Favorite Rides: Alaska - YouTube Video & Blog

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BLOG:

As we continue exploring the world on two wheels, we've started putting together a collection of what we consider our Favorite Rides. These are the routes that have stayed with us long after the engines cooled, and adventures we believe are worth sharing with anyone who dreams of riding them someday.

The video above is the first in this series, where we share 12 Tips for Riding to Alaska. It serves as a cinematic overview filled with practical advice to help you prepare for your own adventure.
The blog below is where we dive much deeper into the journey itself. It's the full story of our ride through Alaska, complete with the challenges, triumphs, breathtaking landscapes, and all of the small moments that never quite fit into a video. Together, the film and the blog are meant to complement one another, allowing you to not only see the ride, but truly experience it alongside us.

We'd love for you to watch the video, then settle in and ride along with us through the story below. And when you're finished, let us know what destinations from our past travels you'd like us to feature next. Whether it's a specific country, route, or adventure, we'd love to hear your ideas and answer any questions you have about the journey.

Part 1 - The Final Frontier
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​As we crossed the ferry from Dawson City into the last remote sections of Canada, the paved road turned to gravel and dirt. The previous three thousand miles from British Columbia all the way up the Yukon had been 99% tarmac, and up until that point, the biggest challenge we had was avoiding the giant, bloodthirsty mosquitoes. We had heard of this vampiric breed of swarming beasts, but no amount of forewarning could prepare us as we lay inside the forcefield that was our tent.

They buzzed just outside the netting as if they were predator drones on a seek and destroy mission. All we could do was sit in horror as we watched them clean their tiny needle mouths with their front legs like criminals sharpening their knives outside a window of some shady back-alley bar.
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To avoid donating every drop of blood we had left, our riding days were extended to around nine hours. With the sun refusing to set until almost 11 p.m., we adopted a new routine. Ride until one of us got hungry, pull over long enough to cook dinner, then dive into the tent as quickly as possible to avoid the millions of minions from hell.

​No amount of mosquito coils or repellent could prevent the onslaught and epic battles that were had every time we pulled over for a short break or to snap a picture of our surroundings. But those photo shoots were worth it, as the landscape was breathtaking.
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Marisa and I, along with our KTM 1190 Adventure R, came to a rolling stop at the US and Canadian border in the isolated town of Poker Creek. The trio of man, woman, and machine that was our small posse temporarily doubled the town's posted population of 3, which I could only assume was the American border official, the Canadian guard, and a dog that kept them both company on the long days that never seemed to end.

​Once we crossed into Alaska, the landscape transformed. The narrow corridor of trees that had surrounded us for days suddenly opened into sweeping views as we climbed onto the Top of the World Highway. After what felt like thousands of miles riding through a tunnel of forest, the endless rolling hills were a welcome change. Purple fireweed lined the roadside like runway lights guiding us north, while tufts of pink-hued foxtail barley danced in the breeze like the wild hair of those little troll dolls from the '90s.

​The gravel sometimes turned back into remnants of concrete from what was once a paved road, but now had more patches on it than a leather jacket of a member of Hell's Angels. Marisa and I were both physically and mentally on top of the world. The two of us were so close to completing the line between the southernmost point of the Americas in Ushuaia, with the northernmost point in Prudhoe Bay. It was an achievement that we had not originally set off to accomplish, but one that now seemed to synchronize with our traveling lifestyle.

The endless days, constant mosquito swatting, and rugged roads now merged seamlessly into towering mountains and vibrant wilderness. As we stopped on the crest of one of those high ridges, an overwhelming sense of wonder settled over me. The view stretched farther than anything we had seen before.
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Parts of the forest had been burnt from sweeping fires years prior, leaving behind orange and red patches of half-scorched trees across open fields. The scars left behind by the fire had transformed the landscape into a different form of natural splendor. As seasons passed, colorful wildflowers pushed through the scorched earth, weaving themselves between the burgundy remains of the forest. Nature had patiently composed a landscape where destruction and renewal existed in perfect harmony.

