The Fantastic Four on the road

We met our two Canadian rider friends three days ago and now, we just have been riding 1,000 Kms together. It has been a really fun journey so far and our group has been doing very well together, both in terms of personality and riding style.

None of us have been to Alaska before so we were all equally excited to ride to the last frontier. It is very hard to describe the road we traveled: so much space, the forest everywhere and mountains going on forever with only one road in sight (the one we were one) and no sign of civilization. Maybe a small lodge with gas every two hours or so, that's it. The beauty of this wilderness is so captivating and you get to meet numerous locals in this end of the world area: black bears, bisons, caribous and the like. Nothing else but wild beauty and tranquility. It has been so soothing to the soul riding this part of the world.

A last stop in civilization

Before crossing the border and enter an even wilder part of the Yukon, we stopped in the last big city: Whitehorse. This is the Klondike area, where the gold rush happened in 1898. There is not much to the town, except maybe the big Klondike steamboat there for tourists to enjoy. We just had to make sure we buy the absolute necessary stuff for the bike and us to be able to make it to Alaska safely: spare tire, parts, chain lube and those very useful mosquito nets for our heads. Now, we were fully equipped and hopefully prepared for the unforseenable.

A Sourtoe Cocktail in Dawson

We rode a lot that day, really a lot and finally mad it to Dawson, the last post in Yukon late at night. When I say at night, it can be pretty misleading: the sun does not really set here (see picture at the bottom taken well after midnight). So here we are on mainstreet, eating dinner at 11pm in the bright daylight. Pretty strange, your body is completely fooled and despite our long day, we did not really feel tired.
Once fed, we headed for the main attraction in town that only the brave can handle: drink a Sourtoe cocktail prepared specially for you by Captain Dick. A Sourtoe cocktail consists of the liquor of your choice, has to be more than 40% alcohol, and then you drop in the glass a black human frozen toe! You are only part of the braves if the toe touches your lips at the end of the shot, but beware: no swallowing of the toe is allowed. Well, the four of us were definitively brave and we all touched the human toe donated by an anonymous person who lost his big toe hiking the Himalaya.









Needless to say that we slept pretty well that night. However, some of us had vivid dreams of human toes attacking them:) Tomorrow, we will be crossing the border into Alaska, after traveling the most beautiful stretch of dirt road in the world.