Wednesday June 18. East of Fairbanks to Beaver Creek Yukon Territory.   Awake at seven and decide to hike along the river. I take a path used by moose and walk for an hour. I hear conversation and come upon two couples in air-boats. One boat is having mechanical problems. It sounds like the engine is not getting fuel. One boat is powered by a jet turbine engine, the other by a large block gasoline engine. The couples are headed upriver a hundred miles to camp and explore. This looks like fun and I make a mental note to look into renting such a boat and trying this myself. They solve the fuel problem and fire both engines. The noise is overwhelming. They punch the throttles and the bows reach high into the air. They blast off. Very cool.

The rain that has been threatening since early  morning is now falling heavily. This is the first seriously bad weather I have had the entire ride. I suit up in rain gear and buckle-down for a tough day of riding. I want to ride to Kluane Lake today, a distance of about three hundred and fifty miles.

I do not get a lot of chance to ride in the rain while living in Southern California. Consequently, I am paying real close attention to my surroundings as I ride today.  I am about twenty miles east of Fairbanks. Things are going well until all of a sudden I am overwhelmed with a blast of roaring engine noise. It completely surrounds me and I am at a total lose to determine its source. It is so loud that I can feel it pounding in my chest. I scan around me but see nothing. A brief break in the tree line to my left and I see what looks like an airport runway. Boom, I am rocked again, and my arms shake as I hold on to the bike expecting the worst. Again a break in the tree line and I see two F-16's from the 18th Fighter Squadron at Eielson Air Force Base blast down the runway. The earth is shaking as they roar into the sky. They move too fast to get a photo, but see one from the net.   I get a shot of planes that are not moving as fast. I believe they are refueling aircraft. [pic]  It takes a half hour before my heart rate returns to normal.

The ride from Fairbanks, North Pole, Delta Junction and through to Tok is pretty bad. The rain eliminates any chance of enjoying the limited views that are available. When I return to Alaska, I will not ride this section of road again. I should have gone east at Denali Park on the Denali Highway (AK 8), a lonely gravel route from Cantwell to Paxson through the open high country south of the mountain range. I will know better next time.

The rain prevents me from taking photographs. It is just too dark and too ugly.

I stop at Tok for fuel, food and to change my clothes. My rain jacket is allowing rain to enter somewhere around my right forearm. The wind then pushes the cold water up my arm until it hits my shoulder. There it rolls ever so slowly into my armpit and along my chest. After several hours of this my sweatshirt is saturated and I am truly uncomfortable. I change in the restroom of a gas station and tie a bungee-cord around my elbow on the outside of my raincoat. I hope this will keep the water from moving up my arm.

I head southeast from Tok toward the Canadian boarder. The road runs along the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge. Although the rain continues to fall, the sky is a little brighter and the scenery a little better. I am holding my speed down to a comfortable pace but I can still feel tire slippage in the corners. I entertain myself by thinking terrible thoughts about the grouchy old man at Fairbanks BMW.

About twenty miles before the border the roadway gets real bad. They are doing serious road work. Road crews have removed all the pavement and gravel. The road surface is a slippery mud base. For the first time in the ride I am very concerned about dropping the bike. Unlike the Cassiar or the Dempster, the Alaskan Highway has lots of traffic. There are vehicles coming at me, many at speed to fast for the conditions. There is mud and sloop flying everywhere. To add to the humiliation, I am being past by four wheel drive pick-ups! I reach the border crossing and ask the Customs Officer if the road improves now that I am in Canada. He smiles and tells me that I have not yet even seen the worst of it. Two BMW-LT riders pull up heading west. They tell me The road is worse further ahead. One of the riders shows me the damage to his flaring and rear cases. He dropped it about thirty miles east of here. He warns me to be careful.

I have had all the fun I can stand for one day. I decide that I can not make it to Kluane Lake today. A few miles down the road I find a motel with a hot shower and a warm bed. So this is what everybody was warning me  about motorcycling in Alaska! Now I understand!

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