(FAKE) Alaskan Adventure Ride

Whistler was a blast, but I still had a cooler full of fish and the dry ice was long gone. Driving through Vancouver sucked, the traffic was horrible. It was a huge change after all the time in the woods and reminded me of my dark days commuting to the DTC (cubicle hell aka Denver Tech Center). I got sick of it, told the rat to hop in the passenger’s seat and I hopped in the HOV lane. It was a good move too, I saved a ton of time. Not that you should do that sort of thing of course.


The boarder was quick and easy with the first grocery store as the next stop. After purchasing the deadly dry ice banned by our brothers in the north, it was time to decide where to rider for another day. The area around Mount Baker was the most logical area. Without knowing of anything in particular, I headed off on a side road and looked for a camp spot.


There was a nice pull-off across from a campground on a little road gated off by a logging company. I unloaded the bike, cooked up some food and called it a night.


The next day I headed out with no destination in mind. Just out to see what could be seen, taking little side-roads and off-shoots.




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I was in no hurry, just loving life and the ride. I also found a little single line to check out, marked by this little sign (sorry about the blurry picture). After that I almost got stuck at the bottom of a slick little downhill. The rear tire I was using was not ideal and it took a try or two to make it back up. And after that there were plenty of other little side-roads to explore.




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While pulling over to smell the roses here and there and stare at waterfalls too, but no chasing them mind you.





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There were some amazing vistas to be found.




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And some cool mushrooms too.




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I picked a few of these ones, not the super choice type but easy to identify as safe. Just slice it in half, top to bottom, and make sure there is no mushroom pattern and just solid meat, tasty sautéed with some garlic and butter. I didn’t know anything about the other one though.

I think that's great.

In spite of what people may think, the Alaska Hwy is suited for a K1200LT, or a BMW sports sedan.
If I could get my wife to agree to come along, I'd trailer my bike behind an RV!

Whatever it takes to make a good adventure is exactly what it takes.

It looks like you guys had a great time.
If I could, I'd do the same thing to get my wife to ride with me.

Jim

jamesm417 - Thanks for commenting, I hear you, the Alaskan Highway not an ideal motorcycle road, way too few curves. The Cassiar would be better and I have glanced through a couple reports with some little dirt cut-offs to spice it up, but even then, great for a 1200BMW or a GoldWing.

It would have been cool to say I rode all the way up, riding is more economical if you only have a few weeks for your trip. But with all the time I had, it was way cheaper to drive the truck up. Even with 8-12 miles per gallon considering how expensive food and lodging is up there. You can only tent-camp so many nights in the rain. Plus smaller bike + smaller trails = more adventure in my book.

I would still love to ride up there one day though.

The dirt roads kept leading to one amazing overlook after the next.




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Then looped back and it was time to check out some of the little turnoffs that were originally skipped.



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Fun riding, but it was a good thing the mirrors were not too tight, they kept getting whacked by the branches and spinning around. As soon as they were straightened up and hand tightened back down, they spun back around.




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Fun stuff but too short-lived.

After playing around on the all the little side-roads that could be found, and after hand-tightening the mirrors several times it was starting to get dark. There were some amazing overlooks that I figured perhaps could have been a decent place to watch a another sunset.




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Not a bad place to watch a sunset at all.




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OK, so now this is starting to get a little redundant, but it is hard to choose one over the other. Hope no one minds.




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The view of Mount Baker was amazing with the heavens lit up, but I also wanted to check out the other vista over the river too.




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I kept trying it with and without the flash, and couldn't decide which I preferred.




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So, again, not sure if I should keep up with the redundancy or choose one over the other. They are kind of grainy at this size, and zooming in didn't help with that.





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But they at least give you the idea. I was really blown away by the purpleish-orange fog rising up from the river in the distance. Wait a minute, I don't think those colors can even mix. Anyways, it was time to move out, I had somewhere to be.

