On the Road Home

We finished up last night in Fort Nelson, BC. We've had a long couple of days headed out of Anchorage. We made slow time on the Glenn Highway due to construction and ended up sleeping on the side of the road in Haines Junction, YT on Wednesday evening. That left us about 80 miles outside of Whitehorse.

Thursday we made tracks through the rest of the Yukon and took a quick dip in Liard Hot Springs after crossing the YT/BC border. The drive along the Alaska Highway has been stunning -- watch for pics real soon. It's been a medley of incredible views, wonderful roads and an array of wildlife.

Should be in Quesnel, BC or further south Friday, then back in the home country on Saturday. Will probably update posts, pics and video then.

Car #9 has been travelling with us -- it's been great getting to know the guys from Georgia and they should be with us all the way home.

The Big Finish

We've arrived in Anchorage. All vehicles that left Kirkland are here in Anchorage. That includes the three motorcycles (two broken and one broken rider) and the Morris Minor that has worked hard to make it here despite stops along the way for serious repairs.

Today's trip from Glenallen was the shortest of the event but probably the worst of the weather. Monsoon conditions between today's start and Anchorage afforded the competitors some challenging bits along the way, including very blustery conditions along the final approach to Anchorage. Cycle rider #15 (M. Stram) laid his machine down on the final TSD section, but got up, shook it off, and completed his ride. The spirit of the Alcan event continues to come through at all levels.

Final scores should be posted soon, assuming Marvin puts his beer down long enough to get 'em up. We should have a phresh photo link as well.

Finally -- Some videos Days 1-4

Very brief and low quality shots of action, mostly from inside the car with my limited camera.

All are posted on Google Video, so performance should be good.

Here's Day 1
Day 2 is more interesting, but longer
And Day 3 has some of Telegraph Creek
The 4th Day was a damp trip to Skagway and back to Whithorse

More later!

Dan's pics to Day 6

Just a few pics from my camera can be found here

Still working on the videos. I can put them up in raw form, but they really will benefit from a bit of editing, I assure you.

Kicking Back in The Klondike - Day 6

Today was a rest day for the crew of the Saab, as well as many of the other staff. Most of the competitors headed up the Dempster Highway to reach the Arctic Circle. A few stayed behind and we held a short TSD up to the Midnight Dome outside of Dawson City in the morning. Eric and I got to see the Arctic Circle sign (and points well north of there) two years ago, so we elected to stay in town, catch up on some sleep, and watch the Discovery Days festivities. We also took a trip up the Bonanza Creek road system, well less than 100 miles, to check out a potential future TSD section for another year's Alcan. Incredible 360 degree views, for hundreds of miles.

Looking north to the Ogilvie Range, where the Dempster heads to Inuvik, it was clear that conditions are dramatically different from our last visit. I was surprised to see that there was no snow visible at all. Living near the Sierras as a child and the Cascades as an adult, I'm used to seeing snow-capped mountains year-round. You'd think it'd be the same here this far north, but they're serious about summer. In fact, it's been quite warm -- to the point that we've wished for air conditioning in the car a time or two.

On the trip back to town we had a close encounter with a black bear sprinting across the road. Bears can move FAST. You've no idea until seeing one truly motivated to make some tracks. We also played peekabo with a weasel-like critter that we've yet to identify. Eric got a few good pics of it.

Tomorrow we'll cross the Yukon on a small ferry, then head over the Top of the World Highway via Chicken and Tok in Alaska to end the day in Fairbanks. Two TSD sections face the competitors -- their stress is not over yet!

Friday plan: Canol and Cassiar

Eric and I decided that we need a few more miles and are going to go the long way ‘round to Dawson today. We’ll backtrack down the Alaska highway about 80 miles, turn north on the Canol road to Ross River, then head west on the Campbell Highway to rejoin the route at Carmacks. Should be fun!

If It's Tuesday it must be the Cassiar

What’s this? A dual day report? Yes, because we are pressed for time and the rally marches on.

