July 16 - Dawson City, Yukon to Tok, Alaska - 190 miles

YAHOOOOO - We made it to Alaska !!

Today's ride was over the "Top of the World Highway", and we really found out that this was INDEED the Top of the World!! 

We started today on this highway by taking a Canadian ferry across the Yukon River, just at the confluence of the Klondike and the Yukon rivers.  The Canadian ferries are good to motorcyclists, in that we are put on first and come off first.  I guess they feel that we are little enough that they can stick us in any corner of the ferry, and so their policy.  So, when you get to a ferry, you just go to the front of the line, regardless of how many cars, RV's, trucks, etc. are in line.  This was great, in that many, many RV's were lined up to get on at Dawson City, and it would have taken us several hours to get on if we had to wait on all of them to get across on the small ferry.  

The ferry pilot has to really know his stuff for this crossing, because of the rapid current (12 mph) at that point in the Yukon River.  Also, the ferry landings are just scraped up dirt and sand, and we were a little apprehensive about getting on and off, but we made it OK.

Then the road quickly goes up to the top of a ridge of mountains.  From there on, the road is on the tops of succeeding ridges of high mountains for 70 MILES!  What wonderful views of well-forested mountains, valleys, and other mountain ranges.  Norm and I figured that we had about 100 mile visibility this morning while up on the ridge road!!  And this lasted for 70 miles!!  Also, we had the sun at our backs, so the visibility was especially good for more than half of that part of the road.

We really felt that we were indeed on the Top of the World.  (If any one reading this plans a trip to Northern Canada or Alaska, try your best to fit in the Top of the World Highway.)

The road surface was reasonably good, starting out in excellent shape, then having quite a bit of the dirt/chip-seal, then having potholes to dodge (we got plenty of practice in swerving).  All in all, the view was so good it was worth it all.  I calculated that because of the visibility and the length of the road on the ridges, we had sight access to about 12,000 square miles of mountains!!!  We were lucky to have such good weather, as it can be raining with no visibility at all.

Then, we crossed into Alaska while up on the ridge road.  While we were glad to be in Alaska, road conditions went down hill from there (both literally and figuratively).  Unfortunately, the US surveyors and road planners  were not as smart as the Canadian ones, and they took the road down off the ridges.  It then became just another road.

We knew the next 80 miles on the US side would be gravel, and sure enough it was very rough and very dusty.  Fortunately, we had started early and the opposing traffic didn't build up for most of our ride.  

After 50 rough miles, we had lunch at "Chicken", Alaska (the miners who settled the area couldn't spell "Ptarmigan", so the legend goes).  Then another 30 miles of reasonably good gravel road brought us to pavement, taking us into Tok.

Even though our ride on the gravel road was a little hairy, we felt it was well worth while to have been able to experience the "Top of the World" feeling of the Canadian part of the road up on the ridges.

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