North and West from Fairbanks
This Must be Heaven, a Paved road with no construction.
 In quite a mood.  Did I disappoint you with only about one sentence on Fairbanks?  Heck, the town was having patriotic fun, and my attitude, again, was one of those where solitude was more attractive than joining the party.  The countryside is heavily forested, my little bike is tooling along quite happily, and the traffic thins out rapidly with each mile out of town.  Just a short way, I find the Elliot highway, and although it starts out nicely paved, that's a brief luxury.  About an hour out of Fairbanks, the old gravel is again under my tires.  Somehow that seems natural now.  The subtle wandering in the loose sections, the dust, and the vague notion that I'd better keep the speed down relaxes me, and some forgotten tune starts humming in my throat.  Not that I can hear anything outside, but loafing along about 50 my off-key mantra comes up the inside way in my head.  Even when I stop at some picnic tables for a break, there is absolutely no one else there, this right at the height of the tourist season, and very close to town.  Strange, deserted.  I sing my notes, totally forgetting the words, and clear my parched throat with some very tasteful spring water. This is several hours after Livengood.  No, the little town is not named for the lifestyle, but I'm sure Mr. Livengood and Mr. Hudson did fine after discovering the gold in this area.  Unfortunately for the ecology, they took it out by sluice mining, and some of the camps are still there.  I just keep put putting, and avoid getting depressed.

The mountains are called "domes" -- like Pedro Dome and Wickersham Dome.  The tourist traps start to thin out, allowing genuine abandoned mines, camps, cabins to repose in their peace and memories.  Further, one last 'general store' allows me to replenish my necessaries, but even though the folks are friendly as can be, the main profit margin seems to be in souvenirs and novelties.

Right near Livengood is where the genuine 'Haul Road' starts.  Now its named the Dalton.  The guys who built the pipeline made this highway just to haul construction materials and supplies.  They did the whole 400 + miles from Livengood to Prudhoe Bay in five months.  Now, that isn't bad for just a gravel, 30 foot wide on-grade road, but this doesn't quite describe it.  The gravel is three to six feet thick, and in some parts had to be laid over plastic insulating foam to protect the frost layer!

From the start, the haul road just cruises through the countryside.  I am eagerly awaiting some big experience, like driving in the shade of this huge pipeline.  Heck, all you can see is this distant silver line over to the right, almost on the horizon.  There is still some haze [maybe dust!] in the sky, and it looks tiny, ethereal, and as if some new artist had decided these hills needed a long, very long decoration.  The sun is behind me, and when the pipe makes the convenient angle, the silver shines and glints a reflection to me.  You have to just stop, find a good lookout and stop.  This is quiet private time, and I wish my first sight was here, not back at the official (Delta Junction) tourist turnout with souvenirs and the nice lady.  You just follow the sweep as far as the eye can see.  Dark green forest, with an incongruous and delicate lustrous necklace draped over the rise and fall of the land.  It is peaceful, quiet, and not at all connected to the frenetic publicity prepared for the lower 48 consumption.

I'll tell you, it certainly is not straight!  The changes of direction are not capricious, they either work up the lay of the land, or are just to break up a long run to allow for thermal flexing.  I trace out it's direction, and try to predict when the road will intersect it.  Not for quite a while it seems, so I mount up again.

Weather being almost perfect, just a slightly too hot, I run on a few hours and decide to start finding a place to rest.  One thing I thought about, was to climb up on the pipeline and, if it is very quiet, listen to the oil run and sleep in my bag on top of it.  Hell, no.  First, you are not supposed to go near the thing.  You know, there are fences, and the gates are always padlocked.  Besides, the access road alongside is pretty far from it, and they scare you with all these signs about what will happen if you get caught fooling around.  Pretty grim! ... Pipe & Heat Pipes   Next, it really isn't big enough.  After all, the pipe is only 48" in diameter, and all that insulation around it is still curved, so believe me - for the record, I didn't
(sleep on it, that is).


