Alaska Trip 15 June- 28 August 2018.
Here is map from In-reach GPS of our travels: – device says 12,244 miles.
and our final wildlife count:
29 August 2018. Alaska Trip
Tag: Alaska
25-28 August 2018. Driving home
25 August 2018. Power Driving home.
We now started driving in earnest. Our plan was for between 400-500 miles/day. The views were mostly Smokey from the fires, until it started raining. Good for the fires, still bad for views and photographs.
We spent the night in another Provincial Park, Juniper Beach, near Cache Creek.
Be warned, if the campground you are heading for advertises “Great for Train watching”, that could mean there are trains coming and going on both sides of the campground!
26 August 2018 – back to the US. – Washington and Idaho
We aimed for a little bit bigger border crossing this time, in Osoyoos, BC. The Osoyoos area itself was pretty amazing – fruit growing everywhere- wine and fruit stands at every corner. Big metropolitan area. Looked like it was set up for Canadian “snowbirding” (where Canadians go in the winter to stay warm). The smoke wasn’t quite as bad today, but it was raining again.
We spent the night at one of our favorite places, the Domy driveway! Got to have dinner with Pat. Also got to pick up our broken rims to take home and get resolved.
27 August 2018. Montana
We were still power driving. Smoke was better, but still rain. We even saw a moose!
Montana is a big state. Not a lot of people here, but you don’t get the same feeling of alone-ness that you do in the Yukon. You can look out and see a train track in the distance. You can see fence lines, evidence of grazing. Even a billboard or two…
28 August 2018. Wyoming and Colorado.
We made it home, safe and sound. We had a lot of cleaning ahead of us, both of the camper and of a neglected house! What a wonderful trip it was!
24 August 2018. Nass Valley, BC
24 August 2018. Nass Road, BC
We had been told about a little side trip to Nass Valley near the south end of the Cassier. We decided to try it out as our last “touristing” before we seriously started the drive home. The side trip starts on Nass Forest Service Road – narrow, winding, dirt, 40 miles. Lots of trees just starting to turn fall colors. We actually startled a mountain lion on the road (as well as a small black bear). It was a fairly peaceful drive. There were plenty of side roads that were probably used for hunting, but we did not have time to explore them.
At the end of the dirt road was a First Nation area (Nisga’s). There were also lava beds from volcanic action (Canada’s most recent eruption in 1750). We stopped at the town of Gitwinksihlkw and saw a modern (i.e., metal and not wooden) fish wheel at work and played a bit on their suspension bridge.
The road south was still windy, but paved and with views of wooded lakes as we headed down to find how the fires were burning along the highways home.
22, 23 August 2018. Stewart BC/Hyder AK
22 -23 August 2018. Stewart, BC/Hyder, AK
Stewart BC (population 500) and Hyder AK (population 100) share a fjord inlet from the Pacific Ocean. Don’t know all the history of how one side ended up being Canada and the other Alaska, but at one time there were 20,000 people here between them. Both sides, now, are struggling to stay viable.
The drive into the Stewart/Hyder area was wonderful. The smoke on the Cassier was replaced by occasional light drizzle. Saw a momma black bear and two cubs on the side of the road. Bear Glacier was a grand site along the roadside.
We got into Stewart in time for lunch, picked a nice little restaurant that offered an hour of WIFI with your meal, so we got an email dump.
Grabbed our last groceries at the store (which did not take credit cards, BTW – which is just a little tough when you are trying to not get any more Canadian currency) and decided on the Run A Muk campground in Hyder to stay at and do a load of laundry.
Hyder is especially famous for its National Forest bear viewing along a small stream where the Salmon spawn. (Fish Creek Wildlife Observation Site) The actual bear viewing this year has been sparse, but we went to the viewing area and watched the Salmon spawn and die. There were hundreds of Salmon in the water, both Chum and Red. (Chum season just ending, Red just beginning)
Then we took the 25 mile drive along the Salmon Glacier Road (back into Canada) and saw the magnificent Salmon Glacier, met the Bear Man, who hangs out up there (and bought his book).
We wandered back down the mountain, did one last try at the bear viewing area, and then headed back through the border crossing to Stewart and up that gorgeous drive. We spent the night at another Provincial park campground, Meziaden Lake Provincial Park.
21 August 2018. Kinaskan Lake, BC
21 August 2018. Kinaskan Lake Provincial Park, BC
It was another smoky day as we headed to our next Provincial Park. British Columbia was certainly having a bad year of forest fires. We drove south down the Cassier Highway, and I’m sure the views are quite spectacular, but our views were mostly of low hanging smoke.
We stopped in Jade City – a little store where they mined for jade somewhere nearby… They were apparently filming for a reality show about the place. (You know, we haven’t seen any TV for nine weeks now, don’t really miss it).
We sadly drove by the turn off to Telegraph Creek (the “Grand Canyon of the North”) where they were still on evacuation with many, many of the homes burned. This would have to be a visit for another time…
We found another nice spot along the Kinaskan Lake, and watched people fishing. The smoke had mostly dissipated in this area, but boy, it sure made for a beautiful sunset. I like Provincial Parks.
19,20 August 2018. Boya Lake BC
19, 20 August 2018 – Boya Lake Provincial Park, BC
The dirt field RV park at Watson Lake wasn’t the type of place that was going to keep us in town. We had seen the sights of Watson Lake and done our laundry, so we were back on the road. We had modest expectations as there was a BC Provincial Park about 65 miles down the road.
We’ve found ourselves avoiding RV parks more and more and intentionally picking out Provincial Parks as places to spend the night. We got to Boya Lake about lunch time. It was a Yukon three day holiday weekend, Discovery Day, so we did have some anxiety about site availability. There were still a bunch of sites left, but we got the last one with direct lake access. The campground did fill up about dinnertime and we watched several RVs pull in, look for a site, and head back down the road.
What a beautiful lake. Apparently the fishing is poor, but the lake is shallow with a deep blue and turquoise color, has a lot of channels and islands, and is popular for canoes and kayaks. The skies were clear despite several near by fires, so we made lunch and inflated the kayak.
Following the recommendation of the occupants of the adjacent site, we set off across the lake and down between several islands. We spotted movement on the shore and paddled over to check it out. We ended up sitting there for about 30 minutes watching a black bear go back and forth between the trees and the water. Even a small black bear starts to look massive as your kayak drifts close to shore!!!
Back at camp, we chatted with our “neighbors”. We had much in common. They had attended the Overland Expo in Flagstaff AZ this year (as had we), and had also attended Busses By The Bridge (a VW event in Lake Havasu City AZ) several times. But they were headed north the next morning, and we were staying a day and then continuing south towards Colorado.
The lake and campground had quite a few bugs. The spray kept the mosquitos away, and you just put up with the rest.
We had hoped to kayak some more the next day, but the weather wasn’t our friend. We awoke to cooler temps, wind, and quite a bit of smoke haze from several BC forest fires. It just wasn’t kayaking weather. While the day before had 10 to 15 boats on the water, we didn’t see anyone venture out until mid afternoon, and it was just a canoe or two. The sun started to peek out about that time, but it never really got nice until about dinner time. We had made the decision to pack up the kayak by then and had decided to do some hiking instead.
There were two short hikes that went out in opposite directions. Each was about 2 miles long. The first one went along the shore line and gave different views of the lake. The second hike went around to a really interesting beaver dam. The beavers had built a dam across a channel and basically divided the lake in two. The side the beavers had dammed up sat about 5 feet higher than the one we had kayaked on. It was really pretty weird looking.
Our camper proved popular today. Several people walked over to ask about it, and we spent about an hour “giving tours”.
We also made a decision about the next day’s travel. Yep, there was another Provincial Park on a lake about 170 miles down the road. That would be our plan…
18 August 2018. Watson Lake, YT
18 August 2018. Watson Lake, YT
About mid morning after leaving Marsh Lake, we found the cinnamon bun restaurant! Yum! We did stop there and partake.
The next stop on our journey was Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. At 1451 people, it is the third largest city in the Yukon Territory. It is famous for its Sign Post Forest, with over 80,000 signs. We brought ours to add to it!
We spent the night here and also visited its Northern Lights Planetarium. Apparently, now that we are low enough that there actually is some nighttime, we might be able to spot some northern lights. They said that there was a great show three nights prior, but where we were that night, it was raining. We have been trying to peak out each night since when we get up to pee…
The visitor center here was also quite helpful. There are many, many forest fires going on right now in British Columbia. They gave us an up-to date status, and confirmed that the Telegraph Creek area we had planned to spend two days in was closed and still under evacuation. There were also concerns that the main road we would take home (highway 16) was surrounded by several fires and closures were likely. Since we still had a couple of days before we got to highway 16, we decided to chance it. If the road closed, we might have to go back 1000 miles out our of way… what they heck! Hey – we are now devil-may-care travelers
17 August 2018. Marsh Lake YT
17 August 2018 – Whitehorse and Marsh Lake, YT
We were starting to feel back in a relaxed mode of our trip and created a shopping list for the big box superstore in Whitehorse (need to resupply those M&M’s!). First things, first – we hit the car wash and got another layer of mud off the truck and camper. Then into the Superstore and grabbed some stuff (but they were out of M&M’s!). We stopped at the Ford dealer to let them know things went well (and use their WiFi for a mail dump), and then we headed down the road to Marsh Lake Yukon government camp again. We were a little concerned, because this was the start of a three-day weekend in the Yukon (Discovery Day: Celebrating the day Gold was discovered) and we had definitely noticed that the traffic on the highways included many more “local” campers heading out of town for the weekend. Indeed, we did find a spot at Marsh Lake, but it was completely full (60 sites) before the end of the evening.
