Another Klondike rush

I think it was a dog. I was on my way from Valdez to the Canadian border, via a road called the Tok cut-off, and I hadn't seen a soul for many miles. I was engrossed in singing the hits of ABBA (as one does) and watching the trees go by when a large black shape ran across the road in front of me, causing me to brake sharply. It trotted across and then looked at me from the far side of the road as I went past, a bit surprised to say the least.

My immediate thoughts were that it must be a wolf, it was too large for a dog and in the middle of nowhere. However it was completely black and looked for all the world like a very large Alsatian. Added to that about half a mile up the road I passed a house which seemed to be inhabited.

I reached Tok in the pouring rain. Again. Tok was the first Alaskan town I arrived in and I'd completed a loop to get back to it. Perhaps I was just unlucky with the weather, or maybe Tok is the Alaskan Manchester.

The next day I'd planned to leave early in order to get a fair bit of ground covered, however an 8 o'clock start became 10 o'clock, and I had misjudged the road slightly too - instead of leaving Alaska on the road I came in on, I was taking the Top of the World Highway up to Dawson City in the Yukon, before heading down to Whitehorse. I knew Whitehorse was a 500 mile day.

The road was paved all the way to a small town called Chicken, a former gold mining town that is now all about mining gold from tourists. Just prior to Chicken the road turns to a gravel/dirt road and stays that way for many miles into Canada. The last place in Alaska that I passed through was an appropriately named "town" called Boundary (population 6), four miles from the border with Canada.

Now Boundary really was cool, I stepped into the only shop (offering the "best coffee in Boundary") and it was like walking into a Hollywood Wild West saloon, including everyone turning round to look at me. All it needed was for someone to have been playing the piano :) I ordered a hotdog and coffee and chatted to the staff for a few minutes. I asked what makes folks live in Boundary - the answer was "Gold". Apparently it is still readily found in the area.

Leaving Boundary I said farewell to Alaska and crossed into the Yukon, Canada. The scenery changed - the Top of the World Highway may be so named for it's geographic location way up north, but it could also be due to it's altitude. The road follows a mountainous route, the view to the north is just peaks as far as the eye can see, and the view south is hillsides covered in a red brush, dappled with green, with dark spruce standing like fingers. Autumn seems to be early here, and the Aspen trees are turning red and gold, contrasting with their silver bark. The effect is truly beautiful, but was mostly lost on me as I was struggling to keep the bike on the gravelly bit between the mountains.

The struggle to pilot the bike straight and keep on track coupled with my own warped sense of reality led me to christen the bike Red 5. In my sad little world I was manouvering straight down a trench on the Death Star, pursued by Darth Vader himself, and muttering "Stay on target".

I made Dawson City and realised it was already much later than anticipated as I'd crossed a time zone and come forward an hour. Added to that I'd been held at a stop sign for roadworks for twenty minutes (!!) and no one had mentioned that you have to actually get a ferry into Dawson as there is no bridge. Dawson was another wild west type town founded during the Klondike gold rush, and even had the false fronts on the buildings just like in a western. I had a cup of coffee that would have given even the most wired caffeine addict (yes, I mean you Phil) extra chest hairs and promptly left town knowing that it was 5pm and I had at least four hours riding to the next place to stay.

Unfortunately in my haste to leave I'd done some calculations which had me refuelling in Stuart Crossing. I went howling out of town in a cloud of caffeine and adrenaline and got to a signpost telling me I was still 129km from Stuart Crossing before I realised I was going to run out of fuel. I had no idea how I'd messed up but there it was, I had fuel for maybe 100 more km based on my fuel gauge. I settled at a steady 56mph and determined to get as close as I could before the bike cut out and I had to walk to the gas station, all the while hoping that there would be services in the middle of nowhere.

The last chunk of the fuel gauge - approximately a gallon of fuel - came up as I passed a sign saying 79km to go. I thought I could get maybe 50 miles per gallon if I was careful so the most frugal race in history was on. The "running on fumes" light had been blinking at me for 20 miles as I coasted down the hill into Stuart Crossing, breathing again. At the pump the bike's 22 litre tank took 21 litres, so I probably still had another 12 miles or so left. I'm still completely amazed at the fuel consumption I'm getting despite the heavy load on the bike.

