Conquering the Arctic Circle

Motorcycle riders are like conquerors or modern knights: they need to ride their beast made of steel, travel untamed roads, reach far remote places and let the world know know that yes, they made it there. The road may have been tough, the gravel steep and there was plenty of mud but they made it because they are tough and because they have a true adventure spirit. This is why we decided to go and conquer the Haul Road to the Arctic Circle from Fairbanks.

Sipping an Appletini from an ice glass

Before undertaking this adventure for the real tough ones only, we needed to get ready for it and take a relaxing day off riding. So we headed out to Chena Hot Springs for a relaxing afternoon. Besides great hot springs, they have another attraction well worth it: the Ice Museum. The whole museum is made of sculpted ice and maintained at freezing temperature even in the summer under a covered dome. We stepped in and were grateful for the big parkas given the 20 degrees temperature (about -10C). The palace was beautiful with all the carved ice and the colorful lights playing with it. They even had four ice bedrooms where you could stay the night (only one group of crazy people have tried so far). In the museum, we got an Appletini served in an ice glass. You can only drink it with gloves, otherwise the glass melts and your hands get really cold too. Delicious beverage and it did stay cool!

The Arctic Circle

After this relaxing visit, we were finally ready to get up early the next day and ride to the Arctic Circle and back. The whole ride would be over 400 miles, with most of it being gravel or dirt: we were ready for the challenge. The first part of the road was easy and all paved and then the gravel showed up. Actually, gravel and stones with deep ridges too. Another chance for us to improve these off road skills! The bikes again handled well, a few challenging moments in the mud as they spray the roads here with chemicals to limit dust. All the way up north, the road was bordered by the famous Trans-Alaskan pipeline. A great example of what engineers are capable: a huge oil pipeline, able to resists extreme winter temperature, fire and even earthquake. It transports oil all the way from the Arctic Ocean to the south Alaskan coast in Valdez.
We continued further north after our lunch under the pipeline and a well needed gas stop. The road was less challenging then and we finally reached the Arctic Circle in the afternoon, took a picture, got our certificate from the Park ranger and headed back to Fairbanks. What a long ride... forest, little trees, tundra, rocks, the pipeline...not that much to see but we had conquered to Circle. A few oversized trucks made our ride miserable for a while, generating a ridiculous amount of dust; we had no visibility and both ourselves and the bikes were completely brown by the end of the ride.

We made it back to our campsite 11 hours after we left, tired but happy. We could not believe how dirty we were and jumped right into the shower. We sure will spend the next day cleaning the bikes and making some laundry to not scare the locals with our appearance.