Leaving Anchorage

“East Bound and Down, loaded up and truckin’ “(Jerry Reed)

"Still crazy after all these years"

Leaving Anchorage was sort of a pivotal time for us. From North Carolina we have traveled mostly west; from now on we will go mostly east. We had a wonderful visit with Carol and Bill Batson. They took us down to the historic community of Hope south of Anchorage on Turnagain Arm. On the way we saw lots of mountain goats and our first close-up moose. It is dip-netting season for Alaskan residents and whole families are out getting their quota to freeze for the winter. 

The kids have fun while the adults fish.

 

 

 

The moose

Unfortunately it is also forest fire season and the day after our visit to Hope, the entire area became involved in a wildfire. The highway to the Kenai Peninsula was partially closed and the smoke was severe. Butch and I had decided to pass on going back to Homer and Seward this trip anyway but the smoke and road closures confirmed our decision. We ran into the same situation with wildfires in 2013, but we were headed the other way. That time we did not go to Fairbanks and we had to hurry from Delta Junction to Tok to get out of the way.

We drove from Anchorage to Valdez on Wednesday in excellent weather. It is over 300 miles and there was lots of road construction so there was no point in getting in a hurry. Once we turned south on the Richardson Hwy, the scenery was so magnificent that going slow was not a problem.  We even stopped for an hour at Willow Lake Viewpoint and took a nap! At this point, the highway parallels the Wrangell-St Elias National Park and the three highest mountains; Mount Drum, Mount Sanford, and Mount Wrangell can be seen in all their snow-capped glory.  From there the road climbs up to incredible views of Worthington Glacier and through Thompson Pass, which is one of the most breath-taking panoramas in the world. Coming down, the highway passes through Keystone Canyon and into Valdez. Keystone Canyon is noted for its stunning waterfalls that are popular with ice climbers in the winter.

Small boat harbor

Cleaning the catch

This is my third visit to Valdez and I found it to be very different. In June of 2013 it was a quiet, friendly little town; now we are in the midst of the fishing season and it is jam packed with folks. There is a major downtown paving project going on and the heavy machinery can be heard from early ‘til late. It is also raining. I “suit-up” and go for walks anyway, but I am growing tired of urban camping and longing for the boonies again.  Our plan is to leave tomorrow and drive back toward Glenallen. We want to take the McCarthy-Kennicott Road (unpaved) into Wrangell-St Elias NP, weather and wildfires permitting. If it continues to rain we will just keep moving. We changed our ferry reservations and will leave from Prince Rupert on the 3^rd instead of the 7^th. We want to have more time to spend on Vancouver Island.

Returning to BC will inhibit our cell phone and internet usage so I may be out of touch for awhile.

Lost in the Land of the Aardvarks (large RV's, Tour Buses, and Caravans)

“I am alone in the land of the Aardvarks. I am walking west and all the Aardvarks are going east.” (with apologies to Eugene McCarthy)

Butch, ready for a 12 hour ride

 

Our choice, to leave Southeastern Alaska and go north into the Yukon and Northwest Territories, removed us from the summer migration of the Aardvarks (see definition above) for weeks. We have not had to compete for campsites and have had as much vastness and solitude as anyone could want. We saw our first Caravan in Dawson City the day that we left.

All that stopped in Fairbanks. We were very fortunate to get a spot at Chena River State Recreational Park, which was shaded and spacious. We stayed for four days getting cleaned up and stocked up. We went to Pioneer Park but found that after visiting authentic villages like Eagle, Inuvik, and Tuk, it lacked appeal. We didn’t want to ride on the river boat or go to the salmon bake again either especially since there was no place to park. We did have a great time at the wonderful Museum at the University of Alaska and the impressive exhibits at the Visitor’s Center downtown. 

We continued to Cantwell on Saturday, driving south on the George Parks Highway toward Denali National Park. This is a very scenic road, often following river valleys and with expansive views to a circle of mountain ranges. Cantwell is about 30 miles south of Denali National Park and we chose to set up our base camp there. The private campgrounds outside the Park are uniformly awful and we were too late for reservations inside. We did stop to make our reservations for the Kantishna shuttle bus on Monday.

We also chose Cantwell because in 2013, we used the 135 mile unpaved Denali Highway to drive to Paxton to start our trip home. This area is fabulously rich geologically, but we were pulling the TT and couldn’t stop much.  This time we could take the 4x4 truck and explore the first 35 miles or so. (Which we did).

