Distance Traveled: 9347 Kilometres (5808 miles)
Approximate Cost of Fuel: $450-500 dollars (fuel is very expensive up North)
Lodging Costs (Camping and Hotels): approx. $1,100-1,300
Number of Days on the Road: 17 (15 on the bike)

Lowest Temperature: 0 Celcius (Destruction Bay, YT – sleet and snow-like conditions)
Warmest Temperature: 24 Celcius (Carmacks, YT and Liard River, YT)
Repairs/Maintenance: New Tires in Fairbanks, AK – $350 USD
Least Expensive Accommodation: Tie – Sealaska Inn (Hyder, AK) $65.00/night – What a deal! and Tara Vista Motel (Hinton, AB)
Most Expensive Accommodation: Best Western (Homer, AK) – really, not worth more than most of the 65-85 hotels
Worst Accommodation: Downtown Hotel (Prince George, BC) – honestly, Prince George’s downtown is one of the scariest places I’ve been next to East LA

Best Road: The Dempster Highway – hands down the most challenging, beautiful and interesting ride of the trip
Worst Road: The ALCAN/Alaska Highway in Yukon Territory – the Alaska side is beautiful, the Canadian side looks like it has been in constant decay since it was made during WWII – parts of this highway are worse than the infamous Dempster Highway.
Honorable Mention for Best Road: Tok, AK to Valdez, AK on the Tok Connector Highway – high passes, mountain ranges, wildlife and beautifully paved

Impressions of the Trip:

The North is absolutely outstanding in every way. It’s remote, isolated, stunningly beautiful and a challenge to travel through. These are all the attributes of a great adventure. The weather can be abysmally bad and quite the opposite really quite mild. There is no shortage of scenery and wildlife on this trip. I’d hazard a guess that anyone traveling this area will see more wildlife in a few weeks than they’ve seen in their entire lives (unless they work at a zoo).

I’m quite happy with how things unfolded during this trip. I’ve only had some off road experience for day trips into gravel and forestry roads. I think as I got more comfortable riding in this terrain I’d be more likely to venture off on to more gravel, dirt and abandon roads.

This is a type of trip you could be a lot more adventurous if you had a riding partner or two. Being out on the Dempster Highway 400 kilometres from help is a bit unnerving when you’re riding solo. Having a serious accident could literally be life or death – having help would certainly make the trip less risky. Although, it’s been very hard for me to find anyone that will take on these types of challenges or that has enough vacation time.

The North is definitely a place you could visit again and again and still only scratch the surface of what there is to see. I think I can safely say that at some point I’ll return by motorcycle to the North. If you’re looking for an adventure and place that not many will see – this is it! Go and see for yourself – it’s amazing!

Equipment:

• SW Motech Crash Bars – essential for a dual purpose bike – these prevented hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of damage in my get-off
• Barkbusters Hand Guards – on the cold days they helped keep the wind and rain off, also prevented major damage to my bike during aforementioned get-off
• Tires – The Pirelli Scorpion Trail did very well on the highway (4500 kilometres and still going) and fine on the Dempster (in the dry – they’d be scary in the wet); Heidenau K60 Scouts – I’d definitely use these tires again – they were excellent highway tires and superb off-road
• More Tires – In spite of what people say – bring a second set. Road tires for the trip up, knobbies or good 50/50 for the Dempster or trips off road
• Oxford Heated Grips/Jett Hawaii Heated Vest – I would have been miserable and cold without these. The Jett Vest is unreal – on low it will keep you warm for the entire day, and, it’s got no wires tethering you to your bike
• Good rain gear – You may not need it, but if you do, you’ll be glad you brought it
• Trax Panniers and SW Motech Racks – Hard luggage is the best investment you can make in any bike – they kept everything dry, there’s tons of storage, and they are excellent crash guards
• Camping Gear – really helped on the days where it was nice to get in touch with nature, also the days where I arrived late and didn’t feel like seeking out expensive accommodation (you can save a bundle of cash traveling with camping gear) – on average 15-18/night.

The Bike:

The KLR did the job it was asked to do. After traveling up and down the west coast so many times on my VFR this pales in comparison. It was passable as a highway bike, moderately capable as a dual-purpose bike, and required nothing to keep it going for the trip except gas and 1/2 litre of oil. It gets superb gas mileage (45-50 mpg on the highway /53+ on the low speed stuff like the Dempster Highway)

I must have tried to switch up into sixth gear about 45,000 times during the trip. Really, Kawasaki, would it be that hard to add another gear for cruising on the highway. It drove me nuts after thousands of kilometres vibrating along at 5,000 RPM. I’ll consider a larger front sprocket to lower the revs if I was to do another long trip on the bike.

