6 July Taylor Highway and Top of the World Highway

6 July

Taylor Highway

Top of the World Highway

I woke this morning with a feeling of slight melancholy, today will be my last day in Alaska. All going well, I plan to cross the border on the Taylor Highway sometime this afternoon.
I hit the road at 9:30 after joining the Aguiars for brekky. Make any excuse you have to, but stay at Red Igloo Cabins at Gakona, Alaska. Sam and Viola are absolutely the salt of the earth. As long as you are there you are part of the family (and their family seems to extend to most of the district - I think they are Grandma and Grandpa to every kid in a 40 mile radius). Their cabins are first-rate for the price and very well set up. I had planned to go to Tok, a hundred-odd miles further on last night, but I had one of those days that put me on their doorstep. I guess everything happens for a reason.
Anyway, back on the road, the Tok cutoff road is paved and scenic and moderately twisty, so I had a reasonable time, except for the rain which got quite heavy at times. I made good time to Tok, spent half an hour doing some souvenir shopping, at the visitor centre,

Tok Visitor Centre

I gassed up and headed off for the Taylor Highway. I wanted to make the Top of the World Highway in good time, I, been told by everyone it was great, and Sam told me to stop off there and have a picnic.

The Taylor is windy and scenic and threads through rolling hillsides. There were reasonable views on the road because huge tracts of the forest had been burnt by bushfire a few years earlier and I stop off and check it out.

Taylor Highway

I wonder if this will work for the picnic?

The first part of the Taylor is paved, and the unpaved bit is mostly earth with a scattering of gravel. I'm making heavy weather of the dirt road, but persevere and reach Chicken, an old gold mining town. I had a quick look around, but didn't like it as much as I thought I would, so moved right along.

Gold dredge at Chicken, looking back from the Taylor
The story of how Chicken got it's name goes that the locals wanted to name it Ptarmingan, but no-one knew how to spell it.

The weather has heated up again and I have to take a few layers off and remove/replace rain covers to put it all away. The road becomes more gravelly and with a huge dropoff on my side of the road I go into wimp factor 7 Mr Sulu. I can't really understand this or enjoy myself right now. After a bit more of this and a little too much thinking, I decide I've been "riding the front wheel" since I put the new tire on. I take my own advice I give to my boys when coaching their riding and lift my gaze to the next corner and that seems to relax my deathgrip on the bars and the bike tracks better. That's good, but it's as if I've regressed in my riding and I have to focus on riding style in a way I haven't had to for years, fighting the countersteer instead of using it. I guess that spill rattled me more than I thought. Having bypassed Chicken, I figured I'd fill up on the last of the cheap Alaskan gas at Border, just before the um, border. However it turns out the Border folk have gone away for lunch/the day/ever and I can't gas up. Thank goodness for the jerrycans! Leaving Border, 9 miles from the border, the skies darken, oh joy! Just as I approach a mile to the Customs Post, a few fat drops of rain fall, enough to damp the dust, but not slick up the clay. Pulling up to wait for the inspector, it starts raining hard, then hail. I redeploy raincovers, then it's my turn and the inspector suggests we take it inside. After the formalities he says I can wait the rain out, it normally only lasts for 10 minutes at a time. I layer up again and take off shortly, with the rain a bit lighter, but where can I picnic in the rain and thunder? I'm on the Top of the World Highway now and aboot (in Canada now) 4-5 km further on I approach a summit there are still drifts of snow on some of the banks by the road. As I approach the summit, it appears to be covered with a dusting of snow (I've done this before) including the road! Turns out to be about an inch of hail on the road. Just as well I waited at the border post, I'd have been in that!

Ick!

Cool road (literally!)

Further on the rain thins and I come to a nice outcrop to have my picnic. My sausage heater has not worked to well, but I have a very late lunch anyway, which I'm halfway through when I realise a promintory is probably not the most intelligent place to sit while thunder and lightning is going on around me! I move down and a lightning strike seems to hit the next hill!

Thunderstorms!

I decide to bug out and make it to Dawson without having to refill from the jerry cans.

Both pannier covers now retain water, so I have a big drying session in my overheated hotel room.

Time on the road, 91/2 hours, 490km, about 120 km of dirt, about 250 km of rain.