​After a full day of riding on the spine of the world, we camped just outside of the tiny town of Chicken, and carried on through the small settlements that dotted this remote section of Alaska. I smiled as we rode through the town of North Pole where a giant statue of Santa Claus waived to us while holding his naughty and nice list. Once in Fairbanks, we glanced at the weather forecast on our phone, and it projected a window of two clear days out of the four that it would take us to ride all the way to Deadhorse and back. So we jumped in the saddle and took off towards the Dalton Highway.

I had heard how difficult the road could be, and had been warned multiple times to take it nice and slow. But what the bike's tires bit into was hard compacted gravel. Marisa and I were lucky to have avoided the split pea soup of a road when wet, and we confidently zipped down the highway.
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The road to nowhere led us to the Arctic Circle, and we hopped off for a photo op next to the sign and to celebrate another achievement. It wasn't quite as cold as I had originally assumed the arctic to be, but I wasn't about to complain about the 66-degree Fahrenheit day at a latitude of 66.30 degrees.

For the next 400 miles, our newest traveling companion was the Trans-Alaska Pipeline as it snaked across the landscape like the tail of a giant dragon. It was an engineering marvel by every definition, although I couldn't help but laugh when I looked down and realized my KTM had just run completely out of fuel after 234 miles and four and a half hours of continuous riding. Thankfully, I carried an extra gallon in a RotopaX, and the nearest gas station in tiny settlement of Coldfoot was only another thirty miles away. Knowing the limits of your fuel range is always a good thing, but running out of gas while riding alongside one of the world's largest oil pipelines felt more than a little ironic. Unfortunately, my KTM wasn't designed to run on crude oil.
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We spent the night in Wiseman before making the final push toward Deadhorse. The rolling hills slowly transformed into rocky crags before giving way to the rugged peaks of the Brooks Range, where the trees abruptly disappeared.

​The road and pipeline continued north side by side as though they were lifelong friends, weaving together through green valleys, turquoise rivers, and gray mountains beneath an impossibly blue sky.

​Cruising through one of the most remote and untouched wildernesses in North America, we suddenly spotted something that looked like it had wandered off the set of Star Wars. A lone muskox stood in the tundra, casually chewing on short grasses beneath a pair of massive, curled horns. Naturally, I decided I needed a better photo. As I stepped off the road, what looked like solid ground quickly proved otherwise. The tundra bounced beneath my boots like a giant waterbed, the thin layer of thawed soil wobbling with every step. It was one of the strangest sensations I'd ever experienced and nearly left me feeling seasick as I awkwardly bounced my way across the field.

I made sure to keep a respectful distance from the muskox. The last thing I wanted was to be chased by what looked like a buffalo-goat hybrid while trying to sprint across ground that seemed determined to swallow me whole. Thankfully, I captured a few photos before retreating to the bike, where Marisa looked only mildly convinced that I would survive my little adventure.
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Not long afterward, we were treated to another incredible wildlife encounter. A caribou wearing a crown of magnificent antlers gracefully crossed the road ahead of us. Compared to the muskox, which seemed to move with all the urgency of an animatronic display, the caribou floated effortlessly across the tundra in long, elegant strides.

We hadn't seen wildlife in seemingly forever, and now all of the creatures were roaming around freely in the wide-open tundra. Marisa and I couldn't have been more thankful for the blue sky, dry roads, and abundance of flora and fauna that engulfed us.
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Just a few miles later, Deadhorse finally came into view. I rolled on the throttle, eager to reach the legendary sign that marks the end of the Dalton Highway. The town itself wasn't exactly postcard material. It was little more than an industrial outpost planted in the middle of nowhere. But none of that mattered. We pulled up beside the famous sticker-covered sign and proudly added our own small badge of honor to the collection.

The Dalton Highway had exceeded every expectation we had before arriving. Towering mountains, endless tundra, unforgettable wildlife, and landscapes unlike anywhere else made every mile memorable. Following an oil pipeline to one of the northernmost industrial towns in North America somehow turned into one of the most spectacular rides of our journey. Hotel prices in Deadhorse may have been hard to swallow, but after one night celebrating our accomplishment, it was time to begin the long ride back south.
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This time, however, the forecast wasn't nearly as friendly. Heavy rain threatened to turn the Dalton into the muddy mess we had heard so much about, thanks to the combination of relentless downpours and the massive tanker trucks that constantly churned the surface. But if we were going to earn our place on that Deadhorse sign, the return journey was part of the adventure too. After the slow, steady tick... tick... tick of climbing the roller coaster to Prudhoe Bay, it was finally time to race back down the other side toward Fairbanks with a healthy dose of excitement, adrenaline, and just enough uncertainty to keep things interesting.

