The Start

Location:	East Security Checkpoint, Deadhorse
Mileage:	0

We left the security checkpoint at 8.00am as planned. Our two witnesses for the start were the local policeman, Don Grimes and the lady who runs the Post Office in Deadhorse, Les Dunbar. Don wishes us luck - he told us that he signed off the previous guys who did the record and says that they got about 50 miles south before crashing and hopes we do better than that!

It is a couple of degress above freezing as we set off on the long stretch of gravel road before us. It is wetter than we would like. Wet means the dirt becomes slimey and sludgy. We hit a number of sections where we are crawling at 25 mph. We know that we have a long way to go and we take it steady. We have plugged in the heated vests - it is so cold and at the top of Atigun Pass, icy rain starts to fall.

Past here the weather takes a real change and by the time we get to the Artic Circle it is almost balmy. The wet sludge turns to dry compact road, with plenty of dust, but riding upto 80mph on these bits. The huge trucks that do the Haul Road regularly, blast along us and leave us covered in shit and crunching dirt in our mouths.

We reach our stop point for the night, Delta Junction just after ten. Two motels are already closed and we finally find one that we get to just as they are locking the door. The alarm is set giving us five hours sleep and then we are off again.

The pace of the ride is very different this time - we have 37 days of long slog ahead and we have to pace ourselves so that we don't frazzle too early!