 
You more observant readers will quickly notice my poor photography habits have come through without any improvement.  Pretty reliable, huh?  The time is about eight in the 'evening' - the sun is still high in the sky, and my film got all overexposed on the right side.  Sorry about that, but if you complain enough I will just have to buy a new camera and go back to shoot this over again.
Those high-tech heat pipes are part of the system which keeps the permafrost intact, one of these days I am going to have to research how they don't pump heat into the ground in the hot summer.   But the posts keep the pipe well off of the ground.  It sits above the cross beam on a semi-articulated mount.  You won't be surprised, my detail pictures came out not at all!
There is a fence, to keep humans away, in most places near the main road. Where there isn't one, the game trails wander around and through the pipe construction as they would do just at random in the woods.  Every once in a while, the pipe dives under ground, and all you have is the service road.   Now, if you're very careful, you can explore around on your little bike and never leave even one tire track near the tundra.  I remind you again, carry out every speck of food and trash you bring in.  Although the pipe is one huge intrusion on the pristine wilderness, it is less dangerous than you feeding the bears. 

You can certainly tell there is more money, lately, in oil than there is in gold.  This is a very well maintained highway, albeit salted down with calcium chloride, but smooth and generally very firm.  In the open stretches, I can bop along as fast as I want, but here again the name of the game is to play it conservatively.  As with the 'Dumpster, you break down and sure, the tow truck mechanic will come and rescue, for $5.00/mile each way.  Wow, what would Judy say?

She came close.  Wasn't I just bragging about how well maintained this road was kept, and how I had to think about going slow and being careful?  Well, the engineers are getting goofy.  The grades are sharper now.  We are going up and down some steep sections, narrow switchbacks, and I find myself in first and second gear to use my engine braking and to climb up the other side.  Even the bridge has a grade to it.  The crossing for the Yukon River (that thing goes all over the place, doesn't it!) has a wood deck and a pretty good slope to it.  It was raining steadily, but the rest stop was friendly and the travelers all very well behaved, even me.  Again, the routine is a steep climb up the other side, ride the crest of the hills for a while, then start a descent that gets intense as we get toward the bottom.  Now, the road is wet, the calcium chloride is slippery, and I look like a gray mudball coming up the next climb.  When the rain gets energetic at least it washes off the front part of me.  I had to laugh out loud even though it tasted salty.  Some joker named one of these excursions the "Roller Coaster" and said to use caution, it was dangerous!  In my opinion, the other sections of the same road were more rigorous, but maybe it was just the intensity of the rain at the time.

Learned a new phrase:  'headache bar' - no, it doesn't have anything to do with tequila.  Remember those access roads that lead up through the fence to the pipe line?  That's where they use them.  The bottom of the pipe itself is quite high off the ground, you could drive a pickup under it, but they protect it from being hit by a too-tall vehicle by using heavy goalpost-like structures called headache bars.  If your truck goes under the bar without hitting anything, it will clear the lower point of the pipe's insulation.  The bar is made of some pretty sturdy pipe, I guarantee you will know if you hit it, even at night in a storm.  Say nothing to the officials, but I took a break from the rain near one of these, in a maintenance shack, and dozed off for a short nap.

Mother Nature does have a light hearted attitude.  I know the timing is wrong, but she saw fit to put a perfect sculpture of the 'obscene finger' gesture on a hill to greet you to this territory. Finger Rock Maybe she knew that after we raped the land to extract the gold, goofed up the fishing with tailings, and then laid this big pipe across her breast, we would take the flip-off in good humor.

I laughed as I pulled up to a stop, and was rapidly changing to the 200 mm. lens when the clouds and mist came up.  Damn, the sunny modeling of this rock is lost in this photo.  First, I'm too close and at the wrong angle, it should be seen from a vantage point far to your right.  The rock is a 'tor' - the scenic marker says it is hard granite that does not erode when the rest of the land wears down.  So the rock is left standing.  There are dozens of them near the road, but none so magnificently carved to look like an extended finger.  At the proper angle, even the other knuckles are visible folded down, close to the ground.

This image is the best I could do, and suffice it to say I'm grinning as I place it here for you.  I feel, as I do it, that you are helping to complete the experience just by my struggling to present and further describe it to you.

So don't laugh, we are coming to Old Man's Camp, and I get sensitive.  This abandoned camp was well cleaned up, and there isn't much left, but the name.  That name is easy to figure out.  I think it was the effect of the road they had to travel.  The grades here are borderline treacherous, and I did some sloppy driving around one down slope and got sideways.  I was never happier to be the only one on the road, because it was so steep and slippery I could not even dismount and walk it.  With some backing and filling, I got the headlight pointed down hill again and went creeping along at a walking pace to the bottom.  I meditated long and hard there.  You will understand that this causes me great pain to admit, but a four wheel vehicle is more stable going down a steep, slippery slope than my motorcycle!  It balances all by itself, and can find, usually, at least two contact patches to hold and control it.  If I loose either one of mine, it gets exciting real quick.  The name of this one, by the way, was 'Beaver Slide' - but, at least, it was easier going up the other side.