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Before we twist the throttle further into Alaska... A quick detour!
Although we won't be leading any tours to Alaska, we are excited to announce new tour dates for two of our favorite motorcycle adventures: Borneo to be Wild in East Malaysia and the Tail of the Dragon tour through Northern Thailand.

If you've ever dreamed of exploring these incredible roads with us, check out the dates below. We'd love to have you join us for the adventure of a lifetime!

New Tail of the Dragon Tour Dates 🐉 - https://www.2upandoverloaded.com/thailandtour.html
New Borneo to be Wild Tour Dates 🦧 - https://www.2upandoverloaded.com/borneotour.html

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And now... back to our regularly scheduled adventure. 😎

Part 2 - Angels and Demons 
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Reaching Deadhorse was another milestone that now proudly marked our inReach GPS tracker. It was a single dot among thousands that stretched from Chicago to Ushuaia in the Americas, and from Cape Town to Kenya in Africa.
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Zoomed in, our journey looked immense. Thin lines connected one waypoint to the next like a constellation slowly being drawn across the globe. Triangles, hexagons, and long sweeping arcs stretched thousands of miles before doubling back in new directions, each point representing another campsite, mountain pass, breakdown, or unforgettable memory.

But the illusion of grandness disappeared with the scroll of a finger. As the map zoomed out, our intricate web of lines became nothing more than a handful of tiny dots scattered across a few continents. The vastness of the Americas and Africa quickly swallowed our route, reminding us how little of the world we had actually explored. Yet that realization didn't diminish what we had accomplished. We had ridden from sea to shining sea, endured torrential rain, snowstorms, blistering heat, and countless challenges, all while exploring the world together on two wheels.
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The ride north to Deadhorse had been surprisingly kind to us. The weather cooperated, the KTM never skipped a beat, and the Dalton Highway had been everything we hoped it would be. The return journey, however, had other plans.

When dry, the road was little more than chalky brown dust, loose gravel, and bits of vegetation scattered across the surface by the wind. But when you 'just add water', the road transformed into something that looked like a giant pot of minestrone soup.
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The bike was pulled into narrow ruts as though we were following the grooves of an old vinyl record. But instead of gently flowing through Beethoven's Für Elise, the road was conducting its own version of Megadeth's Symphony of Destruction.

The rear tire launched a rooster tail of greasy sludge that coated everything behind us. Our duffel bag, panniers, and Marisa's backpack quickly disappeared beneath a thick layer of mud. The long hills that had been so enjoyable on our ride north suddenly became our biggest enemy as the KTM twitched and danced beneath us every time I lightly touched the rear brake. 

​Whenever the clouds briefly parted, the sun would spill across the mountains and valleys like a spotlight illuminating the stage of a theater production. Those moments never lasted long. Before we could fully appreciate the view, the curtain of clouds would close once again and another round of rain would begin its assault.

That night, we camped in Wiseman, Alaska as the day wound down to an end. The bike was filthy, but my Klim gear was ironically the cleanest it had been in weeks. Only a few days earlier, my jacket looked as though I had been on the losing side of a paintball match after thousands of oversized insects exploded across my sleeves and shoulders. The relentless rain had washed away every streak of neon-green and yellow bug guts, although our panniers and duffel bags hadn't been nearly as fortunate. Thick clumps of mud clung to the racks and fenders, slowly sliding toward the ground in heavy globs. I wouldn't have been surprised if the bike was carrying an extra ten pounds by that point. 

Our energy reserves were running just as low as the fuel tank. Before crawling into the tent, I poured the last drops of our spare fuel from our RotopaX into the KTM and dripped the remaining gasoline from our MSR stove bottle. The fuel gage still showed a single blinking bar, but there should be enough to reach Coldfoot, which was only fifteen miles away. 

One of the unexpected pleasures of riding a single road into the middle of nowhere is that you keep crossing paths with the same travelers. You leapfrog each other from scenic overlook to campground, gradually becoming familiar faces despite never making plans to travel together.
The following morning, a Jeep carrying fellow adventurers Ryan and Laurel rolled into our campsite. We shared a cup of coffee while talking about our plans.

