Chapter 17: Robert Campbell Highway

 Chapter 17: The Robert Campbell Highway

July 7, Monday: 54 miles (4933) 

 The only letter I got in Watson Lake was from good old reliable Edie. I bought some flares to scare bears, an inner tube, and $13 worth of food, treating myself to cottage cheese and canned pineapple, and even a half pound of cherries - an unheard-of extravagance.

 The pavement ended a few miles out of town, and in the first 40 or so miles of dirt road, I got two flat tires. The first turned out to be just the failure of a previous patch, but the second was a legitimate snakebite flat, from pinching the tube against the rim. The Robert Campbell is narrower and less-well-maintained than the Cassiar; bumpy and lots of both embedded and loose stones, but thankfully also has less traffic. I saw maybe 2 dozen vehicles in 6 hours, including only one big truck, and one tour bus - odd to see, way out here. Less traffic was good, because it seems, if such a thing is possible, to be even dustier than the Cassiar. Maybe it's just that the cars can't give me as much room because it's so narrow, so the dust is even more up-close-and-personal! 

Most of the time there was at least one narrow strip of mostly pebble-free surface, where I could cruise with decent speed. I'm worried about the Schwinn tire I have on the front, though... some of the cords seem to be tearing along the bead, which could be very bad news. Why oh why did I not buy the one remaining spare tire that Watson Lake had to offer? What kind of misguided chivalry could have led me to think I should leave it for someone who might need it more than I? Was I lulled into complacency by a couple of days with no flats? Or was I just criminally cheap and short-sighted? 

 I spent the long evening (till 2:00 A.M.) drinking a couple of beers and chatting with Greg, a middle-aged guy I met in the Simpson Lake campground. He's a truck driver/road maintenance man. He seems lonely, and hearing about his life stirred some familiar emotions. I felt I could understand some of the things he must feel and face and live with every day, because I have dealt with them on this trip. But they are always easier for me because I know it's only temporary. Soon enough, this trip will be over, and one day I will have a wife and a home. For him, it seems permanent. He told me that he used to be a plumber, with 28 people working for him, and then 6 years ago he went bankrupt and lost everything: equipment, trucks, his home... He never mentioned a wife, but I sensed that he had one, and lost her too... it may still hurt too much to talk about it.

Now he lives in highway maintenance camps or the camper on the back of his truck, and moves from job to job every few months. 

 July 8, Tuesday: 56 miles (4989) Simpson Lake to Frances Lake

 Greg said he would buy me breakfast at the Tuchitua Cafe, 15 miles up the road, so I left before him to get a head start, but even so he got to the cafe long before I did and had already finished his breakfast when I got there. He bought me breakfast anyway and a good one it was: eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast. He left before I finished but I knew I would see him again, which I did several times throughout the day, as he was taking his time, stopping to fish, etc. 

When I went went back out to my bike I found I had a flat front tire. No problem, just a little monotonous after a while. 20 more miles up the road I met a guy whose motorcycle had run out of gas. I talked with him for a bit. He was Sonny Tate, from Florida, and he was an exuberant sort - I liked him. While I was there someone stopped and gave him some gas, so we exchanged addresses and parted. 

Then when I got to Francis Lake, I found the people who had given Sonny the gas. I stopped to say hello, and they invited me into their camper for dinner. Just after I finished eating, I saw Greg driving out of the campground. He had passed me a few miles before the campground and I suspected that he was going back to look for me, as I should have arrived by that time (which obviously I had.) So I raced after him and sure enough that's what he was doing. I felt a little guilty for having had dinner with the other people instead of hanging out with him - I'm sure he would have loved to share his dinner with me. As it was, he gave me two hamburgers later on, but he had already eaten alone. Then I felt crazy for feeling guilty - sometimes my sense of loyalty seems a little too strong. 

July 9, Wednesday: 64 miles (5053)

 I cooked hash browns on the stove in Greg's camper this morning, and he gave me a couple more burgers to go with them, and made tea. Then he left, and it seemed certain that I will not see him again. It turns out I was right about his having been married. In fact he must have been married more than once as he mentioned having a weird dream about his first wife.

 I was very aware of my thoughts as I rode today. I thought about building a custom deluxe touring bike and tried to think of every possible handy or luxury feature I could add to it. I was thinking pretty seriously about it; I even sat down for an hour and wrote down the ideas I was coming up with, but in the end it felt like a distraction; it would not solve the question of what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. So much of the time I ache for a woman's love and companionship, but I don't even feel I can seriously think about that until I am at least well on my way through college or with some clear goals and plans or both. 

I also thought about Laura a lot today. (Her co-instructor for the course she was working at MOBS was someone I knew from the Wilderness School, a really nice guy I'll call "Lance.") It dawned on me what an obvious match she and Lance would be, and how likely it is that they will fall in love during their course. I will be a little afraid to call her now.

