Dawson City, YK – August 24, 2018
Aug 30th, 2018 by rallyadmin
Our beautiful day yesterday has changed to overcast this morning. The good news is that the rain hasn’t started yet so breaking camp won’t have to be done in the rain. As usual, the riders don’t waste any time packing the sleeping bags.
The tents, on the other hand, are a bit problematic and a couple have to be repacked in order to fit into their carrying bags. And a couple have to be unpacked in order to retrieve personal items (like cell phones) that got accidentally packed.
Pat does another great job with breakfast. But breakfast is just coffee for a lot of the riders. They’re chafing at the bit and as soon as their ready they start up the road. Menawhile we just pack the trailer, police the site and we’re gone.
The route is simple: up the South Canol to Ross River. Get fuel. Follow the Campbell west to the Klondike Highway at Carmacks. Get lunch. Up the Klondike to Dawson City.
The rain never really materializes. WE get some short showers but most of the trip is dry and occasionally the clouds break and give us a beautiful blue sky. No problems or dramas.
As we approach Dawson City, we strat looking for the site of my world-class off that Barbara and I did in 2012. In 2012 we had been following a couple of other competitors and the road was covered with very fine snow that made for very bad visibility.
While cruising on a straight section of the road, the Subie WRX wagon hooked a ridge of ice and the ridge pulled the car off the road before I could react. Had the vis been somewhat better I might have been able to save the car. But that wasn’t the case. The subie gently slid off the road into the ditch along the side of the road and came to a gentle stop in what Steve Perret claims is still the longest and farthest off in the history of the Alcan5000.
Luckily, the ditch that we went off in didn’t have any rocks, trees, stumps, culvert, etc. But the Subie was seriously stuck. It took hours took extract the stuck Subie. WE tried winching it out with Kevin’s truck. When that didn’t work. We anchored Kevin’s truck with Joe Gardner’s truck. That didn’t work. Finally, we had to completely dig out the snow holding the car so that the trucks could actually winch out the poor stuck Subie.
That was 6 years ago and the intervening 6 years of roadside growth made it difficult to find the scene of the crime. But we think we found it. After 6 years it still looks like a lucky off.
We get into Dawson City and the occasional showers made the dirt streets a sloppy mess. A very authentic recreation of the turn of the century Klondike gold rush town. Check into the Eldorado hotel and get a fine room. Showers and down to the bar for an early dinner.
Dawson City sits on the Yukon River and was the center of the Klondike gold rush. The road approach to town is flanked by dredge spoils of those years of gold extraction. Today, Dawson is once again the center of the modern gold rush though these gold rushers are more likely to be amateurs spurred by the reality show Gold Rush.
In the Eldorado Hotel bar one of the stars of the show, Tony Beets, a crusty Dutchman is having a quick burger and getting seriously drunk. He’s brought parts of a dredge down the Yukon from one of his mining sites and dragged it out of the river at the ferry landing. He’s quite the character and gladly allows photos. Never a dull moment here in Dawson City.
The idea of an actual bed instead of last night’s hard trailer floor beckons and I call it a night. Tomorrow, the ferry crossing to the other side of the river and the Top of the world highway.
Obi-wan