Sometimes we stay in RV Parks, sometimes we stay in campgrounds. We understand the distinction, and try and choose wisely. But up here, that distinction is even greater. RV Parks tend to be a gravel lot where somebody with deteriorating driving skills can maneuver their 40 foot class A motorhome towing a car. It offers a 50 amp electrical hookup so they can run the air conditioner all night. Those big site are usually in the center of the RV Park with the smaller “back in” sites around the perimeter. The perimeter is also where the little old ladies go to let their yappy dogs pee after exiting the 40 foot motorhome. We’ve had great success with campgrounds however. Most just offer vault toilets, but they tend to be inexpensive and next to scenic lakes. We’ve got a good book that lets us know what campgrounds are along that day’s route. So we suffer the RV Parks when we need to be near a city or need to buy groceries and do laundry, and enjoy the campgrounds as much as we can. We do dispersed camping when ever possible, but the opportunities have been less than we thought they’d be.
Canada’s Provincial and Government Parks have been the best. Both in British Columbia and the Yukon. Well maintained, great locations, and nice spacing between sites. They’ve tended to fill up by dinner time, so our pattern has evolved to get on the road early and try and get to our destination by early afternoon. Site choice is best, and it gives us time to take a hike and explore the area
16 August 2018. Dempster Highway YT
16 August 2018. Dempster Highway Day 6 to Twin Lakes
Today was about loss of anxiety. Things that were making the trip “not fun” got better. For some reason the camper furnace worked last night. Had something gotten wet with all the recent power washing? We don’t know what the problem had been, but the furnace was now working on the high setting and the camper was cozy again. Today would be the last 100 miles of the Dempster Highway. We drove the first 350 miles yesterday on dry roads, and the morning skies looked promising. We did get a few sprinkles, and some damp roads the last 50 miles, but the road was kind to us and we appreciated it. The truck front air bag light was off this morning. It had been on for the previous four days, and was now off. Not a clue why…. When we reached the end of the Dempster, it was time to put air back in the tires. The air compressor worked! We were concerned that it’s location under the truck frame would have it packed with mud. But it pumped the air back to highway pressures just fine. And the TPMS light that had been on for the past week went off. I guess we’ll have to have the dealer check the threshold values when we get home. We had stopped checking the coolant level. After a week or so, we again had confidence in the truck’s cooling system. We started to feel like we were on vacation on not on a mountain climbing expedition. We were still a couple of days behind the original schedule, but we were traveling in the right direction, and could start picking where to spend the night, instead of the past week where the road was the boss!
After praying that the rains would hold off a bit, we started praying that we would really hit a downpour. We had planned on hitting the car wash at Pelly Crossing, YT, but the change machine was empty and there was someone half-washed parked there (presumably searching for loonies to finish up – but nowhere in site), so we decided to head on down the road. It did rain on us a lot and we know where the huge fancy car washes are in Whitehorse…
We started to feel like all we were doing was driving again, so we switched it up and stopped for the day in Twin Lakes Yukon Government campground, about 30 miles south of Carmacks, YT and 80 miles north of Whitehorse. This was a very pleasant and relaxing way to spend the evening. Even ran into one of our fellow travelers from the Inuvik campground! Spotted a beaver playing in the lake (that makes 6!)
15 August 2018, Dempster Highway NWT and YT
15 August 2018 Dempster Highway day 5
It’s hard to get a feel for the weather along the Dempster Highway. Being 450 miles long, there is no single forecast for it. But the forecast for Wednesday was for DRY. And it was supposed to be dry everywhere. And then it was supposed to rain for a couple of days. This created a bit of a quandary for us. If you get one dry day, how do you use it?
We spent the morning walking Inuvik again. We walked the mile or so to the Visitor’s Center to look at their exhibits. We did some more window shopping and decided to buy the hoodie we picked out the previous day. We would have, but the store wasn’t open despite the “store hours” sign saying it would be. Damn.
Then we let our lack of enjoyment driving up to Inuvik in the mud get the better of us. We decided to spend our day of DRY, driving back towards asphalt roads. We ate lunch in camp, then masking taped the truck and camper, gassed up the truck, and hit the road.
We swung by the “hoodie store” on the way out of Inuvik and lucked out, they had opened. So Chuck got his Inuvik hoodie and the bragging rights that go with it. We hit the dirt out of town about 2pm. The road itself was dry and it was an easy drive. A stark contrast to the drive up. A 50mph speed was common.
We made good time, when we were moving. We just missed the ferry at both crossings. The first one made for a 45 minute wait, the second about a 15 minute delay. Then at about the 200 mile point we hit a road closed point. Apparently a tanker truck hadn’t negotiated those slick roads a couple of days ago as well as we had, and had gone off the side. And we arrived as they closed things down to pull the truck back up. We chatted with other drivers for 30 minutes and got to follow the damaged truck back to the small “town” about 10 miles down the road. And as luck would have it, all the rigs in front of us were diesel, and needed fuel. Add another 20 minutes waiting for the antique gas pump. Even with all the delays, it was still a much more enjoyable drive with the dry roads.
We pushed on until about midnight. We had driven about 330 miles and were approaching one of the few campgrounds, one we had used on the trip up. We swung in, only to find all the sites taken. Back out on the highway…. But about a half hour down the road we found a nice secluded side road that would work for the night. And it was very quiet. 🙂
The Dempster is an interesting road. At it’s best, it’s a long dusty pot hole filled road that goes for 450 miles. 450 miles is wider than most states. Think about where you drive that’s 450 miles away, now think about going there on a dirt road at much slower speeds, twisting through turns while avoiding the holes that can ruin a tire. At it’s worst, it’ll suck you in and leave you stranded. Most of the dirt is a fine dust on a hard base. When dry, a nice surface. When wet, it becomes a cross between clay and wet cement. It’s slippery to drive, and horrible to walk in (even to just pull over to use the rest room). The “mud” gets into every nook and cranny of your vehicle. Even if you keep it on the outside, it acts like caulk and fills every exterior seam. When it’s raining you lose those nice views that make the drive so enjoyable. You now see just the clouds. And the water fills every pot hole making it impossible to tell the difference between a shallow one, and one that will destroy your tire. You can’t avoid them all, so you gamble, and sometimes you lose. You drop your speed to minimize the chance of vehicle damage, and the trip just gets longer. The road is straight and boring for miles, and 30mph is all you dare go. About half the traffic on the Dempster Highway is construction equipment maintaining the highway itself. Those guys know the road, and those big trucks handle the bumps and holes well. In dry weather, most vehicles are going close to the same speed and life is good. In wet weather, only the tourists seem to slow down. So added to the fun is the prospect of a big truck flying around a corner in front of you, or suddenly appearing in your rear view mirror. There’s quite a speed differential between them and you, and they sure throw up a lot of debris when they go past you, regardless of direction.
14 August 2018. Inuvik NWT
14 August 2018. Inuvik, NWT, Dempster Day 4
Today was one of those rare days where we knew we were going to be sleeping that evening in the same place where we woke up. Two consecutive nights in the same campground!
We decided to give the truck a rest and do some walking around town. The weather was cloudy, and we experienced only light showers through the day. We set out on a quest for an Inuvik t-shirt. We soon learned that the opening of the road to Tuktoyaktuk has created a busy summer for the local shops. If Chuck wanted a women’s sized small, or a mens 3X, he was in luck, otherwise they were very low on stock and wouldn’t be getting any more in for the season. This became our major quest for the day! We found a hoodie that was pretty neat, and planned on going back to the store the next day to pick it up.
We stopped by the library to use the only public wifi in town. They gave you a password that gave you two hours of internet use. And that’s about how long it took us to download five pictures of our mail that had been texted to us by Barb. Yeah, great free connectivity, but no bandwidth.
We also stopped by the local hardware store that was VERY well stocked. We bought a scrub brush for cleaning mud, and a roll of masking tape to seal up the exterior compartment doors for the drive back to pavement. Due to small repairs and such that have occurred over the course of the trip, we’ve visited the hardware stores in several small towns across Alaska and northern Canada. We have found them to be about the best stores in town. The are usually a little cramped, but there’s lots of aisles and they’re packed full of items. This is especially a contrast to the grocery stores in the same towns…
Inuvik was a friendly place, but that doesn’t mean we felt comfortable there. There was a stark contrast between the visitors driving their RV rigs, and the people that lived there that were just trying to survive. While there were mostly smiles from the locals, it was clear there were a lot of people hanging around with nothing to do.
Inuvik is built on permafrost which creates a lot of challenges. The biggest of which is to not warm the ground below. If you warm it up, it compresses and sinks. So not only are the buildings built on raised platforms with air circulation underneath, so are the utilities. All the “hook ups” are run through above ground conduits. It just looks really weird, but apparently works. Then these conduits are heated (to keep the water pipes from freezing). It looks like a maze of dryer vents running throughout the city.
