I stayed in North Pole for about four days hanging with the amazing Shay family I met in the Seattle airport. Afterward, I stayed a night in Fairbanks proper to save me 15 km on my first day of riding up to Deadhorse. I met this guy from Germany, Thomas, whop lives near Augsburg and he offered me a place to stay at his house whenever I make it to Germany!
I left from the Chena River Campground and headed north on the Elliot Highway. This particular stretch was quite hilly. I cannot remember ever biking anything so hilly. They are long, steep, and very tall. And there are seemingly endless amounts of them. I spent the entire day going up and down; then it started raining. When I was at the top of a hill getting my rain gear on a trucker was parked at the top in the parking pull-off. He asked how far I was going and I told him I planned on making it the whole way. He proceeded to tell me that the road had potholes the size of my bike, mud that would cover everything, and that it more or less just sucks. He said he biked it years ago and that it was not to be taken lightly. He offered me a ride up to Deadhorse so I could see for myself how terrible it really is and if I decided I didn’t want to bike it he would drive me back south. I thanked him and said I was going to still try to bike north. I continued biking for hours until I made it to the Tatalina River and made camp there for the night back in the woods a bit in a small clearing. The mozzies were pretty bad (I would find out later they get much worse) but I quickly ate while walking to keep the bugs out of my face and food and went to bed.
I woke up the following day really well rested; I had definitely earned that sleep last night. I quickly tore down camp and hit the road with a slightly lighter load since I had eaten a bunch of energy bars and a meal the night before. The knowledge that every day my load would be getting less heavy until Coldfoot was a little peace of mind. The day started with an excellent warmup of about 15km of uphill. Yay… Water was pretty scarce in this bit but luckily truckers take care of us bicyclists and will regularly stop and hand out bottles of water and snacks. Thanks!
I made it to the start of the Dalton Highway and it went from wonderful tarmac to shitty gravel. And I mean shitty. It was loose, pretty deep and uphill with about an 8% grade. Welcome to the Hellmouth, I mean Dalton. Going up that first hill on the Dalton I immediately started questioning myself. What did I get myself into? Can I really do this? This is crazy, it’s not too late to turn around. I had to shut up those negative voices in my head and imagine my friends and family cheering me on. A few massive hills later I had a gentleman in a pickup truck stop and chat me up. He asked how far I was going and I told him that I planned on going to Deadhorse. He told me I should probably turn back cause the road gets really terrible up ahead. I again informed him that I was going to make a go of it. He replied that if I made it I would look like Wonder Woman and bid me on my way. I took that as a win cause even though he didn’t think I could make it at least he didn’t misgender me!!!
This was the first time I saw potholes the size of crevasses which made me ride my brakes downhill out of fear of breaking my bike and myself (in that order). I also had to walk my bike up many hills due to the steepness (8-11% grades), the condition of the road which can generously be called terrible, and the sheer size of them. I camped at Hess Creek that night, the last water until I reach the Yukon some 50 hilly km away. This creek was pretty silty so I had to either boil my water or strain it through a shirt before running it through my filter.
I am so sick of mountains by this point. They aren’t even that pretty here. All I see are scrawny trees everywhere. I say that mainly out of spite of hiving to bike up them so much. I spent 30 km going up hill. About halfway up that I thought I had a small stretch of downhill and started to coast when I quickly came to a stop. I looked at my bike computer and it told me I was still at a 5% grade. I had been climbing a grade so steep for so long that when it became just slightly less steep my mind had the illusion of downhill. I wish I could say this only happened this one time but it definitely was a common thing on the Haul Road. I saw a tour bus stopped with the tourists looking at the pipeline and I asked for water and they gave me so much, all of it was needed to get to the Yukon. It was a very sunny and hot day, it would continue to be for thew remainder of my ride to Deadhorse.
I made it to Yukon Camp and ate all the food, got a room cause no one could give me any description of how hilly it was to the BLM camp just 8 km up the road. I got to shower, eat, wash my clothes, and eat some more to make up for my calorie deficit.