 It was a gray, damp, sometimes chilly day with the same headwind that I fought most of the day yesterday. Some of the road was pretty bad, especially the last few miles to Mink Creek where I'm camped. My fancy Sekai rear tire is getting a bad contortion to it - looks like some cords have broken. Can't be good.  

 July 10, Thursday: 44 miles (5097)

 Today was a LOUSY, NO GOOD, ROTTEN, MISERABLE day, and that's all there is to it. To start with, it rained all last night and into this morning, and of course my tent leaked, so I had a soaking wet sleeping bag, and some other wet things. I woke up at 7:00, had breakfast and was getting ready to write some of the many long overdue letters that I've been putting off, but for some reason I laid back down, and before I knew it, it was 11:00. I had to try to fix the rear tire to reinforce it where the cords broke. I cannibalized the Schwinn 1-1/8 inch tire, cutting off the beads and putting it inside the 1-1/4 inch Sekai. It looked good at first but after a few miles of riding it was bulging worse than ever, so I rode in constant fear of a blowout. Then after only 4 or 5 miles I got a flat on the front tire, and I had been riding so conservatively it was ridiculous - 5 mph. The road was absolutely terrible - bumpy, peppered with half embedded rocks, and a layer of loose rocks on top. 

There were a lot of steep hills - I was standing up pumping on almost all of them, and riding the brakes hard on the down hills. I also had a nasty headwind. It was awfully humid, but cold when the wind blew - an impossible combination to dress for. I stopped often and ate more than usual. The miles seemed to crawl, which I guess they pretty much did - I averaged 4 to 5 mph most of the day, grinding away in first and second gear, tediously picking my way through the stones and potholes. I was feeling burnt out on riding, and then realized that I've ridden every day for 16 days straight - of course I'm burned out! The last time I took a day off was the day it rained just after Prince George. 

The sky was completely overcast with heavy, gray, depressing clouds that matched my mood perfectly. It rained off and on and threatened to rain the rest of the time. To top it all off, I was blocked up - for the first time since I can remember I didn't make my clockwork trip to the outhouse this morning - that should have been enough of a warning for me to know better than to try to do anything for the rest of the day. 

Since I was already depressed, I figured I would go all in and thought about Laura being in love with Lance and tried to imagine the sinking, horrible feeling of calling her and finding that out.

 About the only redeeming part of the day was that this evening when I got to the intersection of the Canol Road to Ross River and was standing in the rest area trying to decide what to do, two guys from New York, Joe and Steve, drove up, asked about my trip, and then offered to share their dinner with me - burgers and beans. That made the decision about what to do pretty easy - it was 11:00 when they left, and I just pushed my bike into the woods behind the rest area and set up my tent in the beautiful open poplar forest - a pretty nice place, actually.

 True to form, in my worst moments today, one person came through the ether into my mind again and again to try to give me a lift. It was ol' Dan Ray from the Wilderness School, and this time he was singing a Donovan song that we often did together in our music sessions.

We huddled in a derelict building
And when he thought I was asleep
He laid his poor coat round my shoulder,
And shivered there beside me in a heap.
And who's going to be the one
To say it was no good what we done?
I dare a man to say I'm too young,
For I'm going to try for the sun. 

 July 11, Friday: 48 miles (5145)

 Well, today was a much better day than yesterday, even if the mileage doesn't show it. I got up with a little more motivation, wrote two letters, cooked some potatoes for breakfast, and reinforced the weak spots on the front and rear tires by wrapping non-stretch cloth around the innertubes. I packed up and headed for Ross River at noon. I chose Ross River instead of Faro because it looked like less climbing to get back to Hwy 4, which it doubtless was, but I later realized that Faro is bigger - maybe big enough to have bike tires, which Ross River certainly wasn't. I got $11 worth of groceries in an amazing store that had a fun-house floor - it was so warped I literally almost lost my balance a couple of times. And I liked the mouse trap on the dried fruit shelf - a classy touch!

Anyway the road was a lot better - it was truly a joy to be able to coast down the hills without leaning on the brakes the whole time, and to not have to concentrate every ounce of my energy on the next six feet of hell in front of my tires. Boy it was hilly though, and steep hills -worse even than yesterday! I had to pull up hard on the handlebars to increase the down-force on the pedals, to the point that both the handlebars and cranks were creaking under the strain. I was afraid the chain would break at some points. 

Ross River to Faro elevation profile: some steep hills!

I had a few twinges of feeling the nearness of the end of this trip. I was singing my bike trip version of Dylan's "You ain't going nowhere" and when I sang the chorus "Tomorrow's the day my ride's gonna end," it hit home pretty hard.  I've got a long way to go for sure but it's getting down to a measurable distance. 

