Northern Slope....Arctic Circle

Day 12 started hot and ended hot, no rain, no heated gear and I have a little sun burn on my face.  The sun and heat felt great.  Prior to departing Fairbanks, we left 2/3 of our gear at the hotel, the reduced weight helps with handling difficult or slow speed situations.  Our goal for day 12 was make it to the Arctic Circle and spend the night at the halfway point, Coldfoot (262 miles).  The first 70 miles of the road are paved, at the Dalton Highway sign, we pulled over for pictures, I aired the new tires down to 21 psi front and 25 psi rear for better dirt traction.  Both of us are excited and a little anxious about this last leg of our adventure.  I’ve read numerous ride reports and it is hard to determine fact from fiction.   The Haul Road for the most part is a gravel road, beat up in some places, but in good weather it is easy to navigate if you’re comfortable on gravel.  The dust is the biggest factor so far, installing the amber spot lights on the bike at the last minute paid off.  When the large semi’s roll by the dust cloud is so thick you can’t see the handlebars on your motorcycle…which is a little daunting to say the least.  Thankfully we only encountered 25 or so semi’s.  Interestingly, we saw more motorcycles than cars.  Most riders go to the Arctic Circle and not the Arctic Ocean. 

At 130 miles we pulled into the first stopping point which isn’t on the map, but it is a small building with a work camp restaurant.   While enjoying our cold drinks, we met Jesse from Nebraska, he’s riding a BMW 800, he was on his way back from the Arctic Ocean.   Jesse has been on the road for 2 months and is now headed to the bottom of South America….it was great talking to Jesse, riding from UT to the southern tip of South America is my next bucket list ride.  It has been Africa, but with all the turmoil in the World and especially that continent, South America seems more feasible and safe.  We put our ADV sticker on the restaurant window, handed one to Jesse and said our farewell as we moved up the road. 

Our next stop was the Arctic Circle entry.  We took photos, 15-20 other people were there.  We got our official certificate that we’d been to the Arctic Circle and departed for our next stop, Coldfoot.  The Arctic Region or Northern Slope is a different topography, the frozen tundra keeps everything in place.  It was interesting to learn that this area gets less precipitation than Tucson, AZ.  It is considered a desert, but the frozen tundra keeps all the moisture on the top of the ground, making the ground moist. 

After 262 miles, rough dirt road, eating dust, rattling around and bouncing all over the place, my passenger was ready to get off the motorcycle and stay off for a while.  Coldfoot is a worker’s camp for oil field workers and road construction crew.  It is a rough looking place.  We ate lunch at the camp restaurant, read our books, went for a small hike to the Arctic Observatory and played Crazy Eights.  In the Arctic Circle, the sun doesn’t set.  All night the sun is bright, no dusk.  In addition to thick window covering, we hung our jackets over the window to keep the light out. Day 13 we are going to attempt to make it to the Arctic Ocean, a couple days ahead of our original plan due to an approaching storm.  The Haul Road is nearly impassable via motorcycle when muddy.  

Jesse's motocycle