Day 1 (Denver CO to Casper WY)

• Goodbye sweet H&M. I wonder what we’ve forgotten.
• Northern WY is open green, uninhabited, gorgeous pre-big sky
• Beautiful weather. N wants to see the first NBA Awards.
• Nice bike; way too nice for me

Day 2 (Casper WY to Billings MT)

• Cowboy and Indian landscapes w/ rising precipices and valleys
• Beautiful riding weather, except for 20 mins of torrential rain
• Billings MT has a refinery, stockyard, rail yard, and even some hi-rises
• Looks sort of rough and tumble

Day 3 (Billings MT to Helena MT)

• Threaded the needle between storms and lightning in heavy traffic through hilly terrain
• Amazing Big Sky country, but who lives here? What about winter?
• Is N sleeping?
• Would have been a nice place to be born, leave, visit once in a while in the summer
• We need to send N & M here to work on a dude ranch
• Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It:

“What a beautiful world it once was. At least a river of it was.”

• [Yellowstone series, ranch = at Darby MT]
• We skirted along the north side of Yellowstone National Park, looking across at the peaks of the majestic Tetons. The winds gusted us across half a lane, from time to time. Put a liner in N’s jacket.
• Revisited in 2022, riding alone: made it from Billings MT to Lethbridge AB

Day 4 (Helena MT to Calgary AB)

• At the border: “Do you have a statement of parental consent? Are you being kidnapped?” If N had wanted to pull the plug on the trip, that was his last EZ out. No wait at border; in 2022, waited 20 mins at Coutts AB.
• Tank 1: 42.4 mpg; Tank 2: 38.4 mpg. Range 35 x 6 = minimum 210 miles per tank.
• Difference caused by heavy headwinds as we headed west to Bozeman, plus mountains vs easy ride north to Helena. Is a range of 210 enough for the Alaska Highway? Maybe there was a reason HD HOG LOG never mentions it as one of their “10 Great Rides.”

Day 5 & 6 (Calgary AB to Whitecourt AB)

• Calgary: a beautiful and affluent city. Lush farmland. If life is too short to live in Montana, what does that say about 36 million Canadians?
• Canadian Independence Day = 1 July: “150 Years of Greatness.” That’s a lot of really great.
• A nanny state. Actual examples from ads and radio:
  • Don’t jump off bridges
  • Wear a life jacket when swimming in rivers
  • Look both ways before crossing streets (JK)
  • Think and Drive!
  • Wash Hands – Avoid Cross Contamination
• June and July are great months to live in the Westin. All N needs for a great vacation are: a) pool; b) gym; c) room service. “This is the best hotel ever. Let’s stay another night.”
• To Whitecourt: say goodbye to city life
• SE Alberta in July is Iowa on steroids: more land, water, sun, plus oilfields. “Jed, move away from there; California is the place you oughta be.”
• Meadows and forests; US midwest used to be similar, before someone cut down all the trees
• Two hours out of Calgary the route turns into a collection of broken two-lane cow paths

Day 7 (Whitecourt AB to Dawson Creek BC)

• A recurring distraction every 20 miles, the signs read: “Distracted Driver Law in Effect”
• Signs in hotel: “No muddy boots”
• New long-term stay hotel with 98% vacancy; at breakfast we learn that the entire town was fully booked two years ago. These are the last two mother-frackers remaining. One of them was wearing muddy boots.
• Go West Young Man, To Alaska!
• 1,600 miles and we’re still not on the Alaska Highway (250 miles more to get to Mile Marker Zero in Dawson Creek)
• Only 1,800 miles more to Anchorage. Whew.
• The Romans could have built this road out of Whitecourt for the oil and logging companies, our very own autobahn (Hwy 43)
• Nicco killed a coupla bugs in Alberta

Day 8 (Dawson Creek BC to Fort Nelson BC)

