Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Day miles: 440
Trip miles: 5685
Talkeetna to Chicken

When I was a kid, my father used to fly us into camp deep in the north Maine woods in his friend’s Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser float plane. So, it was a special treat to get up this morning and fly a Piper PA-18 Super Cub on floats with Lance. The Super Cub is my kind of plane; it is simple, and capable. Developed over sixty years ago, it is still considered one of the best bush planes ever built. I hadn’t flown a float plane before, but with a couple exceptions and a few different techniques for takeoffs and landings, they fly like any other plane. We covered these, and how to determine wind on the lake from the air, then went to a few lakes to practice.

The Super Cub is also very similar to the Super Cruiser of my youth, and thus evoked powerful meaning and memory. Before leaving on this trip, I spoke to my counselor about how I was struggling with the frustratingly thin and banal recommendation that I make no life-changing decisions in the wake of my fathers passing. With her usual balancing grace, she offered that death often reminds us of our own mortality, prompting a fresh look at our sometimes dusty priorities. My consistently introspective nature had already provided me with the shape of these potential life changes and part of the motivation for the trip was to provide definition to them. One of these was to get back to flying, and my experience with Above Alaska definitely laid solid groundwork.

After getting back to the hanger from the lake where the Super Cub is kept, I said my goodbyes to the folks at Above Alaska Aviation. Leaving was difficult, as I was getting attached to them as well as the town, but it was time to get back on the road. I had packed up camp and loaded the bike first thing in the morning, so I was ready to go and headed out south on the Parks highway.

I stopped in Wasilla at Sportsmans Warehouse and found a great dry-bag for the shotgun to solve my issues with water getting on the firearm. I wish I had known about this product before I left. I didn’t “see Russia” while in Wasilla, but I saw plenty of pawn shops. But really it was like any other American city sprawled out around automobile use, but scaled for Alaska. After a meal I was happy to continue on out of town.

From here I took the Glenn Highway to the Tok Cutoff to get back to Tok. While the later doesn’t sound like a large highway by name, it is 125 miles long. Like the rest of Alaska, the roads were lined with stunning mountain ranges to enjoy. From Tok, I continued to the northeast up the Taylor and Top of the World highways.

Evening found me in Chicken, Alaska, tired and hungry. The town has a little bit of an identity crisis; it appears that a couple businesses providing the same services are battling over customers with signage; but it definitely had character. After futility visiting a couple stores in town in search of hot food, I decided to set up my tent and get some breakfast in the morning. I was starting to get amused by all of these small towns having slightly different products in their gift shop. Alaska and the Yukon were full of bumper stickers that read “A quiet little drinking town with a _______ problem,” as well as an assortment of slightly different t-shirts that must have come from the same location.

I mentioned the other day that my mother had remembered reading about Don Sheldon when I told her I was staying in Talkeetna. I found a copy of this book here in town, and picked up it up for when I finished reading “Double or Nothing: The Flying Fur Buyer of Anahim Lake” which I had picked up in a gift shop along BC97 somewhere.

Day miles: 6
Trip miles: 5187

Today began with an early flight up in Above Aviation’s Citabria and with it a new instructor. I took what amounted to their bush course. This was somewhat complicated by the fact that much of their training seemed centered around already having a private pilot certificate, which I haven’t gotten around to doing. However, this is more about having a certain amount of experience already. Since I have a fair amount, it shouldn’t really be an issue, but my new instructor was uncomfortable and unsure as to exactly what to do with me. He clearly had a lot of training, however the bush flying seemed still somewhat new to him. In all aspects of my life, I take the approach that we’re always learning and never experts, so I was aiming to grow in whatever way this unique experience would lend to me.

The first flight was getting familiar with the aircraft and doing some pattern landings. These airplanes are all tail-draggers, sometimes called “conventional landing gear.” This means that they have to main wheels in the front and one pivoting wheel under the tail, as opposed to tricycle gear aircraft that that the third wheel in front of the main gear under the nose of the plane. Tailwheel landings are different than landing a typical trainer airplane, but I’ve done more than a few of them. The hardest part was getting used to the new instructor, the difference in his expectations, and how he controlled the aircraft while I was flying. This was the only instructor I’ve flown with would silently modify the controls, yet tell me to “not fight him [on the controls].” This was confusing and I left this flight at a personal low.

