Heading South to Warm Up

Howdy!

Jason and I packed up camp and decided to eat breakfast in Tok at a place called Fast Eddy’s. They always have really tasty food. We were half asleep drinking our coffee when someone walks up and asked if he could sit with us. It was Chris (the guy we rode with after Deadhorse who has the BMW 1200)!! He recognized our bikes while riding by and stopped by to say hello. It was a nice surprise. We shared our route plans and Chris showed us some roads to take down the Cassiar Highway side since he had already come up that way. 

We were all heading toward Haines but Jason and I had to stop for gas after breakfast, so Chris went ahead without us. We knew we’d probably meet up again down the road. The riding from Tok to Haines Junction is quite droning but still very beautiful. 

 

We stopped in Delta Junction for a picture with the end of the Alaska Highway statue and the mosquito sculpture. The mosquitos are for real that big up here haha. 

 

From here down the southeast tail of Alaska, we will be hopping back and forth between Canada and the U.S. If Jason had any problems getting into Canada from Alaska, our plan was to take the pricey ferry from Alaska to Seattle. There was quite a long line at the Alaska Highway border crossing into Canada. Jason always goes first so I know if he made it or not. He got the green light to pull up, gave them his passport, and waited.... and waited..... and waited haha. I was getting a bit nervous for him. We turn our Sena communication devices off at border crossings so I didn’t know what was going on. Eventually he pulled forward and I went through. Once I caught up with him he said when the border guard scanned his passport, the computer broke haha! That was convenient. They had to do everything manually until the computer was fixed. No wonder the border guard was grumpy when I went through.

Right before we drove by Destruction Bay, there was tons of road construction. It wasn’t too bad except for the deep gravel parts and all the dust and rocks cars were throwing. At least we got to see a bobcat or small mountain lion run across the road. We finally drove by Destruction Bay. Everyone kept asking if we had seen it but we couldn’t remember (it’s because we just hadn’t driven passed it til now haha). It was big and beautiful but very windy around there.

We rolled into Haines Junction around 6 or 7pm and needed to find a place to camp. There was no way we’d make it to Haines that night. We checked out one campground next to a lake but was super crowded so kept going. We found a few side roads so Jason went to check them out. Sometimes the side roads can be steep, rutty, muddy, or all of the above with very little space to turn around; so I always have Jason cruise through first. He gets his single track riding fix and I don’t have to get stuck somewhere I can’t get out of haha. The second road he checked out he came back to the main road with half a tree stuck to the side of his pannier box. He’s like “well... it’s a cool spot but it’s a little steep.” I told him we’d keep looking haha. The next road was perfect. It was far enough off the main road and had a previous campfire pit set up.

We cooked up some backpacker meals and crawled into the tent to sleep. It was a very very cold night. Sometime early in the morning we heard a creature moving around outside our tent. It was too early and still too cold to get out of our sleeping bags to check and see what it was so we let it be. We eventually convinced ourselves to get up and get on the road. There were moose prints all over the ground so that must have been our mystery visitor.

About 20 miles down the road, we had to cross the border again back into Alaska.

Haines is known for having tons of bald eagles. It was a very cute small ocean side town.

We grabbed lunch, did a little browsing through town, and then drove out to the ferry to see how much tickets were for us and our bikes to sail to Skagway. The next ferry out of Haines didn’t go until tomorrow at 11:30am, so we needed to find a place to camp but needed to refill our water container first. We figured the people at the visitor center had a sink with drinking water, so that’s where we headed. Believe it or not....Chris was there haha! We got to finally hang out. We had read in the adventure motorcycle book that there was a tent-only campground at the end of town. It was a beautiful grassy lawn with an ocean view.... perfect! Chris, Jason, and I set up camp and then wanted to explore town more. I think we drove every little road in that town. It was cool to find all the hidden coves and hiking trails.

We grabbed dinner together and then sat around a campfire sharing moto stories and had a great time.

