Alaska to Argentina - N69S54A

This RR is going to be about our PanAmerica trip from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia.
We've been planning the trip for the last 2 years and now we're finally here - awesome.

Alrighty then - we arrived in Anchorage last Thursday and headed up to Fairbanks. We're still here - waiting for our bikes to be ready at Northern Powersports in Fairbanks. Unfortunately they were a bit delayed due to the 4th. of July celebrations. The packages with the equipment from Happy-Trail didn't arrive until yesterday, so they haven't been able to prepare the bikes for us.

So, for the moment we just hang out at Go North, a hostel at the outskirts of Fairbanks. A really great place.
The plan is to go north to Coldfoot tomorrow - stay there one night and then go to Deadhorse on Friday.

This is my 1st. attempt to do a RR so have a little patience
Pictures and more information will follow soon. Until then, you can follow our adventure on the link below.

Cheers /Lars

Looking forward to your trip reports, pics, and perspectives. Stay safe, and enjoy the Americas!

Finally we are on to the real stuff. On our way to the Northern most point of our trip Prudhoe Bay in Alaska towards the famous Dalton Highway. 1600 km (1000 miles) round trip from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay and back.<article id="post-869" class="post-869 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-uncategorized"><section class="entry-content"> I was surprised how quickly the landscape changes. Just a few miles out of Fairbanks it became very remote without any form of houses or structures except from the oil pipe. No houses, no gas stations, no tourist traps, nothing. Just a looong road up North. And the pavement quickly disappeared and turned into a dusty, muddy, slippery gravel road.


First stop was the Yukon river. First and only stop for fuel before we hit Coldfoot. The Yukon is enormous! The biggest river I have ever seen. It cuts right through Alaska from the East to West. The landscape is soooo beautiful. It’s easy to imagine Indian tribes hunting for caribou or muskox on the vast Yukon flats. The trees are all small and thin and all look young or sick. But in fact they are all really old trees that grow extremely slow. The further we get North the less trees we see. Finger Mountain is a beautiful spot with amazing granite structures scattered all over the area. Several places the stone stick up in the air like fingers pointing.


We stopped and cooked our first camp meal in the shade of the rocks out of the strong cold wind. It was either mosquitos or strong cold wind. Just after midnight we finally made it to latitude 66,33° – the Artic Circle. We planned to go further but as we started so late in the afternoon it was late when we arrived here and we decided to camp for the night. Driving so far North is amazing since the sun is up all night and you can just go on as long as you don’t fall asleep behind the wheels. (wheel!)






Bunny going for the road kill!

As we got to the camp, we found that Bruce, Ruth and Tim had camped there as well, and Bruce came out of his camper and welcomed us. This was a nice surprise and the following morning Bruce spoiled us with an all-inclusive breakfast. Tim fixed us a nice Aussie outback campfire



This was also the place we met Christian Moser, a Swiss guy doing a trip from Deadhorse to LA! Pretty hardcore! We think our sweet little buts hurt from riding the motorcycles! Doing the same trip on a bicycle, you gotta have an iron butt!

Next stop was Coldfoot, one of the few and important stations for petrol on the way. Also THE place to stop for a meal and get an extra Jerry with petrol. The Suzuki tank contains 13 liter (3,8 gallons) which gives me about 280 km (180 miles) – not enough to make it to Deadhorse.

The Dalton Highway was build as a support road for the big Trans Alaska oil pipeline cutting through the landscapes of Alaska. It’s kind of sad to see this enormous fat metal pipe all the way through the landscape – but I know there’s a lot of double moral in sentiment. After all we are riding 2 motorbikes using petrol – and if it wasn’t for the pipeline, there wouldn’t be a road at all for us to ride up North on. However it seems that everything civilization has brought to Alaska is either exploitative or ugly.

The highway is mainly gravel, and some places they use calcium chloride that makes it extra slippery when wet. When dry it’s very dusty, so they have enormous trucks pour water on it to reduce the dust, and simultaneously they scrape the surface hereby creating huge piles of gravel parallel to the road. An amazingly high number of trucks use the road to nowhere. The road is built for these trucks and they merely accept our presence on their road. They certainly do not slow down for 2 bikers or anyone else. The large clouds of dust they create are thick and practically make you blind for 10 seconds until the dust disappears.



The bikes love the ride. This is definitely what they were build for. The big 21&#8242; front wheel surf right though the numerous potholes and handles the gravel really well. Our heavy weight on the back, screws the balance a bit and the front wheel is a bit too lively, but after a while we got used to it and rode with really good speed. When it rained the road turned extremely slippery and we had to reduce speed.


We pass the Brooks Ranges on our way to Deadhorse.


The Dalton Hwy cuts through the Ranges over the Atigun Pass. An Amazing place. The mountains seems much higher than they actually are since there are no threes up here. It’s a cold, remote and dead-zone like place. We get all our gear on to keep out the cold. 7 layers in fact. 2 layers of woolen underwear, a woolen shirt, the 3-layer mc suit and finally a rain suit. And still I was really cold. The wind was soo strong and cold and right in our faces.

Lars at the Atigun pass with max layers and a whole lot of dust.



Fuelling up for the next stretch of gravel



We drove until midnight and by then I was extremely tired and cold. Probably not the best condition to be in, driving on a heavily fogged, slippery gravel road with thousands of Caribou around. The windscreen kept fogging up on the inside and I couldn’t see anything. So I would lift up the windscreen to see 30 meters ahead, but immediately my eyes would water up and my skin would freeze, so I would have to shut the windscreen again. I kept wiping the screen to remove dust and moisture, but it just made it worse. After what felt like an eternity, we finally arrived at Deadhorse and headed for the Caribou Inn to get some heat back in our bodies.

Henriette freezing her but of at midnight in Deadhorse. From the look on my face, I’m not having much fun by now!



Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay is the most northerly drivable place in North America. Basically Prudhoe Bay is an oil field and Deadhorse is the support town. Awfully ugly and hostile looking and an amazing contrast to the nature we have been riding through coming up here. The numerous caribou in between the buildings added to the contrast. I cannot imagine that the grass they were feeding on is very healthy for them.



We stopped at the Artic Caribou Inn in Deadhorse, hoping for a nice restaurant with a warm fireplace. But it was midnight and of course nothing was going on. Besides the word “nice” really doesn’t apply to anything here. The manager of the Inn came out and talked to us. Think he felt sorry for these two dirty, soggy people and he let us into the breakfast room and even let us make our own sandwiches. Really sweet of him. We stayed there for quite a while until we were just slightly warm again. Outside a poorly looking fox was very interested in our bikes in his search for something edible.

We knew that the hotels in Deadhorse are a rip off, so we drove out of town again to find a place to camp by the river. We managed to set up our tent and climbed into our cold sleeping bags and fell asleep immediately. If we wanted to see the Arctic Ocean, we would have to sign up for a bus tour out there. They would let us dip our feet in the water and give us a certificate for doing so! We didn’t really wanna do that, and just wanted to get out of there as quick as possible.



In the morning we woke up with caribou all around us.

The way back to Fairbanks was easier since we had the wind in the back and were going towards warmer weather.
We met Christian Moser, the Swizz biker again 60 miles outside Fairbanks. He was heading for the Go North hostel as well, so he would arrive the following day. He also told us that Bruce broke his arm up at the Yukon River. Not good.



The wildlife didn’t seem to be bothered by the pipeline.



More moose.




So finally we arrived back in Fairbanks only missing a few bolts and Lars’ number plate from the bumpy ride to nowhere. Anna, Ruth, Tim, Tom and Bruce were all there to welcome us. Felt like coming home




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On my Prudhoe Bay trip I met a couple also doing a bike ride from Alaska to Argentina.....just in case you bump into them...http://www.bootsboatsandbikes.co.uk/......Nick and Ivanka...they are two up on a GS1150....

Awesome!!! good luck on your journey and thanks for all the great pictures...keep them coming....!!!

Nice shots! looking forward to seeing the adventure unfold

Canada……you make my heart sing!<article id="post-1343" class="post-1343 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-uncategorized tag-alaska-hwy tag-bear tag-bison tag-cassiar-hwy tag-chicken tag-kawasaki-klr-650 tag-moose tag-suzuki-dr650 tag-tok tag-top-of-the-world-hwy tag-watson-lake"> <section class="entry-content">

The ride from Alaska to Canada was amazing. We left Fairbanks on July 14th and headed southwest towards Tok.



In Tok we turned North on the Taylor Hwy towards Chicken and Top of the World Highway. Even if the nature is amazing, we got long stretches of absolutely nothing. Those stretches are tiring and exhausting and makes your mind wander and go to places it shouldn’t be. You should always focus on the road, the next pothole, next patch of deep gravel, or next passing bear but when you get looooong stretches of perfect pavement it makes you unfocused and you forget just how quickly the surface can change. For that reason I like the potholes, the curves, the gravel patches and the occasional rain shower because they make me focus on the driving. A bear sighting, a moose or just a beautiful scenery does the same trick.


The rivers were massive and we can only begin to imagine the water masses during spring time. There is just so much nature in this place.



We are getting into the daily camping routine. Lars is in charge of the tent. I am in charge of the campfire and the cooking. Very traditional roles and not exactly how we do it back home



We are both completely covered of a layer of dust from the roads and smoke from the campfires and there’s easily 4-5 days between showers. My long hair is sticky from the dust and mosquito spray and I’m starting to look like a true Scandinavian Amazon.






Deluxe Birthday camping dinner – not exactly bear save camping food, but we took the risk.





We see a lot of moose. Mostly female moose with calves.





We stop at every gas station available. Alaska is so extremely remote and distances are much bigger than we are used to back home, so passing a gas station is a no go.





At the gas stations we seem to attract people. Maybe it is every guy’s boy dream to do overland travels on motorbikes, but most of them end up in the huge RV’s with their satellite TV and their generators and their extra car toed behind them. It’s a pretty comfortable way to travel and we envy them a few times – but mostly not. Anyways a lot of people – mostly guys come over and talk to us. It’s really nice to have these conversations, even if they tend to be a repetition of each other: where are y’all from, where are y’all going, where did y’all start your trip etc.


A gas station on the legendary Alaska Hwy. This RV actually tows a large car behind it! For European standards, that’s a bit over the top!





In Tok we spotted Liz and Brian’s red bicycles and found them inside the visitors center. We all went for a coffee and talk. They were having a laundry break in Tok before they continued their long trip down to Victoria, Vancouver Island.





We were very tempted to buy the local calendar!



After a long ride (July 14th), we arrived in Chicken, a weird little community with just 3 houses, run by a pretty tough woman.





Only 5 people live here year round but they have more stickers, badges, patches, posters, gadgets than Disneyland. Just amazing. And people actually buy it!


The diner is known for it’s amazing pies and burgers and they brag loudly about it. I think they are just famous because they are the only place within a 200 miles radius!








What happens in Chicken stays in Chicken….. well don’t think too much happens in Chicken anyways!!!





It is quite a cool place though. The goldmines are still running, so this is not a museum, but a real mining town.
Meet Mrs. Moose and her two babies in downtown Chicken.





We met John, a former KLR mechanic from Oklahoma and Don from California. They were going the same way as us over the Top of the World Hwy, so we agreed to meet again in Dawson City.


In Chicken we also had our first motorcycle incident. Just before we left Chicken, I was topping off the Suzuki. I was talking to another traveler at the same time, so I didn’t really focus on what I was doing. I reached out for the green nozzle and filled up the tank with about 1 gallon of petrol – at least so I thought! In Denmark green nozzle means unleaded petrol - in Alaska it means diesel! Bummer!


After the first few seconds of panic, Lars got an old bucket from the store and I emptied the fuel tank. As I had only put about 1 gallon of diesel on it and since I never ran the engine, non of it would have gotten into the carburetor. We rinsed the tank with petrol and filled it up again – this time with the good stuff. And I crossed my fingers that it was OK for the Top of the World Hwy.





