Stewart, BC to Watson Lake, YT (Dan)

Today’s trip took us from Stewart to Watson Lake, covering about 402 miles. We were on the road by 8AM and reached our lodging just after 5PM. There’s really only one way to get there – head east out of Stewart on highway 37A and take a left at highway 37 and ride all the way to the border with Yukon Territory.

A right turn on the Alaska Highway and a few miles of road leads to Watson Lake, home of the famous Sign Post Forest with over 100,000 signs from all over the world. I assume many of them were stolen from people’s hometowns, but there are a good mix of signs people seemed to have created specifically for the purpose of adding them to the forest. Being ill prepared for adding to the varied collection, we had to settle for adding a Phat Barstewards sticker, but perhaps a return trip can include something with a little more creativity.

We did run into this guy from Uruguay. Back in February, he left on his BMW F800GS from the southern end of South America up to north of Fairbanks, AK, and is headed back home now. As other adventurers have done, he and the bike were flown across the Darien Gap, but otherwise it was a ride the whole way.

I’m 2,100 miles into this 6,500 mile ride, and my equipment is holding up very well. Since I’m on the only bike with a chain in the group, I do spray some lube on it after each day’s ride. The tires don’t seem to be wearing much, and nothing has broken yet.

More importantly, I’m staying pretty comfortable. I think a few items made a big difference for me. I have a mesh Sit n Fly seat cover over a Sargent seat. The combination has completely prevented any discomfort in the seat region – something I’ve had to deal with on every other motorcycle I’ve travelled with. Considering the cold temps and rain (and snow) we’ve experienced, the Hippo Hands I have installed along with lightly insulated gloved plus Hot Hands grip heaters have kept my hands completely comfortable. That is a stark departure from the other two who travelled up from Montana with me. They are ugly, don’t pack well, and would probably suck in exceptionally warm weather. So far that hasn’t been a big problem. The last big difference-maker is my ancient Gerbing heated socks. They are a bit stretched and walking on the wiring is irritating, but warm feet in cold weather have a way of reducing the suck of this kind of trip.

Tomorrow is a long day with over 600 miles to Dawson City. Waze says it is 12 hours on the road, which seems a bit long. We’re hoping total time with stops is 12 hours, but we’ll see. The good news is that the sun pretty much doesn’t set this time of the year up there, so there won’t be any “night” riding no matter how late we need to be on the road.