It's good to be home.
We crossed the Seattle City limits this afternoon at 5:25pm. It was weird seing all of these people and all of the cars. I won't miss the traffic down here when i move to Whitehorse :)
We had a happily uneventful run home. Last night we were back in Quesnel and stayed at what used to be the Valkyrie Motel. It's a Super 8 now and has seen some updates (wall paper over cinder block walls instead of painted cinder block walls). After a Denny's breakfast (Yes, Pete and Dave, that was us) and a stop at Canadian Tire (Canadian Tire Rocks!) we did the familiar drive down 97 thru Cache Creek and the Fraser Canyon. Again, it was nice to see that part of the world during the day.
As we each decompress i'm sure there will be more updates here. Picture pages will get fixed, the holes in the stories will get either filled in or screened off. It was a great Alcan Rally and I know I'll be going back for more in 2008.
Three cars happy and safe at the Captain Bartlett in Fairbanks.
We hav phones in the rooms tonight (yes, that's a luxury) so hopefully you'll see more updates. but just incase we all spend the whole evenign in the bar i thought i'd send the quick update that after a great day with a TSD, a DIY TSD, a lovely soak in the Chena Hot Springs, and a visit to the coolest ice hotel ever; we're happy and safe throwing our peanut shtell at each other in the Dog Sled Saloon here on the fair banks of Fairbanks.
cheers,
steve
Three TeamD cars on the road!
We've stopped in Haines Junction where we found some 802.11 and posting a quick update.
Rob and Nick hav new tires and are with us here. They didn't make Tuk but are rolling along happily
Dan and Jim borrowed an alternator from Challenge Driving and got a ride down to Dawson's City where we beleive they're back on the road. we havn't seen or heard them but we've seen position packets from their radio that put them only 130km from us. Hopefully they'll catch up to us soon.
All is well. we're not sure we'll hav connectivity tonight so this might be it for today.
cheers,
steve
Day six dawns with the black TeamD 325iX swooshing across the ice.
Today we’re doing our Jesus thing. But not just walking on water but driving on water, a lot of it. The first part of the day we drive out a tributary of the Mackenzie River then merge onto the main branch of the Mackenzie. We drive that out onto the ocean and hang a right towards Tuk. The full name of our destination is Tuktoyaktuk, but who wants to say all of that?
These ice roads are the only land route to some of these towns. In the summer when the ice temporarily turns into a liquid state it’s a either boat or plane to get where we’re going with a passenger car.
Eric was still beat from driving from Dawson City to Inuvik yesterday so I started off at the wheel. After Eric smashed my glasses the other day (Grrrrrr!) I’m using my back-up pair. The lenses are a different material and the base curve is different than my old (sniff) pair so I hav more glare and low light problems. So, I was cruising at a relaxed pace. After awhile we came along one of the sweep trucks that had gone wide on a curve and was well stuck. They were waiting for the other sweep truck to come along and extract them.
What does the ‘D’ mean? Yesterday it meant Disaster for the silver WRX. That means today we must be TeamDoubleD. This time disaster struck 26 miles out from the hotel. The ice river was rutted with some big cracks and one was just big enough to suck Rob and Nick’s Mazda 323 in and cut up both tires on one side. After doing a Chinese fire drill of tire rotations and replacements the boys headed back to Inuvik. Having used their two spares the only smart thing was to head back to town to find a tire store. .
It was hard to see them turn around. They had been great sports and did their all to support the team yesterday when the WRX had problems. Now, today there wasn’t anything the team could do for them. We took some extra pictures of them against a white background so we can photoshop them into the Tuk pictures.
Eric took over the driving and we went much faster with him at the wheel. I wasn’t in my comfort zone on the ice and we weren’t making the most brilliant progress. The banks of the ice roads are low but you can easily get stuck if you get into them with good momentum. Pete Soper was having good fun with the ice roads. So much so that he stuffed it twice on the way to Tuk. The second time Rene and Dan pulled him out.