It wasn’t just the flight though. t was Sunday and I used to talk on the phone with my father everyone Sunday afternoon. They continue to be the hardest days of the week for me in regard to dealing with his death. Additionally, it was father’s day, the first since he passed. There was no escaping the reminder of this: Above Alaska had a fathers day special, social media was full of people commenting on it, everyone at the restaurants and bars was talking about it. Finally, it was the three month anniversary of my fathers death. I put this together midday and spent some time talking it out with family. I struggled over what to do next.

I stuck through, and flew the Citabria again later that day. I switched seats with the instructor, which seemed to make him more comfortable and find a bit groove for himself. This plane has large Alaska Bush Wheels on it to aid in “off-field” landings, as well as a Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) kit, making it particularly suited to bush operations. We went out and made some landings on gravels strips in the mountains and I had a good experience.

As we departed the airplane on our first landing to look the strip over, the instructor asked if I wanted the handgun or the bear spray. He seemed less than comfortable with the revolver, which was fine with me as I had more faith in the handgun. I brought a shotgun and bear spray with me on my trip only because I couldn’t bring a concealed carry handgun through Canada. The latter would have been much more convenient to carry on the motorcycle and I would have been more comfortable knowing it was always on me.

This, combined with walking around the airstrip with the instructor occasionally yelling “Hey bears!” provided a little humorous fringe to the great bear firearm debate/research the preceded my trip. I am in the “I would rather have a firearm and not need it, than need it and not have it” camp, except the shotgun is physically over-sized for motorcycle camping. The internet wasn’t much help in deciding a reasonable level of preparedness.

Day miles: 315
Trip miles: 5148

I had plans to fly with Lance from Above Alaska Aviation again in the morning, so I awoke early. I got to the Talkeetna Road House just about when they were opening the sitting rooms for breakfast. Due to the dietary requirements of mountain climbers, they offer their plates in both a “half,” and a “full” serving. The half is plenty of food. After managing to finish this off, I awaited for their public laundry room to open officially at eight. I did some laundry, charged some devices and made some more phone calls.

Lance and I took the Champ up to Denali National Park. After discussing some mountain flying techniques, we entered the Ruth Glacier and started climbing. We passed through the mile wide “Great Gorge,” supposedly one of the deepest in the world if you measure to its bottom, and came out into the Ruth Amphitheater. This is also respectfully referred to as the Sheldon Amphitheater for Don Sheldon, Talkeetna’s famous pioneering bush pilot. My mother had mentioned the evening before on the phone that she had read a book years ago, probably up north to camp, about a famous bush pilot from Talkeetna. She recalled his name, and it was the first I had heard of him. I’ll have much more to say about this later, perhaps once I get home. I wouldn’t know the full meaning of my decision to head to Talkeetna for flight training until days after I had left.

However this flight was ideal. I was able to both gain some unique flying experience, and see Denali in a much more meaningful way than driving by it on the Parks highway. My mother remarked, “somehow I think your dad was your copilot.” I agree. This was exactly the kind of flying I was searching for. I had no interest in going up for a tour flight with a number of other passengers equipped to the hilt with camera equipment. A few photos wouldn’t have been bad, but I was happy to just fly. I cannot convey this passion with words, but I had no need to as I found myself here among friends.

That afternoon I rode back to the road entrance to Denali National Park to take a couple of pictures and look around. There is a small village on the outskirts of the park, consisting entirely of hotels, gift shops and tour companies. I managed to find someone to print a copy of my flight logbook that I had my roommates email to me, and grab some food before heading back. This ride also added a fox to the list of wildlife I had seen along the road.

Back in Talkeetna I settled in at the West Rib bar, which would become my regular evening stop when I didn’t have to get up early to fly. I had a beer and then wandered around the river bank at the summer sunset. This town was definitely growing on me.

Day miles: 0
Trip miles: 4541

That is North Pole, Alaska, not THE North Pole. However, they do have a pole which they had dropped from an airplane at the magnetic north pole and then recovered by a search party.

After catching up on sleep and the internet in my hotel room, I loaded the bike back up in the early afternoon only to find the battery completely dead. It is debated as to if you can push/bump start a fuel injected bike. A young kid outside a hardware store would later tell me that Arctic Cat makes EFI snowmobiles that don’t have a battery, so it’s gotta be possible. Nevertheless, the bike was heavy and I was not on the top of a big hill to try.