Kantishna is the little resort/mining village at the end of the 92 mile Park Road. Private vehicles cannot drive into Denali past Mile 14 and even tour busses and shuttles are limited after Mile 67. The bus to Kantishna requires reservations and is a 12 hour ride, minimum. It is a Blue Bird school bus manufactured in Fort Valley, GA. Need I say more? It was the high point of our trip three years ago and scored right up there once again.

At 7:30 that morning it was raining, had rained all night. Our driver assured us that animals are often more active on overcast days and was she ever right! It stopped raining within the hour and the clouds hung out just on top of the near mountains. This is not an issue in Denali since the “bowl” of the interior is so immense and the light was excellent. We saw many grizzles, caribou, moose, sheep, small mammals and birds, and two fox that should audition for Comedy Central.

 One determined little Mama Fox had two Arctic ground squirrels in her mouth and was trotting purposefully down the middle of the road. She was totally unconcerned about the presence of a huge bus full of people and refused to move to the right (or left) as slow traffic should do. The driver is not allowed to “alter her environment” in any way (such as blowing the horn) and is not allowed to approach closer than 40 yards. If the animal had seemed stressed, she would have had to stop completely. Believe me; this Mama was feeling no stress. She was a fox on a mission and we could just s….. it up! Finally, another shuttle bus appeared from the other direction. Now Mama Fox was sandwiched between the two, our bus slowly moving forward, the other bus slowly backing up. 

Mama Fox

 

Inside the bus we were supposed to be quiet but there was lots of muffled giggling going on. Finally….Mama veered to the left and passed the on-coming bus. They passed us but we continued to follow the fox until she found her spot and left the road. Our driver assured us that this was not a case of animal acclimation (to the noise of the bus) as they rarely see fox. 

Hours later as we were returning, we encountered another fox. Also a female, she was being harassed by a magpie. She didn’t want to yield to on-coming traffic either but she and the magpie were having a time of it. The bird would not let her stop, so she had to keep moving on. The bus was the least of her problems! Again, she finally found a spot and left the road.

Fox # 2

 

We didn’t see The Mountain on the tour but Butch and I are already members of the “30% Club” and were not concerned. Our faith was rewarded the next day as we drove south toward Talkeetna. Tuesday was one of those clear, cloudless days when you can see Denali for over 100 miles. 

Talkeetna is really the closet community to The Mountain and is the jumping off place for climbing exhibitions, river trips, and an opportunity to ride the last “flag stop” train in Alaska. Some claim it was the inspiration for the TV series, Northern Exposure. It is a cute little village with lots of restaurants and gift stores but the locals work hard to keep things sane. 

There is only one campground and it is always full so I felt so lucky to get reservations, until we got here and found out there had been a communication problem. John, the manager, and I are not sure who got the dates wrong but I readily accepted responsibility. They offered us a spot in front of the porch to the office area with a household electric hookup and a water faucet. We took it and we are fine.

"Overflow" Camp site

 

Today we took the 130 mile (roundtrip) jet boat tour up the Susitna River to Devil’s Gorge. Again, we saw Denali off and on all day as well as great views of the Alaska Range. Walt Blackader made the first kayak descent of Gorge in 1972. There have been a few more descents since then but the remoteness, length, and difficulty makes it one of the most challenging whitewater runs in North America. Steve MaHay, the owner of the tour company had a first ascent in a specially designed jet boat but they could not come back down river with it. There are said to be two very expensive jet boats buried in the rocks up there. 

Me, in Devil's Canyon

We leave for Anchorage tomorrow where I will see my dear friend, Carol; again she is Scott and Stephen’s Godmother and my friend since undergraduate days. Yesterday I made reservations for us to board the BC Marine Ferry at Prince Rupert on August 7, to “sail” to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. So, the end is in sight but still a long way off.

Musings on the Mundane

"Sometimes it is the Mundane that awakens Wonder"

If the writer is not careful, travel blogs can resemble Christmas letters. You know the kind where you learn that “Son, John, graduated from Harvard summa cum laude while daughter, Jill, has been offered a million dollar modeling contract while completing her advanced degree in nuclear engineering. Meanwhile Dad and I were flying home from hiking in Nepal when we learned we had won the Power Ball.”

