View Larger MapWe woke up refreshed and took turns showering in the shared shower room. We heated-up some water and had instant oatmeal/milk powder combo., cleaned our dishes, and packed our bikes. We checked Jen's tire and it was still OK. While packing the bikes the Father from the other family said they have been traveling all over Western Canada. He said that watching the Motorcycles and the RVs roll into the Gas Stations he said that the adventure rider motorcyclists were the cowboys on horses and the SUVs and RVs are the covered wagons of today.
We started the ~70 mile dirt road back out of Telegraph Creek Stikine Wilderness. After ~10 miles Jennifer’s tire rapidly lost ALL its air again. It happened behind Eric. Jennifer was totally stuck on a very narrow section of road. Eric was unable to park anywhere near her so he had to walk back around 500 meters from his bike. The Stop-n-go mushroom plugs we had tried are not worth much on gravel/dirt roads. Eric replaced it with Monkey Grip rubberized string plugs this time. He even coated those with rubber cement. After waiting 1/2 hour we re-inflated the tire and took-off again. The string-plug held for the whole dirt road out and all day on the Cassiar, but may still have a super slow leak. We decided we would need to watch that tire very carefully every morning and at every stop from then on. Gravel seems to push the rubber mushroom plugs out of the hole and into the tire, so they are no good for adverse conditions. The gravel road out of Telegraph Creek was just dry enough to be easy (most of the time) but wet enough for no dust.
After getting back to Dease Lake we gassed-up again, checked Jennifer’s rear tire, drank milk for lunch, and headed north. Right away we hit rain and bad construction mud and gravel roads that made life very exciting! There was 30 miles or more of wet mud. With big-rig trucks passing the opposite direction there was a lot of mud spray which made the whole world disappear, but if we were to stop we would go down in the mud. The mud spray also covered our helmet face shield so were almost blind even after the truck mudspray had settled. We had to use the built-in wiper on our left gloves to clear our face shields, but wiping mud also scratched our face shields. Eric had permanent scratches on his face shield after that. It was slow going with 50% slipping, but too slow made riding even more difficult! Felt like we were going off the road several times no matter where we were pointing! Then we hit the BROWN mud section and things got even worse!!! Very slow going!
We finally got to pavement again and we were able to move fast with still occasional rain. We took a break at Jade City for free Hot Chocolate and to check and add air to Jen's tire. Eric pulled the Digital camera out and found that the pocket it was in in his waterproof jacket was not a waterproof pocket! The camera was dead. We would need to take mobile phone pics until we got another camera. We met several other riders and talked about the bad roads we were just on and the bad roads ahead. There were 3 guys from NY area (KLR, 2 GS Adventures) that were having fun and headed to Watson lake for that night while we were planning on heading up the Alaska Hwy without doing any backtracking.
We continued on the Cassiar North to the Alaska Hwy 1. There were a few short bad stretches of wet gravel where Construction was in progress as we continued up the Cassiar. The construction crews were not using chloride, so conditions weren't as bad as it could have been. There were also many short stretches of gravel/unpaved Highway. Those stretches were squirrelly riding that was different from the mud stretches and a little easier (depending on if it was raining when we crossed them). There was a BMW F650GS Carcass by the side of the road at one of those pilot-car sites and their luggage and gear was on the opposite side of the road. Someone had a disastrous yard-sale event!
We eventually hit the border of Yukon Territory shortly before the 37 and 1 junction. Happily, after the Yukon Border there were no more bad road sections on 37. We gassed up near the 37 and 1 intersection and headed NW on Hwy 1. There was no liner in Eric’s coat today and with the occasional rain and temperatures in the 50s/60s he was getting cold with his limited internal fuel (not much Breakfast or Lunch). We were riding along and saw in the distance what looked like a large pile of droppings or mud in the road. As we got closer we saw that it was moving and realized that it was alive. When we finally got to it in the road it was a poor beaver waddling for all its worth to get off the road.
We finally came to the Rancheria Motel, Cafe, and Fuel. It didn’t look or smell that great, but we got a room for 65$. 
We ate at the attached Cafe. The Cafe Dinner was So-So home cooking (Burgers) but we were hungry so it tasted GREAT. The whole place was a Family affair. We were taking Cellphone pictures because our digital camera was dead from the rain. When paying for dinner we bought a cheap (but still expensive) disposable film camera (just in case). There was a free Laundry room and soap, so we did laundry before bed and in the morning.
This area of the Yukon Territory was different from all the places we stayed in BC in that there were LOTS of Mosquitoes. Even in our dog smelling Room. It was totally like camping outside without a tent. Out tent is mosquito tight, but the room sure wasn’t. We don't know where the buggers were coming from to get in the room. We ran and hopped around killing them all and then a few minutes later there would be a bunch more. We tried plugging all the door cracks with tissue, but no difference. We then covered the heater vents with dirty clothes. Still more Mosquitoes! We killed them for hours until we gave-up and used 100% DEET before bed just like the outdoors.
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