The the road from Chicken towards the border was absolutely amazing. The nicest gravel road with lots of curves, beautiful rivers, lakes and scenery all around us. – And the Bunny bike ran smoothly btw!


We crossed the border into Canada at a tiny border crossing Little Gold on Top of the World Hwy (July 15th). Up here we had to wear all layers again. It was freezing cold with a strong wind. But absolutely beautiful.


Second border crossing – yay!






In the evening we arrived in Dawson City and just outside a camp ground officer flagged us down and asked if we were Norwegian (: We answered that we are Danish, and that was close enough for him. John and Don had asked him to flag us down and direct us to their campsite. They had gotten the last campsite available in town and they were gladly sharing it with us.





John on his cool KLR with 40 homemade modifications and Dob on his big BMW. I was very impressed with Johns Aerostich coverall riding suit and his Chinese army boxes.





Dawson City is an amazing mining/hippie/museum town. There was a big music festival going on, so the town was packed with people over the weekend – hence the full camp grounds.






Dawson City and the massive Yukon river seen from above.






Dawson City was also the place we ran into Charley Boorman (July 17th). For us that was pretty damn awesome as one of his previous adventures “The Long Way Round” was inspiration for our trip.




He was there working on a new TV-series “Extreme Frontiers“. Thank you Charley for inspiring us!


Between Whitehorse and Watson Lake on the Alaska Highway we got to see our first bear – is it a Grizzly or a brown black bear? You tell us!




From this point we saw an amazing umber of bear. Between Watson Lake and Liard Hot springs approx. 100 miles ahead, we stopped almost every 10 minutes for a bear sighting.








Bunny finds it a bit scary to be this close to a real bear!






At first I was quite scared. The bears was so close to us, and I would always keep my motor running and in gear, ready to set off. But after a while I realized that they really couldn’t care less about us. They just cared about munching strawberries all day.






Further down the Alaska Hwy we came across several herds of Bison. They were if possible more scary than the bears. Just sooo big and walking steadily in the middle of the road, forcing you to ride right past them. Urgh!







Enjoy the exiting movie clip of one of our bison encounters






We also get to see more Moose. Only female cow moose and calves. We haven’t seen any bulls with big antlers yet.




The nature is just beautiful and purple from foxtail and fireweed.






We went down the Alaska Hwy to Liard Hotsprings where we enjoyed the extremely hot water and turned back towards Watson Lake.


Here we spent 2 days so Lars could get a new rear tire on his KLR. The rough gravel roads seems to be eating our tires raw.


Equiped with new rubber, we headed toward Steward and Hyder on the Cassiar Hwy 37 south. Probably one of the most beautiful stretches so far. Lots of smooth curves, large areas of ghost-like burned forest.







And after a nice day of riding comes and nice campfire.

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Fantastic! Enjoying the story. Keep posting and happy/safe travels!

Excellent adventure! I'm looking forward to reading your ride report. By-the-way...all your bear pictures look like different colors of black bears.

Johnny,
"They come in all colours, as long as they're black"
Nah . . . . I think you're right - we still haven't seen any Grizzlys, but we're hoping to see one soon.

We'll keep you posted
/Cheers

The Cassiar Hwy got us down to Meziadin Junction where we headed west towards the Portland Canal and the two towns Stewart and Hyder passing amazing glaciers.




Stewart and Hyder was a different experience. These two small towns are right next to each other, but far from everything else at the bottom of the Portland Canal. Located in a harsh, cold and misty environment, hidden deep in this fjord on the west coast of Canada.



Since the towns belong to two different countries; Hyder is in Alaska and Stewart is in Canada, they have their own little border control. They are even in two different time zones. When it is 4 pm in Hyder it is 5 pm in Stewart. Pretty unpractical since the people living in these small towns cross the border several times every day. But then again, I don’t think time matters so much for them.


The people living in Hyder seem to be either fishermen, mining people or old hippies who enjoy the simple and non restricted world, where no legal office sets its feet or construction rules are ever enforced. The people living here can do pretty much as they please. – And it shows!


There's so much junk scattered all over the place. Old mining machinery, abandoned houses falling apart, old trucks rusting in the woods.






The place attracts two types of visitors: tourists who come to see the bears feed of the spawning salmon and motorcyclists who come there to complete their 50 USA states and get a Ironbutt certificate.
The day we got there was the first day the salmon started coming up the creek. A grizzly with her two cubs was there, but unfortunately we missed them. To bad really, but nevertheless it was quite cool to see the big salmon dig holes in the shallow creek bed and lay their eggs and spawn.
We camped in Hyder Alaska behind the Sealaska Inn to everybody’s astonishment “But there are bears in the area!” Yes, like pretty much the rest of Alaska and Canada. There seem to be some weird bear fear hype going on among travelers. Guess the bear-spray and bear-bell industry is pretty pleased about the freaked-out tourists. Not to mention the weapon industry! - Mind you, there is bears in the area!







Speaking of weapon industry, we went into an old dusty general store with mostly empty shelves besides a bit of fishing equip and an extensive range of firearms. Lars found an amazingly cool tool tube – an old 88 mm mortar grenade holster. Mounted with 2 hose clamps, it fits perfectly on the skid plate and now holds all his tools. Price tag including clamps: $ 12,80!






Leaving Hyder and Stewart and heading for Prince George, we slowly returned to civilization. Fenced cow fields, frequent small towns and heavier traffic were a change in scenery we had to get used to again. Although as we left the main road to find a camp spot, we spotted a black bear less than 50 meters away from cows grassing quietly in the field. What a weird sight!
Riding a motorcycle can be a hazardous stuff! Especially when you are a bit unfocussed and forget details like strapping your bag down!
Lars was riding in front of me and noticed in his rear mirror that heavy smoke was coming from my bike. He signaled like a crazy guy to make me stop. I never noticed a thing! As I hadn't strapped my bag properly, the North Face bag was leaning against the exhaust - dope!!! Not a real smart move! It burned right through my bag and clothes! Bummer!






