268 miles today Fairbanks to Coldfoot.
That doesn’t sound like a lot but my goodness I’m tired. That’s a lot of miles on dirt roads. It wasn’t all dirt, there were scattered sections of asphalt, but it was mostly dirt.
The one thing that I couldn’t stop thinking was how this landscape reminds me of Utah. I’m convinced that this is what the Salt Lake valley looked like when pioneers first arrived. It’s beautiful and also kind of alarming. It’s so huge and open, you can really tell how alone you are here. The combination of big mountains in the distance and small scrub brush and short trees was giving me strong Utah vibes.
It was nice and sunny all day and the road was not too bad. I came across a small fire burning right of the side of the road and, of course, it was right at the arctic circle visitor sign and firefighters had it blocked off so I couldn’t get my picture at the sign! Hopefully it’ll be open when I head back down.
There were a couple bikes ahead of me for most of the day and it was nice to not be alone. But, right as we got to Coldfoot camp one of them crashed as he turned off the road. And then his buddy pulled over to help and as he climbed off the bike it fell over off the side of the road. None of it was terrible or caused any real damage other than to egos but my goodness was it funny to watch. I ran over to help and then we all made our way in to camp….slowly. I got set up and then found out that there was a visitors center across the highway so I went over to check it out, with low expectations considering the state of the buildings at Coldfoot camp. Well man was I wrong! It was by far the nicest visitors center I’ve seen. It has a small museum and a theater. I spent the whole evening there being a nerd. I watched two documentaries and then came back after dinner for a presentation about the history of the town of Coldfoot…..spoiler alert, it’s here cause gold.
And then it started absolutely pouring. So I went to bed. Once it stopped raining the sun came out, at midnight, and it was really hot in my tent. But I slept anyway. Now I’m just worried about the road being all muddy tomorrow.
Here’s todays video