The road to Alaska.
Frontier cabins dot the landscape like half-rotten skeletons, remnants of the Canadian rush to the gold fields, adventurers of the past, long forgotten. Fresh electric green leaves on the birch trees contrast with the dark, dusty green, deciduous pine forests, each fighting for space on the foothills around us. Mountain peaks loom massive and ominous in the distance.
We can feel the chill blowing down from the mountains as we climb out of the valley and closer to the base of the biggest ones. Frosty air swirling around us, we barrel towards a storm cloud, head down, throttle steady, and then shoot out the other side. The rain lingers for just a moment as we burst into the sunlight. It looks like something out of a simulation: We ride through a shimmering wall of water, the sun beating down from a perfect blue sky, waves of rain bouncing around us, droplets glowing and shining as we ride through.
We were headed north, and would be for at least a week. The four of us had met just the day before in Bellingham, Washington, set out in the Pacific Northwest rain on winding farm roads to the border at Abbotsford. A brief stop at the checkpoint and our trek had officially become real. Keeping gas stops and lunch short and sweet, we rolled into our first hotel of the trip only a few hours behind schedule, despite the intermittent rain. Walking next door to dinner, we stopped to catch what was to be the last real sunset we’d see for at least the next two weeks.
The three friends with me had arranged for one-way rentals through MotoQuest, the famed “transporter specials” that allowed a rider to fly into Portland, Oregon, and rent a bike at a fraction of the typical cost in exchange for delivering it in Anchorage in under two weeks. Lauren, who had flown in from Milwaukee and usually piloted a Harley-Davidson Pan America, was on a BMW F 850 GS. Steph, from Phoenix, was on a newer version of the same bike, and was the only one who had yet to ride an adventure bike for any length of time, her own bike at home being a Triumph Street Scrambler. Christina, from Long Beach, California, was lucky enough to score a BMW R 1250 GS for the trip, had some extensive time on large ADV bikes prior to this, and had already placed a deposit for her own R 1250 GS a month before. I ride a 2019 Moto Guzzi V7 that has been with me to all of the lower 48 states and back, a few times over. It was the reason for this ambitious trek to the Alaskan Frontier: my quest to get it to 100,000 miles and a 49th state.
Each night so far on the trip, we would take a moment at dinner to reflect on the highs and lows of the day’s adventures. I’ve done this before in groups from three to 20, at adventure training courses or around the bonfire at moto-campouts, and I love the effect this has on those who share. What may be a high for one rider may be a low for another, but mostly it gives you a chance to reflect on your experience and to share some joy (or commiserate) in others’ perspectives of the day. I noticed that by day three, I couldn’t find a low point in my days. That the cold, rain, and whatever else could barely touch the joy I felt in being smack dab in the middle of the adventure that I had dreamed about for so long.