Morning came so we packed up camp and had to catch the ferry to Skagway. Chris decided he would like to stay in Haines an extra day to do some hiking. We had to wait in line for the ferry with a bunch of motorhomes and other cars.

We couldn’t believe how big this boat was!

Once it was our turn to load into the bottom of the boat, we noticed there was another couple riding behind us. They had almost the exact bikes as us too haha. They were super cool (a young couple from B.C.).

We cruised around the boat and then sat in the café to share moto stories with them. I love chatting with another woman rider who is short like me! She has all the same problems that I do so I don’t feel alone in the struggle. The ferry got into Skagway around noon. Skagway looks like a bigger version of Dawson City.

It had the old time gold rush architecture but with some upgrades (lots and lots of tourist shops). Our moto book told us about a campground on a dirt road outside of town before the Canada border crossing.

We cruised out there to check it out. It was kind of crowded but we wanted to check out the rivers for salmon, bears, and other wildlife; so we decided to stay. Right out front of the campground there was a seal swimming around. I thought it was a dog at first. Then we rode out toward the mud flats. There were a couple people fishing in that river. When we walked over there, we could see why.... hundreds of salmon were making their way upstream.

There were so many you could have walked across the river on top of them without getting wet. We didn’t see any bears though.

We packed up camp quickly the next morning. Rumor had it that rain was moving in. The border crossing was only 20 miles out of town. Every time we cross into B.C. the scenery is just insanely beautiful.

Waterfalls everywhere, big mountains, and beautiful blue water. The Canadian border guard was super friendly. Quick and easy and we’re back in Canada. Not too far down the road a van was pulled over with its turn signal on. There were no cars coming the other way so we just went around him. We almost were stopped in our tracks. 2 big black bear were sitting in the road in front of the van haha! We weren’t able to get a picture but they were cute. It was a chilly day of riding in and out of rain. We stopped in a tiny little rest stop/restaurant for lunch and to warm up with more coffee. Not a very eventful riding day which can be a good thing. We stopped for fuel at the turn off for the Cassier Highway and then headed South. The Cassier Highway is quite beautiful! We encountered very little traffic, lots of brand new pavement, and nice curvy corners. This road is much better than the Alaska Highway. We stopped to refill our water container at a campground but it was $22 to camp there so decided to cruise down a trail to find our own camp site. It wasn’t too bad. Still looked like rain but thankfully never did.

We had quite a ways to go to get to Hyder but the scenery was nice. We stopped by Jade City, which is a rock store with mostly artsy stuff made out of jade. Lots of beautiful things but super pricey.

 

It unfortunately started raining on us and Jason’s heated gear wasn’t working (must have blown a fuse). We grabbed a nice hot soup and sandwich lunch at a small town restaurant to warm up a little. While we were eating, a Brazilian kid stopped by on a KLR.

He was making his way North from Argentina. He was trying to earn money for his travels as he went, so we bought one of his website stickers from him. We should have made stickers for ours too but we didn’t even think about it before we left. Anyway... we had to wait 45 minutes for gas before hitting the road because a whole convoy of motorhomes with 100 gallon gas tanks got there before us. Even when it was our turn, some old guy with his crappy leprechaun motorhome was so impatient and rude to us. We made sure to smile and wave at him every time we flew passed him on the road after that haha. Another 160 miles down the road, I needed to stop for gas again. Right before our next gas stop, there was a black bear eating something on the side of the road. Jason did a uturn to go get a picture of him haha. Our communication device didn’t reach that far; so if he wasn’t back in 10 minutes, I was supposed to go looking for him.

Thankfully the bear was more scared of him than he was of the bear and it walked away. The place we stopped for gas was called Bell 2 Lodge (Last Frontier Heli Skiing Lodge). We were over the rain so Jason went in to see how much a room there cost.

