A little interjection from me and some thoughts about the Dalton Highway (I'm a survivor
)
We did the Dalton up in two stages which was just perfect because the weather was generally pretty poor. The trip down was in one lump, a little short of 500 miles.
I wanted to tell you about the Dalton though. This road challenges and pushes you more than any other road. There isn't a great deal of tarmac on it for starters. The road is mostly packed dirt and gravel and when the dirt is churned up and repacked each season or so there is a chemical mixed (some 'calcium whatchamacallit') which when wet becomes as slippy as ice especially for a bike. There are a couple of occasions when the bike slides around a bit but it's fine.
The other complexity riding the Dalton is the amount of roadworks. You often have to be escorted slowly through the roadworks which goes slow. The road area is a mess and you're going slow through deep churned mud, at one point I bottom the bike on a mud hole figuring I was going to take a bath. We stop and wait around 15 minutes twice for the escort van and this is the opportunity for the mosquito to swarm and feast by the billion, we don 'mozzie' nets over the helmet to save ourselves being lunch. The roadworking equipment is enormous and a couple of times I play chicken with them because I'm trying to switch lanes in the wet over big mounds of dirt!
When the road is clear and largely dry you can push on pretty quick. We run at 60 to 70 mph in many parts which are largely gravel or compact, dry mud. The bike squirms as you push on, but it's fun. One one section through a forest I push on at 70 mph on a narrow tyre track, oblivious to the thought that a moose or a bear could be waiting for me round a corner!
The other thing to consider on the Dalton, (which is a mixed blessing), is trucks. If it all goes wrong the truckers will help and transport your bike. But meantime on the road, they whirl past at tremendous speeds and nearly blow you off your bike. At the bottom of hills, we stop and let them run down first, you don't to share road space with someone that is free falling at high speed.
When you do find bits of tarmac, it is obviously falling to bits and the 3D puzzle on the ground is a life and bike ending opportunity.
The Dalton has a real unpredictability about it which is the weather. The run South from Deadhorse to the Atigun Pass is fine and we move at pace, just after the slippy Atigun Pass the rain starts and comes at a furious rate which makes the ride fun! Everything is wet and covered in a deep mud, in fact even my mud has mud on it. The other thing about the weather is, we were sat at the Hot Shots Cafe in the sun, enjoying a milkshake and 2 corners later we're in a monsoon. This is the real challenge of the Dalton, in great weather, it's a breeze, throw in the rain and you're up against it.
12 hours after setting off, we make the University in Fairbanks, everyone is hyper from the ride. For me, this is the best day and ride of my life, I worked hard and loved it. The Dalton is for me, the best road in the world and I survived it. Many don't.
I'm keeping a separate blog at
www.nomadbiker.co.uk, just muscling in on Chris.....
Those babies run at between 60 and 70 on the dirt and weigh 40 tonnes so it's best to keep out of the way although the drivers are pretty good.
Canada Day, Yukon Gold, dancing girls and mad mikey murdoch are a brutal combination
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