"First things first," I said. "I need to make it to Coldfoot for gas. Then we're planning to ride the Denali Highway before heading south toward Anchorage."

"I've got four extra gallons strapped to the back of the Jeep if you need some gas," Ryan offered.

"Nah, we're only about fifteen miles from Coldfoot," I replied. "We'll be fine."

Ryan glanced at Laurel and shrugged before they climbed back into the Jeep and disappeared down the road. Marisa and I packed up camp, confident we'd see them again somewhere farther south.
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Needless to say, I ran out of fuel five miles before reaching Coldfoot.

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Blog Continued...

As the bike rolled silently to a stop, I couldn't help but laugh at myself. My guardian angel had offered me four gallons of insurance just twenty minutes earlier, and I had politely waved it away.
One tank of fuel and my spare RotopaX had been more than enough on the ride north to Deadhorse. But crawling through deep mud and climbing those slippery hills had quietly drained the KTM far faster than I ever expected.

"You can lead a horse to water," Marisa whispered with a grin.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I muttered, feeling thoroughly defeated.

A car appeared around the bend, and for a brief moment our hopes soared. Just as quickly, they disappeared as the driver cruised right past without so much as tapping the brakes. My opinion of humanity took a slight hit. Thankfully, it only lasted a few minutes.

Another vehicle soon rounded the corner, and this time our faith was restored. The driver immediately pulled over, offered me a lift into Coldfoot, and before long I was riding back toward Marisa with a gallon of fuel in hand.  

With the Dalton Highway now behind us, we rolled east through the town of North Pole and waved goodbye to Santa Claus one last time before turning south toward the Alaska Range.

​I had always been aware that there were mountains in Alaska, but their grandness and magnitude constantly impressed me as if I had never seen a hill rise over a hundred feet into the air. The Denali Highway showcased its treasures as if we were strolling through a museum filled with timeless, snowy wonders.  

Gravel roads split off of the highway, some of which led to remote glaciers and placid lakes, while others twisted through a tunnel of trees into open fields of blooming purple and yellow flowers. It was a sensory overload of complete bliss, and every morning we woke up to a reality that was hard to differentiate from the fairytale landscapes of our dreams. 
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But small nightmares lived in the same realm as the enchanted elk and stoic muskoxen. Tiny demons in the form of black flies ate at my legs until I almost became a double amputee. Death by a thousand needles would have been preferred over the plague-like swarms of vampiric flies that chewed on my ankles and up my shins. But good always conquered evil. The flies, along with the looming fogs that drifted across the rivers and through the trees like lost spirits, were dispelled by the rising sun. 

Our streak of perfect weather was also beginning to fade. Gray skies had become the new normal, but even they added something special to the landscape. The heavy clouds concealed the mountains in a vail of mystery that was nearly as thick as the layer of mud plastered to my exhaust.
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On another rain-soaked day we crossed Hatcher Pass, carefully picking our way along its slick gravel roads until we reached the ruins of an old gold mining operation.

​The structures had long ago collapsed from the heavy weight of winter's snow, but what remained were remnants of history. Marisa happily read all of the little plaques as I snapped pictures of what looked like the aftermath of a natural disaster. Large wooden beams had been tossed around as if the hounds of hell had used them to play fetch, and rusted tin roofs were scattered and bent like the plate armor of a defeated samurai warrior. 

​After appreciating the hard work that it took to obtain such a soft metal, we continued towards the opposite side of the pass. The rain was still coming down in sheets, but Marisa and I decided to turn down one last muddy path that twisted into the mountains. A dirt road named Archangel was full of muddy trenches and large rocks that we slid through and bounced over as we made our way up. Tall mountains broke through the mist as they seemed to fade in and out of reality. 

