MC Raven Trip Report 12 - Top of the World Highway

MC Raven Trip Report 12

I arrived in Whitehorse mid-morning and headed straight to the Walmart to restock edibles and fuel then, struck out for the Klondike Highway to Dawson City. Confusing isn’t it? Didn’t I start this Alaska Highway trip in Dawson Creek? Now I’m heading to Dawson City! Who was this Dawson guy anyway that has a creek and a city named after him? Don’t know. Probably should find out. Never can tell, I might be on Jeopardy one day.

The Klondike Highway from Whitehorse to Dawson City was a good training ground for the upcoming “Top of the World Highway.” Plenty of roadwork going on with lots of torn up roads, mud and washboard surfaces. Because of that, I didn’t take any pictures until I arrived in Dawson City. I spent the night at a provincial campground just north of Carmacks, YT.

Dawson City is much like Skagway, AK. A town of only about 1,000 population that blossoms into a city during the tourist season. Tourism is the only real game in town and it shows: costumed interpretive guides, false front buildings, museums for Robert Service, Jack London and (to my mind the best of all) Pierre Berton the great Canadian historian who was born in Dawson City. Here’s some pics of DC.

I spent the night in an overpriced hotel (though, with the exchange rate it turned out to be less than I’d thought). Then, took the little free George Black Ferry across the Yukon River to the beginning of the “Top of the World Highway.” Here’s some pics of the ferry with Dawson City in the background:

I’d really been looking forward to riding the TOTW Highway. All the previous ride reports I’d read described it as spectacularly beautiful. They were right! From the riverbank that the ferry lets you off onto the road heads straight uphill to the crest line of the mountains. In my case it also took me into cloudbanks, fog and freezing rain. Didn’t matter. What I could see was unbelievable. Views to the edge of the earth on either side of the road. Mottled sunlight (when it finally came out) on trees and braided river valleys. Even a standoff with a large black bear. He wanted me to pay a toll, I didn’t. We spent almost a minute (forever in man/bear time) staring at each other until a large motorhome pulled up behind me and Mister Bear decided to move aside. This first pic is of a Rest Area along the TOTW Highway.

After the most pleasant border crossing I’ve ever experienced, I headed into Chicken, AK for lunch. Nice to use US money again. Chicken's TOTW Highway scrambled eggs were great as was the free coffee (my hands were frozen into little icy claws by then). As I finished eating Carl from California pulled in on his yellow GS. He and I had been playing highway leapfrog since Whitehorse. I’d stop for gas, he’d pass. He’d stop for a break, I’d pass. This was the first time in hundreds of miles that we’d ended up in the same place at the same time. Here’s a pic of MC Raven and C from C’s GS in front of the cookhouse in Chicken.

                           

I headed on into Tok, AK for fuel and a quick wash of the bike. I wanted to get the mud off before it had a chance to harden into concrete. All in all, the TOTW Highway was a great ride. The road was dirt with a few patches of slippery black mud but, for the most part, well maintained and, since it drizzled or rained most of the way, not too dusty.  

After Tok, I headed on up the highway to Delta Junction for the night. Since Delta is the 'Official End of the Alaska Highway' that we started way back in Dawson Creek I had to take the semi-mandatory “End of the Highway” picture. I even placed an “I drove the Alaska Highway” sticker on MC Raven to commemorate the event. Some visitors from the Netherlands took the picture of MC Raven and me (his bike at home was also a GS):

Tomorrow, on to North Pole where I’ll spend a week visiting with Shane before heading up the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay.