Entering Alaska from the Alaskan Highway is a very odd experience. You are basically riding for hundreds of miles without anything around you, and then you get to this “gate” and if you look on the map, after you cross the border, its many miles of nothing until Fairbanks. The border was pretty easy going, but it has all being pretty easy on the motorbike.

 Once I got in, did two days of camping, and met Daniel at the local REI in Fairbanks. We decided to head up to Deadhorse together. He was riding a Honda cruiser I think, on street tires. We both knew it was not the best idea, but we agree that he would turn around when he did not feel comfortable with the road condition on the dalton highway. So we head north and got on the Dalton.

Some part of the highway was still paved as we rode toward Deadhorse. We get to see the pipeline along the way, as it follows the road.

Most of the ride up was very gravel filled. Daniel had decided he was going to turn around when the gravel got progressively loose and his street tires was having him riding at 15 miles an hour. We said our goodbyes and I continue one solo. While most of the weather during the summer, you can expect the temperature to be around 50f (10c). It is manageable with heated gear, and with the sun out 24/7 (literally) it was not bad at all, as long as you are warm and you monitor your body temperature to not drop overtime. When I crest over Attican pass (100 miles from Arctic ocean) it got cold. The temperature is now below freezing. The rest of the 100 miles was cold.

I bundle up as best as I could, I remember stopping by on a road work on the way, and as I came to a stop, I see a black cloud in the near distance. As I stop my bike and open my face shield to my horror, the black cloud was a cloud of mosquitos. i quickly closed my face shield and started swinging my arm while I’m on my bike. The road work crew, goes to sit in his car, with hundreds of mosquito in his cabin, he proceeded to eat his sandwich which had mosquito on it. He just swat it off and ate it like it was whatever. I was in a total culture shock. After a grueling nightmare of time, I arrive at Deadhorse.

Deadhorse is just a oil town, nothing but a few trucks and service station for the local crew. There was a trailer as a hotel for visitors at a tune of 250 dollars. It was worse than a motel. I decided to gas up and turn around. I pass Attican pass pretty quickly, but when I got to the mid location, I check the weather and saw that it would potentially snowed out if I did not cross over to Coldfoot. There was a guy also on a motorbike in the same dilemma. We chatted for 3 min, and decided to ride together to Coldfoot to make camp.

Along the way, there was an odd phenomenon of arctic rabbits playing frogger. They would line up on both side of the road and run back and forth as vehicles are passing by. I tried to avoid the best I could but I felt my self hit a few. There was so many, it was impossible to ride without hitting any of them. When we pull into Coldfoot, I have already being riding for the last 24 hours.

We made camp, but I couldnt sleep, after tossing around and only getting 2 hours of sleep I woke up and packed and kept riding into town. Alas I was tired, but the 24/7 sun really got the better of me. The road is constantly getting new gravel and in this particular section, it was fresh. I started sliding around this turn and i couldnt control the bike, and I dump the bike after wobbling for 6-7 seconds. The bike cartwheeled and so did I. The right pannier ripped open, all my camping stuff was spread all over the high way. The frame was bent and the tire is now hitting the exhaust. Surprisingly I did not get injured.

I rode carefully into town and go linked up with a guy that owns a salvage yard. Crashed on his couch, and use the tow truck frame and some ratcheting strap and come along to get the frame as strait as possible.

The next day I took the pannier to the only machine shop in town, and he welded up the case for me and straighten the case out for me with a few hits of his hammer. Just like that I was on the way again.

My friends and family back home really wanted me to quit the trip and go home, but honestly the first night camping was more of a hurdle than the crash. I did not really consider going home at all. I just got the bike fixed and thought, well no one will want to rob this bike anymore, its busted up. No concern going into central America now.

I met another rider on the road, and we road together on Denali, heading towards Valdez Alaska.

arrived at valdez Alaska, very cold near the glacier and the campsite. But the campsite we stayed at had hot shower. It was refreshing. Had not had a good shower in 4-5 days. Food was pretty good as well. We also saw the salmon gulch where they collect the Salman swimming upstream.

We return to Tok, the first small town before exiting Alaska. There is a motorcycle campsite there call eagle claw. It was tailor to motorcyclist, and the owners cooked us a great meal. The facilities were sparse, but clean and it was a nice experience. Next day, I started heading south, to try and make good time to avoid the monsoon season when I hit central America.