Chris' Ultimate Coast to Coast Ride

Chapter 10

Land of the Midnight Sun

            The road heading north out of Coldfoot was excellent.  Smooth and hard packed.  I made the best time here as I did on any other section of the highway with the exception of the paved parts.  I was easily able to maintain 50+ mph.  Unfortunately this would come to an end soon enough.  I began my random and frequent encounters with the haul road water trucks and graders.  This was an insidiously evil combination.

            Working together, these two vehicles turned decent stretches of highway into slippery quagmires.  The water trucks would soak long stretches of road and the graders would tear the road up.  This is necessary to keep the dust down and to keep the road open all year round.  Without such maintenance, the road would just disintegrate to the point that no vehicles could pass through.  The road fell into a predictable pattern.  Very wet mud with standing water, graded dirt and gravel with large piles in the road and then smoothed over dirt that would cake up all over the bike.  As the dirt and gravel dried out, the road got easier to ride on.  Eventually though, you were riding across nearly bare rock.  And then you would come across another work crew and the pattern would start again.  This pattern would continue all the way to Prudhoe Bay.

            Riding north out of Coldfoot, I could soon see the mountains of Brooks Range looming ahead of me.   The mountains reach an elevation of 9,000 feet.  The peaks were covered with fresh snow.  The highway cuts through the range at the continental divided via the Atigun Pass at an elevation just over 4600 feet.  The 12% grade going up through the pass is very steep, probably the steepest on the entire highway.  I stopped at the bottom of the climb to the pass near milepost 242.  The extreme drop off on the edge of the road was protected by a guardrail.  This was good and bad news.  The guardrail was heavily damaged all the way up, where vehicles, presumably trucks had slid against the guardrail, probably on their way down. 

            The guardrail would keep me from sliding off the steep dirt road, but I would be on the guardrail side of a truck, should a truck start its descent while I was going up.  Not an inviting proposition.  There would be nowhere to hide.  I had noticed on one of the smaller passes that the trucks seem to wait at the top of the pass until they have a clear path to the bottom with no other vehicles trying to go up while they are going down.  I don’t know if this is some sort of policy, but as I sat at the bottom of the pass and looked up, I sure hoped it was.

            I started up the mountain.  I kept staring ahead hoping no trucks would appear.  The road was actually pretty good going up.  Although very steep, it was dry and clear of many of the larger rocks that I had seen below.  The dirt held firm with only minimal sliding.  I reached the top of the pass and pause to look around.  The avalanche warning sign reminded me not to dawdle, but still, it was breathtaking.  I could see for what seemed like forever on both sides of the range.  I reminded myself to take some pictures on my return trip from this point.   I started down the other side of the pass.

            I could see there would be no other vehicles in my way on the descent, but I was still worried about a low side slide.  I kept the bike in second gear and stayed off the brakes all way down.  Upon reaching the bottom of the pass I was elated to be through with what I thought would be the last major obstacle to a strong finish.  The weather was considerably cooler on the north side of the range but not uncomfortably so.  I turned up the heat slightly and rode on.

            The further north I rode, the sparser the trees and vegetation became.  The wind also began picking up.  I began seeing more wildlife as I went.  Still no moose, but caribou lingered just off the road.  One of the more remarkable things happened, shortly after spotting my first caribou.  I was riding along on a reasonably good patch of road, when I looked down and to my left.  Running along beside me was a small caribou, probably not more than a few months old.  It was almost like being chased by a dog, though he didn’t seem to trying to catch me as much as run beside me.  If I slowed, he slowed.  If I sped up, he sped up.  It was almost like he thought I was an adult caribou just running down the road. 

            After about a half of a mile of this, he just veered off into the grass and disappeared.  I stopped for a second and wondered if I had imagined the whole thing.  I pinched myself and it hurt.  It seemed to have really happened.   When I later told Nancy about the encounter, I got the “Yeah, right” response.  

            I also realized that I had been right to travel south to north for the entire ride.    I do not think I could have ridden on an interstate as tired as I was for a couple of reasons.  The boring nature of interstate riding would quickly make me too sleepy to continue on.  The second reason would be the readily available hotel rooms that would prove to be too big of a temptation to continue on.  Either way, I would have stopped to get some rest. 

