Chapter 19: The Dempster Highway

 Chapter 19: The Dempster Highway

 July 21, Monday: 58 miles (5536)  Dawson City to ~ km 42 of Dempster Hwy

I'm on the Dempster! I slept later than I had planned to, packed, and went into town. I went to the post office, and then got a huge load of groceries. I didn't get out of Dawson till 3:30. The last thing I did was go to the Sears store to weigh my bike. I almost fell over... it weighed 127 pounds!*

* The Dempster in 1980 traversed a true wilderness; the road was only completed in 1979, so aside from a few primitive campsites with pit toilets, the only signs of civilization on its entire 456 mile length at that time were Eagle Plains at mile 230, and Fort McPherson at mile 340. Eagle Plains consisted of a gas station, a few motel rooms, and a little cafe. Fort McPherson was big enough (pop. ~750) that I assumed it would have a grocery store. Figuring 50 miles a day and allowing for weather or other delays, I packed what I hoped would be 9 days worth of food. It would turn out to be not quite enough.

To get to the Dempster, I had to back-track about 25 miles on the Klondike Highway. Twelve miles out of town, I ran into the Missoula Musketeers. (Bruce, John, Andrew, Gary, and Bill) It was nice to meet them that way as I was just starting on my fearsome adventure. They had heard of my plans to do the Dempster some time ago, through the incredible "Yukon Grapevine," and they were both envious and respectful. Gary even gave me his spare tire, saying I needed it more than he. 

I started up the Dempster at 7:15 PM. I rode until 12:15, doing about 26 miles. Progress seemed awfully slow, though the road surface was mostly fairly good. There was a "thank God strip" (where cars had brushed away the loose stones) along much of it. I wanted to make it to the first campground, but when that looked impossible, I just pulled off into the woods. I found a wonderful place to sleep - moss a foot deep - the softest mattress yet. There were few if any mosquitoes and no sign of rain, so I didn't set up my tent - something I haven't done for a while. I just had a couple of PB and margarine sandwiches and crashed.

 My version of the chorus to one of the songs the tour group sang was running on a loop in my head today: "So long, I'm on my way, won't be back for many a day. My heart is down, my head is turning around, I had to leave my favorite girl in Winsted town."

  July 22, Tuesday: 95 miles (5631) Km 42-194

The mosquitoes were around this morning, but not quite bad enough to keep me from writing. I caught up on this journal and ate my granola breakfast without getting out of the sleeping bag. It was a beautiful morning and day - sunny, but enough clouds to keep it from getting too hot. My odometer drive belt broke this morning, but fortunately there are kilometer posts.

At mile 5556 I noticed that the bubble in the rear tire was getting really bad - cords were showing - so I figured I'd better just take care of it before it blew completely. When I took the wheel off to do that, I noticed that the axle was loose and bent. I thought I'd better check that out, and when I put a wrench on it, the axle immediately broke in two. I wonder if I over-stressed it doing the Dome road. I am sure glad I bought that spare axle in Montana! That feels like Trip Magic - the universe looking out for me: who ever heard of carrying a spare axle? I fixed that, and fixed the tire by wrapping the tube with less stretchy cloth.

The scenery here is absolutely blowing me away. After the 73rd kilometer it suddenly became a whole different world - tree-less arctic tundra, and mountains, some with no vegetation at all - just huge mounds of broken rock, some gray, some red. Gunther Fadum was right when he said it would be a trip I would never forget. I took lots of pictures.

Dave Lewis of the Dave and Duncan canoeing duo is hitching to Inuvik, and he passed me this afternoon. He took my picture and gave me an apple and some gorp. Then at midnight, just as I had stopped to look for a place to camp, he passed me again, and encouraged me to go for the campsite 14 miles ahead. So I rode on, though I was pretty tired. 

It was ethereal riding so late; the sun was down, the light was soft, the moon was low behind me, in two hours only one vehicle went by - it was quiet and still. I got to the campground (kilometer 194) at 1:15 AM, had a bite to eat and crashed on the ground.