In Kitwanga we met Casey (KC) on her beautiful old timer Harley Davidson. Casey was traveling by her self to Alaska and we spend the night together with her in Houston on Hwy 16 (the Highway of Tears - check out the sad and ongoing story). It was very cool to hang out with an experienced female biker.


Casey is the second female rider we meet on our trip. Except for all the women who ride on the back of their husbands and boyfriends. We don't know why so little women ride motorcycles. Casey's opinion was that she was passed the age (she's 60 years old) where she had to prove anything to anyone anymore. She did anything she'd like to do no matter what people thought of it. She told us, she didn't like to see the way the women in the US were moving back towards traditional role models, where women are supposed to behave in a particular way to be real women, and where finding that mister right, was their solely purpose in life. I told her about the exploding female sport Roller Derby, where women are definitely following their own dreams and doing exactly what they want no matter what people think of it. She liked the concept.
Beautiful old Native totem poles in Kitwanga, BC.


From Hwy 16 we headed for Dawson Creek to meet Ruth and Tim, who we met in Fairbanks. We decided to try to avoid Prince George and turn north towards Fort St. James and continue on forest roads up to Dawson Creek. The idea seemed pretty good until we hit the first bit of gravel.
It was a dry and dusty gravel road with more potholes and washboards than the Dalton Hwy. But worst of all, the road was busier than Paris during rush hour. Enormous log trucks heading south came towards us every 5 minutes, leaving a huge cloud of dust and zero visibility behind. As soon as we were through the dust and able to see the next pothole coming towards us, the next 2-3 log trucks would pass us and we were back to zero visibility. We couldn’t believe the amount of threes that was removed from the forest every minute. It was hard not to get Lord of the Rings – Isengard - flashbacks.
Eventually we turned away from this sorry ass road, onto a smaller forest road heading east. The road seemed pretty promising. No traffic but just a beautiful nice forest road, with nice scenery. At least so it seemed at first. After a while, the road got narrower, heavier and muddier. Further into the forest, the road was flooded in places. The potholes turned into deep rumbles and I put the Bunny bike down a few times. We could go 5 km/h max. The road didn’t really correspond to the map and it just didn’t feel right.
Finally after passing a stretch with heavy mud, the road ended blind. We realized that we had taken a wrong turn somewhere. We turned back, passed the same muddy areas and scary flooded parts and went back the road quite a bit, until we found the turn-of where we thought we got it wrong. This road quickly turned into a muddy disaster as well and on top of it, it was getting late.


We had the feeling we turned of from the log truck road in a wrong place and was going down dead-end roads one after the other. Finally we decided to throw the adventure towel in the ring and head back to Fort St. James to camp there. Back on the log truck road to the dust, potholes and washboards – now in the dark. Guess we weren’t all that tough and adventurous after all!
From Fort St. James we headed for Prince George and McDonald to get some WIFI! (nice excuse!). In the parking lot we met these 3 super cool guys, Scott, Chris & Austin all riding KLR's. Their surely knew hos to make the most of their money. They had a lot of homemade cool solutions for their bikes, and we admired their creativity.





From Prince George we headed towards Dawson Creek to Ruth and Tim (London & Aussie or Deli girls & Butcher!).
We were pleased to see the scenery change from city to cow fields to thick forest and despite some long stretches of awful newly laid gravel, Hwy 97 from Prince George to Dawson Creek was a beautiful ride.
Just outside Chetwynd I discovered that my pants were covered in oil! I looked down and the entire right side of the bike was sprayed with oil from the radiator. We stopped and tried to find the leak, but with all the mud and dust and now oil on top of it, it was hard to see where it was coming from. We decided to continue the 80 km to Dawson Creek and hoped there would be a mechanic there. We stopped a few times to check the leak, and it seemed to be okay, except for the fact that it was a big mess.
Ruth was a sweetheart and picked us up late in the evening at a petrol station in Dawson Creek. We followed her to their home at Schneider’s Riverside Ranch outside a little farmers town Pouce Coupe, a beautiful farm with the most amazing view over the surrounding fields.





Short after Tim and Rudie - a "Swindian" (Half Swiss, half Indian) - came back from Tim’s butcher shop where they had been “working” late.
We were also introduced to Marley and Fritz a couple of kittens who spend all day entertaining anyone who would give them a bit of attention.



Ruth and Tim live in a house together with Jordan & Frank (youngest son of Freddie and Liz Schneider), who were very nice to let us use their guest room the following 5 nights.
The bike was transported to Grande Prairie for repair at Windsor Motorsports and since it was BC day the following Monday, we had a long weekend in Dawson Creek with awesome company and a nice soft bed! We weren’t sorry at all!
The following days we had more meat and more different kinds of meat, than we would normally have in several years. Dinner would include deer, caribou, elk as well as bison. Picnics would include nothing less than fresh made bison burger!


Bison Burger freshly cooked at Kinuseo Falls, Tumbler Ridge, BC.


Lars was introduced to authentic redneck lifestyle: Firing shotguns, fishing, eating loads of meat and no veggies, driving big ass trucks, drinking his brains out and growing a beard! And he loved it! For a while there I thought I was never gonna get him to leave with me.


Lars with his well earned Coors Light cap - I say no more!





Bruce, the gentleman we all met in Fairbanks, Alaska (with the broken arm) also came by Ruth and Tim’s place on his way back from Alaska, so we had a real Alaska reunion going on! He’s arm was doing better, which was very good news.
Tim, Jordan, Ruth, Henriette, Bruce and the kittens


The kittens seemed to be running on 2 modes: Either 100% on or 100% off!


Bruce drove us to Grande Prairie to pick up the bunny bike. It turned out the radiator had been rubbing against the tank due to a loose bolt and that had caused the leak. Luckily Ron at Windsor Motorsports was able to fix the radiator.
Henriette happily reunited with the Bunny bike.