I asked a contractor working nearby to give me a jump, and he sent one of his workers over with a pickup truck. He was impatient though, and the bike wouldn’t immediately start once I got the cover off and the cables on, so he took off. I debated calling BMW Roadside Assistance, but was reluctant because I knew I would have to work at finding someone helpful.

I called up Dan at Adventure Cycleworks and talked it over with him. He was very helpful and gave me the number for the local Harley dealer that also sold BMWs, as well as the part number for the battery and some other contacts. The dealership would have a battery the next day, but of course I had to get the bike there myself if the service department was going to be any help.

I checked back into the Hotel North Pole, getting my old room back at a discount because they hadn’t cleaned it yet. They mentioned that they had a jump-starter and I took them up on it. I expected it to be one of those battery packs that you can plug into your cigarette lighter outlet, or maybe the same with clamps, but in fact they had a really nice standup battery charger with a built it jump-start setting. Because it gets so cold in Alaska, there are outlets in the parking lot for hooking up engine block and battery heaters when parked overnight, convenient for running the battery charger as well. The bike has a small sealed battery, so I put the charger on low and let it sit. This time, I noticed that the fog light came on as soon as I hooked up the charger. The fog light has a toggle switch, as well as a relay that so it won’t come on unless the headlight is on as well, so this was odd. I had already replaced the relay once because it wasn’t closing, but now it was stuck open. Rather than muck with it, I pulled the fuse for the fog light.

Then I walked over to the NAPA auto parts store for a battery tender. Because it was down the highway, I got walking directions from Google and wandered threw a maze of residential streets. North Pole started growing on me, as the developments were just dirt roads with nice small homes and cabins. I happened past the visitor center along the way, and stopped in on my return trip. They were incredibly friendly there and I got the map tour of town as well as the opportunity to send a post card and have the stamp cancelled from North Pole. One of them had to make a trip into town and even gave me a ride back to my hotel.

I came back and the bike started fine, so I switched to the battery tenderer, which had a lower charging rate which is easier on the engine and so that I could return the nice [expensive] charger to the hotel. I wandered around a bit for a meal, and found a local department store where I picked up an AC charger for my phone and some Brenneke Black Magic shells for the shotgun. Convenient town, this North Pole is.

I decided I would trust the battery and not go back into Fairbanks in the morning for a replacement at the dealership. The day off hadn’t been too bad as I got the opportunity to rest and talk to some people close to me. Tomorrow I would head back on the road. I hadn’t been sure of what the middle of my trip was going to be when I left Seattle, but I determined that I would first try to get some flight training in Alaska, and if I couldn’t satisfy that I would ride down the coast for a couple of days. Either way, I was headed toward Denali National Park.

Day miles: 493
Trip miles: 4012
Manley Hot Springs to Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay)

I packed up in the morning and sat in the bar again for breakfast. I enjoyed listening to an old local man tell a couple men about War and Peace and other feats of literature. This was an interesting contrast to the young men talk of the front-end loaders they had driven the night before. I called ahead to Deadhorse Camp to reserve a room and add my name to the tour list; you can only get to the Arctic Ocean by passing through security on an official tour, and you need to give 24 hour advance notice to them for a background check. Then I walked over to the airport for a photo, fueled up at the general store, and headed out. I retraced eighty amazing miles along the Elliott Highway to the start of the Dalton Highway.

The haul road was built for hauling equipment and supplies to and from Prudhoe Bay. It is a road built for trucks, over four hundred miles long, with only three gas stops in the summer: Yukon River (Mile 56), Coldfoot (Mile 175) and at the end at Deadhorse (Mile 414). In between there isn’t much built by humans beside the constant companionship of the Trans-Alaska pipeline. Occasionally there is a small Alaska DOT station or a pump station for the pipeline, but there are no available services here. On occasion the haul road is paved, often full of dips and heaves, which don’t bother the bike much. The rest of the time it is various consistencies of dirt, gravel and mud, depending on weather and road construction.

