Reaching the last frontier: Alaska

As we were riding up the Alaskan Highway towards Whitehorse, we decided to take another route than the one initially planne, based on Josh and Mike's advice. We took the Klondike Highway north towards Dawson, which would ultimately lead us to a beautiful road: the Top of the World Highway. Every motorcycle rider we chatted with told us it was definitively a must do and that it would be a shame to miss it.


The Top of the World Highway

We left Dawson that morning and took a short ferry, the only way to cross the river, which brings you right at the bottom of the magical highway we were promised. The Top of the World is no easy game though: 127 Km, mostly gravel road until you reach the border and mostly dirt and gravel after you enter Alaska, all this with plenty of curves. Seems like a challenge we could pursue and see if our bikes were up to the task. The road was indeed not easy and we improved our technique along the way; standing on the foot pegs while riding sure makes the bike more stable!
The road ended up being as amazing as promised: riding on top of a mountain ridge with amazing views on both side of the surrounding peeks makes it hard to focus on the road. It is an unbelievable road and it is still hard to grasp the beauty of the views we had all along the highway.

Crossing the border

Finally the border station was in sight: this means we were about to reach our first big milestone, Alaska. We were hoping it was going to be as easy as the Canadian one and it was. It took us all of 5 minutes to cross the most northern border gate in the US. So excited to be finally in Alaska and continue our adventure on the famous highway, we were just greeted by a big herd of caribous a quarter of a mile further. The welcome could not have been warmer!

Staying in Chicken, Alaska

We did the last 43 miles of the highway which were amazing as well, despite the worse road conditions than on the Canadian side. We reached our first Alaskan inhabited place: the small town of Chicken. We had to celebrate surviving the Top of the World Highway and had a beer at the Chicken Creek Saloon, owned by Susan. Someone we met in Dawson had recommended we go there as it was the authentic place in town. Susan gave us such a warm welcome and offered us a tent to stay for the night. So we ended up spending our first Alaskan night in Chicken: if you ever are in the area, please say hi to Susan. She also owns the next door cafe, where she sells her delicious home made pies and she has lots of good stories to share.

Starting our Alaskan adventure with the Top of the World Highway was the best decision we could have made. First, it sounds really cool to ride the Top of the World and also it allowed us to discover the great little hidden town of Chicken, where we shared good times with our fellow riders, Josh and Mike, as well as with the locals. It is again a challenge for us to even be remotely able to describe how amazing that ride was, but we would tell any motorcycle rider out there that this is definitively not to be missed.