Decided to do the Dempster this year, and I am very glad I did. Had Good weather : Good food: The highway construction (before we even got close to the Dempster) took its toll: I found something new in Whitehorse.....translucent duct tape!!!!! A quick repair and keep on going.(I will have to invest in a headlight guard, or take this opportunity to pimp up the lighting/fairing...?) Hit Dawson City; shower, drink, eat, gamble (a little), drink (a lot), sleep (a little): Decide to make a quick run to Chicken before we head up the Dempster: Across the border: And on to the Chicken Saloon!!!! (drink, eat, sleep(a little)) Two of us (KLR, F650GS) head back to start the Dempster. Back to Dawson to fuel up, get some supplies and get on the Dempster by about 4pm: The scale and the breathtaking scenery are hard to capture in a picture, you have to see it for yourself!! Stop at Eagle plains for gas, oil the chain, clean the dust out of....that was not possible. At the circle: The hazards of this road: The beauty of this road: The Yukon/NWT border: The Mighty Mackenzie: Inuvik!!!!! (lots of bugs and nice people): Heading back out the next day: (The scenery was amazing, you could see forever) We got this thing licked!!!!! .....wait a minute! 30 km's to go and the GS picks up a nice sharp piece of shale and shreds the tube: What can a friend do, other than document the repairs 10 km's later and another flat on the GS!! (we were using the same tires for the rear , Avon Gripsters, but the KLR was lucky..no flats) We make it "off" the highway, at about 12 or one in the morning: Camp have a bite to eat, wash the bikes in the morning and get on the road. The bridge at Teslin, 1 km of steel grate bridge decking......fun on an MC. Cool Norton in Watson Lake: Those Nortons can pack a real load!!!!!! Home!!!! about 6200 km's in about 8.5 days. One set of Gripsters, 1/2 litre of oil, (lost count of the fuel consumed).
I highly recomend it!! The gravel was a little bit challenging in spots, but it was a fun ride with incredible scenery and vast open spaces that can be seen in very few places.
I'm planning to run both the Dempster and the Dalton on my 40th in five years. If things work out that I can do it earlier then so be it, but I have my 5 year plan now.
I heard that rain was in the forecast for Inuvik the day we left. We had a few showers that did not amount to much, other than keep the dust down a little. We had more mud from the watering trucks in the construction areas. It was pretty soft in a few areas after the trucks went by. It would have been a slower ride out if it was muddy.
KLR 650 Canuck: one of the best if not the best pictorials on the Dempster. Thanks for focusing on the big picture: the landscape. Ted
Thanks! That is nice to hear. I accidentally had the camera set for high quality (1 meg per picture), so it is hard to e-mail a bunch without crashing the server, but the detail was very nice on the landscape pictures. The pictures still did not do the landscape justice. The scale of the area was awe inspiring, it seemed you could see for hundreds of miles in every direction. I wish I had brought my 35mm, you just cannot beat film for picture quality in my opinion.
Great ride report and pics. Do you remember the exact date you were in Dawson? Which campground did you guys use? On the 18th of June there were more bikes than RV's in town. What tire pressures were you guys running on the Dempster? The Beamers flats = punctures or pinches? Thanks for sharing. Koach
Thanks Koach. We stayed at the downtown Hotel on Friday June 13th, and then went to Chicken the next day. There were not a lot of bikes around when we were there, but I saw a lot on the highway heading south the next week. I guess there was a Goldwing rally in Whitehorse, because I saw Goldwings riding in packs non-stop. I pressured down my tires to 22 or 24 psi on the back and about 18 in the front. I know the GS was pressured down a little as well, but I am not sure how much. I know the first flat was a puncture for sure, and we suspect the second one was a pinched tube, but you never know with that shale. He changed the tire from the Gripster to a Metzler Enduro 3 (which was bald by the time it got back home), just to make sure there were no more surprises stuck in the tire (you could not see the shale that shredded the tube, we found it by poking a screwdriver in a cut in the tire) I think speed was one of our downfalls, as we were cruising pretty fast on the way out when we got the first flat (which is asking for trouble on that road). What is the recommended pressure for running on these kind of roads? I was just making a guess, and with the load I was carrying, I did not want to go too low.
Since you had no problems with your tires set at those pressures then I guess it may have been the diffence in tires or load. Who knows. Thanks again for sharing. Koach
