Canada Alaska 2008 Motorcycle trip Day 17

Day 17 -
View Larger MapWe woke the most refreshed of the trip so far. The water in the cabin was high in iron and smelled of pond scum and rusty nails. We had fruit bars, fruit and milk for our breakfast.

A lady who worked at the hotel told us we “must see Dawson”. We told her we were going to Dawson and then on to the top of the world highway. She said the top of world highway was very scary. She said there were a lot of cut tires and broken bones! 1000 yard stares from riders! Sounds like she was thinking of the Dempster Highway.

It was another gorgeous day! We didn't need our jacket liners or heated anything again. We attempted to wash the mud from the Cassiar Highway off our bikes with soaker hoses in the RV parking area of the hotel with very little improvement in bike cleanliness. We checked out close to 12:00 noon and rode to the next town for gas. The next town was Pelly Crossing.

In Pelly Crossing we met a couple from New Zealand on a Vstrom 1000. They bought the Vstrom on e-bay and had it delivered to San Francisco, California. Then they trailered it to Anchorage AK! They were riding 2 up on all the remote roads: Dalton Hwy, Top of the world Hwy, and they had just finished the Dempster Hwy. They said the Top of the World Hwy, the Dalton and the Dempster are all OK as long as it is not raining. Their bike hadn't been down once yet, even though they were riding 2 up. They said they did have some tankslapper gravel experiences on the Dempster. Jennifer was much relieved about riding the Top of the World Hwy after their comments.
We took off riding to enjoy the weather some more and Eric wanted to leave with Jennifer still excited about the Top of the World Hwy. There were beautiful views in some spots of the Titina trench (geological trench where all the gold comes from around here). We rode until we reached Dawson City at about 17:00, the earliest we've come to our day's destination this trip. We rented the last cabin available at Klondike Kate's, cleaned up and walked around town. The stores all closed at 18:00 so we were only able to visit two stores, one where we purchased postcards. We had a nice dinner at Klondike Kate's restaurant and then retired to our cabin. We did laundry in our bathtub and hung the clothes all over the room to dry. Watched a little T.V. and then went to sleep about 22:00. The forecast for the next day was rain, and we were planning the Top of the World Highway that day.