We also walked our campground a couple of times. Making the drive up to Inuvik creates a bond with the others that have successfully completed the challenge. You smile and exchange stories when you run across people you’ve met earlier that day, yesterday, and over the course of the past week
So Chuck likes to eat/drink what he likes to eat/drink. Some might call him “picky”. He thinks of himself as having a mild brand preference. And this has created some shopping challenges on this trip. You’d think all of North America would have peanut M&Ms. Not a chance. There have were several small towns where we scoured every grocery store in town (both of them), looking for peanut M&Ms. And in an area of the world that was explored due to the discovery of gold, you’d think that that was what peanut M&Ms were made of when you see the price! Well, we all have our bad habits. It has been fun to get down to the Yukon and find all the packages also labeled in French. Monster energy drinks have been another challenge with regard to availability and price. We pay about $1.40 per can at home. Normal gas station price can be $2.00 to $2.50. These things must be expensive to ship up here!
13 August 2018. Dempster Highway NWT
13 August 2018. Dempster Highway to Inuvik. Day3
We awoke this morning alongside our neighbors in the gravel pit. It had rained lightly most of the night and it was muddy. But we packed up camp and got in line for the ferry. We got lucky and were among the eight vehicles that made the first trip across the river. It was a “cable ferry” and it had us over in about 10 minutes.
It continued to rain all morning. Not heavy, but just enough to maintain the water level in the pot holes, keep the road slick, and eliminate any chance of enjoying the scenery.
Our timing for the second ferry crossing was perfect. It’s a bit longer crossing at a confluence of two rivers and has an optional stop at a town between the rivers. But the ferry was loading as we came around the last corner and we drove right on and were the last vehicle loaded before departure.
It was only a couple of hours drive from the second ferry to Inuvik, and every inch of it sucked. There is no way to describe how bad it was, you just have to trust us. Sometimes you just cross that line from “having fun” to “get me the hell out of here”, and we crossed it. It wasn’t just the lousy drive this morning, it was an accumulation of things that just weren’t going quite right and creating some anxiety. But the world just seemed to change. We were no longer tourists going on an adventure, we were strangers in a strange land trying to survive.
The road had changed too. No longer a road cut into the mountain, it was a road built on top of permafrost. To build a road up here, they add an insulating layer on top of the soil, and build the road on top of that. That means for 100 miles, there is no shoulder. The road sits about 5 feet above the surrounding ground. You can’t pull off when you want to, and there certainly isn’t any place to change a tire, or even safely “use the restroom”. This made avoiding pot holes more of a challenge, as was passing on coming traffic. The road was actually only packed in the middle for long stretches, causing you to constantly hope for no cars, and NO big trucks.
We hit Inuvik in the early afternoon. The first stop was the car wash. $10 got the heavy mud off the outside so we’d be able to pop up the camper. The underneath would have to wait.
Inuvik and the campground were actually quite nice. While muddy, the campground had nice sites with electrical hook ups. There were laundry facilities which we took advantage of the next day. The campground was close enough for us to walk, on pavement, into town.
The campground continued to fill through the afternoon. Many sites were filled with people we had talked to over the course of the previous couple of days. We talked a bunch and shared war stories. One had a broken tail light, one had lost two tires on his trailer, another was headed to find a welder in town. Most talked about trying to get enough mud off their rigs to make doors able to be opened and gear accessed. Mud was the common theme. As beat up as we felt, it was clear we hadn’t had as bad a day as had others.
It is worth mentioning here the hearty folk that ride their motorcycles to Inuvik. The mud that packed the exterior of my truck was also packed into their bikes and clothing and gear. They slept in tents, and I don’t know how they kept warm, and how they dried out once wet. I don’t know how they maintained vision while on the road, and dealt with the slop thrown up by the four wheeled vehicles especially the construction trucks. My hat is off to them!!!
We spent most of our afternoon cleaning, and trying to get the camper furnace to warm up. There were occasional rain showers, but it started to dry out most of the afternoon.
Several people had made the additional drive up to Tuktoyaktuk, and several had plans to head up the next morning. It was about 90 miles each way to get up to the Arctic Ocean. As we tried to decide if we were also going to make the additional drive, one thing became clear. None of the people we talked to actually enjoyed the drive up there. It was an accomplishment, but it wasn’t fun. People talked about the mud, the wind, the cold temperatures, and nothing to do up there except say that you had been there. With our feeling beat up, and with things not working quite at 100%, we decided to skip the additional drive.
11 August 2018. Dempster Highway YT
11 August 2018. Dempster Highway Day 1 again
Well, we are trying it again. Got to the beginning of the Dempster Highway by about 1:15, got filled up with Diesel once more and started off. (I know, I know, the clock on the camera is an hour off! – but I need a WiFi connection to fix it…). We soon spotted our first wildlife – Ptarmigans! We saw a total of five of them this day. Sadly, one of them committed suicide under our tires…
The gear, while getting us on this remote journey, was not working 100%. We were still a bit nervous about the truck water pumps. They were fixed by the dealer, but there’s always some concern about the job being done correctly. We still carried a couple jugs of coolant and distilled water, and continued to pop the hood and check levels when we stopped. For some reason the truck’s front air bag warning light was on. Not a clue what the issue might be. We stopped and let about 14lbs of air out of the tires before heading up the Dempster Highway. We’ve done this a bunch of times before, and the truck runs well on dirt roads like this at speeds around 45-50 mph. But this time the TPMS light came on. We checked air pressure each time we stopped too, and none of the tires were losing air, or were at a lower pressure than desired. But now, running 900 miles on a road famous for puncturing tires, we had lost the system that would give us advance warning. The camper’s furnace and hot water heater had begun acting up. It didn’t work very well the night before we headed up the Dempster, and it wasn’t working very well the first couple of night along the trip. We still seemed to be getting warm water for showers, but the furnace would only operate at the low setting, would run most of the night, and wouldn’t heat the inside of the camper much above 62 degrees. If you turned the thermostat too high it would cause the furnace to try and run at it’s high setting, and it would shut down and need to be reset. So it became a challenge to pick the right setting that would allow the furnace to run, but not shut down in the middle of the night.
Because we had already stopped and hiked the Tombstone Territorial Park, we quickly passed through that area this time and camped in Engineer Creek – which is 120 miles up the Dempster. The word was, that there was high water at the first ferry crossing (Peel River – mile 335) And the Ferry was shut down. There were folk in the Engineer campground who had gotten tired of waiting at the Ferry crossing and were heading back south. We kept our fingers crossed that the water level would recede before we got there…
Dempster Highway – the orange flags mean road damage — they really don’t mark all the road damage…
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Dempster Highway near Tombstone Park 
Who would have expected a traffic signal way out here? 
Watched this plane come in for a landing – no idea why you would fly out here… 
Engineer Creek has been colored red by all the minerals in the area. The book says “DO NOT DRINK” 
The Limestone rocks along the creek have been colored red by the minerals in the water 
Spent the first night in Engineer Creek Campground
8,9,10 August 2018. Whitehorse YT
8,9,10 August 2018. Whitehorse, YT (again)
Well, we are back in Whitehorse waiting for our appointment to fix the water pump at the Ford Dealer. (Scheduled for August 10). Whitehorse is a great place to do restocking, though. They have three big-box grocery stores (Walmart, Save-On, and Canadian Superstore) within 1/4 mile of each other, with two big box home-improvement stores (Canadian Tire and Home Hardware) in-between. So, we have been to all of them. In general, our plan to restock about once a week has not worked out well. We have usually found some sort of place to buy groceries, but most of the smaller places (i.e., everywhere except Whitehorse, Anchorage and probably Fairbanks) have grocery stores that are smaller than a gas station convenience store back in the states. And the prices really reflect the low selection. So, for the rest of the trip, we are going with “super-restocking days” and buying a couple weeks worth of stuff and “touch up restocking days” for some milk or things we can’t store that much of. Hopefully this will work better for those of us who are somewhat picky about brands (e.g., only JIF crunchy peanut butter).
It is also raining here, and we are feeling a bit muddy. All those dirt roads just built up the dirt and now the drizzly rain is just enough to make mud, but not enough to wash it off. We have gone to the car wash twice in the last two days.
We are staying in a full RV park while we are waiting. There are lots of trees here, and we haven’t run into any caravans. So, besides the rain, not too bad. 🙂 Actually, this is the first place we’ve stayed in over a month that we’ve used their showers (and not just used the one in the camper)!
We got to the Ford Dealer bright and early on Friday. The water pump they ordered the week before had arrive at 4:55 pm the day before. The tech started replacing it and noticed that the second water pump was also leaking a little bit. Luckily, there was supposed to be one of those delivered on Friday – and it was.
So we have two new water pumps and fresh oil and rotated tires – the fridge is full of food. We are ready to once again try and drive up to the Arctic Ocean!
We walked around Whitehorse a lot. Here are some of the things we saw:
6 August 2018. Atlin BC
6 August 2018. Warm Springs, Atlin BC
We took a lazy morning at the RV Park this morning. They had limited internet, and it only turned on from 8-10 in the morning. So we woke up and watched the nearby pilot get his plane ready for the day (on the lake) as we read the morning mail. We strolled over to the “Slough” and caught site of two beavers who were busy blocking the drainage area. We had already walked the town, so we decided to explore some of the other opportunities to camp nearby.