• Wow, tough town
• N deep-sixed Remo. “If you want a National Geographic photographer, you should pay me.”
• Liner for C’s coat
• Strong winds exiting Dawson Creek in rather heavy traffic and hilly terrain
• Spent the day skirting along the east foothills of the British Columbia Rocky Mountains on the first leg of the historic Alaska Highway
• Sweetest Story: Delayed 1/2 hour for highway maintenance. As we waited, the rain came . . . a grandmother in a Buick with WA plates (waiting next ahead of us) got out of her car with a container of homemade chocolate chip cookies gave N two. “They were good!” Such ordinary acts in extraordinary circumstances are truly remarkable. It takes so little effort, but a truly inspired degree of thoughtfulness and kindness. I may never see her again. What can I do to pay it forward? Am I aware enough?
• Chipseal road patches! Treacherous in rain, wind and heavy traffic.
• Everything but the moose, then it cleared, smooth sailing for the final half hour and we landed in Fort Nelson

Day 9 (Fort Nelson BC to Muncho Lake BC)

• Breakfast at the lodge–try to stay in main building! Amazing log construction with hand-carved map, figures, lights, large and small.
• Working visa employees from Europe, New Zealand, Australia eat breakfast together with the owners’ sons. The lodge relies on seasonal workers including teenage girls, approximately the boy’s ages, chosen by Mariane? How did they convince the girls to come hang out in the wilderness for the summer?
• Muncho Lake is beautiful and vast and may have fish, but is used as a water runway for the owner Urs’ “Fly-In Fishing Adventure Business,” where tourists take day fishing trips to other remote lakes.
• During the winter Urs carves and dreams about flying; he once flew in Qadaffi’s Libya
• I returned to the Northern Rockies Lodge in 2022 and spent four days writing A Perfect Finish while I waited for my room reservations at the Edgewater in Whitehorse
• Half-hour ride to the Liard River Hot Springs
• Chipseal: the Canucks repair the road by paving, then finishing with a spread of pea gravel. I’m sure they have adequate technical reasons for the method, but whoever chose it doesn’t ride a Harley. After riding through several patches of chipseal yesterday, I found my favorite Canuck road sign so far–I’ll call it the “Shakey-You-Cycle” sign. It depicts without words a motorcycle being unreasonably shaken over rough roads. For riders already aware of the horrible road conditions, it seemed more of a taunt than a warning.
• There are two types of travelers on the ALCAN: RVs and motorcycles
• Mostly pensioners. It’s a long trip for a working man, and expensive for students. The pensioners mostly pull RVs, so can travel cheaply.
• N loved hot the springs
• Two buffalo bulls along the side of the road–one buffalo grazing and one buffalo scuffling in the dirt

Day 11 (Muncho Lake BC to Watson Lake BC)

• Prochniak Creek–the Russians were here!
• Gorgeous country to Liard Hot Springs
• Some of the most beautiful country we’ve seen
• Wildlife included: family of 3 foxes; 2 bison bufalo; 4 black bears; several eagles
• Goodbye BC British Columbia province; hello YT Yukon Territory
• [There is a chapter in A Perfect Finish which includes a description of this portion of the ride: Chapter 11: The Fatalist particularly the road signs and wildlife.]
• Beautiful weather, very light traffic in the Northern Rockies
• A nice lady from India today informed me that she would not consider visiting California or Alaska because she doesn’t trust the US president
• Met an entire family of Kiwis today; never met one I didn’t like. Let’s go there.

Day 12 (Watson Lake BC to Whitehorse YT)

• Crossed the continental divide wearing sunshine smiles and shirtsleeves
• Yukon Larger Than Life!
• What an eclectic collection of dustbin businesses on the ALCAN. 75% of all roadside businesses are for sale. These would be great spots to place persons enrolled in witness protection. A posting here would be just barely better than to a town in Siberia.
• Then there is Whitehorse!! Wow, an outdoors-man’s paradise. Located on the Yukon River, it’s the capitol of the Yukon Territory.
• The Yukon River was the only highway until WWII.
• Whitehorse was our first adverse experience with “no bookings.” Went to the Whitehorse Visitor Centre; they phoned around for us and found us a room at Westin Hotel for $195. Somehow related to N’s Westin in Calgary? Hmmm . . .
• Elk Stroganoff at the Klondike Rib & Salmon was excellent, then Superman in 3D

Day 13 (Whitehorse YT to Beaver Creek YT)