Since Dan and Jim were free agents until they get back to Dawson City. Jim rides in Jerry Hine’s big Ford Excursion and Dan is teamed for the trip to Tuk with Baron Rene von Richtofen. Buy me a beer sometime and ask me about the Baron, better yet, buy Dan a pitcher and ask him. They’ve been having a great time trading off the driving of Rene’s Audi S4. Rene and his son Lionel have driven from West Palm Beach Florida with a small trailer behind their caged S4. The trailer stayed in Whitehourse but they did take it out for a lap around Goldpan Raceway. They turned a lap faster with trailer than we did on our own.
The town past the end of the road and at the end of ice road is Tuk. It’s perched on a receding bit of land on the Beauford Sea. This time of year there isn’t much happening there. But it’s a great chance to quietly reflect while staring at the white hues of the ever changing Sea.
The north isn’t so wired as home but it turns out it does well with wireless. Last night in the hotel we piggybacked wireless Internet from some unknown source. Hopefully I pick-up the same signal in the hotel parking lot and I can post this at midday.
Your faithful in-car reporter,
steve
p.s. Blame the typos, and hell, grammar errors on typing while in a car bouncing down a river.
It was a crisp morning, the air was still save for one small black BMW cutting thru the dawn.
We'd spent extra time in Dawson City applying veterinary care to some bitch we found behind the hotel. We could get time barred from the trip to Inuvik but it was worth it to save the life of this beautiful animal. We weren't the only travelers who slogged to Dawson city in hopes of Yukon Gold. The Yukon Quest dogsled race was laying over in DC. At some points during our little rally we had delusions of extremeitude, we thought we were bad-ass for laying down so many hard miles. But we were rank amateurs in any category of baditude that these Yukon Quest mushers would compete in. One musher to another who had just entered the bar, 'did you sleep last night?', 'yeah, about an hour and a half'. Here I am feeling depleted after 5 hours of sleep a night and they're getting an hour and a half. To top it off I'm spending the say sitting in a heated vehicle. Turns-out dog behind hotel was a retired sled dog who was reborn at the taxidermy shop. Our efforts to resuscitate it were in vane.
This is day 5. Our job is to get to Inuvik and hav a nice dinner sponsored by The BMW Car Club of America and Roundel magazine. There are no TSDs and the only scoring penalties were for not making the trip to Inuvik. The cheerful glare of the morning makes the drive to Inuvik seem like a slam dunk, we'll see.
But the taxidermy husky wasn't the only steed to stand static today. Turns out on the 25mile warm-up romp for Dawson Towne to Dempster Corner car 3 the Roundel BMW X3 (with Xdrive) snapped a suspension member leaving them badly inconvenienced. Eric's insensitive comment was, "I guess they just don't make BMW's like they used to". The plan was to cannibalize car 12 which was further down the results in order to get car 3 to Inuvik. They need to get to Inuvik or pick-up 400 penalty points for missing an two passage controls. The passage controls scores are either zero or some number based on your appearance at the control. They are time sensitive but are usually placed so that competitors can make them.
The three BMW X3 cars hav been dominating the rally. Each is crewed by a different automotive magazine with a few non-journalists thrown in for ballast, and winning. The three magazines are Automobile Magazine, Roundel, and Bimmer. The later two being BMW enthusiast's magazines with the Roundel being the mouthpiece of the BMW Car Club of America. Two of the cars are first and second overall and the third is currently fifth (I think). Make sure you checkout their website at http://www.satch.us/AlCan/
While we're shouting out competitor websites. Subaru Team Challenge Driving is doing a great job of putting status on their website at http://www.challengedriving.com/ Ken Eklund, Paul's brother, is back at home updating the site. It has more 'spin' than Satch's BMW site or ours but is still a good looking site.