In British Columbia, they have areas that they call Recreation Sites. These are usually small sites in forest-y or lake-y areas that are set up for just a few people to camp in. These sites are usually “user maintained” – which means you are supposed to pick up after yourself, and not to expect any ranger coming by to get you out of a jam. They are also low or no cost. The ones we looked at today were all free to camp at. They did have outhouses and bear proof garbage cans. We explored three of these sites near Atlin. The first was on small Palmer lake with two sites. Both sites were being used. Probably a good fishing lake… The second was at Warm Bay on the shore of Atlin Lake. It had five sites and a boat ramp. Two sites were being used when we stopped by. The third was where they called the Grotto – three sites in a forest surrounded by a stream. No one was there. But since we had hopes for going Kayaking – we decided to try the Warm Bay sites.
We set up right next to the Lake, a beautiful spot. However, the weather was coming in and Atlin is a HUGE lake – the waves made it look unpleasant for kayaking… So we took some short hikes and relaxed. The rain came in and we started catching up on blog posts – although we couldn’t post anything without cell service… There was a “warm springs” within walking distance, but the water wasn’t quite up to bath temperature, according to the folks sitting in it… so we passed on that opportunity.
5 August 2018. Atlin BC
5 August 2018. Road to Atlin B.C.
We left Skagway and were looking forward to retracing that scenic drive.
We made a quick stop at an overlook of town to do a last e-mail download, as we’d be leaving Alaska and staying in Canada for the next couple of weeks.
Canada cell phone plans suck if you’re from the US. Ours does at least. We’re with AT&T, and our plan charges you $10 per 24 hour period the instant your phone pings a Canadian cell tower. At that point you have unlimited talk, text, and data for those 24 hours. So the minute we approach the Canadian border, our phones go into airplane mode and stay there. We look for locations that have free wifi. If we’re staying in an RV park instead of a campground, they usually have wifi, but we’ve run into several cases where you only get an hour or two per day. Larger towns that have Visitor’s Centers will usually have wifi. Larger towns with name brand retailers (think McDonalds) will have wifi. But our route has been planned to avoid the big towns and stay in campgrounds as much as possible. This is why the Blog updates come in groups, and why it can be several days before we respond to texts and e-mails.
The road out of Skagway is mostly uphill for the first 30 miles, and despite seeing three cruise ships in port, we were lucky and avoided getting stuck behind any tour busses. The guy at the border crossing was a bit of a PIA. Hey, I just don’t know exactly where I’m headed in your wonderful country, it depends on whether Canadian Ford mechanics are any good, and I’m retired damn it. Those guys have no sense of humor.
The drive was as wonderful in the opposite direction. We were surprised to still see smoke coming from the hills across the Windy Arm of Takisha Lake. We got up to a town called Carcross and hung a right to work our way east. The goal was to go east for a bit and then turn south and go another 60 miles to a town called Atlin in British Columbia. It’s on the shore of a huge lake and is supposed to be pretty neat. You have to go out the way you came in (kinda like Skagway but without the cruise ship harbor), so it’s not visited by many tourists.
The 60 mile drive south was pretty routine. We’d occasionally catch a glimpse of the lake (which was really neat with mountains rising steeply on the opposite shore), but the road had lots of growth on both sides and views were limited.
Atlin turned out to be a bit smaller than expected. Getting there mid day Sunday didn’t help the feeling that no-one lived there…. We found the RV Park that was on the shore of the lake, all ten sites in a gravel lot. The “facilities” was a porta-potti at one end of the lot. What it lacked in ambiance it made up for in views however. We got a spot on a small peninsula that look out across the lake. The wind was blowing and the sky mostly cloudy, but it was a neat place to sit and relax. And dry, despite the threatening clouds, it stayed dry…
We’ve been lucky the past week and have been mostly mosquito free. Much of our Whitehorse stay was at the Ford Dealer in town, Skagway was on the ocean, and for some reason Atlin Lake has been light on bugs. We started our trip to Alaska with one can of bug spray that we bought when the boys played summer soccer (yeah, THAT long ago). We now have four cans of bug spray stashed so there’s always one where you can get to it quickly. Those buggers can turn a fabulous scenic view into misery pretty darn quick!!! We’re doing our part to thin the herd though, the coating on the front of the truck and camper is building up as a warning to the others that we will show NO mercy
4 August 2018, Skagway AK
4 August 2018. Skagway, Dyea, Chilkoot
Once we got into the town of Skagway itself and bought our souvenirs, we headed off to the Dyea National Forest area. Dyea was once a boomtown, but now is just forest with signs of things that once were. The most famous thing here is the beginning of the Chilkoot trail. This is a 33 mile long trail that was used extensively during the gold rush of 1898 -1899, for the gold seekers to head to gold mines. In order to be allowed into Canada to get to the gold area, the miners needed to bring provisions to last one year. This amounted to about a ton of stuff. The miners mostly carried their provisions on their backs across this trail (many multiple trips), over the pass and through the snow. As we didn’t bring packs (or even our water bottles) Chuck and I walked about a mile on the trail. It was tough going. We ran into several people who were hiking the whole thing…
We went to the old dock area of Dyea and had some lunch. Chuck got out his drone, and here is a cool movie of the area.
3 August 2018. Skagway AK
Water Pump thoughts.
A few words about water pumps.
We were on our way to the Arctic Ocean. There’s only one road in North America where you can drive your own car to the Arctic Ocean, and we were headed that way. You turn off the pavement and drive 540 miles up a dirt road and there it is. It’s not really on the way to anything, because when you’re done at the ocean, you drive back 540 miles on that same dirt road until you hit pavement again. There’s a couple of small towns with gas and stores near the ocean, and one half way between the ocean and pavement. And there’s some long stretches of road with absolutely nothing. A complete lack of human presence except for the dirt road. It was a trip we wanted to make…
There was a territorial park with camping at the 50 mile point, and that’s where we spent the first night. It was there that we discovered liquid dripping underneath the truck. There was a pretty good puddle. A basic inspection showed it coming from the front of the motor (eliminating the radiator having been punctured by a rock) on the driver’s side. A look at the cooling system schematic showed the water pump near that area. The radiator overflow bottle took quite a bit of water to bring it back up to where it was supposed to be. Using the camper “tea kettle”, it took 2 1/2 kettles worth of water.
So what to do? There’s a Ford dealer every 1,000 miles or so up in this part of the country, and the closest one to us was about 400 miles away. And our route had us going the other direction. We’d have to drive about 80 miles to even get cell phone service to make a phone call.
Our concern about things getting worse while we were in the most desolate place you could drive in North America won out over the need to dip our toes in the Arctic Ocean. We made the decision to turn around and drive the 400 miles to see if it was something that could be easily fixed, and hopefully under warranty.
The Ford dealer was in Whitehorse, Yukon. We tried calling them as we’d get a “bar” or two of cell service while making the drive, but were basically unsuccessful. We stopped frequently to check the leak. It took another kettle of water at the first stop, and then nothing the next 350 miles. We hit the dealer about 4pm. Even though they were booking service appointments ten days out, they agreed to run some cooling system tests for us the next day.
The verdict at the Ford dealer was indeed the primary water pump (these dang diesel motors actually have two water pumps and two separate cooling systems). It wasn’t a part they had in stock, and it would need to be flown in from the US. And then there’s that long wait to get an appointment in the service department.
Waiting around is not something Chuck does very well (surprise!). So we decided to do some touring in a “towable” radius around Whitehorse. This would get us to some nice places like Skagway AK and Atlin BC. So off we went…
After putting a couple hundred miles on the truck after first discovering the leak, here’s our analysis of the situation. It leaks when the motor is not up to temp, and the cooling system is under pressure. Once you get it up to full operating temperature, we haven’t seen any puddles. But do sightseeing first thing in the morning, and you get puddles. And there’s still the concern that this isn’t a static situation, and that things could go from bad to worse at any time.
So we’ve been to Skagway, and are currently camped lakeside in Atlin, and have an appointment in Whitehorse on August 10th for the installation of the new water pump. Coincidently, that is exactly the day were were scheduled to be in Whitehorse for an oil change. But we haven’t gotten to see the Arctic Ocean. So as we sit looking at the mountains across Atlin Lake, we have a decision to make. Keep to the original schedule and arrive home around August 27th, or figure out what corners can be cut, how many days we can add to our trip, and head north instead. Decisions, decisions, decisions…
3 August 2018. Skagway AK
But, here is a little about our trip to Skagway. We had previously dropped Skagway as a destination, because we were a little tired of cruise ship towns and we had wanted to spend more time in Atlin, which is definitely not a cruise ship town. But with our added time waiting for the water pump, we headed to Skagway and were glad we did.
The road to Skagway was worth the entire trip to the town. It changed from Spruce Forests to pine trees ( We hadn’t seen a pine tree in a month!), interspersed with small lakes. Here is a photo of Rainbow Lake, which contained the same colors as our Camper!
There were also sand dune areas and large lakes, and then, the landscape changed to rocky with pine trees! It was all beautiful and awesome.
1 August 2018. Whitehorse, YT
1- 2 August 2018. Whitehorse, YT
After topping off our coolant with water (good thing we can carry so much in our camper), we headed south down the Dempster Highway and started toward Whitehorse. We decided to suck up the cost and turned one of our phones on for Canada rates so that we could call the Ford dealer and make an appointment. However, even if you turn the phone on, you need signal… so it was drive, drive, stop, check coolant level, check for phone signal, drive, repeat. Finally got through early afternoon. They were booking appointments for 10 August – but said that they might be able to give us a diagnosis, if we came in.
So, drive, drive, check coolant. Repeat. And look at some nice scenery.
We made it to the Dealer about 4 oclock. They were able to look at our truck the next day. Long story, short, It was the “primary water pump” that had failed. They did not have one. They requested one on “emergency” and we are scheduled to have it put in on 10 August.