• Awoke in rain, but after the customary foot-dragging, embarked in dry, albeit threatening conditions. It warmed a little as we rode by the Kluane Mountain Range  which was dressed intermittently in clouds. We passed by so many incredible lakes, streams, rivers. It would be difficult to imagine such a land exists. Where is my National Geographic photographer when I need him?
• Yukon’s territorial flower is fireweed, a perennial with pink-purplish flowers which covers vast stretches of roadsides. Do bees like it?
• We watched golden eagles on the highway for much of the day. The Yukon must be a terrifying place to be a rodent. We saw fifty variations of the squirrel shuffle performed by ground squirrels, prairie dogs, large mice. There is something about the Alaska Highway: they just have to get to the other side. Ravens are patrolling to clean up roadkill.
• At Haines Junction we see our first police car in Canada (it was a decoy)
• Suddenly appeared Kluane Lake. Its rugged beauty is a heart-stopper. Located 2,999 miles from Denver, at 154 square miles, it is the largest in the Yukon.
• Nesting and hunting bald eagles patrol Kluane Lake near Destruction Bay
• Destruction Bay won its name in stormy weather–no surprise. We were here just 1/365 days this year. Had we not visited this day, we couldn’t have thought to wonder what must transpire here on those other days (especially the darker ones). It seems like Destruction Bay at Kluane Lake would be an easy place to die.
• As we rounded the lake we found a bicycle trekker with a feather in his cap, and four BMW 1200s, each with two spare tires.
• The ravens rise lazily off their corpses and we almost pegged a couple. We finally found a raven victim dressed wholly in black, face up along the roadside, posing as though for his own wake. Who manages the undertaker’s wake?
• The highway out of Whitehorse is well-maintained, but the road from Slims River Bridge to Alaska is a motley brew of frost heaves and potholes–a real kidney buster

Day 14 (Beaver Creek YT to Fairbanks AK)

• O Canada . . . goodbye
• N put us in a timeout because I missed the border sign photo-op
• After zipping past the border crossing, it was amazing how directly WEST we rode to arrive at Fairbanks

Day 15 (Fairbanks AK to Denali AK)

• Hotels in Canada show CNN; in Alaska it’s Fox News
• Awoke to rain. Laundry day before heading to Denali National Park.
• We may have passed some beautiful scenery between Fairbanks and Denali, but cannot say on account of the fog
• For most of the ride to Fairbanks, anyone with a backside (cajones optional) could ride this bike. It’s made for smooth pavement and this 3K stripe of asphalt extending all the way to Alaska is a wonderful gift. But when conditions change to wet, rainy, windy, gravelly, hilly, curvey with heavy traffic, in fog, it’s all one can do to stay alive (cajones definitely required). Every serious biker I’ve met has alluded to his own version of this observation.
• The entrance to Denali and the view from the hotel is fabulous . . . but you can never see the mountain from here!
• Jeff King’s Husky Show!! N loved it. Puppies, sled dog treadmill, puppy-hamster wheel, his daughter’s gig, his shop–the whole deal was super.
• N: “When did you stop riding fast?” Reply: “When you were born.”
• N: “How do you shift?” Reply: “You pull this lever, while cutting back the throttle, to release the clutch from the flywheel and while it’s free you change gears, then release the lever to reapply the clutch to the flywheel, while accelerating to begin again.” N: “So this lever is for shifting gears?” Hmm . . . Hanna’s son.

Day 18 (Denali AK to Wasilla AK)

• Today is still “the before”
• It’s not the place, but rather how we were in the place
• Alaska’s Susan Butcher Day:
  • 4x winner of the Iditarod Race
  • 18x finisher
  • Died Aug 2006
  • Prior to her wins at Iditarod, she led a dog team in an assault on McKinley’s summit
• Jack London visited the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush. Prior to that he was a hobo; hobo failed prospector, renowned author. Imagine how place–the Klondike–might transform the course of one’s life.
• Susan Butcher was a duck to water, but Jeff King? What if he had poured all that effort into saving Africa or cornering the copper market? He would have succeeded at whatever he pursued.
• Did Delmar (my grandmother’s ex-husband) ever read Robert Service’s The Spell of the Yukon?
• Mount McKinley elevation 20,320 feet: in August 2015, the US Department of the Interior changed the name to Denali (the Tall One). Five hours into the park by bus–we saw Mount Denali. During the ride, we also saw a grizzly bear, many sheep, many caribou, and a golden eagle play chicken with the bus to snatch a ground squirrel crossing the road. Polychrome Pass, elevation 3,695 was stunning.
• The USA purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million. The deal was negotiated by Secretary of State Seward, who got his own town named after himself.
• Leonard, my father: “In Mexico, they speak another language, but in Canada they speak English. I always thought America should own that country.”