I still had "four hours" to go to Whitehorse. Everyone measures distances in time around here, it makes me wonder what average speed they work at... "how far is Carmacks?"
"two hours"
"Ok but what if I go twice as fast??"

Heading out of Stuart Crossing rapidly, I noticed the truck behind me behaving a little strangely and on a hunch I slowed to the speed limit (90kph). Sure enough, after tailing me for a few more miles the truck pulled past and they were Canadian Sweeney. Disappointingly they were not dressed like Mounties.

The sun painted my shadow on the road and we were riding in tandem until sunset. The only dark cloud in an otherwise blue sky spilled a rainbow into the spruce forests, beautiful but looking like it was straight out of a cartoon. The forests themselves bore the scars of countless fires, long dead Spruce surrounded by new growth.

By the time I got to Carmacks I'd had enough and stopped for the night. Total just under four hundred miles but a very long day.

Whatever happens I have to get Red 5 some decent off road tyres before we hit any more gravel roads. The current road tyres are about as effective on gravel as a one legged man in an arse kicking competition. Of course it could be a poor workman blaming his tools :)

Frase.

Denali to Valdez

Valdez in the rain is a dreary experience. Dense clouds obscure the view of surrounding mountains and glaciers, and Valdez is the sort of town that needs a view because there isn't much else.

I spent a couple of days camping in Denali National Park. Having arrived in the first camp site I found, I noticed a couple of BMW F650s and chose the tent pitch across from them. The guys came over when they saw my VStrom pull up and we got chatting. Hans and Volker are two crazy German doctors that had ridden to Alaska from Germany, via Eastern Europe, Russia, Khazakstan and Siberia. It turned out they had also done a trip around Central and South America many years before, so they were full of useful information. Then the campsite host turned up and I got into trouble for having parked my bike in a no vehicle zone :)

The park road into Denali is closed to traffic but shuttle buses run down the length of it. I'd heard that going to Eielson on the park road would give me a good view of Mount McKinley (picture above), however it was only ever visible through the clouds 30% of the time. So I booked myself onto an Eielson shuttle the next day. The bus ran out some 60 miles through the Alaska Range, mountains which bisect Alaska into North and South. McKinley itself is mostly obscured from view by closer peaks, but occasionally you get a tantalising glimpse. In the earlier part of the trip clouds completely wreathed the mountain.

The shuttle bus runs to a loose timetable - any wildlife that is spotted the bus stops for pictures. We saw a Caribou, a Grizzly which was almost blonde in colour and some Dall sheep. I thought the whole thing a little too touristy for my tastes and preferred the bleakness of the Brooks Range and the wildlife there, but will be the first to admit I was pressed up against the window trying to photograph the bears. Plus someone else driving meant I didn't have to worry about bumping into the scenery for a second time :)

I got talking to a lady called Anja, from Zurich and when the bus stopped at Eielson we went for a brief hike down to the river, something I wasn't going to do on my own (call me paranoid). We didn't see any bears but I saw a moose hiding in some trees by a lake.

The bus ride back to the park entrance was much quieter, it stopped to let everyone photograph another bear and a red fox, but then most people (me included) fell asleep. Getting off the bus we bumped into Hans and Volker and the four of us had a good chat, during which Hans suggested that it would be rude to speak anything other than English. As the only non German this was much appreciated :)

Anja had to catch a bus and Hans went into town to a bar which allowed him Internet access, leaving Volker and me to chat. We built a fire back at the tents and sat down with a beer. During our chat a chance mention of back pain I have been suffering for a few years led Volker to perform a manouver which "cracked" my back - and my sore ribs from the crash - and I've not had pain since. No sign of Aurora Borealis (the Northern Lights) unfortunately even though it actually got quite dark by 1am when Hans returned.

The next day we broke camp and went for breakfast. The guys had offered me some excellent advice over the last couple of days and it was hard to part company, but they were off to Fairbanks and I was headed south.

I crossed the Denali Highway which is a gravel road through the Alaska Range, a very demanding ride (for me, anyway) but well worth the effort just for the scenery.