Very nice photo's.......................<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
I'm am still hoping to duplicate your Baja trip, hopefully one day.<o></o>

TooTallRacing - Thanks a million for following along! Me too about the Baja thing, and especially since George just passed. It was just such a blessing to be able to learn from him and follow him all those years. He is a legend and forgot more single-lines than anyone else ever knew in these parts. It was awesome to meet Bill Nichols at his funeral, and the letter Malcolm wrote was touching. Maybe I should get one of the COHVCO guys to post it on the Baja story. He called George, the "optical illusion" rider. He was too short to touch, too blind to see, too overweight for his own good, but, a "fine rider" indeed. And, in the words of Lee, "made grown men cry" trying to keep up.

That stuff down there is no joke and not to be taken lightly, and I wish you all the best on it!

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The sky kept changing, and I just had to stop for another.


Then headed back over the dam.


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I almost felt like someone was going to jump out and yell at me for riding through, but that's the way I needed to go and it looked legit.





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It was pretty cool.




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Although it has been a while, I'm pretty sure that was the Baker Lake Dam and I had been playing around on the roads off to the east.



Then one more shot of the mighty mountain and back to the camper it was.




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That night there was some rustling in the bushes and I woke up to the Rat barking at something. I quieted him down and listened some more. I heard it again and it was close. I grabbed a flashlight, I didn't have a good one though, and tried to see what was there.





There was a big black outline, I thought maybe it was just a rock and I kept staring at it but it didn't flinch. Finally I gave up and laid back down. I heard the rustle again, so I whipped out the flashlight again but it stopped and I could't see anything. I got bored again and gave up.




The next morning the rock I thought I saw the night before wasn't there, but I didn't think too much about it. It wasn't like I was worried about getting attacked up in the back of the F-two-fiddy.





It was a sad day, sure happy because the wifey (actually GF at that time) was flying in for the last leg home, but sad because the best riding had been done and I was getting submersed back in the civilization of the lower 48.






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I took my time, snapped a pick up the truck as it set in the Pac NW canopy, and then loaded up and headed to the Seattle Airport.

I arrived at the airport a little too early, and had to wait for a while for her plane to land. I used the time to make a few calls to some friends back home. Finally the plane landed and I was excited as can be when I picked Tina up at the terminal. She loves sushi, our first date was at Sushi Den so she could see how I could handle chop sticks I believe. I guess I passed. Anyways, we first stopped at some coffee shop, Seattle right, and asked a couple people what resturaunt they suggested for Sushi. It took a couple times around to find it and park the rig, but dinner was awesome.


We never went sea kayaking when we were in Alaska, and Tina was a little disappointed. So, she made plans to do it up at San Juan Island. After dinner we headed up and slept in the parking lot for the ferry in Anacortes. I have to admit, I was a bit hesitant. But, I guess it could have been worse.


The island was a bit touristy, although to be expected. We made it to the meeting spot but some of the other fellow tourists were late. So, we waited around. They finally arrived, no big deal, and we set off in the van. A pretty diverse group of people we had with us, but no interesting stories there, just our granola, middle-aged tour guide lady.


Tina loves pictures of us, so:


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Beauty and the Grizz?


I still wasn’t really feeling it but she was happy as a clam, at first.


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After our run-down on the operations we loaded up and headed out, at the exact same time as the other 3 sea kayaking tourist groups, awesome.


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There was kelp piled up near the shore, and it was odd to say the least. It was about as thick as your wrist and maybe 12 feet (4m) long, almost translucent in places with a bulb on the end, and solid with a little bounce. They were intertwined together and you had to push off of them to get the boat to slide over the top.



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Floating out there, bobbing up and down in the sea was beautiful, even though we weren’t alone.



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Although, it was kind of like riding the ferris wheel after a few rounds on Space Mountain, sorry not sure where that came from, but it was tame compared to Alaska. Floating out in the water looking at the back of someone’s house when you are trying to have some sort of a nature experience is not what I would call ideal.


Honestly, it was weird being around people again. Civilization, houses, Midwesterners and their college football gear head to toe, group decisions and tour guides. More of a shock than I thought it would be.

