6 Teslin(Alaska)

[Whip]

Leaving Muncho Lake was one of the very few wet morning we had. I expected a lot more.

 

 

I love the smell of road construction in the mornin!!!

 

 

You learn not to ignore those orange signs.......they usually understate the road conditions.

 

Locals

 

 

Can't pass up this pic op.

 

 

 

????????????????I don't remember why I did this???????????????

 

 

 

Watson Lake is famous for only one thing....

 

At Spring Torrey Nando gave me an idea. I asked Signman to make a F.O.G. sign for me to take with us to Watson Lake.

 

Now where should we put it??????????

 

 

 

 

I couldn't find a place anywhere.........

 

 

 

I was about to rip someones sign off a post to make room for ours....

 

Finally....with out have to vandalize anything.....

 

If you ever go there and want to find it....walk in the main entrance off the highway and go straight

back till it ends ...... look for this.

 

Some more from the Sign Post Forest.

 

 

I guess this is too keep the chickens out...

 

 

 

After another really bad meal we started on our way to Ross River.....

 

The weather didn't look good, but away we went. This is why we put the knobbies on in Fort Nelson.

230 miles of dirt road lay between us and our motel for the evening.

 

The weather behind us looked pretty good.

 

The weather in front of us????????????????

 

 

I was lookin for orange signs to warn me about possible trouble ahead.....they tricked me.

 

This looks like fun...ugh!!!

 

Mr Olson, lets talk about this....

 

After reading "Deep Survival" I knew this was one of those times when you plan so much for something

that you can miss the warning signs.

 

It starting to rain....... the road was turning to slime.

 

It's getting colder.....

 

I put on my rain gear over my stich.....

 

I asked this truck driver, who had come from where we were goin, how bad is was.

He said,"it was the worst rain he had ever seen and the road was almost washed out."

 

I was havin flash backs and wondering if it would rain on me the rest of my life.

 

Chris had memorized the entire route many times over was already thinkin about alternative routes.

Back the way we came over to Teslin.....then north to Dawson tomorrow. Ross River will have to wait.

 

I felt enlightened....and glad I didn't have to risk Mrs Whip's life.

 

 

I have to finish the rest of this after lunch.......

 

Limecreek called he wants to meet for breakfast!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

be back in a couple hours.

 

Lots more pix on the way.....

[Joel]

I love the smell of road construction in the mornin!!!

 

It smells like Victory, right? No, wait, make that KTM. Nevermind. Please continue.

[DouglasR]

 

More, please!

[hANNAbONE]

aWESOME, wHIPDON..!

 

Dem be some great pix..!

[Francois_Dumas]

Hurry up with that breakfast... make it a 'continental one' ! (no idea where that phrase came from, but it is not what WE eat usually.... ).

 

Great pictures and tale.....

[chrisolson]

The day's journey that ended in Teslin ...

 

Although I really wanted to go all the way to Ross River, it was the smartest decision we ever made to turn back .

 

In retrospect, even if it hadn't been raining, it would have been a complete disaster 'cause it would not have been the best choice to be the first real dirt - two up - heavily loaded experience for my fearless partner.

 

 

 

 

( particularly given what we learned later about long dirt roads in Canada )

[Les is more]

????????????????I don't remember why I did this???????????????

 

 

 

Because. You know.

[Keith S]

Whip

Fantastic photos!!

To anyone that has been up there your photos bring it all back. Specially “the smell of construction”.

 

Keith

[Whip]

On the road again....

 

 

 

Gas stop.

 

Could this be possible??????????????????????????

 

 

 

 

We were getting tired and started lookin for a place to stay.....

 

I sure hope that bridge isn't one of those motorcycle graters..

 

My luck continues...

 

F#!% me........

 

We find a nice place to stop on the other side of the bridge and called it a night.

 

 

I went for a walk by the lake and came across this empty camp site.

 

In the mornin I went by and met Jim. He was on his way back from all the places we were headin too.

He was the only person that said we would have no trouble and the roads were fine.

 

He had a nice view.

 

My first eagles....

 

Mrs Whip and Chris checkin out the locals.

 

I like to get up close and personal when I meet the locals.

 

??????????????????????????????????????????

 

 

Time to get ready to go.....

 

Until next week.........

 

Teaser.

Sunset is what time????????

[Dances_With_Wiener_Dogs]

I like to get up close and personal when I meet the locals.

 

 

 

Just hope that you never have to come face to face with a whole one! Thanks for the photos.

[Jacqueline]

You have my mind thinking of Alaska.....

you know I'm closer to it now.......

Beautiful pics Whip and Mrs. Whip

[Bruce H]

I am excited!.. Good story and photos. When you have some time would you write a little about what gear you took, what you didn't and what you wished you had.

[Huzband]

Jeez, Whip.

 

Why don't you go some place scenic for a change.

 

 

 

 

VERY nice.

