Hey all.

I'd thought I would share some of the adventures that Gregg and I had on our brief (but awesome) trip to Alaska.

I've already written quite a few posts on my personal blog so if you're impatient feel free to skip ahead.

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Note: this is a repost back from August 26, 2013. Feel free to follow along!

The Bike!
Both Gregg and I own the BMW R1150GS (both 2000 model year). I was apprehensive about upgrading from a 2002 F650GS at first because of the size but was soon convinced after purchasing that it was one of the best decisions I made for this trip. The 1150GS is meant for long haul trips over gravel, dirt and, of course, pavement. The model year design was moderately simplistic compared to some of the newer bikes. (2002-2004 versions have servo brakes which are known to cause problems, etc.) One of the main benefits of owning the same bike is that we have the same gas mileage and the fact that we can easily carry one set of emergency replacement parts should we need them.

Setting Goals


As far as serious trips go, we spent hours on researching the different aspects of our journey. We usually met at least once a week and laid out our goals for the night before meeting in person. Here are some actual checklists from some of our meetings:

Meeting 1:

• Determine a time to pack
• Determine the time to leave
• Determine places to stay
• Determine rough route

Meeting 2:

• Each eat a ginormous carne asada burrito
• Figure out gas situation on the way up
• Highlight route on big milepost map
• Add page numbers to milepost map for details

I can’t stress enough that setting forth these goals really helped things get done. Looking back it felt like pulling teeth to do the research/planning but it was well worth it in the end.

The Milepost
One of the items that we used to lay the groundwork for our adventure was the 2013 Milepost(The latest Milepost can be found at that link or here on Amazon). We primarily used it for the maps it included at the beginning of each section. We took advantage of the fold out map to plot our approximate course and choose approximate places to stay as we progressed across Canada and into Alaska.

While the Milepost was useful for the initial planning, it was also useful for on the road purposes. It included maps (most of the time but not always) with gas and food stop indicators along each section of road. One of the main features of the Milepost was the fact that it included mile-by-mile information about the roads. (The gas station indicators were particularly helpful because the 1150 has a range of about 240 miles.) From a motorcyclist point of view this book was not quite as useful on the road as Gregg put it, “They made this book more for RVers with copilots than for motorcyclists.” We still found it useful when we stopped frustrated looking for gas or a certain point on the highway.



I rate the milepost a 4/5. Super useful and essential for planning and executing Alaska trip. If you’re a motorcyclist, plan on using this book as a reference should you get lost or low on fuel. You can get yours at Amazon, Wal-Mart and other retailers. (they were quite common in stores in Alaska as well)

Moto Maintenance


Note: fast forward 4 years, I still use Moto Shop. They have since changed their name to Moto Guild.

We did all our prep work at Moto Guild. Run by our friends Wilder and Aleks, Moto Guildenables local bay area motorcyclists to come in and wrench on their bikes. Whether it’s to do a oil change or change a clutch you can do everything here (for a price of course). Feel free to check out their website to reserve a station or more info. Make sure you tell them I sent you!

Some of the maintenance we did included:

• Full tire changes (Metzler Tourances)
• Oil Change
• Valve Adjustment/Check
• Air filter change
• Brake fluid flush
• Clutch fluid flush

Packing List
I’ve included a detailed list items that we packed. I’ll go into detail later about what pieces of equipment became invaluable and what items we could have done without.

Alaska Packing List

We ended up splitting the items between our bikes in this way:

Jared’s bike:

• Clothing and toiletries in the right pannier
• Tools, octane booster, straps, alcohol fuel, etc. left pannier
• Books and food in top case
• Extra oil and tire repair kit in “hidden” compartment underneath top case

Gregg’s bike:

• All camping items in the black Wolfman bag
• Greggs clothing in the Wolfman bag as well
• The tent and sleeping pads in the orange dry bag
• Stove and wind break in left pannier
• Go pro gear in the right pannier

The Ferry


Lastly (but not least) we debated whether we wanted to take the ferry up, back or both ways. We ended up on settling to take it back from Haines. (Now having done it was the definitely the best plan.) As stated in an earlier post we both spent $815 dollars. It was a bit pricey but overall worth the trip (especially the fact that you’re plopped in the middle of Alaskan wilderness for 4 days on a boat!). I’ll discuss more about the Alaska Marine Highway later on.

This post came from here.

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Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy!

Originally posted here.

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Day summary:

• Start location: San Francisco, California
• End location: Tacoma, Washington
• Miles: 816.3

Route GPX



Note 3/3: this is a repost back from August 27, 2013. Enjoy!

The adventure begins.


