7,750 kilometers of M Coupe; a Clownshoe at the end of the Earth

[95EagleAWD]

I'm just gonna post a bunch of pictures with captions here... I'm still working on writing the trip up, and I'm doing it on a wordpress blog kinda thing. We'll see how that goes.

But yes! We went and conquered. And it was hella fun. I highly recommend everyone at least do the journey to Dawson. It's just a beautiful drive. Yukon blew me away. It was stunning.

For those of you who have me on Facebook, most of these are repeats. Sorry. Mark had the SLR camera and the GoPro, so he's got way more pictures than I. All of these were taken with my iPhone 5s. Also, I suck at linking with Imgur, so if these are huge... sorry.

Captions will be underneath the pictures, just so you're not confused.

http://i.imgur.com/ivFqQGs.jpg

Looking all clean and optimistic on a snowy September morning. FYI, we packed this car in about an hour; instead of doing any pre-trip planning at all, we went to Vegas for six days and got drunk all the time. There was no car prep; no oil change, no new filters, nothing. I put my year old winter tires on and we left. No spare parts, either. BMW confidence here.

http://i.imgur.com/YfU53y7.jpg

Snow through Alberta. Re-enforcing my hate for this place haha.

http://i.imgur.com/WYIh8aE.jpg

One of many, many gas stops. We never made it more than 240 miles on a tank. Ah well.

http://i.imgur.com/hU6FEOr.jpg

Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway, in Dawson Creek, BC.

http://i.imgur.com/PubqHPE.jpg

The Alaska Highway through upper BC.

http://i.imgur.com/CQNSKH9.jpg

It got nice out though. The rain finally stopped and we had amazing weather for the entire trip afterwords!

http://i.imgur.com/cmjeHf2.jpg

It only went up from here. The most we paid was $1.89 in Inuvik. For 89 octane.

[95EagleAWD]

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It sure was pretty though.

http://i.imgur.com/P5iU0PA.jpg

That's Muncho Lake. It was pretty damn amazing. Soon after, we took a goat in the side of the car, knocking the mirror off and damaging the door and left rear fender. Nothing Mark could've done about it, but I'm glad I can hang it above his head for the rest of his life! :lol:

http://i.imgur.com/UbskAps.jpg

Yay!! We made it!

http://i.imgur.com/Ie0RzLb.jpg

Cinnamon buns as big as your head, and enough to feed Africa for a year.

http://i.imgur.com/aj7BjPg.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kv8QB4X.jpg

Yeah... The Yukon rules.

[95EagleAWD]

http://i.imgur.com/raYkjhe.jpg

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Dawson City from their golf course. My favourite place for the trip. We got loser drunk, met new friends, and woke up hungover as shit after partying till 5 am to drive the Dempster. Good planning.

http://i.imgur.com/G2Djud6.jpg

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More of Dawson. A city with dirt roads and wood sidewalks works well in B&W.

http://i.imgur.com/dIcpiPv.jpg

Viva Dawson!

http://i.imgur.com/Z4UAkUG.jpg

Wasps suck. This one tried my beer, and I drowned his ass. Fuck those things.

[95EagleAWD]

http://i.imgur.com/gMEc1rF.jpg

And away we go!

http://i.imgur.com/cU3DobT.jpg

The Dempster. Not too bad, actually.

http://i.imgur.com/Hi9vZxx.jpg

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Tombstone Park. Amazingly beautiful.

http://i.imgur.com/Uhm8fD6.jpg

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Just desolate...

http://i.imgur.com/Arq7Mmg.jpg

Halfway!! We needed the stop. The hangovers were brutal, and we were starving. Eggs helped, and we felt almost human again afterwords.

[95EagleAWD]

http://i.imgur.com/r9CPFYu.jpg

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Across the Arctic Circle!

http://i.imgur.com/p0ycTHd.jpg

This would be in the NWT now.

http://i.imgur.com/j7FIGi6.jpg

And Victory! Made it, no problems at all. The highway was actually so good, it turned out to be a non-event. We were averaging over 100 km/h an hour, and after the McKenzie ferry, I put the hammer down and was doing 130 no problem. The worst part of the Dempster is actually the paved part between the airport and Inuvik.

http://i.imgur.com/7zrFYsw.jpg

Inuvik. Where $14 jugs of milk are a thing.

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Our silent partner for the trip.

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Inuvik to Tuytoyaktuk via Cessna 207. We saw Pingos and Tuk was pretty crazy. Such a different way to live!

[95EagleAWD]

http://i.imgur.com/3Epd33C.jpg

Leaving Inuvik the next morning. Somehow, the highway was in even better shape on the way down.

http://i.imgur.com/rLG8YYG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/QdyOsBv.jpg

Although it was raining... and the car got a little dirty.

http://i.imgur.com/K6rL1gQ.jpg

I bought two of these in Inuvik. At the end of the return trip, I slapped one on the car. Pretty good badge of honour, I must say.

http://i.imgur.com/vKBKZ99.jpg

After another night in Dawson, another in Whitehorse, we ended up in Stewart BC. It's a beautiful drive in, but man... it's an old town. No cell service, no wifi, nothing.

http://i.imgur.com/rE318Sy.jpg

Dipped into Alaska, because why not?

http://i.imgur.com/Xd1Ifgw.jpg

Down the interior of BC, through Houston, Revelstoke, Calgary and home.


