Up to Tuktoyaktuk and back to Eagle Plains

After our Thursday night video capturing/blogging geek-out, we started out Friday morning by leaving the hotel, and driving down to the boat ramp and onto the frozen MacKenzie, north to Tuktoyaktuk. The first 40 or so miles of the ice road north of Inuvik are very smooth and wide, in some places I'd estimate at least eight lanes wide.

With the sun coming up so late, you can see the moon quite well at 8 a.m.

Wide and smooth.

The second half of the ice road is narrower, bumpier, and can catch you out if you are careless or unlucky. At the mouth of the MacKenzie, the ice road turns east, onto the saltwater, and continues to Tuktoyaktuk. Stevan and Kristin we're about 5 miles ahead of us when they called back reporting a right rear flatted tire. Stevan had come around a corner, saw the pothole, (big!) and managed to avoid the worst of it, hitting only the rear wheel. That was enough though: The wheel hit edge of the ice hard enough to bend the rim, gashing open the sidewall of the tire.

We were on the scene within a few minutes, and rather than unstrap his roof spare, and dig out his jack, Stevan used ours, and I fished out the spare tire we were carrying for him. We were back on the road in about 10 minutes, this time with our Dodge in the lead, calling out the rough spots.

The Car 14 team of Perret/Hansen was not so lucky. In the same section their Impreza suffered damage to both front and rear struts on the right side, in addtion to holing one of their right side tires.

We arrived at the monument at the end of the road, and checked in with the time control. I walked around the town for a little bit, but it was cold enough that frost was forminig on my moustache.

We stopped by the general store before we headed back south for some hot chocolate. When I say "general store," I mean they sell everything: furniture, food, diapers, bras, flat screen tvs, etc. We saw the same phenomenon at the North Market in Inuvik, with the notable additions of Pizza Hut, KFC, and Polaris snowmachines all in the department store.

Weight limit on the ice road. That's amost 70,000 pounds.

Hot cocoa in hand, we headed back to Inuvik.

It was a good thing that we left when we did, as a hell of a fog had come in, and chased us over 45 miles of the 109 back to Inuvik.

We stopped to switch drivers at one point and noticed that the fog had left a 1/4 of ice on every leading edge of the truck.

About 40 miles outside of Inuvik, the weather was again beautiful and clear. We were able to pull up alongside Stevan and Kristin on the wide section and shoot some neat photos:

The Team D Saab entered a tighter right hander just a little too quickly and ended up in a snowbank. A local good samaritan gave them a tug out, and they were soon on their way.

After some quick souvenier shopping and some pizza, we loaded back up in the Dodge and headed South for Eagle Plains.

Leaving the Northwest Territories.

Doug had picked up sandwich fixings in Inuvik, so we were not able to sample the $25/plate buffet in the dining room. We did partake in a few Eagle Claws and rounds of pool in the bar. After retiring to our room with Team Sirius to polish off the last of our Kokanees, a few local fellows came in to hang out. As it turns out, they were hunters from Ft. MacPherson, on their way south of Engineer Creek to find some caribou. One of the hunters described the oldest of the three as having "caribou eyes," which I took as having the knack for finding them.

Next: Back to Whitehorse.