'll call him D (because his name started with a D but I can't remember it). He was falling-down-drunk (9am, maybe 8:30). He made me promise to go hunting with him if I came back through, because he wanted to take me into the mountains hunting. He was in that "I love you, man!" drunken state. Pretty sad, considering the hour. There's just nothing to do there- a few families on the reservation, nobody else within 50 miles.

On up Cassiar. It was fairly wet the whole way, and alternated chipseal and gravel, with a little bit of pavement. One of the gravel sections was more like mud- slippery claylike mud. I slid around in it, got passed by a couple of vehicles, but made it through with only a few genuine pucker moments.

I stopped in Jade City, but didn't find anything that inspired me. It was neat to wander through the jade cutting equipment, see the raw material, and see what they could do with it.

The final stretch of Cassiar, before it hits the Yukon and then the Alaska Highway, was full of ripples. These were basically large, inverted speedbumps. I got pretty good at standing part way, letting the bike fall into the bump (so I was fully standing), and letting the bike come back up to me. I felt the suspension bottom out twice in this chunk- that was a surprise.

In contrast to Cassiar, the Alaska Highway was really boring. It is very wide (trees and brush are cleared back 10-15 yards on both sides), relatively well-groomed, just boring. There are a few pretty spots, but generally nothing much. This surprised me a little.

The scenery isn't what the Cassiar is- it's more interior, sometimes you'd be in a large flat area that was mainly just shrubs, with gentle mountains in the background. Nothing worth painting, unless you wanted to see one green line. On the whole, it is pretty neat. But you'd have to make a montage scene to make it interesting.

I fought rain much of the way, probably 75% of the day. There was one large construction area with a long delay. They were redoing a large section of the road, so it was scraped down to dirt (this is fairly normal). What was weird was seeing the supersize dump trucks for the first time. I was standing on my pegs and came up just past the axle.

As the trip progressed, I'd see many more of these trucks. It's weird to look in your mirror and see one behind you.

Not long after this construction zone, I saw a bear wandering across the road. I threw out the anchor and waited, a long ways back, until he was off. I'd prefer to not hit him, and I'd also prefer to not become his next snack.

It was getting late, but the official "sunset" is 10:30, and it is light until 12:30. This is partly the latitude, and partly the time zone- at this point, I was at the extreme west end of the Pacific time zone. I was a little wired from the odd light, so I kept going past a few campsites. About an hour later, I saw another campground. In hindsight, I should have stopped there- it was in a great location, others were there, and I wouldn't see another campground for a long time.

Shortly after then, it was finally dark enough that I needed to swap face shields and go to my clear. I stopped on the side of the road, fussed with the gravel so the side stand wouldn't sink, cleaned my tinted shield, put it away, and swapped for the clear.

This stop was my first encounter with large swarms of mosquitos. I put on my mosquito net, but there were swarms of the things. Pretty crazy.

After this, I rode a little more sedate- it was raining off and on, and I try to be a little more cautious at night. A truck came behind me, I signalled and let him pass. He blew by at 95mph or more, I watched his suspension go nuts over the compression bumps. I actually slowed way down because it looked like the back end of the truck was coming off the ground. I never saw his truck on the side of the road, so I guess he made it.

I rode through the border around 1am Pacific time, the guard made me take off my helmet to compare against my drivers license. He was amazed that someone could ride 700 miles in a day.

I ended up riding to the next major town, which is Tok. It's a full hour away from the border. I figured I'd find the motorcycle campground and hope their canvas wall tent was open- that way I could just crash in it for the night. When I got there, I rode around for 20 minutes and couldn't find it.

Frustrated, I rode back out to the highway and into the only motel that was open that late. $80 later, I had my tiny room. Brought in my luggage, laid out all my gear, and set up the tent on one of the twin beds so it could dry. I had noticed my chain needed some serious adjustment, so I figured I'd do that in the morning.