Salmon Glacier, part of the Tongrass National Forest, was one of the sites the pair saw on the trip.
Mark Jiras and Ken Hurrey spent three weeks traveling cross-country on their motorcycles, from New Jersey to Alaska and back again.
After a more than a year of trip planning, New Jersey residents ride their bikes to Alaska and back
By Jessica Oates
This summer, Hamilton Township resident Mark Jiras and his friend and co-worker Ken Hurrey checked off an item on their bucket lists: after a year and a half of planning, the avid bikers set off on a three-week motorcycle adventure from New Jersey to Alaska.
Jiras and Hurrey met on the job at PSE&G and have been friends for 13 years. Jiras, 58, grew up in Lawrence, where he attended Lawrence High School and then Trenton State College. He has lived in Hamilton for the past 35 years along with his wife, Kim. Hurrey, 53, lived in Hamilton from 1985-2001, and currently resides in Freehold with his wife, Mary.
They both had motorcycles, and Jiras always mentioned wanting to go to Alaska and ride the Alaskan Highway.
“I have always enjoyed the outdoors, and almost any rural excursion would be appealing to me,” Jiras said. “I had actually planned on doing it when I retire, and I can’t say exactly what happened to make me change my mind, but one day Ken and I were sitting at work, and I asked him if he’d like to ride to Alaska with me, and he said ‘Sure!’”
The pair does a lot of weekend trips together, so Hurrey said he didn’t have to think twice when Jiras asked him one day about going cross-country. He credited Jiras with doing the bulk of the planning.
“He must have studied a map every night because we never once went off course,” Hurrey said. “He knew the way to go without a GPS.”
Jiras admitted being a human GPS wasn’t too hard on this trip.
“Once you get to the Alaska Highway, that’s the only road for about 1,500 miles, so you just keep going,” Jiras said.
The two friends set out together June 14 at 3:30 a.m., in a rainfall. The trip to and through Alaska took three weeks, for which Jiras and Hurrey had saved up enough vacation time to enjoy.
The pair set off on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and passed through Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and then up into Canada through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Yukon before finally reaching the Alaska Highway. They described most of the roadway they travelled as “beautifully smooth and well paved,” save for about 140 miles in the Yukon Territory which had fallen into disrepair.
Jiras said the trip wasn’t difficult to do, as long it was planned.
“Anyone can—and should—take the trip,” he said.
Along with planning and becoming familiar with the route, it is important to be conscious of your mileage and prepare for long stretches of road without any gas stations.
Jiras rode a Honda VTX1800 with saddle bags, and Hurrey brought a Harley for the trip. Jiras said his bike carried five gallons of fuel—and got about 47 mpg—so he was able to go about 200 miles before having to stop.
“But you have to be careful. There are no signs warning you that it will be another 120 miles before you can get fuel, so you have to be prepared,” Jiras said. “We carried a few extra gallons of gas on us, and it was a good thing. A guy on a bike from New York rode up behind us and asked if we had any spare gas. We gave him a gallon, and he was very grateful. If we hadn’t, he might still be stuck there.
“When you are out there on the road, you are pretty much all alone. It might be a while before someone comes along, and there is no cell phone service, except for in major towns.”
In addition to extra gas, Jiras and Hurrey were equipped with waterproof biker boots and Tour Master jackets. They packed lightly, carrying about three pairs of jeans and 6 T-shirts each. They also had a few different pairs of gloves, appropriate for different weather conditions.
The adventurers got an early start each morning, hitting the road around 6 a.m. The first three days, they rode as far as 700 miles per day, but after a few days settled into a more comfortable routine of 400-500 miles. They rested up each night in motels, and stopped every four days or so at laundromats.
“Our goal was to get to Alaska, so we just kept riding,” Jiras said. “We rode along the Glennallen Highway, which is stunningly beautiful. Our pictures just don’t do the trip justice.”
The pair documented their trip with an extensive photo collection, which can be viewed on their Facebook page, aptly titled “Ken & Mark’s Excellent Adventure,” after the 1989 film “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” Jiras and Hurrey said they have another 4,000 photos still to go through, all taken automatically at 20 second intervals by a GoPro camera that they hooked up to the fronts of their bikes and turned on every few days.
The duo saw a lot of wildlife along the way, including bears and buffalo. The animals didn’t seem perturbed by the presence of humans, Jiras said.
“Going north on the Alaskan Highway, we passed a grizzly bear going south,” Jiras said. “A short distance up the road, we saw a family of eight riding their bikes south toward the grizzly bear. No one seemed worried about running into animals.”
Their first stop in Alaska was Tok, which they returned to a second time after touring other towns and sites.
Jiras said the southernmost town in Alaska, Hyder-Stewart, is very, very remote, and there hasn’t been a bank there since the early 2000s.
“People hold onto their money,” Jiras said. “There is one ATM at the bar, and if you want to visit a bank, it’s an hour away by float plane in Canada.”
Hurrey says that one of their favorite sites was Thompson’s Pass, a 2,805-foot-high gap in the mountains northeast of Valdez, Alaska. The pass is the snowiest place in Alaska. They also rode 25 miles up a gravel road from Hyder to see Salmon Glacier, part of the Tongass National Forest, a 17-million acre site that is the largest national forest in the U.S.
In addition to all of the majestic sites, Jiras and Hurrey had the chance to meet some interesting people and make friends along the way.
At a motel gift shop in Tok, they admired gold nuggets on display at the jewelry counter. The elderly woman who worked at the shop with her friend asked the travelers if they’d like to see something special. She unlocked a counter behind her and pulled out a large, 5-pound gold nugget worth half a million dollars for them to examine.
In awe of the woman’s trust, Jiras asked her whether she worried at all that a thief might overpower her and steal the gold, a treasure discovered by her late husband.
“She pulled a Wesson .357 out from beneath a pile of papers, flashed it as us, and said ‘Not at all,’” Jiras said.
Both men say they would be glad to take the trip again. Despite stretches of the journey across sprawling, completely flat plains and getting caught in more than a few storms, both Jiras and Hurrey found the trip well worth it.
“I wanted to do it before I was too old,” Jiras said. “I thought to myself, ‘We’re both in our 50s. Let’s do it now, before we aren’t able to anymore.’”
Hurrey said they certainly have more trips in their future. They have been talking about visiting Shenandoah Valley or perhaps The Dragon’s Tail in Tennessee next year. The Dragon’s Tail is an 11-mile pass that is said to have over 300 curves, many of them quite sharp.
Both men were glad to return home from their trip on July 5, three weeks to the date of their departure from New Jersey. Hurrey said he was happy to sleep in his own bed and eat home-cooked meals after three weeks of motels and eating out.
The two adventurers also were glad that their wives gave their blessings to the trip.
“You know a man can’t just go off and leave home for 3-4 weeks without permission,” Jiras said. “This is something Kim knew I always wanted to do, and I owe her a nice beach vacation next year.”
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