The fixed radiator. You can see where it had been rubbing against the tank.


Ron was a bit of an adventure rider himself and serious about this work. Something that is very appreciated when you depend on your two wheels and you don’t have all the money in the world to keep it running. The radiator has been running perfectly ever since. Thank you Windsor Motorsports!


Ruth and Henriette doing the true redneck wifey style!


Leaving Dawson Creek was kind of sad. We had so much fun with our new friends and sometimes travelling includes too many goodbyes.
We headed to Jasper National Park and on the way a stop in Hinton to meet West Yellowhead Rollergirls – and even skate! Yay!
Erin aka Atomic Toaster and Nathalie aka Old Lady Wheel-‘her’ took me to their outdoor rink to skate and talk Derby.



Their team was getting ready for their first bout and they were really excited about it. After skating they took us for drinks at a karaoke bar and Toaster showed us her real star qualities on the stage! She even managed to get me up there with the microphone - in my dirty riding gear! Argh! The shots started flowing to the table and Toaster and Old Lady was showing some real Derby party spirit!






Heading for Jasper National Park (Aug 5th)



Jasper wildlife getting a bit to familiar with the tourists!



Jasper National Park turned out to be a very busy place. It is unquestionable very beautiful, but the numbers of RV’s pickup trucks, hikers and bikers just makes it a bit to crowded for our taste. You didn’t have to look for the wildlife. Just look for the line of cars and people jamming up to take pictures of the animals. Amazingly the animals didn’t seem to care. Large Elks were grassing on the side of the road, while an ongoing stream of tourists with their enormous photo lenses were having their Kodak moment.


We treated ourselves with a nice boat ride on the Maligne Lake











On Icefields Parkway we met Petar, a 21-year-old guy from Croatia. He was doing the same trip as us on a big KTM 990 Adventure. He was just going the other way from Argentina to Alaska. We though it was pretty amazing that he was doing this at such a young age, but then he told us that when he was 19 he did a round-the-world trip! In fact, the week after he got his very first motorcycle, he took of to North Cape in Norway. He didn’t have gloves or proper riding gear! That’s the real adventure spirit. Just get on the road. You might freeze your hands and nose of, but you’ll have so much fun doing it!
Check out Petar’s amazing website








The Icefields Parkway took us through this amazing glacier carved scenery with non-stop Kodak moments so we got a lot of breaks along the way.
Waterfalls carving through the rocks creating amazing rock formations.










Peyto Lake is a glacier-fed lake which gives it the amazing artificial looking blue color.
















The ultimate tourist trap: Lake Louise. It's undeniable very beautiful though and the Fairmont's Chateau Lake Louise is a very posh place to hang out with room rates starting from $500. Not in this life!






Enjoying the company at the Castle Mountain Campground. Alice & John from Alberta and Jonathan & Jean-Baptiste from Touluse, France.


Lars doing his homework in the Palace office.


We quickly realized that if we went just a little further than the paved tourist walkways, we would have the place for ourselves. Most people just get out of the RV to take a photo, but they don’t like to get too far away from the comforts of air-condition and cup holders. Lars with the last sausage from the famous Dawson Creek Butchery




Next stop was Calgary (Aug 9^th) for a new rear tire for the Bunny bike. On www.advrider.com we got recommendations to go to Anderwerks for parts and repairs. Anderwerks is a BMW motorrad specialist owned by Dave Anderson. He turned out to be a bit of a adventure rider himself.
A flat tire seldom happens on a sunny afternoon, but more likely on a rainy evening on a muddy road on a scary mountain side, so we wanted to do the tire change ourselves by hand behind the shop. Dave agreed to let us do that to his staff’s and other customer’s great amusement.


The “breaking the bead” hug! Didn't work though. We had to use the side-stand on the KLR - that did the trick.


Parts Manager Jennifer was very supportive during the whole act.


And the final victory outburst when we finally got the new tire back on, without pinching the tube once!


Dave invited us to stay at his place for the night and cooked us a nice BBQ on his enormous gas BBQ – his #2 best toy, placed next to his #1 best toy – A BMW HP2 equipped with all the HPN and Touratech goodies you could ever dream of. Take a look at this baby:






Dave had a special seat made by Andrea from Powersports Seats for his HP2. Her shop was right here in Calgary, and we thought she could be the solution to my seat issues. The Suzuki seat is mildly put very uncomfortable. It cuts of the circulation to my right leg. It doesn’t hurt a lot when I ride, but as soon as I get of the bike and stand up, my leg goes numb right away. And I have even invested in the Suzuki gel seat, which should be more comfortable than the original stock seat. However I can’t say I wasn’t warned; on several rider forums the Suzuki seats are described as extremely uncomfortable and not made for longer journeys.
Well arrived in Andreas cool workshop, she removed the seat cover and we quickly realized why this seat wasn’t doing its job. The foam was a poor and hard quality and the gel was equally bad. The gel didn’t even cover the entire space it was supposed to, leaving a rather large hole of nothing. No wonder I was aching.






Andrea did an amazing job, while we waited. She cut of a big chunk of the old foam and replaced with a new of better quality. The she started molding and reshaping it and made space for a new gel pad. It was really cool to see her work and mold the foam like clay.





We tried the seat on the bike several times, to ensure the shape was right for me. The result feels a whole lot better than before. I’m still very sensitive and I think the problem will diminish slowly, but it feels a whole lot better now.
Leaving Calgary we went by the local IKEA warehouse. We hoped an IKEA sheepskin would be the final solution to the butt issues! We treated ourselves to some Swedish meatballs and felt a bit closer to home!


Back on the road we headed for Kananaskis Country and Hwy 40 going south. This road was a beautiful relief from the crowded Jasper, Lake Louise, Banff experience. The mountains were amazing and we saw a lot of deer and mountain sheep. A the bottom of Hwy 40 we turned of to Hwy 940, a beautiful gravel road that took us all the way to Coleman through a beautiful, peaceful landscape of mountains, rivers and fields with cows and horses living the best life imaginable.