So does car #3, the Morris Minor from New Mexico. They disappeared early on day one, in the town of Hope BC. I apologize for not mentioning them early but the departure early in the event pushed them off my blog radar. However, they caught up to the Alcan in Whitehorse late last night (Thursday) and are ready to press on. We’ll do a full report on their tribulations later.

Day two started from Quesnel, with a long gravel section called the Blackwater Road. Cutting the corner to Vanderhoof, we missed the metropolis of Prince George and drove about 110 miles on fun gravel roads. Most of the traffic encountered was of the bovine kind and the route varied from wide and smooth to narrow, twisty and grin-inducing.

There were plenty of checkpoint workers, so we cruised ahead to the second TSD near Fraser Lake. Colin Stenhouse experienced a serious engine failure and had to put his bike on the trailer with planned work later in Dease Lake or Whitehorse.

The third TSD began outside Hazelton and got off to an unsmooth start with rally traffic delayed by a funeral at ‘Ksan village. Nearly one hundred local cars got out in front of the first competitors and caused a ten minute pause to the beginning of the longest gravel competitive section – nearly fifty miles ranging from fast and smooth to fast and VERY bumpy. At the end of the section we hung back to wait for news of bike #26, who disappeared between our checkpoint and that of Jerry Hines and family. He eventually realized that he missed an important turn, and met up with the cycle support duo of Rob Dunn and Nick Marcuse in the Big Black Excursion, assisted by scoring master Marvin Crippen.

They were about 30 minutes behind us but ended up getting delayed with #26 had mechanical problems at the Hyder junction of the Cassiar.

That location also allowed us to meet up with Mama Bear and her two cubs. You can say howdy to them at the photo page.

The Cassiar is an alternate route, closer to the coast than the Alaska highway but less traveled. Reported as completely paved, there were significant gravel sections that made fast trekking interesting. Watching a group of motorcycles play chicken with a juvenile black bear was a treat. For us, anyway – I don’t think the riders were laughing about it at the time.

The staff that got to Dease Lake ahead of us kept the kitchen at the motel open and we rolled in a little after ten pm to find an impressive selection of meal options and friendly staff happy to get us fed and rehydrated.

Focus on the Now!

So says Marvin, who is advising us. Fortunately for him, he's now on the list of posters for this blog.

I'm going to skip ahead. We're on Day 4, and in Whitehorse.

Many of the bikes and the hardy workers supporting them headed out to the Canol Highway this morning. They will be spending the night with the able support of Alcan staff, including a big ol' tent and a number of sleeping bags and other support items hauled by a variety of large vehicles.

Those of us not involved, including all the cars, went to Skagway, Alaska today.

One of the cool things about this trip, other than the fact that it's a nearby 120 miles, is that you leave from the Yukon, go through a corner of British Columbia, and then descend into a isolated corner of Alaska. Immigrations isn't a joke, but it's not as serious as the main crossings at the mainland US/Canada border, that's for sure. We had a nice chat with the US customs guy, who was interested in the Saab ("What a great car for these roads!").

Skagway was probably cool ten years ago. Eric says it was different even four years ago. Now it's packed with jewelry stores an other useless crap outlets. There were four -- FOUR -- cruise ships tied up at the docks when we rolled in. Most of the touristas were headed back when we arrived. It was still crowded -- Skagway is quite small.

We're under no illusions that we aren't tourists as well. But it's hard to ignore a slight sense of superiority when we've driven to this remote corner of the world in a small old car vs. arriving in a state of the art floating apartment building.

On the return to Whitehorse (only 120 miles or so, BTW), we stopped at a couple of historic spots. The Log Cabin location was interesting, however we were swarmed by skeeters in a fashion that made us scramble for the safety of the car.

Ok, Eric needs to post something.

Day 1 Delayed Report

VERY delayed. We're in Whitehorse now and trying to look over notes to nudge our faulty memory banks into what happened. Believe it or not, just a few days can quickly fade when filtered through the haze of many miles of highway and gravel roads that is the Alcan 5000.