The dark sky against the granite crags looked like a magnificent charcoal painting. The clouds above were wide smudges, as if smeared by a large thumb, and the edges of the rocky peaks were the only defined outlines against the foggy backdrop in the distance. Rain drummed steadily against my helmet as we climbed Mt. Olympus to confront Zeus himself about the foul weather he was assaulting the lands below with. 
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Unfortunately, our audience with the gods was cut short by a locked gate and a very unwelcoming "Do Not Enter" sign. Bound by the laws that we mere mortals have to follow, I cursed into the wind before turning around to slalom back down the path. My scream must have reached the ears of some divine being, because as we rolled down the pass and entered into Palmer, AK, the sun came out to great us. 

Alaska was proving to have all of the elements of adventure. We were only halfway through the giant state, and there was plenty more for us to discover as we made our way to the southern coast. The promise of glaciers, small fishing towns, and mountain passes beckoned us to explore every mile. We didn't know exactly what to expect, but we knew there would be more challenges and rewards, more angels and demons, and we couldn't wait to encounter every one head on like a jousting knight. 

Part 3 - Light at the End of the Tunnel

After riding our KTM 1190 Adventure R all the way from Chicago to Deadhorse, we thought we had already experienced the state's greatest treasures. We'd crossed the Brooks Range in the far north, survived the Dalton Highway, and wandered across the Denali Highway. Surely we'd seen the best Alaska had to offer. But some of the most beautiful landscapes lay on the State’s southern coast.
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Glacier National Park in Montana was more than 2,500 miles away, yet it felt as though we were riding through its oversized northern cousin. Towering rivers of ice spilled down mountainsides, their brilliant white faces standing in sharp contrast to the dark rock surrounding them. Thin wisps of cloud drifted lazily overhead, moving almost as slowly as the glaciers themselves.

Marisa and I matched their pace as there was no reason to rush. We wandered down the road, stopping every few miles to admire another glacier, another mountain, another view that somehow seemed even more impressive than the last. We laughed, snapped photos, and stood hand in hand, quietly absorbing the beauty around us in hopes of carrying that moment with us long after the road disappeared behind us.

Fireweed blanketed the landscape in vibrant shades of purple, broken only by turquoise lakes and glacial rivers that reflected the surrounding peaks. By then we had crossed hundreds of miles of scenery that deserved to be preserved on canvas, every valley looking like it belonged in the collection of a modern-day Monet.

As we continued south, we passed through a string of coastal communities that had once been quiet fishing villages but now welcomed thousands of cruise ship passengers every summer. I love seeing people experience the world however they choose, but I couldn't help feeling grateful that we were doing it from the seat of a motorcycle. The endless wind, the rain, the cold nights in a tent, and the long days in the saddle weren't always enjoyable in the moment, but they were the external forces that tethered our memories together like strong chemical bonds.

After riding north from Seward on Alaska’s Highway 1 through multiple mountain passes, we turned east towards Whittier via Portage Glacier Road. Throughout Alaska, people had told us about an interesting ride through a 2.5-mile tunnel that leads to the city of Whittier. We were looking forward to the extended passageway that burrowed through the mountain, but before we entered, we found ourselves in another glacier paradise. Portage Glacier was the main attraction. My tunnel vision was instead locked onto the frozen behemoth perched high into the mountains as a plethora of waterfalls tumbled down the green rolling hills before reaching Portage Lake.

It was a much-needed peaceful moment to absorb the tranquility of nature in all its beauty. Because directly after our moment of Zen, we rode towards the tunnel, not fully knowing what lay ahead.

From the outside, the entrance looked more like a cozy A-frame coffee shop than the gateway through a mountain. At the toll booth we paid our fee and learned how the tunnel worked. Traffic alternates directions every half hour, and because the tunnel is shared with an active railroad, everything comes to a stop whenever a train passes through. Thankfully, there would be no playing chicken with a freight train.
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The tunnel was narrow, wet, dimly lit, and just wide enough for the motorcycle and the railroad tracks running straight down the middle. I concentrated on keeping the KTM perfectly balanced between the rails, trying to stay inside my imaginary lines like a kid carefully coloring the impossibly long neck of a giraffe.

“You’re doing great, love,” Marisa chimed in over the intercom.

She must have felt my body stiffen up as I tried to counter every tiny directional drift of the bike’s front wheel. As I focused on what was directly ahead of us, the tunnel’s little yellow lightbulbs left long, streaking trails of light in my peripheral vision as if we had entered warp drive in deep space.

