Well – where to start on today???? It was a long one.
First let me say that everyone is OK – relatively speaking. We did have an injury accident in the group today – Mark hit one of the infamous “Black Clay” sections and he went down pretty hard. He had an obviously broken left wrist and some back pain – but was totally conscious and able to move his arms and legs OK (despite us telling him to lie still). We used the SPOT beacon and the SAT phone to call for help – but given our very remote location – they said it could take up to 6 hours to get a vehicle to him. After some additional calls, we ultimately found the Dawson town doctor was actually at the lodge we had just left and that was 27 miles back down the nasty dirt road we were riding out on. The doctor had just ridden her KLR 650 in from Dawson last night (on this same nasty road) to visit her boyfriend (who is the lodge owner).
The Doctor arrived in an ambulance from the lodge in about an hour and half and then we all loaded him into the ambulance and they were going to take him back to the Lodge for an air transport to a hospital somewhere (we did not know where at the time).
The lodge owner and the doctor told us we should continue down the road to pavement as another front was rapidly coming in and the road would be getting worse rapidly. It was against my gut to leave Mark – but it was the right thing to do as we had a very long – tough ride ahead of us. Shortly after Mark departing for the lodge – we started down the trail. We had 225 miles of tough dirt road awaiting us. To make matters worse, shortly after we started the ride the weather front hit and it started raining fairly heavily and the temps dropped from the 60’s to the low 40’s. Our visibility dropped very low with a combination of rain, fog and helmet face masks that fogged really badly in these conditions as well.
At about 4:30 we saw a helicopter flying toward the direction of the Lodge and assumed it was going to be Mark’s ride, then at about 7:00 we saw it fly over again on its way to Dawson Creek.
We finally reached pavement at about 9;30 PM – so we rode for roughly 6-7 hours straight through some nasty stuff. We went very slow on most of it as no one wanted to join Mark at this point.
When we finally got to the Klondike Lodge at the end of the Dempster Road (the dirt trail that has been our adversary for the last 4 days) – we called Liz to check on Mark and found that had been transported to Fairbanks and was being checked out. No official report at this time – but he has been talking to Liz on the phone and keeping her in the loop. He apparently told her he was pissed at the situation – so we are glad to hear is coherent enough to be pissed and take that as a good sign. Our predictions on his condition is that he certainly has a broken wrist and likely a couple of badly bruised or broken ribs- but we will hopefully know more in the AM.
The rest of group is going to try to get a good night’s sleep and discuss our options and plans in the AM with hopefully slightly clearer heads.
Stay tuned as we get more info and keep Mark and Liz in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve
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