Alaska 2014 - Part 1

[Arthur Robinson]

Nice piece Charles... I'm looking forward to Part II and I have to
disagree... You can write!!

Art in TO

-----Original Message-----
From: GPZList [mailto:gpzlist-bounces at micapeak.com] On Behalf Of Charles
Scappaticci
Sent: June-11-15 3:04 PM
To: art.robinson at rogers.com
Subject: Alaska 2014 - Part 1

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.
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