I turned south to visit Valdez on the coast and got as far as Sourdough Creek where I stopped for the night. I camped outside the Sourdough Lodge, vintage 1903, which is about as historic as Alaska gets. Pretty basic but the food was amazing. Sourdough is an Alaskan speciality, and at the Lodge they have their own recipe and make most of their bread with it. The old couple running the place are typical Alaskans, rugged like the land, with lifestyles about as far removed from mine as possible.

A family from Indianapolis asked me to share a glass of wine with them after dinner and we had a chat until the sun started to sink.

In the morning I had to keep running for cover whilst I was breaking camp as I found I was sharing the site with about 3 million biting insects.

The road to Valdez just kept getting better, all mountains and glaciers, then after crossing the Thompson Pass it ran through the Keystone Canyon and became all waterfalls. I was rolling along swearing softly in my helmet, in awe of the dramatic scenery.

Then at the end of the road is Valdez, an oil terminal and the end of the Trans Alaska pipeline I had followed from Prudhoe Bay. They try to dress it up for tourists but it's essentially Milford Haven and about as interesting. Then the rain closed in and it seemed to suit Valdez.

Meantime the bruising on my legs is getting better, and my side is much improved. My feet still hurt but the bruising is fading.

Fraser.

Ouch

I'm not a superstitious person generally but working with computers I should probably have known better than to buy and affix a "Dalton Highway - mission complete" sticker to my bike when I got to Prudhoe Bay. Of course Prudhoe Bay is only half the mission, you have to get back to civilisation in one piece too. Whilst I just about managed that, the bike was not so lucky.

It started well enough, Jim and I left Prudhoe Bay in reasonable conditions and some sun. It wasn't especially cold and we took it really easy through the horrible road surfaces across the Arctic tundra. Once again we climbed the Atigun pass to cross the Brooks Range, and again I really enjoyed the scenery. Coming down through the lower sections of the mountains, the road has steep 45 degree gravel shoulders and is lined with large rocks. We swept around a bend and saw a car decorated with stickers saying 'Buenos Aires to Alaska' and there was a chap standing by the car. He was pointing behind us, so I took a look in my mirror and there was an immense rainbow across the valley. I thought it was so pretty I'd have another look so checked my mirror again to get a better view.

Unfortunately I should really have been looking where I was going, I put a wheel in the hard shoulder and lost control of the bike. Once it had started to go there was nothing I could do, even though it was all happening slowly - couldn't brake, couldn't steer so I rolled off as much speed as I could and waited for the painful bit. I guess I was doing about 45mph.

I ended up in a heap with the bike on top of me, but I was lucky in that I managed to miss all the big rocks at roadside. By the time Jim rode back up, sounding his horn to attract attention, I'd managed to extricate myself from under the bike and give myself the once over for broken bits. My feet were throbbing and I was convinced my left foot was broken for a few minutes, until the initial pain subsided and I could move my toes and arch my foot. Then there was a nasty pain in my right side, which I wasn't too sure about.

Fortunately I'd invested in good gear - my crash helmet had taken a good knock and my shoulder armour was badly dented. So things could have been a lot worse.

The Argentinian chap and a truck driver had by this time turned up, and helped Jim right the bike (Jim had insisted I sit down). I got my wind back and gave the bike the once over - broken gearshift lever, broken windshield, broken rear indicator and the pannier locks were buckled. Not too bad. I managed to knock the bike into neutral and get it running. Things were looking up - after all we were in the Brooks Range, at least 300 miles from the nearest help. Jim ziptied the luggage back into place after I beat the brackets straight with a rock. Then I rode the bike a few dozen yards and managed to change gear by hooking my foot right under the broken lever.

We thanked the two guys for their help and rode off slowly in the direction of Coldfoot, to get fuel and consider our options. The bike actually handled ok, I was getting a bit of buffetting over the broken screen but I could live with that. The biggest problem was my confidence over the gravel. Every time we came to a corner I would slow to a crawl. Then we hit a thick mud surface - we'd ridden this road at 50mph the day before, but overnight rain had turned it into a quagmire. At 15mph the bikes were almost unrideable, both Jim and I were slewing sideways. Coldfoot took an age to reach, but as I pulled up and turned off the engine I heard barking and yapping off in the woods nearby. It wasn't until the yapping turned to howling that I realised it was a pack of wolves. Jim wanted to leave at that point, but we fuelled up and discussed our options. It was about 5.30pm and we'd covered 250 miles, but as it would be light almost all night, we could consider riding all the way to Fairbanks. I figured I would be virtually immobile with bruising the next day so this sounded like a good plan.