Dempster Corner is the gas stop where the Dempster and Klondike Highways meet. It's the last gas, and frankly last anything, for 370kilmoters. That distance takes you to Eagle Plains. The steps to Eagle Plains and Inuvik are within our fuel range but not within twice the range. Each time we get halfway thru our fuel range we hav to make a go/no go decision about pressing on. The weather today is clear and mild so I expect we'll hav a clean run into Inuvik.
Then thirteen miles up the Dempster highway the same luck that temporarily stymied two X3's hit a TeamD car. Jim's sheet-medal wrapped bundle of wires was having electrical problems. The theory is that the recently installed mucho-macho alternator was Tango Uniform and the battery wasn't charging. We couldn't talk Jim and Dan into abandoning the car in situ and instead the three cars of Eric and Steve, Rob and Nick, and Jim and Dan were heading back to Dawson City to evaluate our situation.
Now we are a lone black BMW tearing thru the morning in the opposite direction. The electron inhibited WRX was way out front trying to find a mechanic not in church on a Sunday morning and the reliable Mazda 323 GTX knew there was no hurry in them getting back to DC. Plans were being formulated and abandoned faster than Britney Spears' nuptials arrangements. The goal is to get all of us to Tuk, tho it will take some convincing to get Jim to leave his car in Dawson City. It's Sunday and the dealer doesn't open for another fifteen years (just after the Wal Mart opens at Prospectors Mall).
With the WRX parked and plugged-in at the Eldorado Hotel and six rallists crammed in two coupes we are cutting thru the mid-morning glare toward Inuvik. We acquired Jim and Dan rode in the ice slalom winning car of Rob and Nick. Having the bigger ego I got the back seat of our BMW. Well cocooned by an extra parka and luggage I now know how some of the third team members experience the Alcan. You, gentle reader, reap a bountiful fall-out from this arrangement. In the not-so-spacious beamer backseat I'm comfortably typing away with 8 hours of the same ahead.
Gassing up (again) at Dempster Corner Henry Joy show-us the broken suspension member from the BMW X3 he was driving. The best theory anyone had was that it had gotten bent at the first ice race in Quesnel and then finally failed 1500miles later. The part from the cannibalized X3 had been installed and teammates Satch Carlson and Russ Krashauer (sp, sorry Russ), Henry and a local mechanic were preparing to do a quick alignment job in the gas station parking lot. Knowing that they would be along briefly and making better time then us we bid them good luck and headed out.
The Alcan Rally is all about experimenting with and pushing personal limits. Today was a day to be cautious yet in the midst of taking extra passengers on and extra dangerous road Eric found the courage to try and match or break one of our team records. I hold the current TeamD Fast Pee record with a 64second bladder break. When making time it your highest priority the cessation of movement is your biggest enemy. So today went for a new record. The time is from when the car stops until it's safely moving again. I say safely because I didn't stop the watch today until the seatbelt buckle clicked, even though the car was already rolling. With the temperature and conditions we were under the gun. Horst had to turn-in a good time in order to write his name in the snow of our record books. Do you believe in miracles? I do. Horst did what he needed to in a mere 44.9 seconds. Clearly Horst is an athlete at the pinnacle of his career. Or is he just getting started? Later we tried to set a record for the 6 Man Arctic Pee but the need to self-document our attempt slowed us considerably.
Passing the 255km marker the temp dips down to -20C. This is some of the cold that we've been expecting and hav been previously denied. The scenery along the Dempster is extraordinary. A whole lotta white dumped on some rolling and sometimes mountainous terrain. At lower elevations we hav trees and scrub then higher the vegetation is gone and it's white and road.
After a quick gas and grub stop in Eagle Plains we headed for the Arctic Circle. There we passed the two Alcan sweep trucks who waited for us to take our quick photos. We feel much safer with the big capable sweep trucks behind us. Both are crew cab pickups with winches, spare gas and everything else you'd want in a full sized work truck. In Quesnel when I schredded a tire and we had to throw a spare on we were able to use the air tools in Kevin's truck to do the difficult work. We're making good time north of the arctic circle. Once we got over the bumpy parts and put a little push on the tempo we were even able to back-off and roll into town before the 7pm banquet.