            On the Dalton Highway, though tired, it was challenging enough that I never did get very sleepy.  I did realize that my reactions were slowing down and I reduced my speed accordingly.  There were no other vehicles around to worry about and my speed rarely hit above 30 mph north of the Brooks Range.  Once over the Range, I believed it was a forgone conclusion that I would make Prudhoe Bay.  I kept my speed down and simply kept chugging along.

            When I reached the top of coastal plain that led into Deadhorse my morale got a huge boost when I hit pavement again.  I raised my fist and prepared for quick triumphant entrance into town.  But this was not to be.  The pavement would again end well before I reached town. 

            Up on the coastal plain, the wind really picked up.  This final section of the highway experiences the worst weather of the entire highway.  Snow poles are used to mark the highway when it is obscured in snow.  There are no trees, no shrubs nor any distinguishing landmarks of any kind that I could see.  Only flat grasslands with the wind whipping through for as far as you can see.   I stopped and looked behind me.  I could see no sign of the mountains I had crossed.  They had long since disappeared below the horizon.

            I was ready to be done.  This was at the limits of my riding.  I started the countdown to Prudhoe Bay all back on dirt road again and with the familiar water trucks in my path.  Thirty miles, twenty five miles.  At twenty miles I actually started getting a little giddy.  Ten miles.  Shortly there after, I could see a small bump on the horizon.  The outcropping consisted of nothing more than what appeared to be concrete and steel bunkers and buildings.  I rode into town standing on my pegs.

            To finish the ride, I needed a timed and dated receipt.  I looked for an obvious gas station but nothing jumped out at me.  Then I spotted the Arctic Caribou Inn, one of the two hotels in town.  I parked the bike in front and went in.  I asked the clerk if the hotel’s receipts printed the date and time.  He stated that they did.  I said, “Sell me something…anything.”  I bought a postcard and carefully checked for the date and time.  They were there.  I then set out to find a witness.

            I located the police officer in town, maybe the only one, but certainly the only one working in a town with a permanent population of 25.  After getting his signature, I got the hotel clerk to also witness the end of my ride.  And as luck would have it, I also got the last room in the hotel, at a cool $160.00.  I didn’t care.  I would have paid a lot more.

            I rode across the lot to the Post Office where you can have a picture taken of you and your bike upon arriving.  The clerk shot some Polaroid’s and asked where I was from.  I told him I was from Maryland but that I had just ridden in from Key West.  I told him that I believed I had just set the record for the run from Key West to Prudhoe Bay.  He took all my information for their “Wall of Fame” and told me to stop by the next day.

            I went back to the hotel to finish checking in.  It was then that I realized I had already lost the first receipt from the hotel.  I bought more post cards and was more careful with this receipt.  There was only one thing more I wanted before going to sleep; one ice cold beer to celebrate.  Sadly the clerk told me there was no place to get one in town.  Somewhat dejected, I unloaded the bike and carried my mud encrusted luggage to the room.  The room was small, but I did not care.  It had a bed and that was all that mattered. 

            I called Nancy and told her that I made it and was safe and sound.  Remarkably, I can’t get a cell phone signal sometimes 5 miles from my house, but here at the top of the world, she came in crystal clear.

            It had been over 43 hours and some 1900 miles since I had checked out of the hotel in Fort St. John, BC.  It had indeed been one very, very long day with some of the hardest riding I have ever done.  I will never forget it.  Key West seemed to be a distant memory.  I had left there 4 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes ago.  I had bettered the previous record by more than 11 hours.  I immediately went to sleep with all my receipts safely tucked under the mattress of the bed.  My ride was done.

Nothing is official until the Iron Butt Association says so, but I do not anticipate any problems.  I have submitted my paperwork and receipts and I am awaiting verification of the ride.  At some point, I am sure someone will do this ride in less time, but it feels nice to be the first one to break the 5 day barrier.  My non-riding friends ask me what I get for doing this.  I reply, “nothing…maybe a piece of paper.”  And I just smile.

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