The roads south of Coldfoot were at least 100% better than further north, and we made reasonable time, however the pain was pretty bad and not helped by the fatigue of riding 500 miles in one day. By the time we reached Fairbanks it was all I could do to stay on the bike. Jim was stiff as a board too. We stayed at a decent but expensive hotel and split the cost of the room. I slept like a log for the first time in a few days too.

The next day Jim was due to head East toward Canada, I was in no state to go anywhere so I decided to have a day off. I said my goodbyes to Jim and thanked him for his help and cool head after I binned it. It felt like we had known each other for ages instead of a couple of days. I reserved another room and spent the day patching up the damage to the bike, and investigating whether jacuzzis are any good for bruising. A combination of the warm water and Ibuprofen seemed to work pretty well.

The suzuki dealer in town had none of the broken parts so gaffer tape and a spare indicator bulb made the bike not quite as good as new. Add to that the half inch thick layer of cement-like dirt and the bike really needs some TLC.

Today I rode 100 miles or so down to Denali National Park and will be spending a few days camping here and sightseeing in the park. With luck my bruises will have healed up by the time I get back on the road.

Frase.

The Arctic

I'm sitting in my hotel room in Deadhorse, Alaska having just visited the Arctic Ocean. It's half past midnight and still not really dark outside. Getting here was a bit of a test though, for me probably more than the bike.

I met Jim as we'd planned on the ferry, outside a Harley dealership in Fairbanks on Saturday morning. The distance from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay, which is as far north as you can go without a plane, is about 500 miles so we planned to split the ride over two days, and camp around halfway at a site called Marion Creek.

Jim is very organised and had prepared well for his trip. He had an idea of the route and had booked himself on a tour out to the arctic ocean, and had a hotel room arranged. He had a CB radio, about thirty years of bike experience, military training and just about every conceivable thing that might be needed in an emergency. I, on the other hand, had chocolate and optimism.

Jim must have felt a bit short changed in the arrangement. The first hour was spent with me using his cellphone to call and book an arctic tour, then a hotel room for the following night. Finally we hit the road, which was fine for fifty miles or so. Then we got off the decent stuff and onto the Dalton Highway. The James W Dalton highway has been open to the public since about 1995 - before that it was a haul road used by the oil companies. It doesn't really qualify as a road, more of a glorified dirt track in most places. It runs 414 miles from Livengood north of Fairbanks, to Deadhorse just short of the Arctic Ocean.

As soon as we hit the Dalton the road became a gravel/dirt track which had turned into a mud bath because of all the rain. It hadn't really stopped raining for the last two days. About two minutes into it, the bike was fishtailing and sliding about, and as Jim was in front and I was a bit too close to him, my visor was completely covered in mud. Once I had the hang of letting the bike slide around, and had wiped the mud off my visor, things got a little easier. It was still cold and soaking wet though, and at Finger Mountain we'd both had enough for a bit. We pulled into a layby and Jim went rushing straight over to a tour bus and stuck his hands into the radiator to warm them up. I joined him and pretty soon we were getting some odd looks from the bus passengers.

Reluctantly pulling away we decided to try to reach the Arctic circle for an obligatory photo at the Circle signpost. We rode most kinds of road surface to get there - potholes, mud, gravel, and washboard, which is where an unsealed road gets rutted. The washboard surface really gets your teeth rattling! After pictures at the Arctic Circle, the latitude line above which the sun nevers sets at summer solstice, we pushed on to Coldfoot for a hot meal before stopping for the night five miles up the road at Marion Creek campsite. We were cold, wet and filthy and there was good company (a couple of other motorcyclists on their way south) and a nice warm restaurant and hotel at Coldfoot. The reluctance to go camping was palpable. Still, when we arrived we found there was an official campsite host in his RV. We had a chat and he told us the rules of the site, and warned us about bears. Apparently, a grizzly had killed a moose there the previous week and "covered" the kill, meaning he intended to come back to it. We were asked to report bear and wolf sightings, to avoid the creek and told "don't take any ham sandwiches in your tent".


