It was an early start in Tomtor, as we had a huge day ahead of us. There would be no towns on our route until Khandyga, 500 kilometres away: 165 of that was still on the old summer road. We began the day at the museum in Tomtor. The Museum had everything from typical Yakut houses and local Yakut history, to the Road of Bones and Gulag history and had a decent section on the Alaska-Siberia air bridge, that delivered US lend lease aeroplanes to support the Soviet war effort against Germany. 8500 planes left Fairbanks, Alaska, hopping via Nome (Alaska), Uelen (Chukhotka), Seymchan (Magadan Region), Oymyakon / Tomtor (Yakutia), Yakutsk, Kirensk (Irkutsk Region) and finally Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.

Our final stop before leaving Tomtor was the pole of cold monument.

Tomtor and neighbouring Oymyakon have the coldest recorded temperature of any settlement on earth. -71.2 degrees Celsius (-96F) has been recorded here. I had spoken late yesterday to the cheery man about temperature and he said in winter, -50C was normal. -60C felt cold, and -40 was a warm day in winter.

Then we hit the road. West of Tomtor, the road was better still … not quite the same as the federal road, the Kolyma Highway, we were aiming to meet up with at Kyubeme, but I was comfortable cruising at high speed along the road.

Bridges, were exactly what you would expect from the Road of Bones – wild and romantic.

Lakes dotted the countryside. We had been in mountainous terrain since leaving Magadan and it was not about to finish now. In fact, after Magadan, you are in or around mountains until near Tyoply Klyuch: 1500 km of Siberian mountain roads. Does it get any better than that?

Three hours after leaving Tomtor we reached the final 200 metres of the Old Summer Road

… only the path was blocked with one of the biggest obstacles of the whole road, the Kyubeme River. I spent an hour in the water trying to find the shallowest route across.

In the end I thought I found one we could do. It would be tough. The deeper section had a ferocious current that I was barely able to stand up in. Before committing us to that route I told Sherri to wait by the river as I had seen some side tracks leading off downstream from the abandoned village of Kyubeme. I wanted to check where they went.

Sure enough, they led to a ford, just over a kilometre downstream from the bridge. This was clearly the preferred crossing point. Evidence of truck drivers campfires, as they waited for river levels to go down, was everywhere. Despite the fact that it was raining lightly, I thought the river looked fordable at this point. I needed to check it and see if it was indeed better than the other crossing route I had worked out nearer the bridge. I walked across. There was a deeper section for the first 15 metres, but the remaining 30 metres was fine: full of boulders, but only 2 feet deep. I returned to the bridge and got Sherri Jo. We walked again across the river at the ford and carried over anything not in an 100% waterproof environment, that was valuable. Key documents, cameras, mobile phones etc.

Then it was time for the bikes. I felt I could ride the bikes over comfortably with Sherri Jo helping for stability at the deeper first section. Her bike went first. I asked SJ to add some stability at the rear panniers. Over every rock, the front skid further down stream. Every few yards she had to switch from adding support at the back of the bike to adding support at the front – via the fuel tank … then the back slid downstream. But we made it over the deep bit and the remaining 60% of the river I was able to ride out. The I went back for my bike. Same deal. Sherri Jo could only support either the front of the back of the bike. Whichever section of the bike wsnt supported would get washed downstream as the bike momentarily lost traction over every rock. So it was 3 metres progress supporting the back, then 3 metres supporting the front. Once we had made it through the deeper section, SJ had the bright idea that we really should be getting some snaps and filming this. It was typical of my adventure rides. The toughest sections never have any photos. I get too focussed on just making it through. So I said “OK, good idea. I should be OK from here, fire up the camera.”

As SJ waded thought the rocky river bank to the other side, I looked down. I remembered my battery had been relocated to my sump. It was completely underwater. I yelled out to the girl to hurry up … If my battery dies here it will be impossible to push it over the rocks and out of the river. And thanks to SJ’s bright idea, and her scurrying across the river, we actually have some footage and fotos of the final stages of the Kyubeme River crossing. PS, pleased to say that battery in sump guard seems to have no problems even when submerged for a long time on significant river crossings.

And with my bike now safely across, we followed the path up to the back of the Kyubeme fuel depot … a lonely isolated pocket of humanity (and fuel) with no proper settlements until Khandyga (325 km west), Ust Nera, (240 km North East) and Tomtor (165 km East).

I have heard of people kissing the asphalt after doing some time on dirt roads, but Sherri Jo kissed the nice slick looking federal graded dirt road, now that we were off the unmaintained Old Summer Road.

By the time we had filled up it was raining properly.

I tried to explain to Sherri Jo what she had just achieved: knocking off the legendary Old Summer Road … and doing it in 48 hours. For a girl who had spent just one day off-road before we left Magadan, she had passed one of the ultimate tests. She had cleared falled trees off the road, she had waded her bike through muddy bogs, crossed countless water hazards … but she just asked where do we go now.

I told her, “now we have the most scenic stretch of all” … if the Old Summer Road is the most challenging part of the Road of Bones, the stretch between Kyubeme and Khandyga is the most beautiful.