Beaver Creek to Whitehorse

Day 10, Sunday June 19, 81.3km

With 24 hour daylight why not have a little experiment and start really early. We are up at 2:35am and on the road by 4:00am. It is mostly cloudy but the sun is poking through a little hole in the sky causing a red glow to appear over the mountains.

It is very quiet and no traffic. Rain starts around 8am just when it is lunch time. I make a shelter with my hammock fly to keep the rain out of my lunch box.

The rain lasts until we reach the Lake Creek campground. It is a soft steady rain and my rain gear is keeping me dry. This part of the Alaska highway is under construction and in many places the asphalt is gone and we are biking on gravel.

The campground has no water. No problem, we use the river and our filter. There is a shelter and that one comes in handy now that it is raining. A friendly German couple that is just leaving the campground offer me hot coffee with a little bit of milk from their thermos. They are very interested in my bike and trailer and want to know all about my trip. That coffee certainly hit the spot. After a while the rain stops and the sun makes an appearance.

Day 11, Monday June 20, 68.1km

It started raining again during the night and we have to delay our departure. It is still raining at 5:30am but I have had enough. Awake for quite a while I now want to move on. I have worked out a plan to move everything under the shelter to make breakfast and to pack there. During packing the rain stops. We are late this morning, it is already 8:30 by the time we hit the road. This is the first day that the wind is against us.

One cannot quite trust the signs along the highway. You may find an official sign announcing tourist services upcoming 2km down the road but once you get there it is obvious that the business closed down a long time ago. But this time there is a business that is open. It is a French (not from Quebec) couple that started this bakery in the middle of nowhere. I have a coffee and a raisin cookie.

The scenery remains very enjoyable in every direction.

The wind makes it so much harder to make headway and after 68km I call it quits. We are 22km short of the target for today. We find a level spot near a stream and that is all we need. I ring my bell and blow my whistle frequently.

If we make an early start tomorrow we may be able to make up the 22km while the winds are light.

Day 12, Tuesday June 21, 67.5km

Rain again overnight but by 4am it is dry and we pack a wet tent. It does not take long to make up for the 22km now that there is hardly any wind. Kluane lake starts at Burwash Landing.

From one of the road signs we learned that the nearby Kaskawuish glacier drops cold air in the valley causing winds to blow in the Slims River valley and along Kluane lake. That must explain yesterday's headwind. Showers start again around 10am but they have ended by the time we reach Cottonwood campground.

This area of the Yukon has the highest concentration of grizzly bears in north America. For this reason the campground has no garbage cans. I did not see any grizzlies but ...... maybe I should not complain about that! This turned out to be a really nice day. The sun came out in the afternoon. The girl at the office told me that the forecast is good for the next days and it will be warming up.

Day 13, Wednesday June 22, 86km

I really like the Yukon. The scenery is really up there. Since Beaver Creek we have been surrounded by mountains at both sides. The ones on the right are higher and still have snow on top. We got up at 3:30am this morning. It is mostly cloudy and there is hardly any wind. We are now biking towards the end of Kluane lake.

At the end of the lake 3 valleys merge, one of those is the Slims river valley. The road hugs the lake and once we corner a cliff and can see the Slims river valley, we all of a sudden are battling a strong head wind. This is the wind that is caused by the Kaskawuish glacier.

The Alaska highway does not follow this valley, but rounds the end of the lake and follows the valley that continues south. This is great scenery and a big part of the area is the Kluane national park.

We are now leaving the lake behind us at an elevation of 850m and start climbing to 1020m with many ups and downs but more ups and with a headwind estimated at 20km/hr.

The lake is still under heavy clouds but towards the south we can see blue skies and that is where we are heading. The summit of 1020m is the highest point of the Alaska highway and we get there by 9:45am.

By 12 am we are in full sunshine and my jacket is too warm. We replace it by the bug jacket as protection against mosquitoes. They are on you as soon as you stop or when you are going slowly uphill. We dropped down to about 900m but another summit of 1010m is down the road. I am getting tired.

But then we go downhill nonstop for 10km and we enter the community of Haines Junction before we know it.

We check in at the Kluane campground and after making camp visit the tourist information centre to get information on facilities between Haines Junction and Whitehorse. When planning this trip I could not find any facilities and the only camping spot I could find through Google streetview was the muddy Mendenhall river 75km past Haines Junction. The 'no facilities' is confirmed by the girl at the information desk, however she suggests to wild camp at Stoney Creek, 94km past Haines Junction. There is good water there. We will plan accordingly for tomorrow.

Day 14, Thursday June 23, 95km

Out of bed at 4:35am, it is only 4degC and clear blue sky. The wind is light and in our back. Traffic on the Alaska highway is light and I estimate that 60% of that are RV's. Lots of rentals but also lots of tourbus-size RV's pulling another vehicle behind it. There are lots of motorcycles, few tractor trailers. We stop to admire a historic bridge and meet a fellow biker travelling north.

