I woke up several times during the night, not really knowing what time it was, but it was still light outside, no matter when. Light enough to see rain falling, and puddles forming in the dirt parking lot below, a sight that certainly didn't help me sleep any easier. In this part of the world, a couple hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, they like to do roads a bit different. They make them out of dirt, and pea sized gravel like you would use for a patio. The rounded rocks tend not to compact together, and the dirt doesn't hold together much on its own either, that alone makes for quite a challenge on a loaded motorcycle. But in effort to help settle the dust, the road crews like to apply calcium chloride to the surface, which is all fine and good, until it rains, then it turns wet dirt into a greasy mud like mixture. Guess what, it rained...
We couldn't get by with just rain alone, let's go ahead and turn down the thermostat. 34 seemed like the number to be at, and stay there well until the afternoon. After 2 attempts to find a functioning gas station in Inuvik, we gave up and hoped we had enough to get us to the next station about 2 hours away. A small station in an even smaller village provided us with gas, coffee, and a breakfast sandwich. Somewhat warmed up we continued down the wet roads with varying degrees of slickness. Some places were good and other sections were like riding on snow, and it's was difficult to tell by sight which one you were riding into.
Approaching one especially nasty section, I saw a rider coming from the other direction, stopped in the middle of the road. Sliding up next to him and almost laying the bike over in the mud, we talked and exchanged information as to what each of us had to look forward to. Sounded like Chip and I had somewhat better conditions to look forward to, but not for another 20 or 30 miles. Wishing him good luck, we continued on our way south, sliding along the mud covered road. As we crossed from Northwest Territories, back into the Yukon, the road became much better. Apparently Yukon has a better budget for maintenance on the "highway".
As we pulled into Eagle Plains, the halfway point of today's almost 500 mile dirt and mud journey, we topped off the bikes and went inside to warm up a bit. We met a couple riders heading north, and warned them about conditions ahead, and we're told what we could expect as well. Seemed okay until we walked outside and we're greeted by the 34 degrees, now joined by a steady rain, excellent.
After a few more hours of wet muddy riding, the rain had almost disappeared, and the temperatures started to rise. But not before coming over a higher pass where the temps dropped to 32, and all the brush on the sides of the road were covered with ice. No pictures of that part, neither of us wanted to stop and prolong that bit of misery. The roads dried out rather quickly after that and we were soon back to normal speeds, and lower stress, even kicked up a little dust at times.
Then the road that seemed like it would never end, came to an abrupt halt as it turned into an actual paved road. Things were dry, and the air was in the 60s, quite the change from the beginning of our day. So there you have it, a completed run of the Dempster Highway, an 1100 mile gravel, out and back journey to the Arctic Ocean. I now have with me, a bottle of water, that I drew from the Arctic Ocean itself, more on that later, maybe. We earned our sleep tonight, tomorrow we'll be heading across the "top of the world highway" into Alaska. Hopefully into better weather.
Goodnight
KS
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