Day 19 (Wasilla AK to Anchorage AK)

• We visited Stan Hooley, my football coach from college who is now the CEO of Iditarod. What an amazing guy. He bought us lunch (I still owe him). The first race was in 1973. Stan was recruited in 1993. When Stan was 35 he landed his dream job. Be careful what you dream.
• “N, does it hurt being 12?” His reply, “A little bit.”

Day 20 (Anchorage AK to Homer AK)

• Checkout early (we manage 10:10) to travel to Homer. I wonder why I never took my brother Kevin to Alaska.
• Captain Cook Hotel overlooks Cook Inlet. Turn Again and Knik Arms are two branches of water at the north end of the inlet. Turn Again was named by William Bligh (of HMS Bounty fame) who served as Captain Cook’s Sailing Master. In search of the Northwest Passage, Bligh confirmed that the inlets led to river mouths, not the NW passage.
• Our drive out of Anchorage around Turn Again was the most spectacular of the trip, so far. The Seward Highway hugs the shoreline where the mountains rise from the sea precipitously on both sides. The tallest is South Suicide Peak (6k). Several glaciers, including Portage.
• Upon arrival, in wind and fog, we went directly to Homer Spit, a five-mile peninsula which encapsulates the docks, and on which an eclectic collection of tourist shops are operated.
• A fisherman’s paradise.
• The weather conditions are nautical.

Day 31 (Homer AK to Glennallen Hwy AK)

• Departed Homer an hour late in cold foggy rain. It prevailed for the first two hours and we were cold all day. The gorgeous views along the Seward Highway were covered in fog throughout our return to Anchorage (no man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man). We should have stopped and captured the spectacular views on the first pass. Live and learn?
• Matsuka Glacier!!

Day 32 (Glenallen Hwy AK to Beaver Creek YT)

• Rollercoaster ride from Glenallen Highway.
• Over one hour wait at Canadian border.
• One hour time change: Alaska is WEST!!, not north of Yukon.

Day 33 (Beaver Creek YT to Whitehorse YT)

• Beaver Creek to Destruction Bay is the meanest road on the ALCAN. Combine that with the nastiest weather, and that was today.
• We were the chicken in the cold noodle soup. At the gas station a local in a pickup advised us, “You should have put your rain gear on sooner.” We got wet slowly, and each mile we hoped it would clear just around the corner.
• Beyond the killer potholes, the frost heaves surprise you–Nicco almost took us both over the windshield. We know how the popcorn kernel felt in its moment of surprise.
• Returned to this dodgey section of the Alaska Highway in 2022 when researching APF
• The RVs go especially slow for long stretches of popcorn bumps, trying to keep the microwaves in the cabinet. Then they ride our tail through long stretches of chipseal. The difference is, we always pull over to let them pass. They never reciprocate. Their time is measured in fewer remaining minutes, so it’s just more valuable than ours.
• N accidentally punched an errant Wilson’s Warbler at 60 mph. N: 1; Birds: 0.
• Generally so, but especially Kluane Lake, the return is a different view. The weather included fog, but beyond that, the reverse approach from the west and north is a slow descent in contrast to the opposite approach which drops it as you turn the corner. Also, second time around we anticipated it in our approach. And then desolation seeps through the fog.
• And we return to wonderful Whitehorse, the activity center of Canada. Think of scruffy Boulder with Crocodile Dundee as mayor, the Duke as judge, and Navajo running the school board.
• Venison stew at the Klondike Rib and Salmon, then the movie Dunkirk
• There are two sides to this Whitehorse coin–we saw only summer. Many a miner lived his last winter in the surrounding Klondike wilderness.
• If you’re young, don’t forget to visit Whitehorse (and Ios) in the summer. It’s a great place to meet a Galway Girl (N’s playlist).
• New biz idea . . .