Picked up Eric early in order to make the start in Kirkland. We flirted with the idea of skipping the launch of cars and bikes in Kirkland, but we did not yet have our worker instructions, which were really the entire reason that we were going to this thing.

I packed the Saab the night before, and didn't forget anything. Well, except for the extra long antenna I usually bring for rallys. It's a 5/8 Larson for you radio geeks. Not a huge deal, except for the long transits, it makes it just a tad harder to chat with competitors and workers.

So we got on up the road and worked a checkpoint outside of Alger, WA, near some railroad tracks. The challenge was quickly apparent: how do you note the number on a bike when it's going by at 40 mph? It's hard.


So we do the border crossing, with the requisite Duty Free stop. We take it easy up the main freeway and go through Hope, observing the Morris Minor off the road with an apparent ignition problem. A stop at the Hope Subway sandwich shop results in a learning experience. Jose Rodrigues (cycle #23) tells us about hte brotherhood of BMW riders and we also learn that a US-based Subway card mystifies the clerk.
Part of doing well on this event is figuring out how the rallymaster has measured the TSD scoring sections. We're not competing but we DO need to know where our worker positions are located, with the ultra-secret location information embedded. Except we've concentrated on other important objectives like ice chest contents and music precedence. Anyhow, we don't end up dialing in our external odometer, though we do make all of the assigned locations with no problems because both Eric and I have driven them both and know in a general sense where the routes are located.

Day One was the Grease Day, meaning that Eric and I committed to unhealthy food. This culminated in the Fried Platter of Quesnel, that we could not finish, even with the help of other rallyists. Scurvy may set in soon.

Car repot: A little oil usage above normal. We had to make some time up after passing Hope (Beyond Hope?) so the turbo working overtime is to be expected.

Day 3 Results

Eric and I have been busy working checkpoints, chasing entrants and trying to put photos and video together.

here are current results as of end of day 3 in Whitehorse, Yukon
Standings as of Day 3

These are NOT correct classes, but scores ARE correct (I've been informed 24 hours after posting this)
Unlimited
Pl Car# Team             Score
1   1   Jones/Deno/Gould    38
2   5   McKinnon/Putnam     55

SOP
Pl Car# Team                 Score
1   8 Stonich/Stonich/Henrie  262
2   2 Long/Burk               351
3   9 Martin/Amthar/Martin    395
4   7 Stonich/Nash            545
5   4 Savage/Lee              576
6   6 Nash/Porter             651
7   3 Kittle/Irwin            1120

Cycles
Class 1 (under 650cc)
Pl #  Rider     Score
1  12 Robertson   91
2  11 Marandino   184
3  20 Westfall    584
4  22 Lisey       646
5  15 Stram       736
6  19 Petterson   770
7  27 Stenhouse   844
8  32 Gibson      952
9  31 Pindel      988

Class 2 (over 650cc)
Pl #  Rider      Score
1  17 Scheel      233
2  16 Townsend    267
3  29 Ritchie     600
4  30 Jordan      738
5  14 Baldridge   778
6  28 Toevs       801
7  24 Forget      831
8  23 Rodriguez   888
9  13 Holcomb     918
10 18 Henrion     931
11 21 Parker      955
12 25 Lacroix     1023
13 26 Fekete      1117

That's all for now. Sorry we can't give more info.
More pics and video tomorrow.

Any typos or errors are because of the Yukon effect.

Registration and tech photos

Taken by my #1 minion.


















The full set of reg and tech photos we have can be found here, if I'm not up too late trying to post photos instead of sleeping.

Loaded for Alcan

The Saab is pretty much packed and ready to go. Just need to arrange personal items, give the windows a thorough cleaning, and we're good for an early Monday morning departure.

The saga of preparing the Saab can be found at the Saablaag.

Our designated (by my kids) guardian Buzz, who braved the WRX roof rack for Winter Alcan '04, is back up where he belongs and rarin' to go.

Eric and I will be working checkpoints and helping with radio stuff. See you up the road.