Today was a BIG day! I had a lot of ground to cover, over 600 miles, and I really didn’t want to be in the middle of a pack of bikes so I got up early, had some oatmeal, broke camp and was off by about 5:15 am. I was heading for the Arctic Circle.
The road from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay is called the Haul road by the locals. All of the supplies that are used by the North Slope oil drilling operations are delivered over this road. The road itself is made mostly from not so crushed rock and gravel. The trucks move along at about 70mph or so but a motorbike can only do about 50 because of the condition of the road so you are constantly being passed by big rigs spewing lots of rocks in your direction. I have heard and read many stories about travelling on the Haul road from really bad to not quite so bad so it was with a little apprehension that I proceeded north out of Fairbanks, once again, in the rain.
The road conditions were not to my favor so I decided pretty early on that I would just go to the Arctic Circle and turn around. This called for only travelling about 100 miles past Fairbanks and back. My visibility was only about ½ mile in mist, fog and rain so no pictures but the tundra had a sort of mystic beauty about it. After I got to the circle, I turned around and headed for Tok. Long day but it was worth it. I would have preferred to go on to Prudhoe Bay but I wasn’t really setup for it with street tires instead of knobbies. Besides, it would have cost another 1000 miles and I just couldn’t justify the pain.
The road from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay is called the Haul road by the locals. All of the supplies that are used by the North Slope oil drilling operations are delivered over this road. The road itself is made mostly from not so crushed rock and gravel. The trucks move along at about 70mph or so but a motorbike can only do about 50 because of the condition of the road so you are constantly being passed by big rigs spewing lots of rocks in your direction. I have heard and read many stories about travelling on the Haul road from really bad to not quite so bad so it was with a little apprehension that I proceeded north out of Fairbanks, once again, in the rain.
The road conditions were not to my favor so I decided pretty early on that I would just go to the Arctic Circle and turn around. This called for only travelling about 100 miles past Fairbanks and back. My visibility was only about ½ mile in mist, fog and rain so no pictures but the tundra had a sort of mystic beauty about it. After I got to the circle, I turned around and headed for Tok. Long day but it was worth it. I would have preferred to go on to Prudhoe Bay but I wasn’t really setup for it with street tires instead of knobbies. Besides, it would have cost another 1000 miles and I just couldn’t justify the pain.
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