So then, actually quite suddenly, I was there.  Again, the idea of the Arctic Circle is mostly mental, kind of an engineering thing.Arctic Circle Diagram You start by accepting that the whole earth is tipped in it's orbit around the sun.  If it was perfectly 'vertical' - like a top spinning on a table with no wobble, then the daylight and night would be exactly equal.
----->
My standing on this spot is best understood by looking at the summer position of the world in this diagram.  As the earth goes completely around in one day, the whole 'top' [the Arctic Circle] stays in the sunshine all the time.  For me, therefore, the sun never sets!

I unpack my camera, and am fumbling around with the SSA banner.  I must have been pretty tired at this point.  Some nice folks drove up in a van and offered to help me take the picture.  I almost had it propped up against the side of the bike, when they said it might look better if it was right side up! A/C Crossing on Haul Road

Yes, I agreed, the whole effect does seem better.

Now, these folks were prepared.  They calmly break out two bottles, chilled, of excellent champagne.  They tell me, alas, that half of their group doesn't drink, and might I assist them by joining in a toast?  So, while several there were enjoying a sparkling cranberry soft drink, I had three generous glasses of the ambrosia.  We talked for a while, and I felt it best to allow them some camaraderie as a group and took off for a slow walk, leaving my bike and rig well out of the way for their photo shoot.  They were setting up tripods and self timers, etc., and didn't need me.

When I returned, they were gone.  I have no idea whether they were heading North or South, but I never saw that van again.

I drove just a short distance and camped.  All I did was take off my musty rain suit and leathers, and just slept.  I knew, by this point, that I was not going to press on as far as the road might take me.  Deadhorse is as far as the private citizen is allowed, you have to pay a tour or guide to get to Prudhoe.  I allowed though, that I might climb up to the Continental Divide, where it runs East and West in the Brooks range.  As I mulled over these concepts, I fell into a deep sleep.  Then, deja vu, I woke up and asked myself angrily if I would ever learn.  It was raining, hard, and I was soaked.

Not to worry though, it was too hot for the leathers, and I had a dry set of clothing in the bag on the bike.  All wrapped in plastic, it had survived with my camera snug and dry.  I used the jacket of my rain suit as a sort of shelter, and changed.  Soon, the road helped me make up my mind.  As I headed North some more, the continuing series of wet, muddy climbs and 'slides' down the other side was beginning to feel more risky.  I decided to make a regular camp, Farthest North Alaska Campsite dry out everything, and think it over.


 
As you look at a map, this is about as far from Chicago as I got.  I had romped up past "Prospect Camp" and that section of climb was tough.  I had made a mental note that, on my return trip, I would just stop before the slope and camp if it was raining hard.  Going up, I was spinning my back tire, even with my big weight on it, and I knew the tread was getting thin.  Going down, being tougher on my skills, was not to be a trifling matter.  Even though Prospect Camp is where the lowest recorded temperature in Alaska was set (-80 F according to the sign) it was still quite warm and sometimes muggy.  The mosquitoes would stagger my Harley if I hit them square, and a glancing blow would leave a bruise.
So, what helped me make up my mind is when I light struck a whole roll of film.  I mean, just sitting there in this tent, I opened the camera back before I had rewound!.. .  With mistakes like that, I knew I was getting weary.  I had noted my odometer at 4,461 for the Arctic Circle crossing, and as you look here, this is only about fifty miles more, but it felt like many times that.
So there it is, still a little West of 150 degrees longitude, and about 54 miles North of the Arctic Circle in latitude.  It's as far as my daily commute from Valparaiso to Chicago.  This time I'm well short of the Continental Divide, but my mark is still up there, far to the East, North of the 'Circle in Canada.  Ah well.  I'm getting old.
I remembered a line about solitude ---


A voyage whose two ends were out of sight- ...
the perfection so great, the emptiness so entire, than ...

You almost had to be there, in that tent.

So, my decision made this my "Farthest North Camp" and I just rode into the tourist facilities at Coldfoot and relaxed some more.  All I had to do was enjoy it, and then, as my Dad would say, it would be 'all down hill' from there. 

More 'in the works'.
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