I had received lots of advice for riding this road, such as looking ahead for oncoming trucks to avoid meeting them on a corner, where they might kick up large stones at you while passing. I have a Class B Commercial Drivers License and I spent a couple years driving a truck in conjunction with a salvage job, so I probably carry a bit more sense of connection to truck drivers than most; consequently I intended to always yield to them and make the least impact on their day that I could. Many of the trucks equip large Lightforce lights, some as work lights on the back of the cab. I was traveling faster than most of the traffic, particularly the occasional RV, and a few trucks used these to signal back to me that it was clear to pass. At times the road was narrow and I would slow or stop to pull over to give the trucks plenty of room. While the road is physically large enough for two-way traffic, the sides of the road are often loose gravel. It is difficult to keep the bike upright in loose gravel, the deeper the gravel the more wobble I would get in it. I never dropped the bike, but it sure felt close a couple of times! Note that the road is also built up on a few feet of gravel to keep the permafrost insulated from the roadway. Consequently, there is no shoulder to pull off onto. Occasionally there is a road siding for stopping, but you can’t stop in the road to take a picture; keep moving.

Just before Coldfoot, I saw a roadsign that read “Arctic Circle.” I stopped and thought, “really? That’s it?” When I turned around I found the road lead to a parking lot with a better sign. While I was taking a photo of the sign, a couple of folks walked over who turned out to work for the BLM and gave me a certificate for reaching the Arctic Circle! I chatted with them for a bit before continuing on. The view is just stunning, miles and miles of endless mountains, rivers and forest.

After Coldfoot, the road gets a bit worse. The gravel sections were not technical, but required constant concentration on the upcoming road consistency. A well packed dirt road could be traveled easily, but might transition to gravel with calcium chloride to reduce dust awfully quickly, and if you weren’t paying attention it would take you by surprise. Remember that with 414 miles of highway, and 240 miles between two gas stations, you can’t take this road too slowly if you intend to every make it to the other end.

Between Coldfoot and Deadhorse lies the Brooks Mountain range. When I left Coldfoot, it was nice and sunny out, but when I reached Atigun Pass, it was 25 degrees out and snowing! I had been looking for a rest stop as it got colder, but finding none I finally stopped at the pass to put on another sweater and my glove liners. I would have liked to put on some long underwear, but I wasn’t about to take my boots and pants off in that weather so I stuck it out down the other side of the mountain.

The Brooks Range captures most of the precipitation and to the north, across the continental divide, it is technically a desert on the slope. Soon there was little more than rolling hills of tundra, with the occasional Dall Sheep herd. I pressed on.

An aside on fuel; the F800GS holds about four gallons of fuel and was getting about 45mpg. This varies a lot based on if I was running premium or regular gas, and how much time I spent on the highway at high speeds. I left a little concerned about finding premium gas, as the bike claims it requires it. Unfortunately the internet is full of arguments over why that then get distracted over how higher-grade fuels are produced, additives and what countries have a mix-grade from mixing regular and premium. For what it’s worth, I ran premium whenever it was available, and regular the rest of the time. You have no choice on the Dalton, north of Fox, Alaska and you only have a choice about half the time on the Alaskan Highway. I carried two gallons of spare fuel in a Rotopax container, which I only had to use for the 240 miles of country between Coldfoot and Deadhorse. As they say, your mileage may vary. If you’re adamant about running only premium out of fear of engine knocking, a $2000 Touratech 5 gallon add-on tank is still going to only get you a 400 mile range. I’ve read that your dealer can detune your engine for regular gasoline, that is probably the cheapest and safest route for any remote travel.

Truck traffic is lower in the summer than the winter on the haul road, because most of the construction happens during the winter when the slope can safely be traveled with minimal impact to the ground. Consequently, I saw as many adventure motorcycles as I did trucks. The man from the BLM told me that a lot of people headed for Deadhorse only make it to Coldfoot, because they turn around. This was a surprise, but when I thought about it further it is a pretty unfriendly climate up there.

Deadhorse camp is at the beginning of town. I found the right lot alright, but I couldn’t tell which building I was looking for. The lot was full of sleep trailers mounted on skis, clearly empty awaiting winter to come. I parked the bike in front of one building and literally fell off it from exhaustion. After standing the bike back up, I tried the door to the largest building, the same kind of door you use for a cold freezer, and found it to be the right choice. While expensive at $200/night, Deadhorse Camp provides everything you need; a private bunk room, shared showers, laundry, a lounge and a kitchen. They helped me bring my gear inside, as boots must be removed at the door, and I found I had made it in time for the end of the dinner buffet. There was some kind of wireless internet available, but it wasn’t free. I flipped through a couple TV channels, then caught up on my text messages enjoying the first cellphone service I had in days. I had to get some rest, as I had to get up at 6am in time for breakfast and an 8am tour.