Luckily, they agreed that we could probably do some close in touring, as long as we continue to check our coolant level. So we got some coolant and are headed to Skagway AK, and then to Atkin, BC. And then back to Whitehorse for repairs.
31 July 2018. Dempster Highway
31 July 2018. Dempster Highway.
The Dempster Highway goes 500 miles north starting just 25 miles east of Dawson City. We were planning on spending a bunch of time on it, dipping our toes in the Arctic Ocean… But I’m getting ahead of myself.
First Day on the Dempster, we are heading to Tombstone Territorial Park.
Well, we were relaxing at our campsite when we noticed a puddle of something dripping under the truck. No, it was not the Air Conditioner condensing water. It was orange. Therefore, coolant. It did not seem to be dripping from the radiator. Chuck could not find any loose hose clamps or hoses. We decided the safe thing was to turn around and head for the nearest Ford Dealer in Whitehorse- about 400 miles away. So, no toes in the Artic Ocean for us. :(. At least we didn’t have to deal with the mud slide…
29 July 2018. Dawson City YT
29 July 2018. Leaving Alaska – back into Canada.
Got up early today, we were heading across some narrow mountain (dirt) roads and wanted to minimize running into an RV Caravan that was heading our way.
We were very happy to run into some moose that actually stuck around long enough for me to get some photos! Here is Momma with two babies:
Then we started up the road to Dawson City, Yukon.
They call a lot of this road the Top Of the World Highway. The views are immense. My little photographs really don’t do them justice.
28 July. Chicken AK
28 July. Chicken AK.
Today we meandered through the eastern edge of Alaska, on our way to Canada and the Arctic circle. The roads really haven’t been that bad, mostly – but I grabbed a photo of typical roads we faced:
The landscape gradually changed from fishing focused to mining focused. We ended up in an old mining town, Chicken Alaska for the night. Chose an RV park, because it looked quaint (still used outhouses) and relatively bug free. We were lucky, there were two RV places in town, both were heavily frequented by Caravans (20-25 RV owners – usually the huge Type A Bus kind – who travel together). The other RV park was hosting an Airstream group the night we were in town. Our RV park was hosting a Fantasy group the next night. We had a chance to wander the area before it got overly crowded.
27 July 2018. Denali Highway
27 July 2018. Denali Highway
We left our campsite near the Maclaren River and started the slow four miles back to the Denali Highway. We were still disappointed that we didn’t see any moose or caribou on this road, despite having to repeatedly avoid piles of “signs” they left on the road.
When we got back to the Denali Highway, we found that the road construction had moved east such that we were now in the middle of a section that used a Pilot Car. I still don’t know if they figured out where we came from, but there we were trying to get through…
We had another 10+ miles of dirt road, followed by an uneventful 28 miles of pavement to complete our journey across the Denali Highway. There were still nice vistas and the Alaskan range to our north. And we did catch sight of a fox running across the road!
We eventually came to the Richardson Highway and turned north. Our goal for today was modest, just get a total of 100 miles driven for the day…
We didn’t get very far traveling north on the Richardson Highway when we found a nice turn off for lunch. We went about 1 1/2 miles down a dirt road and had lunch in front of the Gulkana Glacier we had seen before from the Denali Highway.
The Richardson Highway runs north/south and has the Trans-Alaska Pipeline visibly running next to it some of the time. We stopped at an interpretive display and got some pictures. This section of the pipeline is in “earthquake country”, and the display talked about the construction techniques required to make sure that the shaking of the ground wouldn’t result in an oily mess.
We found a campsite (yeah, we were the only ones here when we pulled in) at the Donnelly Creek Recreation Site and Campground. Nice and peaceful, at least until the rental motorhomes started showing up around 6pm. We did get a short hike done out to one of the “braids” on the Delta river.
26 July 2018. Denali Highway
26 July 2018. Denali Highway.
Today started out rainy and wet. The views of the mountains were even more obstructed. But, we packed up our campsite and meandered on down the highway.
The view was generally less forestry and more plains, because of the cloud cover, my general memory of this area was views of shrubbery and wetlands. We did catch site of a small group of caribou, but we really didn’t see a snow capped mountain all morning.
We were also surprised at the number of rental RV’s that were on this road. We even saw a tour bus!
We decided to leave the main highway and explore a bit, we headed north on Maclaren River Road – the book said 14 miles to the Maclaren Glacier.
But we decided this was a great spot to camp -we were still hoping to see wildlife, and it was very peaceful and serene here!
It was a quiet night, raining on and off. But the only wildlife we saw here were the two beavers, some birds, moths and mosquitos.
25 July 2018. Denali Highway
25 July 2018. Denali Highway.
The Denali Highway is 135 miles long, about 100 miles unpaved. We started in Cantwell (whole town consists of two gas stations and a gas station store!) and headed for Paxson (commercial building there closed in 2013). We read up on the road and decided to take it slow – try and avoid the rock chips and pot holes and enjoy the beauty, so we scheduled three days.
It really is a beautiful area – in many ways prettier than Denali National Park. But, I guess Denali National Park is where it’s at to protect the Dall Sheep, and I haven’t seen any Dall sheep over here… just a moose so far (and I was too slow with the new camera to capture a pic!). You start off with the Alaska Range mountains north of you (probably 10-15 miles) and drive among Spruce trees, ponds, streams, and Glacier Rivers for the first 40 miles (that’s as far as we went the first day). You can pull over almost anywhere once you hit the BLM land (20 miles in) (we picked a place a little further from the road to avoid any road dust). Then we had a very pleasant afternoon and evening. No gift shops, no tourists, no buses.
The goal of our finding our camping spot was to get a little more out of the way than the other drivers on the highway could reach. So, we drove down some rough embankments, and camped with a wonderful view of several Glaciers and the bottom half of mountains (many of the top halves were obscured by clouds).
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Our camping spot, View of West Fork Glacier
As we sat there that evening, Chuck spotted our second moose of the day, but we did not get that picture, either.
23-24 July Denali National Park
23-24 July. Denali National Park.
We spent two days in Denali National Park. 6 million acres (about 100 square miles) but you can only drive in 15 miles on a single road. You can walk the whole thing if you want (not us) or you can take a bus ride in for up to 80 miles.
We opted for the bus ride, and because we didn’t know any better, bought the ticket to go the full 80 miles into the park.
Now the cool thing about this bus ride is, that you can get on or off wherever you want. You just yell stop, and then you can get off and go for a hike. Then, when you are ready to continue on the bus, you just find the road, and try and wave a bus down. If he has room, he will pick you back up, and off you go. The bad thing about the bus ride is, that it takes 12 hours to go from the bus terminal to the end of the road and back. After about 4 hours, we knew that we did not want to do another 8, so we got off the bus and caught another bus going 4 hours back. Still, a very long day to be riding in the bus, and we did not get a hike in!
We did see some cool animals, however. Factoid: According to our bus driver there are 39 species of mammals in the park, nearly 200 bird species, and NO reptiles: NO lizards, NO Snakes.
Whenever someone sees an animal – they yell STOP and the bus driver stops the bus so we can take photos.
The highlight of today were all the Grizzly Bear we saw. We actually caught a glimpse of 4 sets of moms with cubs, I got decent photos of two sets.
We did turn around at a nice viewpoint.
The next day, we did get a few hikes in. And on one of those hikes we found some moose!
Can you tell that my camera is acting up? At the end of the day we stopped at a camera shop – they said they couldn’t fix it and sold us a new one… Good thing there was a camera store or this blog would be very verbose for the next five weeks!
Two fun photos:
22 July 2018. Road to Denali
22 July 2018, Road to Denali.
We had about 150 miles to go today, to get from Talkeetna to Denali National Park (with a little side trip down Petersville Road). It was such a beautiful day, and we kept getting gorgeous views of Denali – so that’s what I’m putting in the blog today.
Tomorrow we go into the Denali National Park.
20 July 2018. Talkeetna
20 July 2018. Flightseeing!
This is certainly one of the big highlights of our trip! We booked a flightseeing tour to see Denali up close. We scored big, because most days these mountains are blanketed in clouds. We got up early to wonderful blue skies, and the views were breathtaking! Denali is the highest mountain in North America, at over 20,000 ft. The size of these mountains was very hard to comprehend, there was nothing to compare them to for scale. They were just magnificent. The pilot gave us stories of many of the mountains and glaciers that we saw, but I don’t remember any of the other names.
We chose the trip that let us land the plane on a glacier, so we got out and walked in the snow and ice
Chuck took a short video of the plane taking off again from the glacier
We hope to get some more shots of these mountains as we explore the Denali National Park next week.
19 July 2018. Talkeetna
19 July 2018. Talkeetna
We awoke this morning to that wonderful view of Rolly Lake. We were torn about whether we should delay our departure and spend the morning kayaking on the beautiful water. We decided to call ahead to our next destination to make a campground reservation so we’d feel comfortable with the late start. Much to our chagrin, our preferred campground only had a spot for one of the three nights we needed. So much for having a peaceful morning….
And to reinforce what a nice site we had on the water, we had people come by at around 10am asking when we’d be vacating the site, so they could have it…. 🙂
We ended up skipping the kayaking, took a walk around the campground to try and relax, and hit the road.