Day 34 (Whitehorse YT to Coal River YT)

• Donna bought the lodge in 1998 and now is selling. “More customers now.” Hard to believe.
• She’s a reader and freely swaps shelves of paperbacks she’s accumulated over the years
• Coal River Lodge + RV; mile 533 Alaska Highway; May thru Sept 250-776-7306; Brent & Donna Rogers; Gateway to the Kechika; $575K for 36 acres.
• Donna lived on “the Island” (Vancouver Island) and wanted the “Northern Lifestyle,” so moved to Fort St John and bought Coal River Lodge. Inconceivable! More likely relocated by the Canadian witness protection program. Her kids have their own homes in Fort St John. Surprisingly, they have no interest in inheriting the lodge. I wonder why . . .
• Betty and Bob, Hell’s Angel types. Betty chatted with us, but with our bright blue ride, Bob has us pegged as Mary Poppins riders. Betty’s got her own bike and she’s in charge. Nice walk–she must be a trucker (approx 60 yrs old).
• The lodge has no internet, no TV, and no phone service for no extra charge
• We walked down to Coal River where it empties into the huge Liard River

Day 35 (Coal River YT to Fort Nelson BC)

• Just over the BC line we saw two cubs with Ma in two separate batches. The second batch was sauntering over to investigate our club sandwich as we parked roadside on a wilderness stretch of the Alaska Highway. At less than 30 yards, we booked out of there.

Day 36 (Fort Nelson BC to Chetwynd BC)

• Tetsa River Lodge: mile 375; Ben and Gail Andrews. We had a snack here and waited for soup. While waiting for soup, Gail took a break from making the galaxy’s best cinnamon rolls and flipped out. She blessed us with a rant about all the a-holes who come in and ask where the washrooms are (they are clearly marked–a separate building). The rant seemed to settle her a bit. We ate and on the way out, I asked her where the washrooms were . . . it could have gone either way, but luckily she laughed sweetly. 7/365: she’s just worn out. It’s like milking cows.
• We had planned to head south on Hwy 97, but presently it’s closed at Clinton which is being evacuated due to the fire. We are officially one day behind plan to meet H & M at Crater Lake.

Day 37 (Chetwynd BC to Valemount BC)

• N: “You pay them to talk to you.” It’s been his claim the entire trip. People talk to me, but only because I pay them.
• N’s page: “Papa, he’s a guy who pays everyone. He pays everyone to be his friend when I’m not looking and then he acts like he didn’t pay and then after they leave he says, ‘I didn’t pay them (to be his friend),’ and I always respond the same thing, ‘Lies.’ But other than that flaw, he’s OK, he lets me go to the gym, he lets me choose when we stop, which is really nice for him to do. But most importantly, he hasn’t crashed.”
• The HD is comfortable and safe on 99% of the route. The BMW is better on 1%. God bless anyone taking a real crossover or smaller bike. However, there are many smaller routes branching off the ALCAN for which the HD is not suitable.

Day 38 (Valemount BC to Vancouver BC)

• N is complaining that I have heated hand grips and he doesn’t. It’s a serious injustice.

Day 39 (Vancouver BC to Seattle WA)

• We’re almost done. We meet Hanna and M soon at Crater Lake.
• The Beatles stayed at the Edgewater Hotel during their first world tour in 1964. It’s particularly famous because of the widely circulated images of them fishing from the windows of their suite which was directly above the water. Fans swarmed the hotel and the Beatles were essentially trapped, leading them to take up fishing to pass the time.

Day 41 (Seattle WA to Portland OR)

• I swap out the passenger running boards for raised ones to accomodate M’s shorter legs; Hanna and I will swap passengers at Crater Lake. M and I will return west and follow the PCH south through the redwoods to San Fran before returning to Colorado.

Day 42 (Portland OR to Crater Lake OR)

• At this point, I don’t actually agree with most of what has been written in this log
• The opinions and thoughts are those of a less experienced traveler
• Next time around, be more informed
• Precious cargo safely delivered