Jim got a fire going and we set up our tents. He produced a bear strength pepper spray and I showed him my bear-scare foghorn thing. We talked into the small hours and at about midnight, when it was still twilight, we turned in. About fifty seconds later there was a snorting noise nearby and after panicking a bit I realised it was Jim snoring. Military training - when it's time to sleep it's time to sleep!

Fearing a kind of reverse-Goldilocks affair the next morning where the bears break in and steal our porridge, we had a couple of snack bars and hit the road. The riding was the hardest yet, again crossing tough sections of track. In order to reach Prudhoe Bay, the road (with the trans Alaska oil pipeline running alongside) has to cross the Brooks Range, a massive chain of mountains. It does this at the Atigun Pass, which was the highlight of the trip so far for me. Riding above the low clouds wreathed around the peaks, up above the snow line, in freezing conditions on that gravel road is a memory that will stay with me for a while.

After the Brooks Range there is a hundred miles or so of flat tundra, covered with Caribou and strange people in camouflage carrying bows. Obviously it is not sporting enough to use an uzi or a rifle to kill things. Maybe this is why there is far more wildlife in the Yukon than in Alaska. I thought we were going to get shot at when we rode past a herd, and Jim's deer whistle scared them away from the hunters by the road side. How we chuckled...

Arriving in Prudhoe Bay both Jim and I nearly crashed as the bikes got sideways on some calcium carbonate slurry stuff that they were spraying on the roads. It was not a nice end to a tough ride. I was too tired to punch the air or anything, so just settled for a smile and a hunt around for a soft pillow for my bum.

It turned out that I had a great deal on my last minute hotel, it was much cheaper than the one Jim was in and (horror) included free food for guests 24 hours a day. It's a good job it's a one night stay. Jim was justifiably a bit cheesed off but I got him a doggy bag of lunch and we went on the Arctic Ocean tour. The last eight miles of land is owned by the oil companies so if you want to see the Ocean you have to take the tour. It was pretty interesting but a blatant sales pitch. I was going to dip my toes in the Arctic Ocean rather than actually swim, but it turned out that there was no swimming allowed as a Polar bear had been seen in the area the day before. I guess it would be bad PR if the tour guests went swimming and came face to face with a living Fox's Glacier Mint ad.

After waggling my fingers in the water - which actually was not as cold as some dives I've done - we went back to the hotel and I fuelled the bike at the tiny fuel outpost. It's a couple of oil drums and a small shack with a credit card machine.

Tomorrow and pretty much every other day from now on will be all about the journey south. I feel pretty good as I've made at least one of the two goals on this trip. The other one lies at the other end of the world.

More pictures at http://frase.smugmug.com and I'll upload more when I can.

Frase.

Alaska - British Columbia - Yukon - Alaska!

Today I have finally managed to get Internet access at the Museum of the North in Fairbanks, Alaska. The last two days have been an, um, interesting experience. It all started ok with the ferry journey from Wrangell to Haines - journeying through Frederick Sound we were surrounded by Humpback Whales, it was millpond calm so very easy to see all the whales blowing. After a rough night on a sofa in the observation lounge, I had decided to get off the ferry at Haines instead of Skagway as it was a slightly shorter and supposedly much prettier route. The ferry docked a 5.45am so I roared off along the Haines Highway at stupid o'clock in the morning, still tired and knowing that it would be at least a 300 mile day.

I quickly ran out of superlatives for the scenery. I stopped about five times in as many miles to just gawk, I even forgot to take pictures. After about 20 miles or so I stopped at a wide floodplain to take a picture, and saw a grizzly bear (it may have been a very big black bear) about a mile upstream. Not for the first time I chided myself for not packing binoculars. It was however freezing cold for the first time on the trip. Just a little before the road went through Canadian customs into British Columbia, I stopped for a very Hobbit like "second breakfast" at a tiny gas station (sign read, Food, Gas, Beer so just the essentials!) just to warm up really. Crossing into BC the scenery changed - did it realise it was supposed to as it was now Canada? - and became a sort of tundra, with lots of (I think) Marmots sitting on their hind legs watching me. There was absolutely nothing and no one for mile after mile.

