2010 Yukon Solo Motorcycle Trip

Day 12 — Stuck in Watson Lake, YT

Thursday was supposed to be a nice ride down the Stewart-Cassiar highway. I left Watson Lake about 7:15am under sunny skies at 48F with a gibbous moon low in the eastern sky. I was so excited to have one of those perfect days of motorcycle riding. However...

Show-stopper. Hwy 37, aka the Stewart-Cassiar highway, was closed since 9:30pm last night due to a forest fire which jumped the road. I got here about 7:30am and waited until almost 1pm when the latest word was there was little chance it would open. So back to the Air Force Lodge, in Watson Lake.

While waiting at the junction of 37 and the Alaska Highway, I met a couple neat guys — Bert and Hank. This is Bert and me. Bert and Hank are both retired Special Forces guys, Bert was a medic who went through dog lab a year after I did. We even knew some of the same people. What a small world!

Hank and Bert were on Urals. They made it up the Dempster on Friday, spent the night at Eagle Plains Lodge, which they said was very nice. [I didn't even know there was a lodge there, though I did see signs for it on the lower Dempster]. They rode 19 hours to Inuvik and back on Saturday and said it was super muddy. Sunday (the day I tried riding north) they were stuck on the north side of the road washout that prevented me from continuing north. They made it back to Hwy 2 on Monday.

Lots of these signs in the Yukon. I guess being "motorcycle friendly" is a good thing for the businesses. Motorcyclists do seem to have more money than the average traveler on these roads.