A lot of people stopped to ask if I was OK today, even when I was riding along. One old gent from Ontario stopped, asked if I was OK, and inquired where I was from. When I told him, he said "You have my compliments and my respect. You are a man." I was deeply honored. 

6:15 PM, July 23: A rare stop to write mid-ride.

 I just climbed the hill out of the Ogilvie River valley. I am at a loss for words. I thought I would try to describe this place, but it is beyond description. I tried to take a few pictures that would capture some of it but they can only fall short. The road is on a broad ridge here. The land falls away all around. On one side is a range of mountains - gray rock with absolutely nothing growing on them. Ahead is Eagle Plain - barren tundra with mountains way off on the horizon. Behind are the mountains I came through to get here, now just blue silhouettes in the distance. The only sound is the wind, rushing through the low shrubs and howling in the spokes of my bike. The sun is warm on my back. Cars are hours apart - I am totally alone in this vast, incredible world. My emotions are powerful but as nameless as the beauty of this panorama. I cannot believe there is a place such as this on earth.

 

 

 July 23, Wednesday: 74 miles (5689) km 194-324

 I don't know where to start. Today was quite a day. I was high a lot - bubbling, bursting surges of emotions not felt in "normal" life - constantly uttering expressions of disbelief at the amazing, unique world I am in. I surely will never forget this trip.

I didn't sleep well last night, and woke up too early this morning, and I felt it the last few hours of riding. Dave got a ride almost as soon as he went out to the road, and it was a big truck so it probably will take him all the way to Inuvik. I guess I'm going all the way there myself - that's what I've been telling people. It sounds like the terrain is very flat and the scenery unremarkable the last 120 miles after Fort McPherson, but it seems that one hasn't "done the Dempster" without going to Inuvik. Word is that there's another biker on the road, coming south. I'll probably meet him tomorrow or the next day. I can't keep from wondering (almost jealously) if he's doing it both ways, or if he flew to Inuvik.

 I think a lot about how many (how few) people have biked this road - it only opened last year. Piecing together everything I've heard, it seems that at most 8 or 9 others have ridden it, but only 1 or 2 of those rode both ways. For the rest, it was the start or end of a "Hemisphere Tour", where the goal is to ride from the northernmost to southernmost bike-able points in the western hemisphere, meaning that they only rode it in one direction, flying to or from Inuvik. Anyway, I'm certainly a novelty - lots of folks stop and take my picture. The RCMP stopped and gave me a soda, some folks I had met on the Dawson ferry stopped and gave me some desperately needed water - it feels good.

It wasn't feasible to try to make the Eagle Plain campground, so I just pulled off the road by a gravel pit (a very nice place actually - incredible views) and set up my tent so that I wouldn't have to deal with mosquitoes, and would maybe be able to sleep better and longer. I went to bed at 1:15 AM. 

 July 24, Thursday 52 miles (5738) km 324-408

 I'm north of the Arctic Circle! I crossed it at 10:00 this evening. No big deal, of course - just a sign beside the road, but still a novelty. Unfortunately, it's too far past the solstice to get a full 24 hours of sun, but it never really gets dark, it just goes straight from evening to morning.

 Today seemed like two days - the ride before the Eagle Plains complex and the ride beyond. The weather even changed. It was sunny and sweltering hot before, and then the clouds thickened and it got cold - 50 degrees - and it rained just a little bit. The wind changed too, from a slight tailwind to a powerful constant headwind. I was riding with my nylon shirt, T-shirt, wool shirt, and my rain jacket as a windbreak.

 I spent quite a bit of time at Eagle Plains, mostly because people kept approaching me to ask about my trip. I heard that the southbound biker was planning to camp at the Arctic Circle, so I was figuring to meet him there, and perhaps camp with him if he seemed pleasant. I also learned that he was from Halifax, and that he had flown to Inuvik, and was headed for Vancouver and possibly down the West coast. Then just before I got to the Circle, the two guys from Connecticut (on a motorcycle, who I had met at the 1st Dempster campsite) stopped and said that the other cyclist was in the van that had just gone by. It seems he had given his tent and sleeping bag to someone in a car to drop them off at the Circle, because they were "too heavy," but they either never got dropped off, or someone had taken them, so he hitched a ride to Eagle Plains. They also said he was talking about doing the whole North-South America number. I don't know what to think about the guy. It seems like he couldn't be a complete rookie if he was planning to do a Hemistour type trip, but it doesn't seem like a hardened old pro would give away his tent and sleeping bag to lighten his load. I was disappointed not to meet him, but I guess in a way I was glad, too. 

