After finishing the Dempster and getting into Dawson City, I got dinner at the Triple J’s restaurant and had a celebratory beer and slice of carrot cake before basically passing out. I was starting to feel the sense of accomplishment that hadn’t sunk in right at Tuk, but the accumlated road fatigue was also starting to wear on me a bit.
After managing to sleep in a little bit on Tuesday, I wandered around Dawson City in the morning. While there is good LTE signal and modern conveniences, Dawson City still retains a lot of its turn of the century charm. The roads are unpaved and all of the buildings in the town proper are actually from the gold rush or at least have a convincing facade. Interestingly, the town is mostly built on permafrost instead of bedrock, and some of the buildings are leaning haphazardly where the permafrost has melted or shifted.
I also ran into a few of the riders I met on the way up, including the couple with the KLR side hack.
The entire town is nestled on the Yukon River, and there’s an interpretive walk with exhibits like the recreation of a locally-discoved woolly mammoth. Before the roads were built, steam paddleboats were the main form of transportation in The Yukon, so there’s also a preserved steamboat which used to ferry silver from Keno to Dawson City.
After getting laundry done and having another indulgent dinner at the hotel restaurant, I headed to bed to get my rest for the ride into Alaska.
The Top of the World Highway
The Top of the World Highway runs from Dawson City to Chicken, Alaska across the ridges of the Alaska Range. The forecast was calling for afternoon rain, and being an unpaved mountain road I was eager to avoid getting swamped out. I couldn’t leave too early since the US border doesn’t open until 9am, but around 8am I took off and got in the short line for the ferry.
After crossing the Yukon River I was met with a wall of fog. I’d feared that the overcast weather would block some of my views from the road, but this was heavy enough to reduce visibility to just a few yards. After a cautions 30 minutes I thankfully emerged from the fog and I had blue skies for most of my ride on the unpaved highway into AK. The remaining low-lying clouds added to the atmosphere, and I spent most of the next few hours trying to balance taking in the views with watching for potholes and loose gravel.
Eventually the road crosses above the treeline as it approaches the US border and the scenery becomes more severe. Even this late in the season, there are a few pockets of snow and ice along the road. Shortly before crossing the border I pulled over for a photo and started to notice that the bike was having some electrical issues — it would turn on and start, but my digital dashboard stayed dark until I cycled the key again.
After a quick border crossing the road becomes paved for a little while before it starts to descend towards Chicken, a former mining town that’s little more than an RV park and gas station. After unlocking the pump and filling me up, the attendant informed me I’d been hotrodding it on the Top of the World, since move riders only used 2 gallons of gas to get here from Dawson and I’d used 2.4. I blamed it on filling up at the end of the Dempster and not in town, but I definitely hadn’t been easy on the gas.
I had more issues with the electrics after filling up, this time needing to massage the wire looms around the triple clamp before I could get going. I was getting increasingly nervous that I was seeing the reason why KTM has a reputation for dodgy electronics on their bikes, but at least I’d made it this far. Each time I stopped and turned the bike off the issues seemed to get worse or change randomly, so I began to suspect that it wasn’t just a simple loose connection but something deeper in the wiring harness.
The pavement from Chicken to Tok was in rough shape, with frost heaves, potholes, and sections that would probably be smoother if they just let them decay into gravel. I lucked out and skirted right around a few rain bands, but the temperatures hadn’t really climbed above 50 all day so far.
I made it to Tok and my caution as a solo traveler started to win out after each start of the bike required finagling my wiring harness and saying a prayer. After conferring with Tori I decided it was best to scrap the last few days of my trip and beeline the last 300 or some miles to Anchorage tomorrow.
I’d accomplished my main goals for the trip and the worst case scenario was the bike being totally dead hundreds of miles from Anchorage and missing my return trip. By the time I got to a dealership with a diagnostic computer I’d be out of time on the trip, anyway. Mechanical issues are often easily solved on the road, but electrical gremlins are definitely best solved in the comfort of a garage with a case of beer.
I was able to change my hotel reservations and flight and lucked out in canceling my AirBNBs just in time to avoid fees. The logistics company even offered me a free truck ride into town if I get stranded on the way in, so between them and my insurance’s roadside assistance I’m in good hands to get home. I made my way to the motorcycle-only campground near Tok and settled into what had become my last night on the road. I’ll make my way into Anchorage tomorrow, pack everything up, then get the bike crated and fly home on Friday.
Some of the riders in camp had been stranded here for days or weeks waiting on parts to fix their bikes and continue their journeys. I enjoyed and evening of socializing before heading to bed to rest up for the long ride into Anchorage.
