Over a year ago my friend Jim, from Williamstown, MA asked if I wanted to join him on a motorcycle ride to Prudhoe Bay in May/June of 2010. We would meet, he suggested, in Edmonton, and then ride up the Alaska Highway together. Jim would be a good riding companion. Jim is a near life long rider and motorcycle aficionado. He owns one of thirteen Britton motorcycles and has other rare bikes in his collection. Jim and I have motorcycled together in Vietnam, Japan, Bhutan, India, Mongolia, Ecuador, Peru and Africa. I said I'd go,
But because of a commitment to daily skiing in Park City, holiday events, and a Spring motorcycle trip in Bhutan and India, I didn't do the planning necessary to get my 98 BMW R1100 GS motorcycle ready to make the trip. The GS could probably make the trip. But, I would need to get new tires, secure in advance replacement tires in Anchorage, install some auxiliary lighting, and purchase new luggage. I just wasn't able to take the time to get all this done in time to conform to Jim's original plan of meeting in Edmonton at the beginning of the fourth week of May, 2010.
In March of 2010, Jim called me and said he was planning to leave for Alaska as scheduled... around mid-May, but that he had decided to ride the Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay portion of the trip, over 2000 miles round trip, as part of a tour run by Motoquest Tours. The tour company owner - a friend of his - succeeded in convincing Jim that riding in such remote country as the Alaskan north slope might be more enjoyable with the back-up support offered by a motorcycle tour package. The package includes, bike rental (Jim rode his own bike) ride guide, sweep rider, back-up truck and mechanic. Hotels are also secured in advance taking the risk out of finding a place to stay in the remote north. Many riders like to camp, but neither Jim nor I wanted to camp. We had heard too many horror stories about mosquitos. The tour package sounded like a good way to motorcycle the north slope of Alaska.
Jim said that he thought there was one slot left on the trip. Long a practitioner of impulse decision making and a stolid believer in the power of serendipity, I called the tour company five minutes after hanging up with Jim and booked the last open slot on the ten day tour. We would be ten riders, two staff riders, a guide and a sweep, and a mechanic who would drive the sweep truck.
I arrived in Anchorage late afternoon of 01 June 2010 three nights before the start of the ten day motorcycle tour, 04 June 2010, from Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay and back to Anchorage via the Denali Highway and Denali National Park. I took possession of my rented Kawasaki KLR 650 motorcycle from tour organizer Motoquest Tours www.motoquesttours.com the next morning and was on my own for the next two days.
Above: Alyeska Ski Resort, Girdwood. From one ski resort (Park City) to another. I took an exploratory ride on the Kawasaki KLR 650, south, out the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet direction Kenai Peninsula. and Seward. About 40 miles from Anchorage is Alyeska ski resort. The base of Alyeska is only 200 feet above sea level and about 10 miles from Turnagain Arm (salt water). I wondered how much day light was available to ski this far north in the depth of winter. I would later learn from Jeff, Motoquest employee and sweep rider on our tour, that the ski lifts opened at 10:30 AM and closed at 5:00 PM. The least amount of light was available on 21 December, Winter Solstice, but after that there are five minutes of additional light each succeeding day. There is also a lot of snow. The average annual snow fall at the summit of Alyeska is 800 inches and at the base, 3500 inches. The resort skis 2500 vertical feet and is served by five lifts and a tram. The resort is open and ski-able through mid May.
Above: Glacier in Chugach National Forest on the south side of Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet.
Above: Turnagain Arm looking east towards Portage Glacier in Chugach National Forest. Alyeska Ski Resort is in the mountains, on the left side of the pic... about 40 miles from Anchorage. The Turnagain Arm of the Cook inlet is a prime breeding ground for the Beluga whales, which would arrive later in the summer.
If the beauty of the terrain on this short ride out of Anchorage was indicative of what was to come then I supposed I wouldn't be disappointed with the trip. That supposition was to prove true "in spades."
I returned the bike to Motoquest around 4:00 PM. Riding in to Motoquest Tours, on Spenard Road, at the same time was my friend Jim. He had arrived in Anchorage 3 days previously and was returning this day from a side trip to Kennecott. We had dinner together that evening at Simon and Seaforts restaurant... where the Copper River salmon truly is fresh. IOver dinner, I caught up on Jim's Odyssey to date (from Williamstown, MA to Anchorage AK) which included riding for a day north of Edmonton in twenty eight degrees and snowfall.