It was an easy drive to Talkeetna where we were planning on spending the next three nights. In addition to doing our restocking, we had booked a flightseeing trip over Mt. Denali. The RV park was the only one with “full service” in the area (meaning they had wifi, a laundry room, and showers). We got our one night in a normal RV site, and worked out a deal to “dry camp” in a corner of the RV park for another two nights. The people running the park we very nice and accommodating.
We had enough time to walk the half mile to the town of Talkeetna. It’s a small town with a “hippie” feel, but the nice warm and welcoming hippie, not the lazy and unwashed one. We did some shopping and enjoyed the town. Chuck got the bear shirt he was looking for, and every fourth store sold ice cream. We succumbed to the call of “caramel caribou in a waffle cone”, and had a leisurely walk back to the RV park.
18 July 2018. Around Archorage
18 July 2018.
Today we learned that my Dad had passed. Through the magic of technology we were able to gather with my brothers and sister and Mom and share some thoughts and prayers with Skype and cell phones.
18 July 2018. Toward Danali
There was nothing keeping us around Bird Point, so we hit the road and headed north about 8:30 in the morning.
First stop was a Great Clips in Anchorage. Five weeks into the trip and Chuck was feeling a bit scruffy. Money well spent!!! While Chuck was getting trimmed, Karen discovered the wonder that was a Fred Meyers store across the parking lot. Kinda like a Walmart, only a lot classier. After a buying a few groceries, it was back on the road.
We went right at the fork in the highway, which really isn’t the the way towards Denali. But this enabled us to then head west via Hatcher Pass. This was a section of twisty hair pin turn dirt road that climbed up to almost 3,900ft (quit laughing you Colorado folks…..). The only other “RV” we saw on this road was a Global Expedition rig with 44” tires. This was a neat and worthwhile side trip.
We used our Alaska Campground book to pick the evening’s accommodations that were six miles off the highway. We were looking for a night away from the road noise that has been prevalent at so many of our stops. We found an Alaska State Park on South Rolly Lake. No tourists, just a lot of Alaskans there. It was strange to spend the night not surrounded by rental motorhomes. We grabbed a secluded site and made dinner. Our after dinner walk produced a surprise. There was a lake front site that was empty, and there was a note on the post explaining that the family had to leave a day early and the spot was available. Chuck left Karen diligently guarding the area from intruders while Chuck ran up and brought down the truck. It was one of our prettiest locations of the trip so far. The evening was spent in the folding chairs facing the water. Most excellent
17 July 2018. Turnagain Arm
17 July 2018. Seward to Turnagain Arm.
We were very tired of the mud in Seward, so we decided to leave a day early. Just to spite us, the weather turned nice – so we caught some nice scenery shots on the way out of town!
And some more amazing wood carving art
Here is another example of odd rigs – we’ve seen a couple of these guys who carry their ‘drive around town’ electric cars like this:
We turned down a tiny road, and a guy came running out – “do you have a tow rope?”, he asked. We did, and Chuck helped get him unstuck.
Decided to spend the night at Bird Point along the Turnagain Arm. One of the things this body of water is famous for is its “bore tide” – a wave sometimes six feet tall – that brings the tide into this channel. We determined that this was one of the days that was “good” to see it. Carefully researched the tide tables, did our calculations showing us that the bore tide was supposed to hit our area about 8pm. We sat by the water and watched from 745 until 915. But the low tide was too far out and we really couldn’t see anything. The bore tide was boring!
15-16 July 2018. Seward AK
15-16 July 2018. Seward AK
Most of the camping near Seward AK consists of gravel lots along the beach, with each vehicle shoe-horned in between other campers. We found a spot a little out of town that was more eclectic. The guy had homesteaded the area, and really like fishing. His main passion was charter fishing boats, and this had evolved to having a campground (and cabins) for folk to stay. We spent three nights here (it was our restocking time again) and we thoroughly enjoyed watching the charters come in and the fishermen show off their catches.
The camping sites were scattered among the trees, they had names, not numbers…
We moved the second night to the “Phil” site – much flatter, but much much muddier!
We also had a chance to visit the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward. They had some very educational displays!
14 July 2018. Seward AK
14 July 2018. Road to Seward AK
We headed back along the Kenai Peninsula toward Seward today. I made Chuck turn around so I could get a shot of this sign-
Saw a fantastic chainsaw carving shop. Here is some of his art (we couldn’t afford any of it – and it wouldn’t fit in the camper, anyway)
Before hitting Seward – we stopped in at Exit Glacier. This one is really cool because there are little signs along the road signifying the spots where the glacier had moved from with the year, e.g., in 1957 it was here – in 1845 it was here, etc.
13 July 2018 Homer AK
13 July 2018. Homer AK.
We decided that the crowded Spit was not the place for us, so we ventured into Homer proper, and then out along East End Road. We took the road out 20+ miles, still didn’t reach the end of Kachemak Bay. Did spot a trio of moose (Mom and two babies) playing in a field coming back.
We picked a new campground along the Cook Inlet, where we watched the tide go out and the eagles playing.
12 July 2018. Homer AK
12 July 2018. Homer AK
We dropped out of the mountains and headed down the road toward Homer AK. The weather was cooperating this morning, and we were able to catch glimpses of the two 10,000 ft volcanos at Lake Clark National Park on the other side of the Pacific Ocean’s Cook Inlet (50+ miles away)
We drove into Homer and were greeted with a glorious view of the surrounding mountains.
We decided to spend the night on the “Homer Spit”- a 5 mile isthmus into Kachemak Bay. We were thinking it was going to be rugged and cool, but, instead, it ended up being touristy and very crowded. We stayed here anyway, and walked amongst all the colorful tourist shops and charter fishing boat places.
Tomorrow should be raining again…
11 July 2018. Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center
11 July 2018. Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.
We left the Portage area and started down the Kenai Peninsula to Homer. Not too far from where we camped was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. This is an animal sanctuary (non-profit) that provides comfortable permanent homes for orphaned and injured animals. It also tries to re-introduce animals back to the wild. Many of these animals cooperated and posed for us – but Chuck says they don’t count toward our wildlife count! This place was a great stop, even if it is raining. I think the crowds were low because of the rain.
We headed on down the road and ended up in the USFS Quartz Creek Campground. (We like USFS campgrounds – we get in half price because Chuck is old). Sort of quiet here, the salmon aren’t running here, yet.
10 July 2018. Ferry to Whittier
10 July 2018. Ferry to Whittier AK
We got up at 5 am to be at the Ferry MV Aurora to take us from Valdez to Whittier AK. Once again, it was raining. This ferry was full to the brim – they had to work jig saw puzzles again. We had doubts they were going to make the schedule, but they did, and we were off through Prince William Sound (you probably remember that body of water from the Exxon Valdez disaster a few years back)
We were told that Whittier became a Military refueling point during World War II, because it was located in a Fjord that had constant cloud cover. So the enemy could not find the fuel depot! The weather has not changed any since then. We decided to head out through the famous 2.5 mile tunnel between Whittier and Portage (there isn’t any choice of how to drive out). This tunnel is very unique. It was originally built as a railroad tunnel, and still operates as a railroad tunnel. They have added concrete between the tracks so that cars can drive on it – but it is only wide enough for one car. So, Northbound traffic can go through for 15 minutes on the hour. Southbound gets their chance for 15 minutes on the half hour. Don’t know for sure how they schedule the trains in- but they do!
We stopped at the famous Portage Glacier – neat visitor center! – but couldn’t see much of the multitude of glaciers in the area. We picked a nearby campground and settled in for the night.
9 July 2018. Valdez AK
9 July 2018. Last day in Valdez AK.
We started our last day here with just a little rain, so we left the KOA and did some touring. The town of Valdez was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1964, and the whole town was rebuilt four miles away. The old town is memorialized with little pictures of many of the buildings that used to be there posted on small signs where the buildings used to be. You leave thinking how nature takes back what is hers…
We also took a short hike on the Dock Point Trail – there were no berries yet, so we weren’t too worried about bears.
We stopped at the harbor and watched some boats going out
The rain was clearing a bit, so we decided to try to drive up the Mineral Creek Trail:
As it started to rain again, we picked one of the three museums in town, the Maxine and Jesse Whitney Museum and took a quick tour. Filled with some interesting memorabilia from the Whitney’s collection. Then we picked a campground for the night that backed onto the harbor channel so we could watch the boats come in (through our camper window!) Tomorrow we catch our last Ferry at 6 am!
8 July 2018. Valdez AK
8 July 2018. Valdez KOA.
It’s raining and we are still restocking, today we concentrate on paying bills and doing paperwork. This gives us a chance to figure out how to get pictures off the dash cam! Here is the Momma and baby moose from Friday:
Our third week’s journey looks like this
We also saw a black bear today in our campground. That makes five black bear for the trip so far.
Because you are asking, here is our current wildlife count:
7 July 2018. Valdez AK
7 July 2018. Valdez AK.
We left our bayside camping spot this morning in the fog, but we had a chance to stop by the Solomon Gulch fish hatchery on the way back to town. The salmon are not running real heavy yet, but there were plenty of predators looking for an easy meal. The fish hatchery salmon return to the fish hatchery, just like the wild salmon return to their birth lakes – all about 4 years after they left. The fish hatchery has a weir, too, to corral the salmon to a salmon ladder and back inside their tanks. We didn’t see any salmon in the salmon ladder, maybe because it was early on a Saturday and the fish hatchery people don’t work on Saturdays? But there were a bunch of salmon sitting at the weir trying to get in. The predators were lined up in the water, sort of according to size. Three huge Sea Lions were nearest the shore, a bunch of harbor Seals were about 150 ft offshore, and the playful sea otters were about 1/4 mile back:
We took a quick trip to the Valdez Glacier – mostly to see if the glacier campground was nice for later in the week. This glacier has receded back so you can’t really see the glacier from the parking area – but there were tourists out trying to kayak around the icebergs. We decided that it was too wet and rainy and crowded for us to unload our kayak today…
Well, it is officially our restocking day, so we hit the grocery store and car wash, then checked into a KOA so that we could do laundry and start our weekly housecleaning ritual.
