Howdy!

Made the journey last summer. My friend Ronnie from Florida on his Ultra and me on my Road King left the Gulf Coast on July 14th. My friend Greg from New Orleans was not able to make it after all the planning due to uncontrollable circumstances. We rode up and across to Hot Springs Arkansas and took Scenic 7 up to I-40. After riding West to New Mexico we headed North through the Rockies by Taos and on up to Leadville Colorado where we crossed over Independence Pass and up to I-70 West over to Moab Utah. It was a hundred and twenty degrees in the canyons that day around Moab.

We went on North to Salt Lake where we headed West over to Reno and down to Carson City. I rode out on the Bonneville Salt Flats. It was a nice day in the desert. A little windy but not too bad.

We spent two days crossing the dessert across Utah and Nevada.

Then we crossed over to South Lake Tahoe and headed to San Francisco. After crossing the bridge we headed on up the coast through the forest and on to Oregon and Washington. After riding around Mt St Helen's and Mt Ranier we headed on up to Vancouver where we had the bikes serviced and some new tires.

It takes what seems like forever to get up to Dawson Creek where you start to realize just how far the Alaskan Hwy is going to take you. The Alaska Highway was great. Nothing like a lot of people had said it would be. There were a few patched areas but they were not bad. Most of the highway was in great shape.

Not so good if it's wet because of the tar sticking to your bike.

We saw a group of bikers that said they had been in Alaska for five weeks and it was cold and raining every day.

After a few more days of riding we made it to AK and stopped over in Tok for the night. It was raining when we got into Alaska but it was very light. That's when we got phone service after three days without communications and heard the bad news that Ronnie's dad had just passed away that morning. We had to get to Fairbanks so Ronnie could catch a plane home and arrange for the bike to be shipped back to Florida.

That was the first twelve days of the trip and we had managed to maintain an average of almost five hundred miles a day.


After leaving Fairbanks I spent a couple of days around Denali checking out the wildlife and eating crab claws. The rain cleared up the second day and the weather was great. By the time I got to Anchorage it was seventy degrees.

The trip down to Valdez was a bit cold but the scenery was terrific. When I headed North I had been contemplating a different route back down. I remembered meeting up with a biker near the sign post forest who told us about Dawson City and by the time I got to Tok Junction I hade made up my mind to go check it out.

Quite a few miles before I got to Chicken Alaska the roads turned to dirt. They were good roads although if it had been raining I think they would have been slick. Entering the Yukon up there the roads turn great for a little ways through the Top of The World Highway then you get to some loose gravel roads. Not too bad and I was able to make pretty good time over to Dawson City where I met some bikers on the ferry.They were setup at the camp ground and I joined them for the night. I advised them about the roads and I think they decided to go on through the next morning as I headed on down to the Alaskan Hwy South.

When I got back down to Dawson Creek I headed over to Jasper and Banff Parks. There was some great Rocky Mountain views there. Banff has a lot of things to check out. A lot of tourists and good food.

I left Banff and headed South down through Idaho on Route 93. I detoured over to Montana to ride the loop through Glacier Park again and back to 93 to ride a little farther South. I turned East and headed over to Jackson Hole where the Cowboy Bar was pretty busy from the Sturgis crowd.

Heading North through the Tetons I decided to hang out in Yellowstone for the night. The next day I went through Cody and headed out on the Buffalo highway over toward the Black Hills. I rode through Sturgis and decided to ride through the Badlands at night so I went over to Wall and down. I met up with some bikers in Wall and they were going to stay in the Badlands so we all went searching for a place to stay. We ended up putting up our tents by the East entrance to The Badlands.

I was running short on time so I left out the next morning and made another pass through the park and headed East.

I met up with a group of bikers from Canada at a gas stop and rode along with them until we hit some rain. We all pulled over at an overpass and they were getting out their rain gear. I put my mask on and zipped up the FXRG stuff and said good bye. It was some pretty hard rain and a lot of bikers had pulled over. I got on through it pretty quick and had good weather all the way to Jackson Mississipi where the bottom finally fell out and people were all over in the median and cars were driving 5 mph. I had to go to drive 750 miles to work the next day so I pushed on through the night in pouring rain and made it home safe early that next morning.

This was the longest trip I have ever made. I have been on trips where I averaged more mileage per day but they were only ten day trips. I wish I would have had three months to do it but I only had 28 days. The trip mileage was just slightly over fourteen thousand miles.

I can't hardly wait to go again when I get more time. However I have some other trips to take first.

I just rolled over to sixty thousand miles on my 05 Road King. I was just thinking about the next trip when I started this post.


I have not finished posting all of the 1020 photos from this trip as of this post but most of them are uploaded and they will be complete soon.

They can be viewed at http://www.photobucket.com/alaskatour08

I hope to get more photo labels up when I get time. They are in the order they were taken. The last one being in Badlands National Park. The first one I took was in New Mexico and will be the first one when I get them all uploaded.


The mc museum is in Vancouver at Trev Dealy's HD. Enjoy!



David

 

Thanks for the great summary of your trip. My wife and I wimped out and drove a cage up the Alaska Hwy from S.F. to Fairbanks last year. What a beautiful drive. Glad you made it with no mishaps.

 

you suck!!!..i'm sooo jealous...one day i'll make the journey

 

Thanks for sharing your pictures.

Looking forward to doing trip in the future

Walt

 

Nice write up, great pictures, it is high on my to do list......

Thanks for sharing it helps to pass the winter days.

Did you have any problem finding gas?

 

One spot on the Alaskan Highway we stopped for gas and the place was out. The guy said the truck was running late. We were sixty miles from the next outpost and it was not a problem. I think the guy there would have helped us out if we were desperate. I think he had a private stash for his ATV. He asked if we could make it seventy miles and we figured we could.

There aren't really any very long stretches without an outpost.

You could always camp there if you had to wait for fuel. Camping gear is an absolute must for the trip. Otherwise you just need your normal riding gear. Some people said the bugs were bad but if your from the South your used to bugs. They were not bad at all in my opinion.

I-40 across Oklahoma was the closest we came to a fuel problem. Another bike pulled in as we were hanging out drinking some water and he also was bone dry. There seems to be a tricky stretch there where at one exit you don't need fuel and by the next one your out.
We were running hard through there and he was too.

David

 

Excellent post ! How did your tires look after that long trip ? What kinda fuel mileage did you get on average ?Your pics are excellent !

 

This is what touring is all about. This trip made me ashamed of my 3500 mile out west trip. I hope to make this trip one day also. Thanks for sharing the pics.

 

Did it in '78 for 30 days from Va. , was gonna go next August , but its fallen thru I am sure ..

On my Bucket List to do again ..

 

Have to agree that the best trip I ever took was to Alaska from Tn.
Went 13,682 miles and was gone 5 weeks but I stopped on the way back in Sturgis for 5 days which I love that Rally the best of all em'.
The Canadian Rockies were absolutely beautiful and the alcan hwy.
is something else with plenty of wildlife. I hope to do it again this year.
As far as Sturgis, I haven't missed it in 8 years. Ride Safe!!!