Alaska 2006: Day 4: Tok to Fairbanks, via Denali Highway

This was a really tough day. I woke up in the crappy motel in Tok. I went out to the bike to check something, and locked myself out of the room. It was about 6am, the surly resident/night manager gal wasn't too happy about it.

My phone also died in the night. I had it on the charger (I thought), but the battery was dead. The HTC Wizard/T-Mobile MDA has some idiosyncrasies with charging- with the charger I'm using, it won't charge unless the phone can 'respond'. It doesn't have to be on, but it needs enough power to communicate over the pseudo-USB power cable. Since the battery was dead, the charger wouldn't charge it. Catch 22.

I've had this happen before, and Tamara has too. Generally, you can pull the battery, wait an hour, then start it and plug in the charger. The phone will power on for a few seconds, enough for the charger to 'catch' and power it. I tried that several times in the morning and through the day, no luck.

On the bright side, I had set up the tent in the room, inverted on a bed. It dried during the night, as did the rest of my gear. That was very nice- it was pretty soggy.

I left about 10:30. There was a lot of construction on the first leg, which was about 90 miles south from Tok. I had to wait for 3 different pilot cars- I realized pilot cars were a bit like a ferry; you wait around for quite a while, then the trip itself is very slow, then you don't want to stop because there is a lineup of cages behind you. It took at least a full hour of time.

The first of the construction areas was the worst. It was over 20 miles, graded mud. Since it was raining, I slipped and slid across the road, actually had trouble keeping up with the pilot car.

After the construction areas, I was very surprised to be low on gas. I had planned on filling up in Paxson, but I was still 70 miles away. I was happy to see a little store/gas pump at "Posty's" in Chistochina. It turned out to be a great stop- great gas pump, very nice store owner, pristine bathrooms. They have a couple of super nice industrial washers and dryers in there- I don't know if there is a RV park behind them or what, but it was a really interesting discovery.

During the fill, I realized I had more in my aux tank than I thought- 2.0 gallons, so I would have been fine to Paxson. No big deal.

On from Chistochina, south and then back north to Paxson. Highway 1 runs through some mountains and then down through Copper Valley. I think this is where Copper River salmon come from, which are very famous. The whole valley smelled like spawning salmon- it seems much of Alaska smells like that, and it isn't me. You'd smell it for 10 mile stretches- I smelled it in Hyder too.

I stopped and ate in Paxson. Kind of a funky place, which I've heard from others. I was amused that their menu included an entry for "Freedom Fries". Hmm.

From there, west onto the Denali Highway. It is about 140 miles, and 120 miles are dirt. I regret taking it- some interesting scenery, I haven't seen that anywhere else in Alaska- but it was very difficult. The whole road was washboards and very rough. I was travelling fully loaded- aux tank was full, main tank was full, full luggage, you get the story.

Anyhow, it was pretty exhausting. Right around the halfway point, I had been standing for a 10 mile stretch. I sat back down, and saw that my GPS was hanging by the power cord. No, really- just swinging from the bars. I quickly found that the RAM ball sheared (I hate cast metal). I caught the GPS, but the little RAM arm was gone. I turned around and looked for it, no luck. I had an extra arm, but not another shorty arm. I knew that if I put the RAM on the other side, it would have the same vibration. So I put it in the window of my tankbag.

It's even more surprising because the power cord falls out about once every 600 miles. That means I got lucky that the power cord held. Pretty crazy.

When I got to the end of the Denali Highway (in Cantwell), I tried calling Tamara. I gave her a list of things I needed her to overnight to Fairbanks- RAM handlebar mounts, a battery and charger for the phone, plus some other minor personal stuff.

Parks Highway, from Cantwell to Fairbanks, is very pretty- especially Cantwell to Nenana. That is a 60 mile stretch- it rivals most roads that I've been on. Besides some construction, it is well-built, with very wide shoulders, good pavement, etc.

Fairbanks is kind of weird. Besides a little more traffic and bigger roads, the town kind of hides in the trees. You'd never guess there was so much there. It kind of sprawls in the Alaska way. I poked around to find somewhere to stay, settling on the GoNorth hostel near the airport. There was a little jet noise, but they had walled canvas tents that were very dark. It was only $24, included a pillow and a comfy bed- I just had to provide my sleeping bag.

When I was riding around looking for a place to stay, I noticed a weird rattle on the bike. Whenever I went over a rough road, I'd hear it. I thought it might be some of the loose stuff in the top box, but I did some diagnostic work to figure it out. Eventually I discovered *both* of the aux tank mounting brackets had broken. They broke in the same place; this means the tank was being held on by a pair of supports, rather than the four. So it was fairly tippy- at least it was empty. From some things I saw later, I think one bracket broke on Denali, then the extra stress on the second one caused it to break later, maybe on the paved highway.

I'll post pics when I get home, but the compression bumps are what caused this to break- the extra pressure pushing down on the tank did it. The broken pieces are bolted to the rear of the package rack; at GoNorth I took off the top box and saw that the right bolt had worked out completely. That certainly didn't help.

I used a bunch of quarters to power the hostel's coin-op computer, and emailed Tamara and posted to ADVrider looking for help with the tank bracket and RAM mounts. I got a response from helikron, he pointed me less than a mile down the road to two different shops. So at least I knew what I'd do in the morning.

The hostel thing can be kind of cool. Generally it is cheap ($24 is steep, but it is in the city..), and the people are cool. I think I was the only American- the host was a cool pierced Swiss chick, met a gal from London, a guy from Germany, etc.