It's tough to describe this trip.... It was pretty f-in' unreal. The Yukon is amazing; it's simply a stunning, beautiful area of the world. Nothing that we drove on damaged the car at all. Not even rock chips, really. People were worried about my car getting wrecked, but it just didn't happen. We could have hit an animal anywhere, so I'm not counting that. Our destination had nothing to do with the damage to my car. In fact, the Dempster was in such good shape that you could easily take a Ferrari all the way to Tombstone Park. The only thing low cars might have trouble with is the ferry crossings. We didn't, but my Coupe sits pretty high.

If you're looking for a road trip, just going to Dawson is worth it. It's a super fun little town.

Having done this trip, and having done the PCH last year... I would go up here again first. The destination is simply better.

[Hallowed_point]

Awesome trip and post man does that ever look like a blast.

[beyond_ban]

How did you the find the comfort of the car? Your back ever get sore from sitting in the sport buckets all day?

[95EagleAWD]

Originally posted by beyond_ban
How did you the find the comfort of the car? Your back ever get sore from sitting in the sport buckets all day?

Not really no. I'm a midget though, at 5'10". I haven't done the seat tilt mod either; but my right knee gets tight.

Damn old age haha.

[BensonTT]

$15 for milk? WTF

[ExtraSlow]

Awesome man. Truly Awesome. Especially good in a "drivers car" that has such limited range per tank. Shows a great combination of dedication and "don't-give-a-fuck" attitude.

I did the south half of that trip up to Hyder. Ran out to Prince Rupert too. Good times.

[Sugarphreak]

...

[HuMz]

Thanks for sharing, if you get a chance this would make for a good trip report on expedition portal.

[elite]

damn. this just went on my to do list.

[qpdo1]

Originally posted by 95EagleAWD
Nothing Mark could've done about it, but I'm glad I can hang it above his head for the rest of his life! :lol:
GFY!


Originally posted by beyond_ban
How did you the find the comfort of the car? Your back ever get sore from sitting in the sport buckets all day?
I did surprisingly well too, better than I thought at 6'7"


Originally posted by Sugarphreak
Looks like a great trip!

Minus the goat, haha
Fuck goats.


Originally posted by HuMz
Thanks for sharing, if you get a chance this would make for a good trip report on expedition portal.
I'm on ExPo already, and have posted other trip reports from other road trips and intend on slapping my report and pictures up here and on there as well.

[brucebanner]

Looks like a great trip, beautiful scenery!

[Kijho]

Sounds like such an incredibly trip - awesome photos

[Cooked Rice]

Do I spy Shawn Hawley's chaser?

So did you get charged by a goat or was it a near miss? I always get nervous driving by mountain goats.

[relyt92]

Looks like a great time! Did your car get much attention up there? I don't imagine it's the type of car that you'd often see that far north.

[Shlade]

So epic

[D'z Nutz]

I want to wear that cinnamon bun as a hat.

[qpdo1]

Originally posted by Cooked Rice
Do I spy Shawn Hawley's chaser?

So did you get charged by a goat or was it a near miss? I always get nervous driving by mountain goats.

Good eye! Ryan is Shawn's roommate.

The fucker was eating grass in the oncoming traffic ditch, I punched the binders, him and his two little bros got spooked and started running in our direction of travel diagonally across the road. I veered as far into the ditch as I could without tossing the coupe into the side of the mountain, and he jumped and attacked us. Whether it be the as a result of the goat or the ditch, I had to do a little drifto-halt out of the ditch and back onto the shoulder to assess the damage.


Originally posted by relyt92
Looks like a great time! Did your car get much attention up there? I don't imagine it's the type of car that you'd often see that far north.

It was an attention WHORE!

[roll_over]

Can you post the route if others want to beat you ;)

[never]

Awesome pics! Looks like a great trip. I used to live in Whitehorse but that was a LOOONG time ago. Apparently I need to make a trip back!

[flipstah]

You'd pick this over PCH? Damn, that must be good. :eek:

[qpdo1]

Originally posted by roll_over
Can you post the route if others want to beat you ;)
The route will be in my writeup, along with some HQ DSLR pics!


Originally posted by flipstah
You'd pick this over PCH? Damn, that must be good. :eek:
I've done the PCH in the NSX as well, and I'd have to agree.

[EmJay]

Looks like an awesome trip! Thanks for sharing your pictures! Hope you got your coupe back to it's original state after the goat attack.

[toastgremlin]

What an awesome trip. Hope someone else from Beyond runs the same route and gets revenge on that goat for you!

[black13]

Looked like an awesome trip! Will definitely have to try this one day. And major props for doing it in such a fun and unusual car.

The goat thing sucks but it could've been alot worse.

[zipdoa]

Originally posted by qpdo1


I did surprisingly well too, better than I thought at 6'7"



Nice. That confirms I could drive an m-coupe. Did it have a sunroof?

[ekguy]

no sour toe shot in dawson????

[Chantastic]

Thanks for sharing! What does the tape/sticker say above the damaged fender?