We crossed the border into the US at Chief Mountain, a beautiful little lonely border patrol in Waterton Lakes National Park.


Coming from the busy Jasper-Banff National Parks it was a relief getting back to a real outpost.

Awesome pictures


Will be waiting for you in Argentina.

Great report and pics. Brings back fond memories

Sounds good - We might take you up on that. We expect to be in Argentina in the beginning of January 2012.
I'll contact you once we get closer. /Lars

great RR! it would be my favorite itinerary.
enjoy and ride safe!

Entering the US at the Montana border (August 12th) at Chief Mountain was like stepping 100 years back into the wild west. Montana is also called “the Last Best Place” in America. It has a very low population density and besides the Rocky Mountains in the west the state consist of prairie where millions of buffaloes used to roam.
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We entered the state on Hwy 89 and headed toward St. Mary, the gate to the “Going-to-the-Sun” road in Glacier National Park. As we arrived in St. Mary we stopped at the visitor center, where we were lucky to get a chance to listen to an old Native American speaking about his childhood being brought up by a Shaman. He also told a beautiful story about creation of the drum.
The story takes place in the Rockies where Glacier Nat. Park is located today. Back then this land was a very important area to the Indians.
Glacier National Park or “Backbone of the World” as the natives call the Rocky Mountain

The mountains are sacred and they were an important source of Salmon, big game, roots, herbs, berries and much more that the Indians were depending on to survive. In the 19th century the European settlers made a treaty with the Indians that gave the Europeans access to mine gold in the mountain. The Indians thought they only gave the white people the right to mine in the mountains and not the right to the land, but after the treaty was signed, the military no longer allowed the Indians access to the land. It’s a very sad story and one little example of how the Indians were tricked of their homeland and pushed into dry, cold prairies with nothing for them to live on.
After his speech, he invited the listeners to the ongoing Indian Pow Wow festival in the nearby Indian Blackfeet reservation in a small town Heart Butte. I was quite a bit out of our way, but somehow I just felt that this was something we couldn’t miss out on.
Riding from St. Mary, located by the mountains into the prairie towards the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Heart Butte was magical. The winding roads took us through the soft hilled cow lands and brought us further away from the lush greenery into dry, stony, unfruitful prairie.
The settlers, gold-diggers, trapper and hunters from Europe sought out the rich pieces of land with no regards to the existing native population. And it was not hard to understand why the European invaders choose exactly this piece of prairie for the Blackfeet Indian reservation. Before the European invaded America there was an abundance of buffalo on the prairie but the pioneers had hunted them until there was no animals left.
This cold prairie did not provide the berries, roots, herbs, elk, moose, deer, bears, beavers, grouse or shelter as the mountains did and which the Indians needed to survive the winters. And even more importantly the Indians were cut of important waterways that were essential for them. Fresh water and salmon was just as important for the survival of the Indians as is was to the pioneers exploring this beautiful land.

It is hard to accept that the mountains that the Indians were once so dependent on were taken from them to mine gold and other metals. And today where there’s no longer mining in these mountains, the area is a national park for people to visit to enjoy the stunning views, fish in the rivers and swim in the lakes for recreation purpose. But we don’t see any Native Americans visiting these mountains that were once so precious to them.
Arriving in Heart Butte, was quite special. Neither Lars nor I have been to this part of the world before and have little perception of an Indian reservation. But we are of course affected by the many stories and warning given by our kind about the troubles in these places. It was hard to judge whether we were in a place we shouldn’t be, or if our prejudicial filter was making us unable to see that this was a perfectly safe place.

The Pow wow festival area was surrounded by a campground and looked pretty much like any small town festival back home with food stands and lotteries. The only visible differences were the shape of the tents, which were tipis naturally.

In the middle was a large circular arena surrounded by a tribune for the spectators. We found ourselves a good spot and were surprised to see that we were the only “white skins” there. This was apparently not a nostalgic show in honor of the tourist – but a real local festival.

Slowly the drummers, singers and dancers arrived to the arena. We watched as they put on their incredible outfits including headgear, hair accessories, necklaces, dresses, pants, boots and much more I wouldn’t know what to call.

It was obvious that they put an enormous amount of energy into their outfits and seemed very proud to wear them. The spectators were family and friends, who were there to support their dancer. There were kids and dogs everywhere running in and out of the arena to their moms and dads and sisters and brothers and no one took much notice of that. The relaxed atmosphere was almost a contrast to the seriousness of their outfits.



Posing for the camera.


Amazing guy!




One big explosion of color.

The drummers and singers were gathered in circles around the big drums. 6 bands in all who took turns in singing. At first the music sounds like noise, but after a little while it becomes really pleasant and almost meditational.

The guy in the middle is Eddie Spears a famous Blackfoot actor. He’s in the amazing “Bury my heart at wounded knee” a TV film based on the book of the same name by Dee Brown. The book and movie tells the story of the U.S. expansion in the west from the Indians’ perspective and I recommend it warmly.



After the initial ceremony the female dance competition started.


The winner of the female dance contest. Isn’t she beautiful?

Visiting Heart Butte and being a spectator at the pow wow was definitely one of the best experiences on this trip.
We could have spend the night in Heart Butte but decided to leave and head for Browning. It was getting very late and we drove through the horse fields in the dark. The sky was clear and millions of stars lit up the prairie.
Back to the stunning but touristy Glacier National Park, we lined up behind the cars to get our piece of the scenery. Glacier National Park is without doubt just amazing, and a popular vacation destination.


On the top of the Logan pass we walked up the mountain and saw mountain sheep and the amazing mountain goats. These rock climbers navigate the steepest mountainsides imaginable, and they didn’t seem very comfortable in the summer sun.

A mountain goat panting in the summer heat


We spend the night in a very cool campground: Glacier Campground. Just one of those places, where you feel at home, and where they know how to tend to travelers needs. Free showers, free WiFi, an awesome living room, laundry, a really cool cafe that made the best BBQ and breakfast ever. We enjoyed this place so much we stayed another night.


