Day 6 report -- a day late.
Too much happened on Days 5 and 6 to get much out on the Web site. You've heard about alternator problems and the subsequent team spirit that got us to the End Of The Road on Day 5. Again, many thanks to Rob and Nick and Steve and Eric for putting up with the two large boys from Car #11.
The Baron's Audi S4 lacked a co-driver for the day's trip to Tuktoyaktuk so he asked me to fill in. After a quick breakfast, I joined him in his red ride for the trip up the ice road. "I don't read too well -- I'm dyslexic -- and lazy" were his first comments to me that morning. I didn't think it would be too tough to follow the route -- take a right from the hotel down onto the river, turn right on the ice, and drive until the road ends.
In a nutshell, that's how things went. But -- what a morning! The gray light of dawn rose to a fantastic sunrise as we pushed along atop the frozen Mackenzie. We're in the delta region here, so there were plenty of islands and distractions along the way. Along with the natural wonders were the antics of a particular car not-to-be named that made a few off-course excursions that morning. The Baron and I pulled them from high atop a snowbank once and we saw them do a hard off a bit later that they drove out from. Have I mentioned yet that we were finally seeing some seriously cold temps? Though unseasonably "warm" for the area, the few minutes I spent helping with the tow rope without the big coat and warm hat were quite a morning eye-opener.
As we made the gradual right turn out onto the Beaufort Sea we saw our first sun dogs -- rainbow-like atmospheric events bracketing the sun. Incredible. They followed us for about 1/3 of the approx. 100 mile trip to Tuk.
Car 6 (Rob and Nick's Mazda) unfortunately found a serious divot in the river ice and blew two tires simultaneously. Eric and Steve helped them put on the two spares so they could get back to Inuvik to find some replacements. That's three done-in tires for TeamD so far. Does the "D" stand for Destruction?
Tuktoyaktuk is only accessible via autos in the winter. It's home to about 980 people with a variety of ethnicities and jobs. Since we needed to be leaving Inuvik by 1pm at the latest, we spent little time there, took a few photos, met up with most of the other cars and then the Baron handed me the keys for the drive back to Inuvik.
The S4 is a great car. I would like one for Christmas. Rene (the Baron) has raced it in a few One Lap events and it's set up nicely for two people. Smooth and powerful, I almost forgot that it was running unstudded Blizzak tires rather than the studded Nokians I've become used to over the last few thousand miles. We only had a single brief excursion into a snowbank while I got things sorted out in the first few miles (enough momentum to drive out, much to the following Car 7's enjoyment). Amazing torque, comfy ride -- it's obvious this would be a great replacement for the rally Blazer. Now to find that deep pockets sponsor for a longer-term ride in one of these babies...
Had a wonderul time riding and driving with the Baron. Quite an interesting fellow, with a great sense of humor and zest for life. Perhaps he had a bit too much zest the night before, as he napped during much of the drive back from Tuk.
Back in Inuvik, I handed the keys back to the Baron and joined Jim in the rallymaster's Excursion for the jaunt to Eagle Plains, halfway back to pavement on the Dempster. Other cars had some tire damage as well on the ice road -- I believe Car 10 had to replace two and the scoring car did as well. Somewhere along the day the S4 picked up a nail. How that was done on the river I can't say -- perhaps it was from the day before or during our brief jaunt around Tuk.
Just outside Inuvik we spotted what look like volcanic cinder cones -- they're a terrain feature called a pingo -- an area where ice is forming under the earth and pushing it skyward. Pretty cool.
The 240 mile drive back over the Richardson Range to Eagle Plains was a partial reverse of the previous day -- ice bridges at the Mackenzie and Peel rivers (didn't get good photos from the back seat but Jim shot some video). Riding with Jerry and Bill and Gary was a hoot as they relived rallies and driving experiences of past years. Buy them a beer some time and ask them about some of their trailer-towing sagas.
The weather was a tad more rugged on our drive south than the day before. We caught up to some more sun dogs on the way. Blowing snow, the odd oncoming semi truck but at least the road was freshly graded. We pulled in to the lodge/gas/food stop at Eagle Plains glad to stretch our legs and quaff a much-relished malt beverage. Eagle Plains is the only place for fuel and food for most of the Dempster and served as the work camp during the time the highway was built in the 1970s. The current manager has been there since it opened and seemed glad to have the noisy, gregarious Alcan rallyists at his roadhouse.
The evening was capped by a pretty spectacular display of the northern lights. A hardy group of rallyists spent quite a bit of time in the cold -- I think it was -20F or so-- clear air to ogle the shifting glowing coulds in the sky. I'd only observed this phenomenon from a jet before, so it was an extra treat. Should be interesting to see if some of the photos will come out. I didn't attempt pics with my camera's limited feature set.
Sun dogs, pingos and the aurora borealis. My oh my, what a day!
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.