Euphoria

The wonderful glaciers, mountains and wildlife gave me a feeling of complete freedom and a sense of how completely cool nature is. Every time I thought something looked amazing then something else would come along, and so the journey along the Haines Highway continued. Even the crossing into Canada was painless. I didn't want the day to end. "Incomprehensibly vast" became the Frase phrase of the day, and I used it without mercy to describe everything.

Still very cool

After the crossing from BC into the Yukon the scenery changed again, on the left was Kluane which when added to Wrangell-St Elias national park in Alaska forms the largest protected place on Earth. I'd been scanning the trees for miles when I should probably have been looking at the road, but around the Destruction Bay area I saw an enormous grizzly, standing right beside the road, licking his chops. This was probably in anticipation of the two cyclists I passed a mile up the road, oblivious and cycling straight towards him. That's the last time they'll complain about pedestrians stepping off the pavement in front of them :)

I filled up again with petrol rather than let the bike run below half a tank full. It was at this point I started to notice how cold I was.

Really want to get off now, thanks

Over the next 50 miles or so I just kept adding clothes under my jacket to try to warm up, to no avail. Added to that it started to rain. The Yukon still passed by as before and drew my attention but it was just too cold to enjoy it. I needed to stop for the night soon. I was aware I was supposed to be meeting Jim in Fairbanks on Saturday and wanted to make Beaver Creek on the Alaska/Canada border. So I kept going.

I then remembered that actually I had a few Canadian Dollars left but plenty of US. So stopping in Alaska made more sense than stopping in the Yukon. It was just a short hop over the border. In a blindingly stupid moment of idiocy I rode straight through Beaver Creek without really checking where the next town was (in miles) and headed for the US border.

Numb

The border for Canada is about 30 miles before the border for the US, so I really don't have a clue who owns the land in between. Signposts (Km in Canada and miles in US) were non existent, so I couldn't really decide. My fingers and toes were so cold I was having a hard time controlling the bike, and I was wobbling about in the road. There was absolutely no one else on the road, even though it was still only about 5pm Alaska time.

By the time I got to the US border I couldn't really speak properly and just needed a hot shower and sleep. The border official was a really nice guy, he asked a few questions (mostly about the bike!) and I tried to give one word answers. He said "First time in Alaska?" and I nodded dumbly. Then he asked if I wanted an Alcan stamp in my passport and I tried to grin, but instead my teeth just chattered. "Pppplease".

I hope he doesn't think all English folks are like me.

I finally made Tok completely numb at about 7pm. The last fifty miles of road is actually just gravel and dust as roadworks have put paid to any tarmac. Which of course was now wet muck, as it had been raining all afternoon. The first three motels I found were all full, I'd been promising myself a hot shower all afternoon and was mortified at the thought of camping. A lady at one of the motels told me about vacancies at another place so I managed to get a room, have a shower, eat and crash out.

In the morning job number one was to fix my right mirror as the roadworks had shaken loose the bodge fix that my friends had done after I dropped the bike on it's test run. On one particularly bone shaking bump the mirror and bike parted company, and my joy at deftly catching the mirror was short lived as I nearly crashed the bike.

The ride from Tok to Fairbanks was pretty uneventful - like riding down a long straight green tunnel - until about 80 miles from Fairbanks I rode past some moose on my side of the road, close enough to see their gorgeous chocolate colour coats glistening in the rain. Then another set of road works.

I'm looking forward to a rest tonight before I meet Jim in the morning and press on to Prudhoe Bay on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The bike really needs a clean.

Fraser.

Bears

I'm writing this outside a coffee shop in Wrangell, which is a tiny town on Wrangell Island in South East Alaska. I think the population is about 2000. When I hear the term frontier town it creates a certain mental image (tumbleweed blowing down the street and Clint Eastwood dressed in a blanket) and Wrangell is not far off that.

However the sun came out today and the view is breathtaking.

I had hoped I might be able to see some bears whilst stopped in Wrangell for a few days, and I was not disappointed. There is a US Forestry Service observation platform at Anan on the mainland, and it is possible to get a boat trip over there, however when the salmon are running during July and August numbers are strictly controlled by permits. So I really didn't have much hope of getting to Anan when I arrived on Sunday.

