Day 8

We start early today, 7:00. We cover about 630 miles. Most of this was through the Canadian Rockies. But, 100 of those miles were some of the most exhilarating and beautiful I've ever experienced. This is Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula only longer and you're inside instead of running along the edge. Pushing it to the limit on the twisties, I lost sight of Bruce a few times while exercising my "youthful exuberance" - that is, for most of the “good parts”. This road begs to be ridden at full throttle. Probably clogged with campers and trailers later in the season, today, we had it mostly to ourselves. It's a simple two lane highway, a little rough, but beautifully laid out along a series of lakes and rivers. It was difficult to decide whether to cruise along and drink in the views or crank it on and devourer the road. I chose the latter most of the time. But, at devour speeds, there is little time to look anywhere but at the road ahead and the next turn. That would be wrong. So, I dropped it down for pics and just to take it in. It is a fantastic place and a fantastic ride! It was the “perfect storm” of rides, at least, for our kind of heavy tourers. If there was ever any question about the performance of the darkside tires, I don't have any. There was more stop, more go, and more carve than with any conventional motorcycle tire.

On the stops, we saw mountains, eagles, ravens, bears, caribou, moose, marmot (big squirrels) and buffalo. Yup, buffalo! We saw 4 but there are about 1200 of thyem wandering about in the mountains. Go figure! Wild buffalo ... in the woods ... on mountains. Doesn't seem natural! But, the buffalo don't care. They like it.

But, no picture or sequence of pictures can do this road (Route 97 – The Alaska Highway) between Testa River Campground and Laird River Hot Springs justice. You have to see and be it. (BTW: Gas in BC is $1.599/liter. That's like ... per quart!! In the Yukon ... $1.099 looks like a bargain!!)

Hopefully, with fewer distractions tomorrow, we can burn the final 610 miles and spend the tomorrow night in Dawson City, the staging point for the assault on the dirt to Inuvik. The schedule would work out to be: arrive in Dawson City on June 1st, run to Eagle Plains on the 2nd. And, then, on the 3rd, the day the final ferry to Inuvik is put into service, make the final run across the Arctic Circle and the end of the road. Of course, stuff happens. So, once again, the Arctic Circle may elude me.

We'll see ...