It was really reasonable, so we had a lavish comfortable evening in our own cabin with a wood burning stove. We had one of the best steak dinners there, sat in the hot tub, followed by the sauna, and then ended the evening by sipping wine by the fireplace. It was amazing!!

We took our time getting ready in the morning. We had a nice breakfast in the lodge and talked with the head chef about heli skiing. He was a cool guy (an adrenaline junky like us). Jason put a new fuse in his heated gear set up just in case of rain again and we were good to go. The day started out nice but then it was cold and rainy all the way into Stewart and Hyder. It was one of the most beautiful scenic roads we have ever seen though!

 

Huge green covered mountains with glaciers and waterfalls everywhere you look. It’s really hard to keep your eyes on the road there. We stopped for lunch in Stewart before crossing the border into Hyder.

Hyder is still part of Alaska but there wasn’t a border crossing guard for the U.S. there (only coming back into Canada).

We wanted to check out the spot where you can stand on a bridge and watch bears eat the salmon in the river. We heard this time of year is when they go nuts for them. There were signs everywhere that said “Please walk on boardwalk. The street is too dangerous because of bears crossing.” They definitely went over the top to keep people safe here.

The boardwalk is gated off at all entrances so bears can’t get in and you’re supposed to keep all food and pets inside your vehicle. We weren’t thinking clearly when we went to look at the bears... animals feed at dusk and dawn and we were there around 2pm so we didn’t see any. I guess there were a couple grizzlies feeding there at 9pm the other night.

We didn’t want to stick around til dark. It had started pouring rain again; so we went back into Stewart, bought a few groceries, and fueled up. While at the gas station, Jason decided to have a look at his chain (it had been making terrible noises for the past few days). It wasn’t the chain... his sprocket was so bad it had teeth missing. Thank God he had new sprockets with him!!

We sat under a tree to replace his sprockets out of the rain. The old mechanic at the gas station was super nice and used his air gun tool to change Jason’s sprocket bolts over to the new one for him. Quick and easy fix and back on the road. We wanted to drive out of the rain and hopefully find a spot to camp.

 

Not too far out of town there was a black bear sitting on the side of the road eating plants. I guess he didn’t get the memo about all the salmon in the river. We didn’t get a picture of that cute bear because Jason had the camera and he was daydreaming and never saw him sitting there haha. We stopped a lot on the way out of Stewart to take pictures. It was just crazy beautiful all around us. Once we made it to the turn off toward Prince George, the rain went away. There was no way we could have made it to Prince George before dark, so we explored a nice gravel forest service road to find a camp spot. Off this road was another side road but it was a little overgrown, so I let Jason check it out first. He went in a little ways and said “Bear!” I said “Well... guess we aren’t camping here!” I understand there are bears all around us when we go camping; but if we actually see one and I know it is there next to us, that’s a good enough excuse not to stick around. We explored a bit further down the gravel road and found a beautiful grassy knoll next to a bridge above a big river. It was perfect!

There were only 2 directions a bear could come from, so there was no sneaking up on us there. The little bit of grocery shopping I had done earlier was to make a fancy appetizer before Jason before our usual backpacker meals. We had capocollo (meat that looks like prosciutto), cheese, crackers, and wine. For dessert, we had homemade chocolate chip cookies.

 

We had a great evening sitting there listening to Jack Johnson music and enjoying the quiet forest. Once the sun went down, we went to bed; but then we heard a car door slam. Who seriously would be way out here in the middle of the night?! We both crawled out of the tent with a bear banger and knife in hand just in case haha. It was just a couple of giggly teenagers going out on the bridge to do whatever teenagers do under the stars. We stayed up for awhile to make sure they didn’t steal anything on their way out and then went back to sleep.

In the morning, we packed up camp and then wanted to explore the river bank below us. I had noticed there was a collapsed old building down there the night before. I bet there was some cool stuff hidden inside that house.

We didn’t want to get stabbed by rusty nails or fall through holes so we didn’t crawl over the mess, but it looked like someone had lived there not too long ago. Then we found this....

