There I turned left and headed west. The ride before Whitehorse, the capital of YT, wasn't very entertaining, but I was able to eat up the miles. But once through Whitehorse the scenery took a turn for the dramatic! Soon I was in Haines Junction, where I gassed up then continued for the border with Alaska.
One particularly stunning place was the section of the Alaska Hwy that crossed the southern portion of Kluane Lake, then traveled up its western shore through Destruction Bay. The lake was massive, and the color of the water at the southern end was an amazing blue-green, like it contained a lot of copper, with fog hanging just over the water. Just beautiful!
With temps dropping and the clouds moving in, I hit my first rain of the trip at the same exact time I rolled over only my second section of extended gravel, but it all went great and I rarely had to drop down below 65 mph...and usually that was for the huge g-out dips in the road. The U.S. Border crossing went very smoothly and then I was in Alaska!
My first stop was just over the border, to pick up my Alaska fishing license and a six pack of beer...Alaskan of course! I got a great tip from the kid at the store to ride up the road a ways then pull off for Hidden Lake. He told me there was room to throw up a tent and that the fish were biting, so off I ride. I arrived close to Midnight (even with the sun setting close to then this far north it's basically a light dusk/dawn all night), pitched my tent and pulled my sleeping bag out, then grabbed my fly gear and took off down the mile-long trail to the lake. Sure enough, I could see fish breaking the surface every once and a while, so I grabbed one of the two public use boats and rowed out to what looked like a promising area. Caught my first ever fish on a fly rig, a beautiful rainbow trout, then cooked it up to eat along with some freeze dried chicken & rice and washed it all down with a couple beers, finally crawling in my bag a bit past 2a. What a great way to end a great day! (+723 / 3,502 mi, wildlife count: +1 black bear, +3 moose, +1 bobcat, +2 porcupine, +million little groundhog-like things)
7/2 This was a short day, by design, so I took it pretty easy. Good thing, too, since I was fighting some pretty bad narcolepsy. I've been stringing myself out pretty badly with lack of sleep, all the way back to a few days before leaving. This has been as much to do with wanting to stay and do stuff (visit friends & family, do classes at the rally, blog posts, fish, etc) as it has been to do with driving mileage. So I was ready for the short day and had planned to stay the night at Eielsen Air Force Base and get a much-needed shower and a good night's sleep. I've been doing great avoiding staying in hotels, so I wasn't going to feel guilty about this one, either. Not a lot to say about the drive up the Alaska Hwy to the base, just south of Fairbanks: rain, fog and clouds had finally moved in, so between the weather, the much greater number of people, cars and stores, and a pretty uninspiring, wide & pretty straight section of road, there just wasn't a lot to look at. The people aren't nearly as friendly here as they're are in Canda, which to me has always set that bar, and it's also interesting to note that you can't throw a stone here without hitting a couple scraggly-looking dudes on adventure bikes heading north or coming back from doing so. Makes it hard to feel like you're doing anything even remotely unique or adventurous! After a couple failed attempts I did manage to snap a picture of a moose cow and her calf, though... (+344 / 3846 mi, wildlife count: +3 moose)
No comments:
Post a Comment