6 July 2018. Valdez
6 July 2018. Valdez AK
Our journey took us today along a short span of the Richardson Highway to Valdez. (Pronounced Valdeeze to rhyme with sneeze!).
We didn’t have far to drive this morning, so we stopped at a couple of sites along the road: Worthington Glacier and a couple of waterfalls.
Lots of water coming down this one!
We took a quick tour around Valdez to find the grocery store and scope things out, but we decided to spend the first night across the harbor. We parked along the bank and watched the sea otters play!
5 July 2018. To Squirrel Creek Recreation Area
5 July 2018. To Squirrel Creek
Thursday, and another travel day. After a nice morning sleeping in (and because both of my boys are reading this blog, I’m going to continue to call it that……), we packed up and left McCarthy. For some reason, the sixty miles of dirt road didn’t hold the same excitement going out, that it did coming in. But traffic was light and the drive went relatively fast.
We returned our “McCarthy Road” travel CD at the Ranger’s station in Chitina and were told that there was a neat side road worth exploring – along O’Brien Creek. The road was washed out in a couple of places, definitely not for all vehicles…. But after a couple of miles, it dropped down to a nice parking area where a stream joined up with the main river. We had lunch and watched a couple of guys fishing. A note about fishing as we watched it. This was the first time I watched fishing where you just stuck a net into the water and waited until a two foot long salmon swam into it. The guy caught two while we watched, and showed us a big ice chest full of the morning’s work. Amazing…. no hook, no bait…. just stupid fish…..
Then it was back on the pavement and a quick thirty miles down the road. We did get to see our second moose though! As long as we keep seeing the large wildlife on the side of the road, I’ll be happy….
We had our next campground recommended to us by a prospective XP owner (lived in Alaska). So we stopped here early afternoon and enjoyed the Internet after three days off grid.
It should be an easy eighty miles to Valdez tomorrow.
4 July 2018. Kennicott
4 July 2018. Kennicott AK
4th of July! We took the first shuttle up the five miles to the historic Mining Town of Kennicott. Most of this town is owned by the forest service, and they are in the process of restoring it, bit by bit. The town shut down when the Kennicott Copper mine took all the copper out of the surrounding area, around 1938. We toured several buildings, very cool!
The highlight here, however, was the 2 mile hike outside of town to the Root Glacier. We had packed our lunch and took this hike, and then climbed onto the “foot” of the Glacier, itself. A little bit slippery – but Chuck took some great footage with the drone
Here is a YouTube link to our Drone footage on the Glacier:
3 July 2018. Wrangell St Elias
3 July 2018. Wrangell St Elias. The largest National Park in the United States.
Headed out of Tok this morning along highway 1. Weather was “Bluebird Sky” (what we call it while snowmobiling). Drove along the western edge of the Wrangell St Elias National Park. Was absolutely stunned as Mount Sanford (16,000 ft) rose in the distance. It was soon joined by Mount Drum (12,000 ft). Why Mount Drum is the jagged one and the other two have smooth tops, I don’t know. You would have thought a “drum” would have a smooth top? Must be someone’s name? Mount Wrangell (14,000 ft) was hidden behind Mount Sanford for quite a while, but it showed itself between the other two eventually. Saw just a little wildlife, a trumpeter swan, eagles. Lots of bouncy roads, with dips sneaking up on us interspersed with relatively nice stretches.
We stopped in the Wrangell St Elias visitor center and made sure the McCarthy Highway was passable. They gave us the OK, so we headed toward Mount Blackburn (16,000 ft) and the Kennicott glacier and mining town.
This first 33 miles of the road were paved, it only took us an hour for that part. Then the next 60 miles were mostly not paved (some chip seal and gravel early – then dirt) This part of the road was built over the old railroad grade. It took about three and a half hours, but it was quite stunning. The Visitor Center people even gave us a CD to listen to while we drove. It described the history of the road and several of the areas along it.
We camped for the night at Base Camp – Root Glacier. The guy had an 80 acre field with five Outhouses and you could camp wherever you wanted in them. We ended up in a field of strange weeds – see picture
We did a short hike to the town of McCarthy – you can only walk there – and need to take a footbridge across the roaring glacier flow, headwaters of the Chitina River. But locals have a “special” bridge downstream that they pay for the right to cross. There were plenty of vehicles and ATVs on the edges of McCarthy. McCarthy was historically the “more colorful” town of this mining area, featuring dance halls, bars, and women of the evening. From the far side of the footbridge you can take a shuttle the five miles to the Kennicott mine.
2 July 2018. From Haines to Tok AK
2 July 2018. Driving from Haines AK to Tok AK
Monday was back on the road. We had to leave our camping spot northwest of Haines, drive back down through Haines, and up to Tok AK. This required driving back into Canada, through a corner of British Columbia and then the Yukon, for a total goal of around 450 miles.
The drive just north of Haines, headed to the border were spectacular. Lots of snow covered jagged mountain peaks and views of glaciers.
Our second border crossing into Canada was much smoother than the first. We had all the paperwork for “bear deterrent” filled out and stamped, so a quick check of serial numbers and we were on our way.
Even the worst parts of the day’s drive were pretty darn neat. Lots of stretches of empty road, followed by the passing of a couple of RVs, then more empty road. Cars were certainly in the minority.
We happened upon our first scary bear. He (she?) wasn’t bothering anyone, just eating grass alongside the road. But that didn’t make a bear that could eat you if it chose, less unnerving…. A quick picture, and we continued down the highway.
We also got to experience “frost heaves”. The building of roads in this part of the world is on ground that gets wet, expands as it freezes, and that mucks up the asphalt a bit. A nice frost heave just feels like a whoop-d-doo, a not so nice frost heave results in a crap load of unavoidable pot holes. Canada does a good job of putting out red flags where the bad road sections are, Alaska not so much…. There were a lot of places they fixed the road damage, but they did it by replacing the road with nice dirt and gravel. The dirt/gravel was smooth, but you’d fling up a bunch of rocks if you hit it at 60+mph.
Tok AK is at sort of a crossroads. Major Alaska highways coming and going in several different directions. We chose an RV park that had good reviews, but I don’t know how it got them….. Another night of showing in our camper. We’ll be hitting Tok again on our way home, I think we’ll try one of the other seven RV parks then…..
Still, a most excellent day for one that was just about getting some miles driven.
30 June 2018. Haines AK
30 June 2018. Wandering about in Haines AK.
Saturday was a continuation of our restocking day. More cleaning, doing the end of the month household books, and hitting a second grocery store because one of us is picky about some things…. 🙂
For lunch we walked down to the Haines Volunteer Fire Department BBQ lunch. It’s one of their fundraisers, we were hungry, and they had the best t-shirts in town. They had a 1953 Jeep Fire Engine on display. Pretty neat!
We walked the long way back to the campground and stopped at the Hammer Museum. Yeah, an entire museum dedicated to hammers. It was actually pretty interesting, and was even more than one room…
29 June 2018. Ferry to Haines
29 June 2018. Ferry to Haines.
Friday was an early morning. The alarm was set for 4am, which in Alaska, is still pretty much daylight. We packed up camp and drove to the Ferry terminal. Today would be traveling from Juneau AK to Haines AK, about a four and a half hour trip. Why they need you there two hours before departure, I don’t understand. While there are some car puzzle logistics involved, it doesn’t take two hours….. This was our first Ferry where we loaded backwards. We drove forwards onto the Ferry, they directed us to turn around while we were on the car deck, and then backed us into place. At least being a truck/camper, it meant we got to load first.
The Ferry trip was wet and uneventful. The rain kept us inside where most of the people were catching up on sleep lost to the early departure.
Once in Haines we drove straight to the campground, with only a quick side trip to the quarter car wash….. Once we got a campsite reserved, we drove into town, grabbed a quick lunch, and hit the grocery store. Supplies were getting thin, and this was time to restock. Back at the campground we started up laundry and began cleaning the truck and camper. The rain had stopped and it gave us a chance to get things completely dry from Juneau.
28 June 2018. Juneau 2
28 June 2018. Fresh Salmon Dinner.
While we were in Juneau – we were lucky enough to find that XP #9 owners(Sissi and Günter) were in town. They had just gotten back from a four year adventure to South America. They are actually commercial fishermen and were living on their boat, the Keta, in the harbor. They invited us over and fed us a wonderful, freshly caught King Salmon dinner. It was very interesting to learn about all the intricacies of commercial fishing here in Juneau, and all the things that this community does to ensure the longevity of the salmon and their environment.
28 June 2018 . Juneau
28 June 2018. Mendenhall Glacier
Thursday we woke up and the weather was almost dry. We decided that we had to try kayaking to the glacier at Mendenhall, and so we geared up and inflated the kayak.