Henriette making friends with Skeeter.

Western Montana is very much Wild West Country. The guys wear cowboy hats and boots and look as if they just rode in on a horse. – They actually rode in in their big ass pickup truck with at least one dog and two ATV’s on the back.
The cars are enormous and louder than the Harleys. Poor Harley guys, how are people gonna notice them around here!? Kalispell is a city true to its heritage with Wild West architecture and fonts on shop signs.

From Kalispell we headed south towards the National Bison Range, which is one of the oldest wild life refuges in North America. We were unfortunately not able to enter on our motorbikes and had to watch from the outside. To put things into perspective - Lars standing next to the stack of antlers is 198 cm (6'5') tall.

From there we headed south along the Continental Divide on some beautiful gravel roads, which took us through amazing scenery. Highlight was the Skalkaho pass in the Sapphire Mountains and Lemhi pass. We zig-zagged our way through the area and weren’t very efficient in terms of getting further south, but that didn’t really matter. We loved riding on these back roads.
A big herd of mountain sheep.


Camping is awesome, when you find a sweet little sunny spot next to a crystal clear river like this one.

Who needs a cooler, when you have ice cold glacier water to cool your beers?

Enjoying the culinary experience of a freeze dried Mountain House meal!

And with no other means of entertainment, there’s always the camera!




The next day we continue along small farmer roads (August 17th). In Wise River we stop at a small diner for lunch and met Randy and John who happen to know Annette Birkmann, our good friend from Denmark. Annette traveled alone on a motorcycle all over South ad North America and has been of great inspiration to us.


Endless prairie.

The barbed wire that tamed the wild west!

Coolidge mining chost town in Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest.

As we hit the town of Leadore on Hwy 28, we headed back North to Salmon. (August 18th). We wanted to ride along the Salmon River up to the Sawtooth Mountain and in an astounding scenery along the river we headed towards Sun Valley and Ketchum.
Salmon River.

Salmon River and Sawtooth Mountains in the background.


On the winding mountain roads just outside Ketchum the Suzuki got a flat. This wasn’t supposed to happen! Here we were on a beautiful mountain road in the sun, on a nice warm afternoon! That’s not when you get a flat! We’ll we were just really glad to work on the flat in these conditions and even found a nice shady spot.

A large piece of carton cutter had cut a large hole in the tire and tube.

Half an hour after we fixed the flat, we arrived in posh Ketchum ski resort. We were still covered in dust and dirt from the tire and it felt a bit awkward to walk around between the pastel dressed people in their Audis and Porches. We quickly left the premises.
Bunny loves all the action!

Evening skies over the Sun Valley hills.

Enjoying the sunset.

We couldn’t find a place to camp and had to continue in the dark all the way to the campground in the Craters of the Moon National Park through a spooky landscape. Arriving a the park campground was weird. It was pitch black, and we could almost touch the stars.

Camping at Craters of the moon in black lava (August 19th)

Mountain of lava in Craters of the Moon National Park

Craters of the Moon National Park is something else.

Strangely enough plants and trees are able to grow in the dry lava.


Lava shadows.

We are back on the prairie heading for Idaho Falls and Yellowstone. The long straight stretch of Hwy through the prairie was lined with signs to keep on the Hwy. The prairie was one large Nuclear power plant development zone.

Just North of Idaho Falls we looked up the Klim headquarters. We both think Klim makes awesome adventure gear. Maybe a bit over our budget, but doesn’t mean we can’t love it. So we thought we’d stop by in Rigby and hoped they had an outlet by the factory. We first heard about the Klim brand at the Horizons Unlimited Mountain Madness (HUMM) rally last year where several guys recommended this technical riding gear.
Since we spend the day in Idaho Falls shopping for a new camera, we arrived pretty late at the Klim headquarters Friday afternoon. They were closing down for the weekend, but we found the warehouse crew outside on the parking lot. Kimberley, the Warehouse Manager invited us in for a tour in her meticulous organized warehouse. (working for IKEA, I have great respect for warehouse workers that take their role of running an efficient business seriously – and Kimberley was certainly one of them)
Brandon who’s working in Klim’s R&D department stopped us as we were about to leave and invited us to follow him to the owner Justin’s place. The Adventure line Designer, Edward, was there as well working on Justin’s new KTM.

Edward invited us to stay at his place for the night at his house in Idaho Falls. His girlfriend Alisa is a super cool lady and an adventure rider as well. She rode through South America on a Suzuki DR650 just like mine and had a lot of good inputs for us. It was totally awesome to get to know the both of them – and Mr. Purr – the sweetest little kitten.
It turned out Alisa also know our good friend from Denmark Annette Birkmann. What a small world!

Camping – now with our own livingroom!

Alisa & Edward had just moved in to their new house a week ago, but still felt they could accommodate and entertain two dirty travelers.

From Idaho Falls we headed towards Teton National Park and Yellowstone. In Swan Valley we dumped into a nice local market with live Bluegrass music. So we spend a few hours lying in the grass, staring at the blue sky and listening to awesome music – now that’s vacation!

At the entrance to the Tetons National Park we visited Jackson Hole and the famous Million Dollar Cowboy bar.



Amazing elk antlers portals in Jackson Hole. All collected from the National Elk Refuge just north of Jackson.

Camping at Granite Creek south of Jackson.

The Tetons National Park.

Enormous elk herd in the Tetons National Park.

The bikers.

Bunny has fine company.

Jackson Lake


Riding the Grassy Lake dirt road to Camp a this beautiful lake was a treat.

Campfire marshmallows – Mmmmm!