That feeling is sparking a lot of thinking about what I'm going to do when the trip is over, and for the rest of my life. I think that not only can I not get involved with a woman before I get some solid plans and goals, I also can't go back to the Wilderness School, to Stafford, and maybe not even to the job I've been offered at the camp in Vermont before I get some clarity about my future. I am less and less attracted to purely intellectual work the more I think about it. I want to do something that will use my brain, but my hands and body are also extremely important, as is my artistic or creative ability. Designing and building solar homes might fill those two needs - head and hands - but I don't know if I could feel I was "solving the world's problems" unless I was really in the vanguard of research and there I am, back with the intellectual stuff. Those seem to be the very minimum requirements though: enough head work to feel like I'm solving some worldly problem and enough hands work to keep me active and interested. 

I often think about just earning some quick cash and continuing this trip - back down to the States, down the West Coast, across the South, and back to New England next spring, but there again, I can't do that until I have some definite plans, and when I get a definite plan it won't include that. I'm even unsure about doing the Dempster Highway because sometimes that just seems like putting off dealing with the end of the trip. There are a lot of other reasons for doing it, though, and those may yet win out. One thing I don't like is the feeling of not wanting the Missoula 5 to catch up with me. I'm not even sure why that seems so undesirable but somehow it does.

 That makes it feel like I'm in a race, which is for sure no way to travel. I need to just make a decision about the Dempster, to do it or not, but of course that is not easy. There are a lot of unknowns and even the knowns are mixed. I seem to be having a lot of trouble with that lately; I spend practically as much time deciding whether or not to ride on to the next campground as it would have taken me to just ride there. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time agonizing about even minor decisions. 

I'm at Fisheye Lake, just past the Faro turn off. I think I missed the real campground because where I'm camped is just a little turn out, no toilets or anything. I got another warning about Griz today, and when I set up my tent I saw what looked like bear poop... but then everything looks like bear poop when you've just been warned about Griz. Well, I'll sleep with my flares tonight. 

 

 July 12, Saturday: 102 miles! (5247) Carmacks

 Wow! I don't know what happened, but something must have gone right. The only decision I wishy-washed was what to have for breakfast, and I finally chose granola over pancakes so that I could get an earlier start. If I had done pancakes I might not have ridden at all, because it soon started raining. It was a very light rain though, not even enough to put on rain gear. I had a horrible headwind when I started at 10:30 and it was strong and constant for quite a while, but by late afternoon it had stopped, and this evening I even had a tail wind.

I stopped at the Little Salmon Lodge and used $6 of the "frivolous money" John gave me to treat myself to a deluxe cheeseburger, french fries, a milkshake, and two cinnamon rolls just for good measure!

I got my first views of the Yukon River today.

I had a couple of chances to stop at earlier campgrounds but I just decided that since I was finally going strong I would go for it and make Carmacks, which I did, pulling in with plenty of light left at 11:15 PM. I stayed up and cooked myself some grilled cheese sandwiches. I was surprised because I rarely cook at night lately but somehow I just wanted something warm to eat after such a long day.

My moods ran to both extremes today - elation and depression - a prime symptom of burnout I suppose. I thought about Laura a lot and did my best to imagine her in love with Lance, and how she would break it to me when I called. I struggled and spent quite a bit of time with it because whether or not she's in love with Lance, it is something I will eventually have to face and it seemed that imagining it vividly might help prepare me for that hard reality, whether it is tomorrow or weeks from now. It even seems that I need her to find another partner, because that may be the only thing that will force me to face the fact that we are never going to get back together, no matter what I do, or how much I learn or grow or anything. Otherwise I'll just keep saying to myself "Yeah I'll just hurry up and go off to college, and then start building my own house and then she'll want to marry me." As many times as I tell myself that's a foolish child's dream I still cling to it with a grip that will probably only be broken by the cold, hard truth of seeing her with another man. 

 July 13, Sunday: 4 miles (5251) A rest day!

I wrote a letter to my friend John that captures the mood of the day:

" Well I'm sitting in my tent in Carmacks, Yukon and it's pouring rain, and I don't give a darn, because I am not moving! I've ridden 1,130 miles without a day off, over 750 of which was dirt road. That's eighteen straight days of riding, ending with yesterday's 102 miles to get here, and now even if it does stop raining, the only reason I'll get out of this tent is that I want to call a certain friend who's been on a course for three weeks at MOBS, and while I'm in town I plan to buy some blueberries so I can cook up the biggest batch of blueberry pancakes you've ever seen and top them with honey and cream, and then I'll be the happiest SOB in the Klondike!"

It did stop raining, and I did go to town. There were no blueberries to be found, so I had to settle for blueberry jam, but I did make pancakes as promised, and indulged every other whim I could think of as well. And this evening I got through to Laura on the phone and we talked for 20 minutes or more. Her course went well, she and Lance didn't fall in love after all, and she's just as unsure about what to do with her life as I am. So much for breaking that grip.

July 7-12: Watson Lake to Carmacks