 

A big mama bear foot print with little bear cub foot prints right along the water’s edge which was also right below where we were sleeping! Good thing I always sleep with the bear banger next to me. We hopped back on the bikes and cruised out to the main road to find a trash can to dump our trash. While Jason was throwing stuff away, I noticed a white stripe on his tire. He checked it out and sure enough the threads on his tire were showing through!

We had planned on getting new tires in Prince George but now it looked like his tire wouldn’t last that long. We drove slow all day to try not to explode his tire. We stopped at every motorcycle shop in Smithers to at least get Jason a new rear tire to get us to Prince George. Surprisingly no one had a tire that fit his bike except for one tiny Suzuki shop. Their mechanic was busy but they let Jason use their shop to change his tire.

I sat outside and typed away on our blog stories. About an hour later, Jason comes rolling out and instantly I can see his tire is wobbling like crazy. He said it will be fine and we hit the road. We didn’t make it too far before he realized his tire was seriously wobbling. We went back to a gas station across the street from where he bought the tire to use their air pump to try and seat the bead better. As he was reaching down to unscrew the valve cap, the tire exploded as loud as a bomb! Thankfully he wasn’t hurt! The tire must have had a defect in the steel wall of the tire because it shouldn’t have exploded like that.

 

So...we were back to square one. Jason walked back to the motorcycle shop to see if he had another tire he could buy. The only thing he had left was a skinny dirt bike tire. It made his bike look like a body builder with skinny chicken legs haha. After a very long stressful day, Jason wanted a shower and chicken wings from Boston Pizza, so we got a hotel room in Smithers. Our bikes (and us) are a bit tired so we’ve been finding more excuses for getting a hotel room instead of camping. Hopefully we’ll snap out of that. We’ve been doing mechanic work for one thing after another since we left Alaska, so it makes for slow moving travel.

We had a nice night, did some laundry, showered, grabbed breakfast at Tim Horton, and got on the road for Prince George. We rolled into town around 5pm so we had to hurry if we were going to tire shop before the shops closed. We went to 3 different shops before Jason found the tires he wanted. He bought Heidenau Scout tires which are said to last for 15,000 miles. He made an appointment at Forest Powersports to get the tires put on in the morning. Sadly nobody had tires for my bike. We stayed in another hotel room that night since we were in a city.

The next morning I slept in while Jason took his bike in to get new tires.

 

The guys at Forest Powersports were super cool and helped Jason out a lot. They even went over our map with us to show us some cool roads since we hadn’t planned that far ahead on our route yet. Most of the time Jason will ask me, “Do you know where we are going?” and I’ll say, “Nope I’m just following this road.” Haha that is how most of our traveling has been lately.

Anyway, we wanted to get out of the city so we cruised toward a lake district that the guy from the shop said was nice for camping. There were some beautiful twisty roads and then it turned to gravel.

We checked out a few side roads and decided to do a Uturn back to one of the roads we saw. For this Uturn, Jason went off the road into a grassy square area and then ramped back up on to the road in the opposite direction. I followed and did all the hard stuff perfectly except my short legs couldn’t touch the ground after my suspension rebounded once I was back on the road; so I plopped sideways again. I hate it when that happens! I have to take the box off the side I fell on, take all the stuff out of it, pop the side of the box out again, and then put everything back in the box. But anyway... we found a camp spot up an old logging road. It wasn’t ideal but it was doable for the night.

Jason bought some yummy smoked salmon to go with the rest of our crackers and cheese.

Then we cooked chicken noodle soup, but didn’t have enough water to wash dishes; so we used bundles of long grass to clean dishes haha. It actually worked quite well. Right as we were going to bed, wolves started howling! There was a pack of wolves behind us somewhere howling toward a pack of wolves down by the road where we came in. Thankfully we never saw them close up but it was hard to sleep that night.