So we took off for the waterfall area, about a mile back from the glacier. Much warmer there, lunch was great – until the cruise ship tourists decided to use our kayak as their photo opportunity. We were able to chase them off, rescue our Kayak, finish our lunch and head back to camp to dry out.
27 June 2018. Tracy Arm Fjord
27 June 2018. Tracy Arm Fjord. Juneau, AK
We booked an excursion on the Captain Cook boat to see the Tracy Arm Fjord. This was an all day excursion, so there weren’t any cruise ship people on it (cruise ship people aren’t in Juneau for long enough to enjoy this tour). But every seat was still full. This was a great experience, traveling south out of Juneau to the Fjord, seeing icebergs, wildlife, and the southern Sawyer Glacier.
On the way down we saw a whale who wouldn’t pose for the camera, several eagle sitting on icebergs, and a seal or two.
We continued into the Tracy Arm Fjord and witnessed many more icebergs. Several of these had interesting shapes, our captain drove circles around the icebergs to give us a view of all sides.
The Fjord itself was beautiful. Mountains shot up about a mile. Waterfalls were abundant!
Then we reached the Sawyer Glacier itself. It was about 1/2 mile wide and we were able to get pretty close. It was very active, we witnessed many calving events (ice chunks falling off the glacier into the sea).
On the south side of the glacier, seals and their pups were laying on the ice flows. Apparently, Orcas (who eat seals) don’t like going into the Fjord, so the seals were pretty safe there. There were hundreds of seals on the ice.
On the way back home, we sailed by some sea lions. Quite the day for wildlife viewing!
26 June 2018 – Juneau!
26 June 2018. Juneau Alaska
We were able to find a nice campsite, with only a few hundred mosquitos, at the Medenhall Glacier Campground near Juneau. There weren’t many campers in the park at all, so we found a spot on the water at Mendenhall Lake. Perfect for Kayaking to the Glacier later this week.
We decided to check out the town a bit, there were way too many cruise ship people in town. But we did stop and take a picture of the infamous Red Dog Saloon for Bob and Cathy:
And, because cruise ship people don’t need parking spaces, we were able to find one and pick up a few doodads
Took a drive up the coast and stopped at the Shrine of St Therese. Beautiful gardens there, very peaceful.
On the way back to the campground we saw our first Alaskan bear. A black bear, just wandering down the highway.
25 June 2018 Ferry to Juneau
25 June 2018 – Ferry from Ketchikan to Juneau.
Today we headed out on another Ferry, this time the MV Kennicott. It will take us from Ketchikan to Juneau. This leg is 20 hours long (did I tell you ferries go at about 16-18 knots – that’s close to 20 mph?). Some other people on board pitched tents on deck, I guess this is very common. We did not bring a tent. They don’t don’t let you sleep in your cars. (They do let you visit your cars every so often to walk your dogs). So, we booked a room. Nice and quiet. And small.
The Ferry ride was mostly along the Inside Passage, and we were alerted to several whale sightings. Here are some pictures I took of one of the whales:
Whale spouting
Fin on the whale
Back of the whale
You can tell that whales don’t like to pose for pictures! So here is a magnificent statue of a whale at Juneau so you can see what whales are supposed to look like:
24 June 2018. Ketchikan AK
24 June 2018, Ketchikan
As often happens in rainforests, we woke up to quite a rain.
So we spent the day in downtown Ketchikan, fighting the crowds from the cruise ships (there were four cruise ships visiting on Saturday, three on Sunday) and bought our souvenirs. We also took a picture of the “mooning eagle” – but from the decent side, Pat!
And here is something new to us, a dock just for airplanes.
23 June 2018, Ketchikan AK
23 June 2018. Ketchikan AK.
Our friend, Kelly, (who lives in Ketchikan) found us bright and early in the Walmart parking lot. He told us about many cool places to see while we were here, and so we set off.
Stopped at Totem Bight State Historical Park. A Bight is a small cove where some giant thing has taken a “bite” out of the coast to create a sheltered area to build a settlement. Totem Bight is a re-creation of a native village, although it combines Totem Poles from three different peoples,Tlingit, Haida and Tongass. There were 14 Totem poles and a Clan house here to enjoy.
Then we continued on to find a real camping spot for the rest of the weekend. At the end of the road was Settler’s Cove State Recreation Area. It was very cool.
Very rainforest-y. Everything was green and mossy. There are waterfalls, and side paths to the ocean. Several trails and staircases were made with 2×8 boards to keep you from walking in the mud. Chuck called it an Enchanted Forest. I thought it looked like a Hobbit habitat.
We snuck out at close to low tide to get to the south side of Ketchikan. There is a fish hatchery at Herring Cove that is known to attract bear as they come to catch the returning Salmon. We did not see any bear here, but we saw quite a few eagles. Kelly said they were like pigeons around here, I think we saw at least a dozen at Herring Cove.
22 June 2018 Ferry to Ketchikan
22 June 2018. Prince Rupert.
It was drizzling rain in Prince Rupert this morning, spent some time wandering the town. Then headed to the Ferry. You need to arrive at the Ferry at least three hours ahead of departure, it is a slow process getting through the measuring and jig-saw puzzle assembly-ing of all the various shapes and sizes of rigs. But they got us on board and we found a place on the solarium level to hang out. Seven hours later we were arriving in Ketchikan Alaska. Here are some shots of the ferry ride.
This is the snow covered peak of Tamgas Mountain on Annette Island, just southwest of Ketchikan.
We watched a beautiful sunset for almost an hour – here are three shots that we took.
It was still light at 1100pm when we set up camp for the night.
20,21 June 2018 Alaska trip
20 June 2018 Prudhomme Lake
We woke up to a beautiful sunrise at Fraser Lake.
Sorry, I had to take the photo through the screen – look at the mosquitos just waiting for us!
We did see our first moose of the trip, just sitting on the side of the road. (sorry, no pic). Headed to the coast near Prince Rupert early enough that we got to spend the night in a Provincial Park – Prudhomme Lake Provincial Park. Very small campground, but the beauty here did not disappoint us. Here are some photos of the area.
21 June 2018 Prince Rupert, BC.
Look how far we have come in the first week! Now we get to slow the pace down and enjoy the vacation. Today we got to do laundry, grocery shopping, and general housekeeping. Even hit a few tourist shops. We call it our “restock day”. Tomorrow we will get on our first Ferry to take us to Ketchikan (Alaska) for the weekend.
19 June 2018 – Alaska Trip
19 June 2018. Through British Columbia.
Our plan was that we would drive past all the beauty in British Columbia this time around, so that we could spend more time in Alaska. I hope Alaska is worth it. There is so much to see in British Columbia – we will surely come back here in the next year or two. The weather here has been wonderful – but we are behind, and we have ferry tickets for Friday, so we are not letting those Provincial Parks tempt us!
18 June 2018 – Trip to Alaska
18 June – Into Canada!
We were waiting at Les Schwab when they opened. The wheels they had for us were just fine, so they installed while we waited. Pretty fast, actually, and we were on our way again.
I don’t know how google maps decides what the best way for you to go anywhere is. The border crossing it picked for us was in Midway, Canada. Very Small. The border guy was even suspicious as to why we would come through at this out of the way spot. Only took an hour, and we were on our way again.
17 June 2018 – trip to Alaska
17 June 2018. Trip to Alaska – Montana and Idaho
Last night we made it to Creed Lake, Montana. Tiny little town, apparently famous for its history of prisons.
Side note for people with TPMS in their cars. When you take your flat tire off, put on your spare, and reinstall the flat tire where the spare goes… Beware! the TPMS is still operating in the flat tire. So as you are driving down the highway – the TPMS will go off again as the flat tire re-loses the air. Do not be alarmed! Do not panic and think “oh, no – not another flat!” Just pull over and verify that the TPMS was only letting you know that the flat tire was still flat – even if it is no longer being used to drive the car… You would have thought we would have remembered this from two months ago…
The rest of the drive to our Brother in Law’s house in Coeur d’Alene was uneventful. We had a nice visit with Pat and Brady and then got to drop Brady off at the hotel where the Army sequestered him so that he wouldn’t change his mind before his swearing in on Monday. He is headed to Basic training in Georgia, so we won’t see him for awhile. Very proud of him.
First day to Alaska 16 June 2018
16 June 2018 – Starting trip to Alaska
Headed north out of home through Wyoming today. Our plan was to get 800 miles in, and make it to see our nephew Brady in Idaho for a little bit before he headed off to basic training in the Army.
Roads were quiet and dry – it is so nice not to hit the typical Denver morning commute traffic as we started this trip (it was Saturday).
Things went well until they didn’t
This is a bit of a long story. We chose a set of Raceline rims (yes, properly rated) to put on the Truck. While we were in southern Utah two months ago, one of the tires started losing air. Found out it was losing air not through a hole in the tire, but through a crack in the rim. Raceline said it was a structural defect, and that they’d replace it for us, but they don’t make those wheels anymore. (But we are working on some sort of credit deal for replacing all four).Through a lot of hunting, our tire shop (discount tires) found one that was close to our pattern and we put that one on while we waited for a new set of other ones that we liked to get through “backorder”. The new rims were still on backorder when it was time to go on this trip, so we put new tires on the old mismatched wheels and off we went. Now, a second wheel has started to leak (in Sheridan Wyoming)and is also cracked. We have located four Fuel wheels of the right size and ratings in Post Falls, Idaho and will get them put on Monday morning. Fun times!