Butch and I are having a great adventure (for old folks) and are enjoying ourselves immensely, but it is not all fun and games. I want to share our excitement, wonder, and awe, but I also want to share how humble we feel to have this opportunity and how grateful we are to be able to take advantage of it. 

We have now been traveling in our 8’ x 24’ home for about 65 days and we have driven over 11,000 miles. That’s a lot of hours in the truck and not all of them are scenic are even comfortable. We have stayed in 30 campgrounds, some of them beautiful, others not so much. This type of trip is not like a cruise or a tour; we get to make our own plans and follow our own timeline, but we also have to take care of our own needs. There are no planned activities to fill every day. The mundane part of life goes on with visits to the Laundromat, grocery store, and Wal-Mart. 

The hardest part is choosing where to go and what to do from the immense amount of possibilities that are available. We do have a “Bucket List” of sorts and it includes re-visiting or visiting deeper some of the places we have been in the past. We also have a budget and we want to get the most bang for our buck. As I sit here looking out at a field of flowers with the Alaska Range in the background, I can look eastward and southward and feel the entire continent of North America stretching out before us. Between us and home (NC or FL) are thousands of miles of potential experiences.

Excuse my lapse into the philosophical. More travel news next time.

On Top of the World

"Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures" 

Riverboat on the Yukon River at Dawson City

These road cuts are a rock hunters paradise.

A word or two about Dawson City, YT. It is located at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers and was the center of the Gold Rush which began in 1898. The entire town is a National Historic Site and it is filled with  the original stores, hotels, saloons, banks, boarding houses and dwellings that were built over 100 years ago. The majority of these buildings are still in use and many more are being renovated. It is an authentic town where tourism is promoted and welcomed but gold is still the main interest. There are numerous commercial mines as well as lots of placer mining and individual claims spread all over the area. 

Canada Parade in Dawson City

 

 

 After our return from Univik we spent the rest of the week in DC. We were there for Canada Day (July 1) and it was a total hoot! We attended the parade and followed it through town and over to the community center for the raising of the flag and to sing “Oh Canada.”

The George W Back - Yukon Marine Ferry

 We loaded on the George Black (ferry) to cross the Yukon on Saturday. The unpaved road from the river to beyond the US/CA border is called the Top of The World Highway. In Gold Rush days it was called the Ridge Road and that is what it is. It winds along the mountain tops, above the tree line for miles giving 360 views of the Yukon River Valley, and layer upon layer of distant mountain ranges. It is narrow and has no guard rails.

Butch. Doing some Rock Hounding

 

A feeder stream to Walker Fork of the 40 Mile River

 

We wanted to take the side trip to Eagle, AK but were discouraged from towing the TT on an even narrower and less maintained road so we camped at a Bureau of Public Lands campground at Walker Fork. This is an area that has lots of private gold mining claims but also has public access for three miles up the creek. We got there early enough to go exploring and enjoyed “prospecting” on the generous gravel bars.

The next day we left the TT at Walker Fork and drove the 180 miles to Eagle and back. Another long, lonely gravel road with unbelievable views. Since we were traveling north we were seeing the backsides of the Tombstone, Ogilvie and Richardson mountains that we passed through on the Dempster Hwy. We could also see the Alaska Range to the east. We stopped several times to rockhound and got some beautiful specimens of serpentine.

Eagle is another neat little village. It was on its way to being a tourist destination until 2007 when a flood nearly wiped it out. Holland American had a river cruise from Dawson City to Eagle that was very popular but they pulled out after their docks were destroyed. The hamlet is on the National Historic Register and is in a lovely spot on the Yukon River. It is also the gateway to the Yukon-Charley National Monument. I believe that the growing push for more destinations to visit in Alaska could put it on the map again.

We really liked the BLM campground at Walker Fork, but three days is about all we can handle without services until we get our fresh water tank fixed. We stopped at Chicken for gas as we knew there was a Caravan of 21 huge RV’s behind us. Also, Chicken is  disgustingly “quaint” and we didn’t need any made in China souvenirs to add to our collection. On to Delta Junction and real pavement!  We spent the night in one of those “sardine” campgrounds (everybody lined up like in a parking lot) but we did have electricity and water.

So, now we are in Fairbanks. Our laundry is done, the groceries are bought, the bills are paid, and the kids are called. Time to move on.  We actually made reservations for tomorrow night at Cantwell, near Denali NP.  We are both excited about doing the bus trip to Kantishna again and hope that we may be able to get into one of the Park campgrounds if we wait around. All is well.

