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Chasing Summer p.005
Report initially published in the Adventure Rider web site. For more interaction and comments check it out here
Day 13-15 - August 28th-30th - Ester
No riding for those 3 days so I’m condensing them.
Bob has a one-man shop and so was pretty busy. However, to help us “travelers”, he suggested that Teryk would do most of the work while he would give advice, loan special tools and take care of the trickiest parts. Teryk had worked a lot on his bike to prepare this trip but had never got as far as removing the top of the engine but felt confident that with Bob’s help it would be fine.
The 1st day Teryk removed and cleaned everything.
Then, while waiting for the parts we went to Fairbanks to pickup the tires we had ordered and changed them.
For my part I also worked on my bike to change the chain and sprockets, oil and tires. But I was mostly trying to work on the thread to catch up as much as possible.
The parts finally arrived but it was already late on the afternoon so we had to abandon the idea of leaving the next morning to Prudhoe Bay.
Time to put the bike back together
And that's when Bob's guidance was invaluable.
It's only at the end of the 3rd day that everything was completely ready and the bike fired up right away. Congrats to Teryk for handling most of the work without making an error!
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Hey what about a quick test ride now? The Dalton Hwy maybe? It's only 1000 miles (round trip) with no services.
A huge THANKS to Bob for helping us so diligently! We feel proud to have him now as a friend!
Day 16 - August 31st - Ester to Prudhoe Bay
Woke up early this morning but lost a bit of time reshuffling our luggage: we will leave my top case and Teryk’s bag at Bob’s place to be lighter. We keep however our camping gear because we’re not too sure yet how the trip is going to be. This is after all the real test ride after a complete ‘rebuild’ of the 640 engine. But everything was fine after yesterday's quick test ride.
It’s cold but it’s still sunny: perfect for our last ride towards the North!
At the gas station Teryk smells coolant on his bike .
Does it means that we have to go back? Could it be a gasket issue again? Luckily it’s just one of the radiator’s hose that was not tight enough. It’s even accessible without removing the tank. Cool!
The first section of the road is paved with some nice turns, then it turns to a hard-packed dirt road. It will alternate sections of dirt and pavement until Cold Foot.
It feels good to be riding again. The scenery is nice but not special: forests of black spruces mostly. In some sections the trees don’t seem to be in good shape previous fires or harsh conditions.
Close to the Arctic Circle but still pretty far from Dead Horse.
Other sections are more beautiful with the mix of bright yellow (yes, autumn is coming) and different shades of green. It’s only before Cold Foot that the scenery turns really nice with a view on the Andicott Mountains.
Cold Foot is only a truck stop but is very conveniently located right between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay and has all we need: food and gas. There is something wrong with Teryk’s bike that gets a poorer mileage than usual. He had to use the reserve even with it’s 7 gallons tank. My bike at the contrary did it longest run with 236 miles on a tank. It’s true that I had to baby-sit my tires and we kept the speed around 70 mph.
We eat outside; it is surprisingly warm. I’m kind of disappointed by how casual the ride has been so far, it doesn’t feel adventurous enough.
Here is the pipeline loosely following the road.
It’s already 3:30 PM when we finish our lunch so we’ll see what the 250 remaining miles (only dirt) have to offer.
Thirty minutes later the sky becomes threatening.
And surely enough we end up under a heavy rain on a road filled with muddy potholes. Hey, where has our casual ride gone??? Luckily the rain doesn’t last and our fresh knobbies provide great traction.
On our way to Atigun Pass.
On the other side of the pass the weather improves and the scenery remains beautiful.
Everything is fine and so we decide to push to Prudhoe Bay tonight, either camping just before the city or stay in a hotel.
Most of the vehicles are either big trucks or hunters’ pick-ups. They’re mostly hunting the rein deers that we sometimes see from the road. Here is a view of Galbraith Lake.
We meet this cool couple from Australia traveling on KLRs.
It seems like the only thing they forgot at home was the kitchen sink!
They tell us about their Prudhoe Bay experience and their disappointment for not being able to touch the Arctic Ocean. It appears that several polar bears have been seen around and since the visibility was too low they had to stay in the bus, just peeking at the ocean.
An hour and a half before reaching Dead Horse the sky fills up with very low and dense grey clouds. It’s getting colder and misty. Added to the fatigue of the ride, we’re getting impatient to arrive. We are at low elevation now, it’s flat, with limited vegetation: not really appealing.