Yesterday morning I went to one of the larger trip operators and found they had 4 remaining spaces on a trip so I booked. After an hour or so on a fast boat we arrived at Anan, which used to be a Tlingit (native American) gathering place. Our guide slung a shotgun over his shoulder in case we encountered any aggressive bears, as the trail leading to the observatory is the bears' domain. After a peaceful fifteen minute stroll through the Pacific rainforest, dodging bear "droppings" and learning a bit about bears from our guide, we arrived at the observation platform. There were black bears everywhere. The smell of dead fish was the first thing you noticed, followed quickly by just how little the bears seemed to be bothered by the presence of a few dozen humans.

The reason for so many bears was immediately apparent - there is a small waterfall and the salmon were backed up for at least a quarter of a mile trying to jump the fall. The bears lazily camped out next to the approach to the fall and it was like an all you can eat salmon buffet. The bears would only be interested in the female fish, they eat the brain and roe (eggs) and discard the rest. So there were eagles and crows by the dozen trying to clean up.

Visiting the toilet was interesting as it was outside the observation platform in the bears' territory. One lady was in the toilet and had to stay there as a mother and two cubs walked right past the door. Eventually they went down to the river and she was able to leave!

I managed to spend half an hour in a photo hide down by the river which put me nose to nose with the bears. I got plenty of photos and video but the time flew past and it was soon time to leave.

However the show wasn't over as a brown (grizzly) bear appeared just across the river from us as we headed down the path back to the boat. The sun came out for the trip home and the day was complete. Some Canadians I met on the tour invited me to dinner with them and were keen to hear about the trip. They were delighted to hear I was going to pass close to their home town of Calgary and I left with some addresses and promised to stop by if I could. Leaving the restaurant I met an Irish chap who has been living in Alaska for thirty years. He was keen to find out if I supported Arsenal and was pleased to find out I didn't! But he very kindly went through some detailed maps of Alaskan roads with me, he knew them well as he'd been working on the construction of a lot of them. His parting gift was a foghorn type device for scaring off bears!

I finally got to pitch my tent in failing light at about 9.30pm. It was the end of a spectacular day and the sun was plunging into the Pacific ocean in an amazing display of deep orange, surrounded by snow capped peaks.

I leave Wrangell for the mainland tomorrow, it will take a further day to reach Skagway and start my journey in Alaska proper. But I will never forget this place or the people I met here.

Fraser.

Whales and eagles

The ferry north was amazing. A couple of days of sailing through nothing but fir trees and narrow passages between islands. Man has a very minor presence here, and just seeing the place makes me feel very small indeed.

I hooked up with a few other overlanders whilst queuing for the ferry, one guy heading up to Prudhoe Bay in the north like me, and others touring around Alaska. The first evening I had no idea where I was going to sleep so I just wandered around aimlessly, then finally collapsed in a chair near the front of the ship at about 1 a.m. Others had pitched tents on deck or rolled out their sleeping bags where they could.

The following day dawned as we were passing up the coast of Vancouver Island. Standing on the port side of the ship I saw a huge dorsal fin pass close by, a male killer whale. Shortly afterward there was a small pod of what looked like porpoise. The water was so clear you could clearly see the black and white markings. Later in the day I saw a humpback whale stick his head out, so I got some video and he obliged by surfacing again, blowing and then raising his tail as he dived.

When we got into the tighter passages it was possible to see bald eagles in the trees. At one point an eagle flew right over the boat checking us out. The second evening I had made arrangements to meet Jim, Mike and Greg (the other overlanders) in the bar to discuss our various routes through Alaska.

Mike and Greg were planning to push south towards Anchorage, whereas Jim was planning to head all the way up to the Arctic Ocean like me. However he would be a few days ahead of me as I would be stopping at Wrangell.

We arranged to meet up at Fairbanks on Friday evening and then assault the Haul Road (the old name for the Dalton Highway) up to the Arctic Ocean together over next weekend. I'm fairly confident I can ride from Skagway to Fairbanks over Thursday and Friday, so this seemed doable, and it would be very comforting to have a little company on one of the remotest stretches of my whole trip.

In a short while I will be disembarking for Wrangell, which I'm hoping will be a quiet break for a couple of days. Then Wednesday I will pick up another ferry for Skagway. Hopefully I will be able to update the blog soon.

Fraser.