I rode a bit beyond the circle - it was sort of a nice evening - the sun came out just in time to set. I camped right at Kilometer post 408, just out on an open tundra field. The mosquitoes are starting to get bad. It rained a bit just as I got in the tent, but I couldn't tell when it stopped because the mosquitoes hitting the tent sounded just like rain.

The scenery was as amazing as ever today. I'm at the base of the Richardson mountains now - all day I watched them get closer.

I was really hurting for water this morning because there were no streams for 60+ miles. I finally stopped a car by holding out my water bottle. Sure enough it was someone I had met somewhere before, though I couldn't remember where. They gave me some luke-warm water, and a wonderfully cold beer, which I drank (practically guzzled) eagerly, though I knew that beer was not the best thing for dehydration. That high-test Canadian beer on an empty stomach went straight to my bloodstream, though, and I was woozy for a little while. 

 July 25, Friday: 42 miles (5780) 

Tough day. It didn't start out too bad; I slept fairly well and for a reasonable length of time. The whine of the mosquitoes outside the tent woke me up a few times (I'm completely serious - they were that loud) but I went right back to sleep. I wrote and ate and packed at a moderate pace, so it was 1:00 o'clock by the time I started riding.

 The wind was the main event of the day. I guess it came up as I was packing, from the west this time, whereas last night it was from the east - and did it ever blow! It was good for one thing only - it kept the mosquitoes away - mostly! A few still managed to bite me, though the wind flattened them against my skin sideways so it seemed that they were only attached by their stingers. 

The wind was horrendous for riding in, though. I was on a stretch of the black shale that people warned me so much about, but the wind made the shale insignificant. It was a cross wind much of the time, or a combination cross and headwind, from the left, and it was a lot of work keeping the bike in the narrow strips of semi packed surface. It had to be 25 to 35 mph, constant all day. It tore the rest of my orange flag completely off the pole. 

As the road neared the top of the Richardson Mountain Pass, it turned east so the wind was behind me, and it just blew me out of the Yukon and into the Northwest Territories. 

Of course at that point I had no need for a tailwind, as it was all downhill anyway, and all it meant was that I had to ride the brakes even harder. At one point it came from the side again, in a huge gust that must have exceeded 50 mph. I was riding in the left lane so I would have room to maneuver against the wind, but it blew me, sliding out of control, all the way to the right hand side of the road, and would have blown me right off the embankment if I hadn't brought the bike to a complete stop.

The secondary big event of the day was the rain. It started as an innocent shower and was off and on for a while, but by the time I started up the pass it was a steady rain, looking less and less like it would break up. With the wind blowing so hard, it was really cold, and in the Northwest Territories the road was super-slippery mud - I was longing for some good old "deadly shale." My tires seemed to spray the mud around even more than usual, so I was well-splattered all over. Besides being dangerous for riding, (I came unnervingly close to going down) it was also cold. I was pretty miserable, and wanted nothing more than to dive into my tent, but I couldn't even consider setting it up in the open, with nothing to break the wind. I finally found a place where the road is built up to cross a stream, so that the road itself is a windbreak, and there's a nice little patch of level ground just the right size for my tent. I pitched it quickly and efficiently, and I'm pleased to say, somehow got the right combination of tensions, inclinations, and stake placements, so that for once it doesn't leak (yet!) I went to the stream and washed the mud off my legs and shoes - I just stuck them right in the water - I was already so cold I didn't even notice it. Then I happily crawled inside my tent, dried off, got in my sleeping bag, ate a bit, and that's where I am now. It's such a wonderful feeling; it has continued to pour steadily since I got here, and for once I don't have to ride in it or deal with it - no "too long in the rain" feeling.