It’s 4:30am and you’re stumbling around in the dark attempting to prevent the weight of your eyelids from pulling you back into a deep slumber. The motorcycle gear seems harder to put on. (“Did I snap those damn buttons incorrectly, again!?”). In your head you know you’re ready for what is about to come next but you aren’t quite ready to leave. You feel the sharp vibrations of your phone in your motorcycle jacket pocket; you know it’s time to go.

Soon enough, around 5:30 am PST we were on the road for Tacoma. Gregg and I planned this day to be (one of) the longest. The rationalization you ask? Portland/Seattle are relatively close compared to Alaska, we knew that we could always organize trips to those states/cities later on. We were focused on the prize: Alaska proper.

Daily report:
Note 3/3: I’ve moved the full detailed Google Map to the routes page.

07:50 - first stop in Orlando, CA. We filled up on gas and also rolled down the street to the Subway. We ended up buying some breakfast and a foot long sub each so we could munch on a half as we continued to make our stops.

Tip: requesting the Subway employee to wrap the halves separately made consuming them in stages more efficient. Especially when your hands are gross from your gloves and fueling up.

11:20 - stopped in Ashland, Oregon to get fuel. One of the main things I didn’t realize was that the northern part of California and the southern portion of Oregon is quite pretty (especially in and around Mt. Shasta National Park).

17:54 - stopped in Winlock, Washington for more fuel. Here’s where we made our first boo boo: as we pulled off the freeway exit a motorcycle cop happened to be coming in the other direction. I thought nothing of it and headed toward the gas station. By the time I pulled in the gas station I looked around and the cop behind Gregg on the side of the road with his lights on. (Ut oh.)

The officer proceeded to ask Gregg where we were coming and where we were going. He explained to Gregg that it’s a $140 dollar ticket in Washington to roll through a stopsign (or in our case perform a California Stop). “You wouldn’t want that ticket would you?” he asked as Gregg replied “No sir!!” He proceeded to tell Gregg to cut it out until we get to Canada. And with that admonition, he got back on his bike and rode down the road in the same direction he was originally traveling. (Whew, trafic ticket averted.)

Tip: Most of the local governments and even state governments are hungry for revenue. Be careful while riding through these states!



Anyway, we pulled in fueled up and took off for Tacoma shortly after.

19:00: last stop! Tacoma, Washington. We decided to rock the Howard Johnson for the night. (Figuring we would do about the same amount of miles the next day) We dropped off our stuff and rode down to Patty’s Burgers. It’s too bad I didn’t know about it before but Patty’s is particularly known for their “Cake Burger” which is composed of 7 hamburger patties! I ended up settling for the Reuben but maybe next time Patty…

Cool, i hope to be in alaska soon <3

It's an amazing place. I will be back there sometime in this lifetime for sure.

Originally posted here.

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Day summary:

• Start location: Tacoma, Washington
• End location: Vanderhoof, BC, Canada
• Miles: 690.8

Route GPX



Note 3/5: this is a repost back from August 28, 2013. Enjoy!

We were off and running early in the morning. We knew it was to be another long day in addition to crossing into Canada. See the route and log below for more info.

Tip: One thing that I decided to do second day was to develop a checklist to ensure we had everything when we were about to leave. (Learning my lesson from leaving my sunglasses in our Howard Johnson hotel room). It is not a happy time when you just remembered you left your passport in the hotel you stayed at which is 600 miles away. (luckily we had no such problems! the power of checklists!)

Daily report:
Note 3/5: I’ve moved the full detailed Google Map to the routes page.

9:31 - Everson, WA: We stop to fill up before the border. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Tip: gas is quite expensive in Canada compared to US prices. Always fill up before you hit the border! (Doesn’t matter as much for 4~5 gallon fill-ups but for those with 4 wheeled vehicles you will thank me)

9:50 - Border time: we hit the border shortly after our gas stop. We took some time here to get some pictures. The town right before the border is outrageous.

Once we got to the customs booth I got waved in to play the game of 20 questions. The agent started asking the normal questions. She especially wanted to know why I had so many stamps for China and Hong Kong. (A guy has to work right?!) After giving me a hard time with that she asked why we were going to Alaska I answered “For adventure.” Completely valid response. I guess at that point she deduced that I was harmless, waved me through and proceeded to give Gregg the same treatment. So welcoming.



11:00 - Hope, BC: We got our first taste of tall mountains and beautiful waterways. We decided to stop here snap some pictures and grab some, you guessed it, Subway.