Next stop was Yellowstone National Park (August 21st). Understandable a very popular vacation destination for people all over the world. It is large enough for you to spend 2-3 days even if you never leave the car for anything but Kodak Moments. If you are into hiking you could spend weeks there.
The park has numerous hot springs, geysers, waterfalls, canyons, mountains, lakes and rivers. There are large herds of bison, bears, elks, moose, pronghorns deer and wolfs in the park.
We arrived at the Madison campground late that night just to find that it was full. We didn’t wanna continue riding in the dark in an area with so much wildlife, so we circled the campground to try and find other riders, we could share a spot with and finally 2 great guys Don and Joe invited us to stay at their campsite. They were riding their shiny and cool Harleys – Don was on a brand new Harley with not a single dust corn on it. These guys were serious about their ride!

I got badly sunburned on our first day in the park, so on the second day Lars went about alone and came back with amazing pictures of colorful hot springs, bison herds and wolfs.





Wolfs eating of a bison carcass. (They were far away, so the picture quality is unfortunately not too good)

I spend the day at the campground – getting all upset about the rigid strict uniformed staff at the place. They were impolite and unapologetic when they realized they had made a mistake with our reservation. They had rules for anything you could imagine and was patrolling the campground every hour. Since there are bears in the area, they put up signs on all camping tables saying that you couldn’t have cooking gear, water, cups, lotion etc. etc. – Why not just put a frickin fence around the campground and let customers relax a bit!


We met Mark and Gerry in Yellowstone. Mark rides a BMW F650GS and lives in Costa Rica and invited us to come and visit him, when we get there. Gerry was taking his brand new Super Teneré for a ride.


We spend the next night (August 23rd) in extreme luxury in a Motel in Gardiner just North of Yellowstone.


Pizza and beer at the K-BAR is just GRRRRRREAT!!!!!!

Sweet doggie!

Home sweet home!

By coincidence the Globebuster tour was staying at the same motel. 12 BMW’s going from the top of Alaska to the tip of Argentina – just like us, but they are doing it in 4 months – half the time, that we are – so they had a pretty tough schedule and did a lot of miles everyday. The participants where from the UK, Ireland and Australia and they were followed by a support vehicle with spare parts etc.

This was their rest day, so they all had time to hang around and talk, which was really awesome. Liz was riding her cool BMW 800 – I envied her seat and she envied the weight of the Suzuki.

The Globebuster tour had very bad weather conditions when they went up the Dalton Hwy to Prudhoe Bay and the road turns into one big mud path and they were only a few day into the journey. One of their participant was riding a large BMW Adventure with his wife on the back. At one point he lost control and crashed his bike. He landed so unfortunate that he killed himself. It a terrible and a very sad story. May he rest in peace.
It’s incredible how quickly the conditions on the Dalton Hwy changes from perfect to very dangerous. We did the ride just a few weeks earlier in nice sunny dry conditions and the road was great. It’s hard to accept, but I guess it’s a risk you always take as soon as you take yourself out in the traffic. Road conditions, wildlife, and other vehicles – everything represents a risk.
In Gardiner we stopped at the local Hutterites produce market and got to know Rachel, Donna and Liza. Hutterites are a pacifist democratic community comparable to Mennonites or Amish people. They live in communities throughout Canada and United States.
The sweetest girls Liza, Rachel and Donna from the Martindale Hutterite community.

The Hutterite believe in hard work and simple life. Their incomes all comes into the same pool, they all eat together every evening and they follow pretty strict rules in their community. There can be maximum 160 people in one community. When they grow bigger than that, they split up the community and half of them move to a new place. Therefore an important mission in their society is to save funds for buying new land and building new houses for new communities. Since they farm as large communities rather than individual families, they are most often very strong financial and use modern state-of-the-art agricultural techniques.
The Catholic church in Europe treated them as non-believers/heathens and did what they could to eliminate them (read torture and kill). They moved around in Europe and ended up in Russia, where the Zar saw benefit from the hard-working farmer mentality of the Hutterites. When the Russians installed compulsory military service law they finally left Europe for good and took advantage of the possibilities in the Wild West.
It’s very interesting to meet people who live in our part of the world but choose a different type of community than the rest of us. And it’s hard to see what they are missing out on – except maybe equality between men and women. Women basically have no saying and cannot vote. Can you call a community a democracy when women cannot vote?
The 3 girls told us that they married late, since divorce was not possible. They could have several boyfriends though. They just had to be real sure before they married a man. They invited us to come and visit their community in Martinsdale, and we would have loved to do that, but it was 100 miles north and unfortunately we weren’t gonna go back that way.
From Yellowstone we headed toward Billings over the amazing Beartooth Pass. The pass is 10,947 ft / 3.337 meters and it beats the famous Stelvio in Italy. It is known as “the most beautiful drive in America” and it was really so amazing, we considered to turn around and do it once again.




Awesome mountain climbing in Beartooth.

In billings we are meeting up with Billings Roller Derby Dames. In fact they are bouting the coming Saturday, so of course we’ll stay a few days extra for that. Let’s see what these Wild West Modern cowgirls can accomplish when they swop the horse with a pair of 8-wheelers! See separate post.

While I was hanging out with the Billings Roller Derby Dames, Lars went to visit the Little Big Horn Battlefield west of Billings. See separate post.
From Billings we headed back towards red Lodge and Beartooth Pass and went through this amazing landscape once again. On Hwy 296 we headed for the Chief Joseph Pass towards the rodeo town Cody. We were chased by a thick black storm cloud and raced through the landscape to try and avoid it. Just before Cody the prairie winds got so strong, we were blown all over – and almost off the road.

Cody is named after Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody) and famous for its Nite Rodeos.

As with all other American sports events, there’s an opening ceremony with the national hymn, a flag parade and a prayer.

Big old mean guy.

Real men willing to break their backs.

“I believe I can fly!”


After a long day of riding and an intense night of wild west rodeo entertainment, we went for a nice warm motel in downtown Cody.

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Hey!
It was great meeting you guys!
I'm so glad you're still going strong!
Remember: watch out for ferocious mountain lions diguised as common pets!

Great write up! Keep it coming!

I did Alaska in 06. This report is such a pleasant flashback. Great photos!

My dream trip is South America so I will be following your thread. Thanks so much
for posting.