The ray of light at the horizon is where we came from. But facing us was only mist and fog
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We decide to go to the hotel tonight: it will be expensive but we want to be in the 8 AM ‘tour’, the only way to go to the Ocean. And being already cold and wet, we’re not looking forward to camping.
We’re about 20 miles from Dead Horse when Teryk stops, completely out of gas. I already used my reserve gas can so the only way is for me to get gas at DH and come back with the gas can for Teryk. I so wanted to be done and get dry! Arriving to Dead Horse is quite an experience: it’s dark, foggy, wet and the shapes of the industrial buildings and vehicles seem to come directly from the Blade Runner movie. Finding the fancy gas station is not easy but at least it’s 24/7.
I get back to Teryk, then we both enter town and check the “Prudhoe Bay Hotel”. At the entrance a group of guys set the tone: “Welcome in Hell!” It looks like it’s the name commonly given by the people living in this town. From what I’ve seen, it’s a well deserved name.
Problem is: Hell is expensive. The cheapest of the 2 hotels is $90 / person. Damn! And it’s definitely not for the luxury of it:
We feel a bit better when we learn that the price includes any food available while we stay there. The feeling is almost like being in a cargo boat. People day sleeping, cafeteria always open, people wearing heavy rain suits crossing others half naked coming back from the shower. Very special atmosphere. We try to get the most out of it and enjoy a basic dinner then showers and sauna.
Ambiance...
Those Lysol sprays were everywhere: we had 2 in our room, the rest rooms had several too.
Dead Horse is a "dry town" meaning that no store or bar sells alcohool and if you work here you are also forbidden for bringing any with you.
Day 17 - Sept 1st - Dead Horse to Ester
For 'safety reasons' no one is allowed to access the ocean by himself: you have to go on a bus instead for the 8 miles from Dead Horse to Prudhoe Bay. For $37, it’s quite expensive per mile but hey, it’s not only a bus drive, it’s a 2-hours “tour”. So we have to sit at 8 AM to listen to a Safety guard / guide speech followed by a movie. It’s such an obvious propaganda on how careful the oil companies are to protect the environment, how every animal specie has been prosperous in the last years, yadi yada.
This tour, like everything else around is owned by the oil companies. Except for a few tourists every job and $ is provided by the oil companies so impartiality can hardly be expected I suppose. He described in much detail how they don’t disturb the animals at all. For example “If that 'xyz' bird makes its nest on a vehicle then we have to impound the vehicle for the whole summer.” Hard to believe when some of those vehicles cost millions. Or “You see sometimes a traffic jam in town because you have a few ducks in the middle of the street. We are not allowed to honk or frighten them”. Yeah, right.
Anyway, for him Dead Horse is not ‘Hell’ it’s just a “working environment”, meaning that everybody is either working or sleeping/eating. The 5,000 workers or so have usually 2 weeks shift and then flew back home for 2 weeks. When they work it’s 12 hours a day, every day, sharing their room with someone in the opposite shift. The companies provide the planes and accommodations. If they’re sick they have to leave and are not paid. Same thing if a storm prevents the planes to bring them back to work.
It was foggy when we finally left for the tour and I was getting worry of not being able to touch the water. The scene, especially with this weather was particularly not attractive: it looked like an organized junkyard. The explanations on the microphone were just hilarious in their own way: “So here is where we clean the polluted gravel, here is a pile of pipes from a bad patch that are being replaced…” Fascinating.
I took this picture as a joke but other people in the bus took it 'for real'
. It's one of the 'highlight of the tour' where the bus stops for a minute: the 'forest' created by the 'Halliburton workers who were missing the trees so much'.
One of the oil drills
Finally we arrive close to the water. Good news, the bears are not around so we can finally do what we came so far to do: touch the Artic Ocean!
The tour over, we’re really looking forward to get out of this oppressing town and see the sun again! Before to leave though I took a few pictures of the vehicles over there.
That's in front of the hotel. As you can see our bikes seem a bit out of place...
Those tires are meant to be run around 6 PSI!
See the ducks? The wild life is undisturbed!
The town is mostly built of containers-like blocks.
The weather didn't clear for a long time and it was cold and wet. It was funny to realize that we would only be riding South from now on...
One of the 5 or 6 pumping stations along the way. Even if you know that there is nothing 'man made' 1,000 miles on each side of the road, seeing the pipeline and those stations make the Dalton Hwy not 'remote' enough.
Despite the clouds the colors were still impressive.
We arrived at 9 pm in Ester, where we stopped at the Golden Eagle again for dinner and drinks.
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