 

I gotta get there before it becomes Disneyland.

[BabyCow]

Thank you for posting this. I really enjoy the moutainous aspect of the North American continent as we do not have this on the Australian continent

[Firefight911]

I like to get up close and personal when I meet the locals.

 

 

 

Just hope that you never have to come face to face with a whole one! Thanks for the photos.

 

I think it is a good thing that he couldn't get through the wall!!!

[Francois_Dumas]

 

I gotta get there before it becomes Disneyland.

 

Ain't THAT the truth. We're of course adding to that ourselves, with our peaked interest and motorized incursions....... but YES, I wanna go there too !!!!

[Whip]

I am excited!.. Good story and photos. When you have some time would you write a little about what gear you took, what you didn't and what you wished you had.

 

 

I'm gonna work on that.

[ESokoloff]

Good stuff Larry

 

More, more

[hopz]

This is a great post and I really am enjoying thanks.

 

Question... if you had not turned north at Watson Lake- you would not have to have done an unpaved section? Say this another way... is the AlCan Highway paved all the way to Tok? And beyond?

[chrisolson]

This is a great post and I really am enjoying thanks.

 

Question... if you had not turned north at Watson Lake- you would not have to have done an unpaved section? Say this another way... is the AlCan Highway paved all the way to Tok? And beyond?

Yes, if you stay on the Alaska Highway, its paved all the way to most anyplace in Alaska. IMHO the only reason you'd really need or want a dualsport bike is if you were doing the Dempster, Hwy 4 out of Watson Lake or want to see the Kennecott mine in the Wrangle-St. Elias area. Be aware though, that there is a lot of construction and gravel in Canada that can be a bit hard on fairings and any lower plastic.

[chrisolson]

I am excited!.. Good story and photos. When you have some time would you write a little about what gear you took, what you didn't and what you wished you had.

 

For my part the bike was an '06 GS which only had about 2000 miles on it when it shipped out to Missoula. It was equipped with BMW soft luggage which is actually two soft packs that zip together. I chose those because 1) I figured it might make a good back rest - and it did - and 2) they were much less expensive than the more traditional hard panniers. They worked well. My only complaint is that the attaching straps could be stronger but I think I probably overloaded/overstuffed the bags. What I'd do differently here is take less standard clothing.

 

Up front was a Touratech VP45 tankbag with detachable side bags. This was an excellent set up as the increased storage was good and the side bags acted as wind deflectors. The windscreen was a Wunderlich which I would highly recommend ... good up to around 80 without serious buffeting. The seat was from Rick Mayer and it worked great - a giant improvement from stock! I'd also added Touratech wide footpegs and some bar risers which made for an easier ride. Other parts were a folding shift lever, rear brake guard and engine crash bars - fortunately did not test any of those out.

 

For personal riding gear, I wore MotoGp pants that had a bonded breathable/waterproof layer and an old Hein Giericke jacket. Boots were from Gaerne, similar to a motocross boot but with a lugged sole. Nothing special here. All performed well being worn for 8 to 12 hours per day.

 

Things I'd change? I would have refreshed the jacket's waterproofing before leaving. At the end of the trip the outer layer would saturate, but fortunately the inner layer was still dry. Also I'd treated the boots becaue they were leather without a lining, but they soaked through so maybe I'd buy a factory waterproof model - or just do a better job of treating them!

 

Undergarments were "wicking fabric" types from Wal-Mart ... inexpensive, pack extremly light and small and seem to work just as well as stuff that's 3x the cost. For warmth, Gerbings jacket liner and glove liners. Don't leave home without them !!!! I also had just enough other clothing for layers if they failed, but they worked great as usual.

 

For spares, really nothing. A bottle of Slime, an electric air pump, chain lube, basic wrenches to adjust chain and tighten nuts/bolts and duct tape was about it. Didn't need the Slime, but the rest came in handy.

 

I had a Zumo 550 for navigation and music. MP3 worked fine, but XM faded out fairly early in the trip. The turn by turn directions in Alaska were kinda off - at times it wanted to route us in a river or lake. We did have bike to bike but unfortunately mine wasn't working properly (it kept keying at high speeds) so we turned it off for most of the trip.

 

Personal clothing I thought was minimal when packing, but here I'd take even less the next time around. Given that our trip was probably 50% "ride for the day then sleep", the requirements for non riding gear was really small.

 

I also took my Thinkpad X40 and two external USB laptop drives. Its small and rugged (I have yet to hurt a Thinkpad) and it packed great in the soft luggage. The drives were handy for the MP3 music I took and the more than 27 GIGs of pics that all three of us took!! Camera was a Canon Rebel XT with the standard kit lens. Almost all of my pics were shot both in Canon RAW and JPG formats.

 

In all, I'd probably not change much except take less ... !

[BFish]

 

 

 

so the wacky weed is plentiful along the roadside?