For lunch we pulled into a quiet little cove, with maybe 100 yards (m) or less of beach between us and the next group. Our tour guide slowly and methodically pulled out the natural peanut butter, the kind that you have to stir every minute or two, the natural jelly, then halved the pita bread, and cut the cheese. After that she slowly sliced each apple, tomato, and pepper with painstaking precision. Reading between the lines you may infer that I was just a little hungry. Now I wouldn’t say it was bad, it is just good to not have expectations some times. But after hanging out on the beach for a bit, we loaded up into the boats and headed out to the little lighthouse.



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Out in the sea, bobbing up and down in the 3-4 foot (1m) swells didn’t set too well with Tina and her stomach. The peppers and natural peanut butter didn’t set well with her to say the least. After some coaching form the tour guide to focus on one point on the horizon she finally let it back up and then it was time to head back to the van and waited for one of the other groups to load up their boats before we could fully load up and disembark.


Now, I get it, clean, eco friendly, sustainable and all. People power just makes some people all warm and fuzzy inside. Personally however, I think God made oil and man made the combustion engine for a reason. And, personally, I love the sweet smell of fossil fuel. Call me what you will.

The San Juan Island was awesome, and the kayaking was an excellent experience. Now some people say they would try anything once, personally, I feel that may be a little bit of an overstatement. Something like crack for instance, that is probably not something you should try even once, but sea kayaking in a tour group may possibly be worth trying once perhaps.



After the ferry arrived back on the mainland, we then headed south of Seattle that night so as to miss the traffic. After making it to Tacoma, we found some Mexican food. It was good; you don’t find many in Canada or Alaska. I had been craving it badly. I think it was a smaller local chain, I believe I went to another one in Belleview back in my software days.



Anyways, I don’t remember where we stayed that night; we just poached a wide spot off some little turnoff somewhere. Then the next morning we cut over to the 101 and headed south headed down the immaculately amazing Oregon Coast. The bridge over the Columbia into Astoria was nothing less than stunning. Perhaps I should have taken a picture.



Our first stop was Cannon beach. HeeeYYYYYY Yoooouuu GuYYYyyyyYYYYs!


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It was a bit windy and cloudy and cold, but it was awesome. Maybe a little crowded, but amazing none the less.




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There were a ton of pull-offs to amazing overlooks.



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And there was no reason to hurry thorough so we checked out as many little beach access points as possible.



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One of my good buddies from school and roommates after is from Gresham, Portland suburbia, and he told us we had to stop by Mo’s. There were several, but Lincoln City was there when we needed lunch. It was a little tough finding parking but they had a lot. There happened to be another’08 KLR on a trailer, I know, right, who does that, and she was owned by a hunter that was using her to ride around the logging company gates and huff out a dear he and his buddies had shot. When I saw it was a little blue and red.

Mo’s was quite a production, they had their waiting line maze through all sorts of useless trinkets for the kids, brilliant really. All to wait for the long wooden benches and crammed in with the other tourists. I had still been in the woods for a long time and this civilization thing was a little trippy. Tina wasn’t extremely impressed with the clam chowder, and the hustle and bustle was a little much. But lunch was good, one of those things that is all part of the true experience.

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That night we had to settle for a camp ground. It was a free area down in the vicinity of Coos Bay, and not far off the coast. It looked like a fun place to come back with a paddle tire. There was a bunch of people with dirt bikes, ATVs and the ever so lame side-by-sides.

The next morning was beautiful, foggy and enchanted. The Oregon Coast has an amazing and almost unearthly feel.

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We had to keep rolling south, but it was impossible to keep from stopping at every little beach access point and overlook that seemed like it could be promising.

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And many of them looked that way; it was extremely difficult to keep going.

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We just wanted to stay for a while and maybe longer if we tried? Something like that at least. But too soon we were rolling into land of asinine taxation and legislation, California. No faster than 55 with 3 axles? Give me a break. I also hate the gas pumps and having to have someone else either pump it for you or not having the little lever so you can flip it down and step away while it pumps.

But enough of that, here is another shot of the natural beauty.

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Sorry guys, been slacking a bit. Been spending quite a bit of time on the TransAlp project. But I've got to finish, even if it takes me a year, or two.