To me this seems like a bike that would lead me to purchase a larger adventure bike – BMW GS Adventure. It seems like a perfect bike for trips like this. The KLR has been a bargain bike to equip for the trip and I easily could have bought two completely kitted out for the price of one GSA.

Hotels:

I can’t believe there are still ‘smoking’ rooms in hotels. Most municipalities in North America don’t allow smoking in public places, why in hotels? Also, non-smoking seems to mean that there is no one currently smoking in the room with you. Many of the hotels stunk of smoke even in their ‘non-smoking’ rooms.

If you can hit the major towns or trap towns mid-week you’ll save a bundle. Most will gouge you if they can on weekend rates.

The final day of the trip. While I had planned to take the highway 3 ride home it turns out I missed the ferry. I literally rode up to the port as it was leaving. The next ferry on a Sunday morning is almost two hours later. So I decided rather than wait I’d ride two hours and head out towards the Trans-Canada highway and go home that way.

It was quite cool for summer weather in Nelson and I ended up getting rained on very early into the trip. The rain continued off and on all the way to Calgary.

I sincerely thought the #1 would be a quicker way home. It normally takes about 6 hours going through the Crow’s Nest Pass. Well today, it took almost 12. Not only did I miss the ferry in Balfour, but also in Galena Bay. Apparently there is no priority loading any more so there were enough large vehicles on the ferry and they left the other parts empty rather than allowing the four motorcycles that would have easily fit. Missing ferries adds about 2 hours to the day.

It poured most of the way to Revelstoke at which point it also became bitterly cold. In Golden there was fresh snow on the tops of the mountains.

The Trans-Canada is under construction for most of the way from Golden almost to Banff. Constant stop and go traffic and delays. It took almost 2.5 hours to go from Lake Louise to Banff. I waited about 2 hours before I couldn’t take it anymore. I ended up riding along the edge of the shoulder and past the traffic in about 30 minutes. Normally I’d never do this, but as I suspected, there was no actual reason for the delay. No stoppages or traffic issues just inept drivers.

The rest of the day was pretty smooth sailing all the way back home. And so ends another long summer ride. Good times!

The trip has come full-circle. This is the bookend to what has been a terrific riding adventure. It’s somewhat fitting that the journey ends where it basically began with the VFR meet. It’s also nice to have one day on the road in a great location that I’m familiar with to stop and simply relax before the last push home – about 650 kilometres again tomorrow.

The beginning of the day along the Columbia river and Lake Chelan was nice. I was surprised at how little the desert-like conditions cooled over night. RIght at the crack of dawn it was still 24 degrees, although it remained at that temperature until I got over into the North Eastern part of the state.

One thing about riding a lot is that you (should) inevitably improve. The roads that I remember as being quite challenging on the way down through Washington when I first got this bike, now seem rather placid and docile. It’s funny how your memory makes things seem more grand then they really were. The ride today was enjoyable but nowhere near as curvy or twisty as I had remembered. Maybe I’ve become spoiled by Southern Washington and Oregon Even returning for a blast down the 3A between Creston and Crawford Bay had a bit less lustre, although it’s still the best road I’ve ridden in Western Canada.

I’ve become a bit of a Harley ‘stalker’ the last few days. I’ve on several occasions today caught up with groups of people on Harleys and reeled them in on corners. I accidentally snuck up two today just before the ferry to Nelson. I had a really good chat with the two couples on the bikes when we stopped to wait for the ferry and as we were lucky enough to be the last ones to board.

One asked about the ‘clearance’ on my bike as it appeared that I had no problem with quickly going through the last hairpin corners – yes, it’s a sportbike – makes a big difference. He admired how ‘gracefully’ I’d been cornering the last couple of kilometres or so as he watched in his rearview mirror – nice compliment! They were touring across Canada and appreciated some advice about routes and times to their next destination.

The other surprise was running into the sister and brother-in-law of an ex. At first they didn’t recognize me since it’s been ten years. Then I kinda wondered if I should have said hi since things didn’t end well in that relationship. Quick handshakes good-byes and a comment in my usual low-key sarcastic style – “send her my best….” How odd. Small world….

I have a few pictures from stops along the way today, but nothing noteworthy or exceptionally creative. I had a chance to stop in the ‘old time’ town of Republic, a quick wander through the fire lookout at the top of the Sherman Pass, and the return to Nelson.

I’ll be returning home early tomorrow morning to hopefully be back at home in Calgary shortly after lunchtime. I’ll provide a short synopsis of the journey when I return – best of, worst of, etc.
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