Tip: when ordering your Subway sandwiches avoid getting them toasted. They will end up being soggier than if you don’t toast them when you leave them in your top cases/panniers for a while. (YMMV)

13:40 - Cache Creek, BC: More gas. The temperature here was hot compared to how cool it was when we first arrived in BC. We were thrilled to get rained on as we got going again.

17:53 - Quesnel, BC: More gas. We also managed to find a Wal-Mart. I ran in and got some snacks and then we headed to Boston Pizza. We had seen some of their restaurants as we made it though BC and thought to give it a try. Bad choice: the decor was weird and the food wasn’t that great. (and it was expensive too). We ended up getting one of their pizzas but it really wasn’t like the pizza you could get back home. (Gregg worked for a pizza place back home so he knows his pizza.) Wouldn’t recommend it especially if you have some more local/divier choices.

22:15: Vanderhoof, BC: Last stop for the night. We attempted to get to the local campgrounds but we didn’t make it in time. A native offered to put us up in his front yard but we passed on the offer (a little on the sketchy side). We ended up going down the street from where we gassed up to the Siesta Inn. The inn came recommended by the Milepost so we thought we’d try it (and we were tired of riding by then). It turned out to be moderately decent experience. Pricey ( $93.50 for two single beds ) for what you get but it did the job.

Originally posted here.

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Day summary:

• Start location: Smithers, British Columbia, Canada
• End location: Good Hope Lake, British Columbia, Canada
• Miles: 658.9

Route GPX



Note: originally posted on 8-29-2013.



We had our eye on the prize, Yukon territory. It was a bit of a stretch from Vanderhoof but we were naive. So we packed up our stuff and headed back out on the road not knowing what the day would have in store for us…

10:20 - Smithers, BC: First stop of the day was in a cool town called Smithers. This is where we initially wanted to stop our second night but we didn’t quite make it. (Roads in BC are not quite as straight and fast as I-5 in California!) We grabbed our Subway sandwiches and gas and started rolling down the road. Not too far out of town we saw the first glacier of our trip. See the picture below.



Things started getting exciting for us because we knew this is stuff that Alaska was all about. In my ignorance I didn’t quite realize that most glaciers live up in mountains in “bowls” surrounded by high peaks. For some reason I always thought that glaciers floated around in the water (which some do when they calve but not all!).

Things had been slow going since Smithers. The roads were much more twisty and we started encountering more construction. This was also the first point in the trip where we rode large portions of the highway without any other people/cars/rvs in sight. Very opposite to riding in the Bay Area!

This was the first point in the trip where we pushed the fuel consumption of our bikes. At the intersection of route 16 and 37 we realized that we may not have enough gas to make it to the next known gas stop. We pulled out the Milepost and were relieved to see a gas station much closer than we originally thought. Instead of taking a side trip to Prince Rupert we pressed on knowing that if we did run out of gas we had an extra two gallons strapped to my bike. No problems! Gotta love the Murphy repellent.

15:15 - Bell 2 Lodge, Vernon, BC: On arrival my tripometer indicated 235.4 miles(!). This makes sense since the 1150 gas tank fits around 5 gallons but we had never pushd our bikes that far before. Edit: We filled up (for the first time since we left) on 87 octane. We came prepared though with some octane booster to keep our bikes happy. (I guess they were designed optimally to be run on 93 octane. Crazy.)

Warning: If you own a 1150GS I do not reccomend you run that low on fuel. Ever. Reasoning? The 1150GS has a submerged fuel pump. As with most submerged fuel pumps the gas acts as coolant for the pump. Once that coolant is gone you run the risk of burning out the most important motor on your bike. (it’s also a PITA to change) Further along in the trip we made it a point to make more gas stops. We were no longer in a rush to get anywhere.

We ate some our sandwiches and pressed on north. As we continued we encountered beauty on every turn. It was hard not to stop everywhere and take pictures. If we did stop for pictures we knew they would turn out awesome like the one below:



Nothing motivates you like a beautiful lake and rolling pine covered hills!

19:00 - Dease Lake, BC: We stopped in Dease lake to get some gas and then pushed on, our eyes wide with anticipation.

We ran into more construction and gravel roads. Looks like we were starting to see a trend. -_- Luckily our motorcyles were made for this stuff and handled nicely. Here’s another picture of the northern portion of Route 37.



As we started riding though the hill though the sun started playing peek a boo and it was dark at some points. We decided it would be best not to ride into moose (or elk, or bears.. ) and call it a night. We were tired and decided that a little alcove off the side of the highway would serve us best for the night.

Day summary:

• Start location: Good Hope Lake, British Columbia, Canada
• End location: Takhini Hot Springs, White Horse, Yukon Territory, Canada
• Miles: 364.2

Route GPX



Note 3/13: this is a repost back from August 30, 2013. Enjoy!