The mountain had swallowed us whole while we traversed through the bowels of the earth in complete darkness. It seemed that I had unknowingly paid the ferryman a single Greek obolus on our way towards Hades. And then, there it was: a light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t realize how claustrophobic I felt until I started begging for that pinhole of light in the distance to grow in circumference until we were birthed back into the world of the living. We exited the tunnel in rejoice. But to successfully navigate to hell and back, we had to turn around and face our demons one last time.

I was glad that we made the effort to visit some of the coastal settlements, but I was far more in tune with the remoteness of Alaska’s interior compared to the cruise ship ports of Seward, Whittier, and Valdez.
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Thankfully, it did not take long to get back to the isolated roads where fireweed stretched as far as our eyes could see. Instead of long tunnels, we crossed long steel bridges that spanned the widths of wide canyons. Lone moose and herds of caribou took the place of crowded streets filled with tourists. We were back in our element.

​Our next destination was a blustering city of McCarthy with a population of a hundred and twenty-three permanent residents. The not-so-busy city lay in the heart of Wrangell-St. Elias N.P, the largest National Park in the United States. I turned the bike down a dirt road that twisted away from what was already the middle of nowhere while hoping we wouldn’t run out of gas. It was a two our detour from the ‘main’ road to McCarthy that rested on the outer limits of civilization. There was only one gas station marked on Google Maps with reviews stating that its opening hours were more of a rough estimate than a firm commitment.

But Marisa and I couldn’t be more excited to pitch our tent at the edge of Kennicott Glacier in the center of a 13.2-million-acre National Park. And when we pulled into the campground, we knew we would be staying multiple nights. There were a few million acres of unoccupied sites, and we rode to the furthest spot that we could reach before setting up our tent on the banks of the glacier’s lake. I had seen a plethora of glaciers throughout southern Alaska, but Kennicott wasn’t the standard white and blue hued river frozen in time. It was a rocky Martian landscape with a red river of ice covered in the debris that had been ground away from the peaks of the Wrangell Mountain Range.

That evening, we lay in our tent listening to the glacier.

Every so often, another section of ice would calve away from its towering face, sending a deep crack echoing across the lake before fading back into silence. It was both violent and peaceful at the same time. Each snap, crackle, and rumble reminded me of a massive Midwestern thunderstorm rolling across the prairie, except this storm came from the earth itself instead of the sky.
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The following morning, we rode our KTM across a pedestrian bridge to the old Kennicott mine that was just a few miles up the road from our campsite. What was once the most productive copper mine in the world, was now a retired relic that clung to the side of the valley. The towering, barnyard-red wooden structure looked like Noah’s ark precariously balanced atop the mountains of Ararat.

Being a miner in the middle of a frozen tundra seemed like one of the last jobs that I would have applied for, but there was over 200 million dollars’ worth of copper found within those hills. The landmark that had been abandoned and left to decay for decades was now being restabilized and restored, allowing it to stand proudly once again as if receiving a medal of honor.
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The nights were getting colder, and we knew that our time in Alaska was nearly coming to an end. The blooming flowers of the fireweed had reached the tops of the stalk, a natural Alaskan almanac indicating that winter was rapidly approaching. But Marisa and I were more than satisfied, our adventure through Alaska had been everything we could have hoped for.

I left Alaska with a sense of fulfillment that I hadn't tried to acquire. It wasn't another destination, another sticker on the panniers, or another line drawn across a map. It was a quiet serenity carried by the brisk Arctic breeze, soaked into our skin while we bathed in freezing rivers, and reflected in every noble glacier and every purple fireweed that bloomed as vividly as the memories we made.

There had been days of riding down roads with the consistency of split pea soup. We battled vampiric mosquitoes that tried to drain us dry, ran out of gas, dealt with breakdowns, and plenty of moments that tested my patience and determination. At the time, those challenges often felt overwhelming.
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But through every muddy road, every sleepless night, every mechanical problem, and every dark tunnel, Marisa was the constant source of calm that kept us moving forward. Whenever frustration darkened my perspective, she always helped me see the bigger picture and reminded me how lucky we were to be sharing this journey together. If there truly was a light at the end of every tunnel we traveled through, it wasn't waiting for us on the other side.
It had been riding on the back of the motorcycle the entire time.

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