The motto of Yukon is Larger Than Life, and it’s very fitting. The expanses of beautiful landscapes appear endless. Somewhere nearby is Canada’s tallest mountain, Mount Logan, but the thick clouds obscure all the high peaks of Saint Elias Mountains. We haven’t seen the Denali, and we haven’t seen Mount Logan, and clearly, we will not see a lot of things.
We woke up early enough to see the sun slowly make its way up from behind the distant mountains across the lake. We are still mentally on Alaska time, but we’ve shifted east far enough that we apparently entered another time zone. I checked the map, and looking at its size it’s really quite a bizarre thing that all of Alaska is on the same time zone.
The rough plan was to make it to the 12:45 pm ferry from Haines to Skagway, which was still almost 4 hours of riding away. It did not sound like an impossible task, but remember, it’s Yukon we’re riding through. The views along the Haines road were absolutely spectacular. One of the most rewarding roads we took so far.
Of course, it took a little bit longer than predicted. You have to stop and say hello to every cute bear and fox that you meet along the road. You have to take photos of the beautiful river valleys, and observe how the mountains are generating the clouds. And if you accidentally spin out and drop your bike at a viewpoint, it takes time to take a photo and pick it back up again. Not to mention that Haines is in a whole different country, so when you get to the border, you have to fish out your passport from under all the layers you put on, because even though it’s July, it’s kind of cold in here. And then when asked if you have any drugs, alcohol or firearms, you say no, but I do have Nutella.
All of that on an empty stomach. When we entered Haines, we skipped right over to the ferry terminal, which was annoyingly quite a distance from town. We didn’t have confirmed tickets, naturally, but managed to get on standby as #3 and #4. Still had a bit over an hour before boarding, so figured we had just enough time to finally have breakfast. Not even noon, and I was already getting exhausted.
We got on board as expected, and so did the rest of the standby line. It took almost 2 hours to cover the 15 miles to the port in Skagway. I was not ready for what waited for us in this small Alaskan town – an entire armada of cruise ships. Each one carrying likely thousands of people. Our little ferry made its way between these giants, and soon we were on the streets of Skagway, slightly terrified. People were spilling out of the sidewalks, walking randomly onto the road without looking, acting like the worst stereotype of thoughtless tourists.
We scrapped all plans to “check out the town” and headed out quickly, only looking back once to shiver at the scale of a cruise ship compared to the town. Within minutes it was back to jaw dropping scenery of mountains, glaciers, rivers and waterfalls.
There was a short line to enter Canada, and soon we were rolling north on the Klondike Highway towards Carcross. We were told there was a desert there, with sand dunes! Technically, Carcross Desert is not really a desert. True deserts are defined as having under 250 mm of precipitation per year, and these dunes receive about double that, which qualified them as a semi-desert. Still, they are indeed sand dunes, and they are dryer than the surrounding region, and for that reason they have a unique ecosystem of unusual plants. Also, it’s perfectly legal to ride around these dunes on motorbikes.
Now, riding on sand on a loaded dual sport can be a somewhat unstable experience, but let’s recall I had a Heidenau K60 Ranger tire mounted on the front. The trusty D606 on the back pushed as hard as it could, but asking the front to keep a straight line was asking too much. It weaved left and right quite a bit, even as I accelerated past some hikers, who, judging by their faces, probably thought they narrowly escaped death.
Once we had enough of sand we went looking for food… and came away empty handed. There were two restaurants in Carcross, but one was closed and the other somehow didn’t have anything to eat aside from packaged snacks. Lucky for us, just half an hour further along the highway was a place called Six Mile River Resort, and Google said they made great pizzas. Contrary to our fears, Google was right! Lovely thin crust pizza lifted our spirits so much, we even decided to splurge and stay in one of the cabins here for the night. There were some peculiarities to the cabin: it was filled with rustic decorations, but not a single spot to hang clothing. I considered just hanging my jacket on one of the numerous pairs of antlers on the walls, but Alex talked me out of that. That said, after all the camping in recent days, a real bed was a treat.