Our first night of camping went well. Especially for the fact that the mosquitos were all over us within 2 minutes of arriving. We made friends with one of the locals whom had found Gregg’s bike most intriging. (See picture below)



Luckily we had no run in’s with bears, yet..

Daily report:
10:00: BC/YT Border - We took it a bit slower than the past 3 days. It was nice to sit back and enjoy the scenery a bit. It managed to sprinkle on us a little as we rode into YT. Nothing to complain about. (We had on our triple digits just in case!) We took some victory pictures, got bit by some mosquitos, took some more pictures and then beat feet out of there. Destination: Whitehorse!



10:30: We hit up the gas station at the corner of 37 and the ALCAN (didn’t realize it was there until we got there). If my memory serves me right they did have 91 octane. As we got further along though higher octane fuels became scarce.

13:19: Yukon Motel, Teslin, YT: We stopped for lunch and some 87 octane here. As you can see from the picture below the view was beautiful riding in.

Warning: Motorcyclists beware of the long metal grate bridge. Ride slow and carefully!



The lunch was pretty good. Gregg was inspired and ordered some poutine. All in all a nice warm meal that our bodies hapily digested. (Nice change from Subway..)



18:17: We decided to take a brief detour and checkout Marsh Lake. We had ridden beside it for a bit and found that they had a swimming area! Once we got closer we were blown away at how clear the water was and how the scenery had our jaws open most of our time here. If you are riding the ALCAN don’t pass this place up. It will blow you away.



We, of course, jumped in the water. It was a bit cold but completely worth it. Good thing we brought our bathing suits. After we played with the go pro in the water for a bit we packed up and ventured toward Whitehorse.

19:30: Stoped here to get gas. We went to the Real Canadian Superstore also and stocked up on food. Our landing spot for the night? Takhini Hot Springs. Turns out they have a campground area for R/Vs and moto campers such as ourselves. We rode out of Whitehorse and down the street (practically) to the hot springs. The side road, no surprise here, was under construction so we had to ride through a mile or two of soggy gravel.

Once we arrived we found a neat little campground off to the side of their main building. The price was modest and the ammentities were a plus (free wifi). Once we settled at our camp spot we walked over and took a soak for an hour. The “springs” only seemed to be a concrete pool with hot water but I guess you have to believe that there is a hot spring there.

Post originally posted here.

Day summary:

• Start location: Takhini Hot Springs, White Horse, Yukon Territory, Canada
• End location: Yukon River Campground, Dawson, Yukon Territory, Canada
• Miles: 346.7

Route GPX



Note 3/17: this is a repost back from August 31, 2013. Enjoy!



After another night of successful camping, we were on the road again. Destination: Dawson City.

Daily report:
We were on our way around 10 am. While driving down the road we noticed a bird and instead of scaring it off I decided to roll in stealth mode and say hi. I managed to get some cool pictures.



Once the bird was bored with us we rode down to find an abandoned run-down cabin by one of the (many) lakes.



Here is a picture of the lake.



The scenery was getting even more beautiful as we rode along. This trip was getting legit and luckily the weather was cooperating all the way!



13:17: Soon enough we arrived in Pelly Crossing, YT. I was hungry so I managed to put together a “sandwich” composed of sweet Italian sausage links and left over bread. (Not recommended.)



After that horrible escapade, we got going. Dawson city in 165.5 miles!

Soon afterwards we encountered our first real construction zone. The way construction works up north is that they provide pilot cars to navigate you through the construction zones. It’s a good idea since, most of the time, the whole road is torn up and machines are all over the place.



We made it through without a hitch and continued onward to Dawson.



19:30: We arrived in Dawson soon enough. We parked and walked around taking in the vibe of the old town. Gregg decided to get some fish from Riverwest Bistro while I settled for a sandwich from the deli inside Bonanza Market. Once we refueled our bodies and bikes we headed to the campgrounds on the other side of the river. And what better way to cross the rapidly flowing Yukon River? Why by ferry of course!



What was most impressive about the ferry ride was the magnitude of the current of the Yukon river. Once the ferry left the shore it was sideways fighting the current as it traversed across the river. I don’t know how the steamboats ever got anywhere when they used to run up and down the Yukon from Whitehorse. Crazy.

We rolled around the campground and settled in on one of the spots farther away from the water. The campgrounds were great and they even had free firewood for campers to use. A+!



It was a good day of riding and we needed the rest so we could tackle the Top of the World highway the next day. Alaska, we have you in our sights.

Originally posted from here.

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