Alaska 2014 - Part 1

[Charles Scappaticci]

I've been meaning to do a complete write up on last years Alaska trip for
sometime, but just haven't gotten around to it.  After reading Ralph's
write up on his Florida trip, I figured I better get this done before I
forget parts of it.  I'll apologize in advance as it's a little on the long
side and I'm also not a writer, so bear with me.  Anyway, here goes, part
one of several.
The trip started as a conversation between my friend Bruce, his 17 yo son
Danny and myself at the Sipapu New Mexico BMW rally in Sept. 2013.  I was
telling Danny about my 2012 trip to southern Alaska and apparently that got
him thinking.  Bruce had promised him a "trip" upon his high school
graduation and after talking about Alaska he got interested.  I for a call
in late January from Bruce saying Danny wanted to ride to Alaska with
Bruce, reluctantly, Bruce agreed, but only under the condition that I go as
a guide.  Well, it is Alaska and you don't have to ask me twice, assuming I
could get the time off which my employer agreed to.  Danny has ridden dirt
bikes for many years and after riding to New Mexico with him, I had no
concerns about him being able to do it on his Kawasaki 650 Versys.  I was
actually more concerned about Bruce who is a 200 miles a day "where is my
hotel type" these days, LOL!

For those who haven't ridden western Canada and Alaska, the country is
huge.  It seems to go on forever and unless you have a month or more, (I
had two weeks) you have to ride a lot of miles, I figured I would have to
average 450 miles a day.

We had a couple of strategy and route planning sessions and settled on a
plan and the timing.  Bruce and Danny would leave early and ride to see
Bruce's son in Spokane WA, put fresh rubber on the bikes and then meet me
in Banff Canada.  I would ride with them as far as Whitehorse, Yukon where
they would head south to Skagway, Haines and Juneau then take the ferry
back to Seattle and home from there, while I was headed much farther into
Alaska.  Plans made, I set about getting the GPZ ready for the trip.  I had
put on a new chain and sprockets and a new battery before the last trip so
I was set there.  A few once overs, and the only thing I need to do was
adjust the valves and it was good.  The Pilot Road 2 tires had about 1,000
miles on the from the Sipapu trip the previous fall and I though they would
be okay, this was a mistake in hindsight that caused me a lot of worry.
I was particularly busy at work so I decided to take it in to Grand Pricks
Motorsports and have a valve adjustment done, what could possibly go
wrong?  I made an appointment to take it in the next Saturday, about a
month before we were to leave.  After a week of silence, I called them to
find out the status.  Even though I had an appointment, they had not
started on it, but promised to get it done next week.  Another week rolled
around so I called them and again asked what the status was and was told
the cam chain and tensioner needed replaced.  I reluctantly agreed as I
didn't want to get stranded in the middle of nowhere.  A few days later, I
stopped by to ask if it was about done.  Turns out my service writer had
become a new father and had taken the week off and no one was covering for
him.  I raised a lot of hell and they said they would get the parts ordered
and get it done ASAP.  The next day, they called me and said the cam chain
tensioner is NLA and that they would have to search for one.  I am now
about 10 days from leaving and I don't have a running bike.  That Saturday,
less than a week away from leaving I went to see them again only to be told
they were waiting for ME to order a cam chain tensioner, really??  Since
when do the customers order the parts?  I ran home and found the correct
part on eBay and ordered it with Fed-Ex shipping.  Amazingly, it came in on
Monday and I rushed it over to get installed and was able to pick up the
bike on Tuesday.  I had been packing madly and finally got everything ready
to go by Thursday.  I was planning on taking a half day off on Friday and
towing the 1,000 miles to Chuck Driscolls house in Helena, MT as he had
once again generously offered a place to stay and someone to ride part way
with.

I left work Friday around noon and drove straight through to Helena,
arriving just after midnight.  I didn't want to disturb Chuck at that time
of night so I found a truck stop, pulled out a sleeping bag and slept on
the back seat floor of my crew cab pickup.  I awoke the next morning around
7:00, and headed over to Chucks house.  After an some coffee and BS, we
unloaded the GPZ, packed everything and set off riding north through some
of the back roads to a small cafe and had a great breakfast.  We ended up
on I-15 headed north and into some vicious west to east side winds which
were very tiring to ride in.  After fighting this for a while, we got off
of the freeway and headed west to Cut Bank where there was a small border
crossing about 30 miles north, hoping to get out of the wind.  Chuck road
to Cut Bank with me, we said our goodbye's and I headed north towards the
border, aiming to meet Bruce and Danny in Banff.  A few miles out of Cut
Bank, I was looking for the correct road when two pickups pulled out in
front of me and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid them.  I gave them the
bird and headed on towards the border for about 30 miles until I hit dirt
roads.  I was wondering WTF, as the road had been getting smaller, and when
I met a truck I asked the guy.  Apparently, I had missed the turnoff and
was only about 7 miles from I-15 and the Canadian border, if I could make
it.  I thought for a minute and decided to give it a try, only to hit
impassible sand another mile or so down the road.  Very nervously I managed
to get it turned around on the sandy and very rocky road and headed back,
almost going down several times on the rocks and dirt.  All of the those
years of dirt biking paid off I guess as I managed to stay upright.  I
couldn't figure out where I could have missed the correct road until I got
back to where the two trucks had pulled out in front of me, then it became
clear, their pulling out on my right had caused me to miss the correct turn
on my left.  I cranked the throttle back, nervous as this border station
closed at 5:00 and it was after 4:00 when I got on the correct road.

I made the border patrol station with about 20 minutes to spare only to get
grilled as to why I was crossing the border here instead on I-15.  After
explaining the winds, I headed on north to Lethbridge, fueled up and
continued on the long drive to Banff, arriving around 9:00 having ridden a
little over 600 miles thanks to the detours.  After a few minutes of
conversation with Bruce and Danny at the hotel I jumped on the couch to
sleep.  Because we had f***ed up, we had been lucky to find a room at all
in Banff and ended up with a queen size bed and a non-pull out couch for
the three of us.  Bruce is 6' 2" and about 230, Danny is around 6' 6" and
weighs around 160, I'm guessing, so they had to share the queen bed, I
actually felt lucky to sleep on the couch, LOL!

Charles S.