This has been your live in-car report for day 5. In case it doesn't come thru in the writing. We're having time of our lives, adventure is what this is all about and today has served as a good adventure.
Cheers,
steve
Another voice offering greetings from the bar in Whitehorse. Wireless and beer are a winning combination. So, here are some loosly connected Alcan ramblings.
After a 6am TSD section littered with lumber trucks crawling-up hairpins were on the road to Whitehorse. Starting in Ft. St. John's Wort the mileage alone would make this a long day. But a simply long day isn't enough for Alcan Rally standards. We need, we crave extreme days. We need to add 3 TSD sections and a nice dip at Liard Hot Springs to correctly shape an 18hour driving day.
Competition wise there are ups and downs. We seem to be swapping first place in class I with another car. At breakfast we were ahead but we'll see how it looks the next time scores are posted. When we fall behind it just makes us focus harder on what needs to be done. We were the only car to ace the first DIY section yesterday and that feels good. We hav two more DIY sections today so hopefully we'll do as well on them too.
After a too long stop at Pink Eye Mountain for gas and caf we're back on the road with me at the wheel. So far my fits on the throttle hav been limited to the run up the Fraser River Canyon and smashing the car around on the oval at Quesnel. But today it was a few hundred miles of new-era Alcan Highway. Straight straights and smooth curves. We fell in with the BMW X3 team who were making a casual pace. This was fine with me since unlike the modern X3's our bimmer doesn't hav good cup holders and I didn't want my mocha frapichino to spill.
Since this is my first bought of keyboard time that wasn't committed to calculating times I'll retrace some of our steps and tell my side of story. First of all, she said she was 19, how was I supposed to know? And that smashing the car around in Quesnel? Yeah, that was me. Someone said to use the snow banks and I used them to remove the trim from the car. Didn't make me any faster. The ice racing is fun, I like the sliding around and stuff but the going fast part still eludes me. I keep thinking the going fast part will fall in with driving clean lines but maybe you need to leave all four tires inflated to get a good time.
Some of my transit duties included driving up the Fraser River Canyon. It's a trip we've made many times now on the way to various BC rallys. Typically at night. On Wednesday we got partial sun and rain. Someday I plan to look up the drainage geology that forms the Fraser River Canyon but there is a lot of water that spills out of the high desert cutting it's way to Vancouver. Whether due to it's wide-spread population or the lack of the Highway Building administrations that the US has had Canada retains much of it's rail infrastructure. Ride lines hug both sides of the Fraser canyon. It's also not atypical to see both in use. The east bound trains carrying forest products the west bound carrying forest products converted into hockey sticks.
Our team mates Rob and Nick handed us a little treat this morning of two bags marked .50$ from the Petro-Canada. Turns-out the Petro isn't for petroleum or petrified fossil fuels but for petrified candy. Thanks Rob and Nick, next time we hav some pocket lint (canadian coins smallar then loonies or toonies) we know who to spend it on.
Past Ft. St. Lord Nelson we've found some old-style Alcan Higway. Tight, bendy, and much more authenitic feeling than the super-highway parts. This is the Alcan of Alcan lore. Now much of the highway has been straighten, widened and ensafened. The newer parts are nice (and nice and fast) but not the iconic ribbon of tramac linking places previously unlinked.
In the running tally of things stolen on the 2004 Alcan Rally we're up to one room key, one hotel towel and one tank of gas. I won't say who forgot to pay for their gas but I know they intend to repay their debt to society.
Here are some quotes from the day:
"The sound of the wind in the tree tops and the tinkle on the snow makes me yearn for the northlands"
-anonymous
"I am the calculator"
-K. Rounds
I'm tired, more rally tomorrow.
Enjoy the pictures.
Cheers,
Steve
Happy, alive and well in scenic Ft. St John (the Energetic CitY).
Now, off to dinner.
steve