On Sunday we drove via the George Parks Hwy to the Denali National Park. The aim was to stay at a campsite into the park, but as we were told, no free spots available anymore. We had to make upfront reservations, which we didn’t. The inner side of the park can only be visited by a 6 or 8 or 13 hour lasting shuttle bus, which we skipped as the weather was rainy and cloudy and we couldn’t see much of the scenery. Therefore we decided to only drive the first 15 miles into the park until the Savage River. (this is the only part of the road that’s open for public). After the visit, we continued driving north until we found a nice campspot around Nenana – camping Tatlanika. Monday started again in the rain, but along the way the weather became better. We continued driving the George Parks Hwy until Fairbanks where we stopped at the BMW motorcycle shop Trails End. The rear tire of Mieke was mounted in the reverse direction, but the service manager Chris (BMW motorcycle shop Anchorage) had arranged the change of the tire and all went smoothly. While we were waiting for the change, we met our French buddy, Michael, who’s travelling on his own from Canada through North America to Argentina. His plan was to go all the way to Prudhoe Bay and our plan was to go only to the Atigunpass, so we decided to drive together the Dalton Hwy since everybody kept on telling us stories on the heavy conditions of the highway when it was raining. We agreed that he would come and pick us up at the Olnes pond campground the day after. As said, on Tuesday we drove with the 3 of us up north on the most northern highway in Alaska. Our first stop was in the Yukon River Camp where we fueled up and drunk a cup of coffee. Here we’ve met a Swiss guy who was kayaking the entire Yukon river until the Bering sea (> 3000km). He kayaked an average of 100km/day. It was a very sportive man, who bicycled also a few years ago from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia in 120 days!!! You have some crazy guys in this small world. The next stop was of course at the Artic circle, were we’ve met Henrique. He’s originally from Brazil but lives for years in Florida. He started to follow us and in the end we drove the Dalton highway with the 4 of us. The real Lucky Luke’s Daltons on the motorcycle 😊. Our third stop was in Coldfoot camp where we needed to fuel up again. There we discussed again once more the plan how we would continue. The initial plan for us was to only drive until the Atigunpass, stay at a campsite and return to Fairbanks. Henrique and Michael’s plan was to drive to Deadhorse, but to stop in a lodge & campsite along the road. Because they were predicting bad weather the next coming days, the alternative plan was to drive all the way to Deadhorse (another 250 miles of dirt-&mudroad), stayed a night at the hotel and return before it would start raining. But since it was already 6pm, nobody was in favor of this crazy plan. So we left Coldfoot with our initial plan to camp at Atigunpass. The road until the Atigunpass went very smoothly and the scenery was very nice. It even became better on the pass, as it snowed the day before, but the reverse side of the snow was that the road was still a bit slippery. However, all 4 of us made it and were very happy and now the search for campsite could start. We’ve searched and searched without success until the point of no return (not enough fuel to return to Coldfoot) and therefore were obliged to continue driving until Deadhorse 😊. The ride was brilliant, open sky, bright evening light, tundra scenery, nice & funny driving buddy’s, all was perfect. Around 2 am we arrived in Deadhorse and had something to eat and drink and relax at the Prudhoe Bay hotel. As we were still fully awake, the weather conditions were perfect and the nightlight had something magical, we and Michael decided to return back to Coldfoot and Henrique decided to have short nap and shower before return to Coldfoot. At 4 am we left Deadhorse again and after a rather comfortable, but very windy ride we arrived at the Atigunpass which was already covered in the clouds. Due to the wind we had to refuel our motorbikes with our spare fuel to reach Coldfoot. Around 9.30 am we finally arrived satisfied in Coldfoot and realized we had been on our motorbikes for almost 24 hours. Once in a while all the pieces fit perfectly together to create an unplanned magical moment. This 24hour ride was just one of these unplanned rides and a great souvenir. We enjoyed a well-deserved breakfast, met Henrique again later in the afternoon and around 7pm we jumped into our tent to have a 14-hour sleep. On Thursday, we planned to drive all the way to Chena hot springs to enjoy a relaxing evening. Before we left we met some unique travelers; Dan and his grandson (12 years old), together with their dog were hiking the complete route of the Alaskan Pipeline. They started in Prudhoe bay and will end in Valdez by mid September. On Friday we said farewell to Michael in Fairbanks (hope to meet him again in Whitehorse) and we drove all the way to Tok where we ended the day at the Thompson’s Eagle’s Claw motorcycle camping. This amazing campsite is completely dedicated to motorcycles with real tent spaces, cabines, sauna and a shed to work on your motorbike. The lady of the campsite is a fantastic host!
On Saturday we serviced both bikes, enjoyed the luxuriority of the sauna and met Karel, our first Belgian fellow motorbiker who’s riding from Canada to Argentina and Antartica. Today is a lazy Sunday. We did the laundry, updated the blog and are invited this evening for diner by the camphost. It’s the perfect way to end our stay in Alaska. Looking forward to discover Canada.