Day Eight

Day Eight

Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory to the Tangle River Inn near Paxson Ak.    We left early Friday morning, swatting mosquitos as we packed up the bikes.   It’s amazing, you can stop anywhere in a town or the middle of nowhere and immediately be surrounded by hundreds of mosquitos.   After filling our tanks at the gas station/laundromat, we headed towards Tok.   Shortly after leaving town we were stopped by construction and had to wait for a pilot car.  They were adding fill to the roadway, grading, watering and rolling the road for a few miles.   Soon after that we reached U.S. Customs, showed them our passport, took turns answering questions and were on our way.  The road was in pretty good shape with only a few gravel patches.  Though we did get dusted by a Prevost hauling ass through a dirt section.

Got to Tok and had breakfast at Fast Eddy’s.   After breakfast we headed over to the post office where David mailed some things home he didn’t need.  Topped off with gas and headed towards Delta Junction where we would turn south on the Glenallen highway towards Paxson.

The roads were great and we made good time.  It was blowing hard in Delta Junction with a dust storm coming off the nearby riverbed.  Topped off the tanks again and got something to drink before heading south.  After getting close to empty a few days before we’re topping off if we’ve gone 100 miles or so just to make sure we have plenty of fuel.  More than once it has been well over a 100 miles between gas stations.

It was windy as we rode south but the road was great with the river delta on our right and beautiful views of snow covered mountains ahead of us.   We stopped for photos at the Alaska oil pipeline where we could also see Denali, which was almost completely clear at the top.  We stopped a little later for some more photos and Dave turned on his GoPro for the ride along the river.

Finally got to Paxson and turned west on the Denali Highway.   Rode a quick 20 miles to the Tangle River Inn where we got a cabin for the night.  Unloaded the bikes and got a quick shower.   My back was a bit tired at the end of the ride, I need to keep stretching it to keep it loose.  After showering we headed up to the Inn for something to eat and drink.  Violet who’s running the place was a hoot.  She shot a record Caribou last year not too far from the Inn.

Dave and I bought 7-day fishing licenses and drove a mile and a half to the Tangle River to try and catch Artic Grayling.  We both tied on a Mepps spinner and walked down to the river.  It’s pretty small and I could easily cast across the river with the small spinner.  I caught a fish on my first cast.  Dave also caught one a few casts later.  I caught several more in a short time as did Dave.  We moved downstream to try another spot and I caught another on my first cast.  Grayling are pretty fish with a large dorsal fin, and they fight well for their size.  After we moved downstream Dave managed to cast across the river and snag a tree.  Lost his lure and had to tie on another spinner.  He tied on a gold blade with black spots and proceeded to catch 6 fish on 6 casts.  We got tired of catching fish, not really but we needed to head back for the evening after both catching about a dozen fish and losing several more as we had pinched down the barbs on the hooks with pliers.

Headed back to the cabin so I could edit photos from the day, after a bit I was getting sleepy and shut down for the night.

Tomorrow is 110 miles of gravel on the Denali Highway was we head towards Cantwell.