He started on April 26 in Texas and is on his way to the Arctic Circle. I have a very dry section ahead of me and he advises to take lots of water. I do have the luxury of 3 bottles of water, one on the bike and Bob is carrying 2 bottles as well. I do stop at a campground a bit further down to fill up my half empty bottle. A fellow sitting outside the little store smoking a cigaret warns me about a grizzly with 2 cubs just down the road. She hangs around there a lot and has been acting aggressively towards motorcycles yesterday. From there on I ring my bell at regular intervals to let her know that I am on my way. That must have done the trick, I never saw the bear and...... maybe I should not complain about that!
This part of the Alaska highway is indeed very dry. I read somewhere that this is a semi desert. No rivers or streams crossing the road for many miles. It has warmed up quickly. I have lunch at 11:15am and change into shorts and running shoes for the first time this trip.

This is a great day, blue skies and it is 20degC. We reach Stoney Creek at 3:10pm and it is perfect.
The water in the creek is cold and clear and there is a level spot. That is all I need. We now biked 1000km since leaving Valdez.

Day 15, Friday June 24, 66.5km

Now it is only 3 degC in the early morning but warming up rapidly. By 7:30am I have to stop to take off my jacket. A motorcyclist on a Harley stops to ask if everything is OK. We have a little chat. At 7:45am I spot an elk on the road. It is acting nervous, it is not the cars it is worried about, it is me. It turns back and tries again to cross the road, all that time looking in my direction. I manage to snap a picture and shortly after that it disappears into the woods.

 While recording this incident on my MP3 player a First Nations fellow stops his van and gestures me to the driver's window. He warns me about another grizzly with cubs just down the road that seems to hang around there a lot. He shows me pictures that he took of the bear yesterday. Yes, that looks like a good size grizzly. Again I ring my bell at regular intervals and again it must have done the trick. No bear showed up but ....... maybe I should not complain about that!
I count on arriving in Whitehorse early, however, at 8:30am we run into another 16 km of road construction. A few stretches of several kilometers where the road is nothing but coarse gravel. Difficult to keep going straight and I have to be very careful not to fall. If the oncoming traffic only would slow down, but many don't and spray us with gravel and dust. By 10am we finally reach the end of the construction zone.
Parts of the highway is built up to avoid having to go down in gullies and it totally amazes me that there are no guard rails. If any car would go over it would not be found for days. It is a bit scary to drive my bike on the shoulder right next to one of those drop-offs. Don't know if it shows up on the picture but here is an example.

Finally Whitehorse comes into view and by 1:40pm we are downtown at the tourist information centre.

At 3:15 we reach the Robert Services Campground and make camp.

Day 16 & 17, June 25 & 26
 
Today is Saturday June 25. The campground is in a wooded area on the Yukon River about 1.5km outside of Whitehorse. It is for tenting only and cars are not allowed on the campground, they have to be parked at the entrance of the park.

This morning we first are going to have a Tim stop, the first one since Prince Rupert. Next is the laundry and at 10am we have to be at the library where we can get internet access for a blog update. We are allowed one hour per day, not nearly enough to get everything done. How are we going to manage? Maybe I should look into getting a little notebook with wireless access, that would make blog life so much easier.
Off to Walmart we go and 2 hours later the notebook is up and running and wireless connected to the internet at the library. From here on the blog updates will be created on this little notebook. I probably saved some dollars by buying it in the Yukon versus Nova Scotia, sales tax is only 5% here. By the end of this trip it will have partly paid for itself by savings on internet charges. Hope this is not the straw that breaks the camel's back as far as weight is concerned.

Next we have to buy supplies for the upcoming days and I have a lead on a good place to eat a nice rack of ribs. Unfortunately there is a waiting time of 30 min to get in. I am not willing to wait that long, maybe try again tomorrow. Still have to boil a dozen eggs and off to bed.

By now it is Sunday and I am at Starbucks writing this part of the blog and hoping to connect to the internet but so far no luck. May have to try somewhere else. Weather has been great for the last couple of days, sunny and in the high twenties. Whitehorse emits a pleasant atmosphere but don't look for beautiful architecture. It looks like a typical northern town. It takes about 10 min to bike through Whitehorse. This town is on the Yukon river that flows for 3000km through the Yukon and Alaska before emptying into the Bering Sea. It has a drainage area of 847000 square kilometers and is the second largest river in North America. Learned this from the signs along the river.

This bike trip is a fantastic adventure. I cannot recall a trip where for 1000km one is non-stop exposed to so much nature and beauty and there is lots more to come. I can recommend this to anybody and this is a very good time of the year to do it. One word of caution, road condition between the Canada/US border and Burwash Landing (about 300km) is horrendous. There are ruts and potholes and bumps all over the place. I have seen several apple size holes in the asphalt and underneath it is hollow, ready to cave in on some poor unsuspected driver. I have seen numerous car tires at the side of the road, shredded to pieces.

I am pleased with the performance of my bike and Bob. No breakdowns so far and I am knocking on wood while writing this. The front paniers are great, they allow for a much better distribution of the weight and make reaching things easier. My only complaint is that the new paniers are not watertight. That is ridiculous for a product like this and I am planning to return them to MEC.

I am happy to report that for the last 2 mornings I have been able to get up from a laying down position on my back to sitting upright without discomfort near my right shoulderblade and back. Things are improving.

There is a second Starbucks in Whitehorse and that's where I am now wireless connected to the internet. Now I am full of coffee and the blog is up to date.