The Mobius Trip

[DR. Rock]

looking back at the bridge, the barricade, and Mike who was stationed to turn tourists away, but allow locals and workers to pass.



You can see where the road turns right, after the bridge, another road joins it. That's where we could have possibly bypassed the bridge under cover of darkness, or what passes for darkness up here, if we scooted across the creek near where we camped. And then we could just haul ass up the hill you can see in this shot. The water crossing is down to the right.



The seed of this plot was suggested to us by an official-looking worker, who turned out was actually not an official worker, but just some guy who had some stuff to do back in there, and put on an orange vest and placed a twirling light on the top of his pick-up, and Mike just waved him through. He was sure we would be able to ride through or around any construction mess on our DRZ's, we'd just have to be mindful of the workers and heavy equipment.

Kind of hard to disguise two DRZ's as construction vehicles.

Anyway, it got us thinking of maybe pulling a sneak-around.



Well, we'd span some time, and maybe hear later in the afternoon if there was going to be another convoy the next day. Otherwise, we'd mull over the sneak-around idea.

[DR. Rock]

there were more old mining contraptions;





Hey, isn't LDF from PA?

[DR. Rock]

But we couldn't get onto it or inside.





You can read the history of the Pedro Dredge here.

[DR. Rock]

thing. But even more impressive is how quickly and thoroughly this environment reclaims any attempts at civilization or human incursion.

[DR. Rock]

to just wander around, and "do" photography for a spell.



Thinking about framing, and composition and lighting and exposure...



For me, it's like meditation -- forces me to see the world and shift different perspectives.



I was having fun, anyway.

[DR. Rock]

these two ladies,



who were panning for gold, and they let me take their picture.



I gotta say, I love the Leica for stuff like this.

[DR. Rock]

the Saloon, aka "Downtown" Chicken.



where we poked around the curio shop, (sequins, anyone?)



and settled into the porch of the Saloon for a beer or two.

[Bell47Pilot]

Ahhhhhhh

No more


Now, just

Good work you two!

[sky11]

[timk519]

[taco250]

Keep it coming David. I have to hear which way you got through the constuction!

[DR. Rock]

on the porch, we were able to observe the comings and goings... it was very Eugene O'Neill, like being on the set of The Iceman Cometh:

Woman on left, early 40's, stranded in Chicken, lives in Eagle. Last year, lost all her possessions in the floods. Guy on the right is a regular, and local.



Donna and Bill. Live off the Taylor Highway past the barricade. She's a nurse, and he's a prospector and a vet. Bill has mining claims he's been working with his own dredge which was pushed downriver in the most recent floods. He has a longstanding feud with the local post-mistress. We got into a pretty intense discussion about the planned mosque for downtown NYC and the controversy it's created.



Cute tourist kid feeding grass to the rooster. His grandfather was trying to figure out the least expensive way he could give his grandkids the opportunity to pan for gold and actually find something. Suggested to Bill that he'd be willing to buy some nuggets or dust from him to plant in the kids pans if Bill would drive back to his house and get the goods. Bill seemed to have a different agenda for the afternoon.



coupla tourists in the bar... I think they were heading back south, not stranded.



Susan, the owner, smacking the juke box. The road closure has been catastrophic to her business. When Bill suggested that we sneak around, she pointed out that our bigger problem might be a closed border and did we really want to mess around with an unauthorized boarder crossing?



Rose, on the left. Bartender extraordinaire. The woman on the right is an artist. Birds. Stranded, trying to get over to Dawson to meet her niece with whom she had planned a hiking trip. Was considering re-locating from where she currently lives (British Columbia?) possibly to Tok. The locals were trying to discourage her.



Finally, we got to the point of no return (or rather the point of no departure), where if we stayed any longer, we were essentially committing to hanging out and partying with these guys for the rest of the afternoon and evening. As much fun as that sounded, we decided to take a time-out, and walk back down from "Downtown" Chicken to "The Town of" Chicken, check on our gear, and see if we could gather any more intel from any workers who had come back from the closed area.

[DR. Rock]

we got wind that the head honcho of the construction company contracted to fix the road was walking around. He had just returned from touring the damage with the state inspectors. LDF went on an intel-gathering mission and found out that nothing would be allowed through for at LEAST two days.





We reviewed our options. Hang out and see what happens, maybe an escorted convoy would be allowed through... sneak past Mike (or his replacement) and take our chances at the border... pack up our tent, and drive the long way around.

[DR. Rock]

reviewed the mileage... looked at the calendar... did the math. Turns out, it was logistically feasible to just buck up and do the miles. 700 miles of pavement to go-around the 30 miles that was closed.



What was frustrating is that we'd heard from enough people that the condition of the road was easily passable, not just with dirt bikes, but anything from a passenger car to an RV. The only reasons that we weren't allowed through were bureaucratic, concerns for liability, unwillingness of local officials to make a decision, etc.



Thank god for Jiffy Pop.

[timk519]

2 days of riding vs 2 days of lounging around.

Tough decision....

Liking the RR so far!