Day 15 July 14, 2014

Day 15  July 14, 2014

I was up early and quietly packed up my belongings and left the motel at 7:30 A.M. and gassed up the K 75 S before coming across a true hallmark of the Alaskan Highway experience- the famous Sign Forest in Lake Watson.  This is an impossibly vast and unique collection of address signs of all kinds mounted on poles and boards from all over the world to mark travel’s visits to Lake Watson as personal milestones.  Photos taken.

Determined riding was needed to achieve the 200+ miles to reach Whitehorse, the only town of any size in the Yukon, by lunch time.  I ended up at a Mexican restaurant for the midday meal and enjoying yet another sunny and warm day (!) wandered over to the modest two-story Yukon government building, located next to the 2,000 mile long Yukon River with its delightful River Walk pathway for joggers and bicyclists.  I recorded several vehicles in the parking lot displaying electrical cords extending though their front grilles, allowing folk to plug in heated engine oil dipsticks during the frigid Yukon winters to prevent their vehicle engine lubricants from freezing solid.  A really, really tough place to be during the Wintertime, I’m certain.

About 50 miles west of Whitehorse, I encountered a fellow rider, Sean from Alaska on a huge Victory motorcycle with a flat rear tire.  I stopped to help if possible and learned that Sean was deaf and needed to communicate by writing down his thoughts and then reading my responses.  We were soon joined by two Harley riders who also stopped to help and a passing Yukon public services worker in a pick up truck who had a satellite mobile phone available to call a motorcycle service shop back in Whitehorse to come and rescue Sean in this completely remote and unpopulated area.

Another burst of hard riding over seriously deteriorating frost-heaved roads landed me in Haines Junction, Yukon by late afternoon.  I treated myself to a Danish and a cookie at a friendly local bakery.  Haines Junction is the gateway to the recreational area of Yukon’s Kluane National Park Reserve (pronounced Klew - An’- Ay, as I learnt at the bakery) and is framed with a gorgeous chain of forested mountains.  My ambitious goal was to reach the tiny community of Beaver Creek, Yukon, located just east of the Yukon/Alaska border by the end of this day. After dealing with several more buckboard  rides through road construction sites, I stopped for a breather in desolate Destruction Bay, still on Yukon Route 1.  Off the bike and during a stretch, I was horrified to see splashed fluid all over the back of my saddlebags!  Looking further into the situation, I discovered the rear shock also coated in fluid as well and the entire rear swing arm/rear drive housing of the motorcycle also dripping wet.  If the fluid was coming from the rear drive housing, I was toast, as the rear drive gears would be destroyed by the heat and friction of running without their required lubricating bath.  After a short ride and rechecking the area in question, I determined that the fluid was instead coming from a blown rear monoshock seal.  I now faced the prospect of having zero dampening for the 1,000+ miles yet to go, and po-going with only the rear spring to support the weight of me, my load, and the top of the motorcycle.  Nice…..

The last 50 miles before reaching Beaver Creek were the worst of the trip.  I bottomed out any number of times and just made it to Beaver Creek before running out of gas due to a number of closed down and boarded up gas stations in that stretch.  I arrived at a campground in Beaver Creek at 10:15 P.M. but feeling strangely fresh and grateful to have arrived in one piece.  I camped next to a fellow BMW rider from Nebraska and fought off a determined squadron of mosquitoes, prepared with a full, upper-body mosquito netting jacket to keep the swarm of little bastards away from my blood.  I cooked up a can of stew and ate it in the tent, noting the sun was still streaming into the tent and had not yet hit the horizon by 11:45 P.M.  Sleep.