Dumping the Bucket

One O'clock in the morning under a cloudy Arctic Sky

 

Three O-Clock in the Morning under the Arctic Sky

 

Checking off a Bucket List is sort of like dipping water out of the ocean; the more you dip the more there is.

Driving the Dempster Highway to the Arctic Circle and beyond has been on our List for years.  As I noted in my last blog, it is one of two roads in North America that go all the way to the Arctic Circle.  It is 457 miles from the junction of Yukon Hwy 5 to Inuvik and 229 miles to the first gas station at Eagle Plains. The road is not paved and is hard on tires. We carried extra spare tires for the truck and TT, a flat jack, five gallons of gas for the truck and a gallon for the generator. We filled the propane and water tanks, carried 5 gallon jugs of water inside the TT, and stocked up on easy to prepare foods.

Lots of preparation, but nothing could prepare us for the sheer, unadulterated beauty of this magnificent land! I had pictured miles and miles of tundra and wondered what we could do to keep amused. How could I have been so ignorant? The highway passes through 10 Ecoregions and each is very different. There are mountain ranges, wide sweeping valleys, charming creeks and broad rivers; lakes, tors, spires, spikes, and minarets of rocks; views that go on forever. There simply are no words to describe this vast and solitary place. We were humbled by the magnificence. 

We arrived at Eagle Plains with two gallons of gas in the tank. It rained all night and nobody was going anywhere on Thursday morning so we settled in for an extra day. Friday morning was bright and sunny so we continued to Inuvik. We crossed the Arctic Circle and made two ferry crossings at the Peel and Mackenzie Rivers. The ferry landings are mostly piled up dirt and the ferries are sort of like WWII landing craft. When we got on the ferry at the Mackenzie River, it started up river! After a moment of panic we realized it was going up to the village of Tsligehtchi to load a truck.

Finally…..Inuvik. 

This community was built in 1955 as an administration center for the Western Arctic. The government hoped to bring in First Nation people from the outlying islands to provide better services for them. This worked to some extent, but there are lots of abandoned and vandalized housing in the area and the population is now a highly diverse mix of folks. Many of the natives are still in remote villages. It is funny to hear Inuvialuktun young people speaking with a Scottish burr, but this area was explored and settled by a plethora of McDonalds, McKenzies, and McPhearsons.

On Saturday we explored Inuvik; the Farmer’s Market, the Visitor Centre/Museum, all four stores, rode out to look at the new haul road, and made arrangements to fly to Tuktoyakluk on Sunday. Tuk is a small hamlet at the end of the Mackenzie Delta on the Arctic Ocean.  From the air the Delta can be seen spreading in all directions, a wilderness of tundra and lakes. 

At Tuk we took a local bus for a “tour” of the town and a nice long stop at the beach of the Arctic Ocean for the obligatory dip. We both earned the ARCTIC OCEAN TOE DIPPING CERTIFICATE (for having demonstrated courage and bravery in the icy cold waters of the Arctic Ocean ) There are four levels of certification: Butch got level two for Wading but I got level four for ……..guess what?

We returned to Inuvik via boat, a 24’ covered skiff. It took over seven hours but was so special. We stopped twice; at a summer whale hunting camp owned by the guides family and at a long sandy beach, owned by the guide. In both places the beachcombing was beyond astonishing. As far as the eye could see were piles of fabulous driftwood and the beach was covered by tons of marvelous stones and pebbles. Since this is an ancient shore in a mineral-rich region the possibilities for truly great “finds” is very good. One of our group found an almost perfect primitive scrapping tool. There was no doubt of its origin as it was beautifully “worked”.  I picked up what I think is an inferior grade of pale jade. Our guide plans to build a camp on this beach within the next year. I would happily spend a week there.

It was after 2 am when we returned to Inuvik and we had seen the sun “set” and “rise”, which is the same thing at that latitude.  Since we had clouds in the sky, the Arctic Sky was amazing during our boat trip.

At the Arctic Circle

Igloo Church in Inuvik

Our boat for the Arctic Ocean, Mackenzie River trip

After one day on the Dempster Hwy

 

We returned to Dawson City in two days and had an outstanding trip. The views southbound on the Dempster were just as good as those going north so it was like a different experience.  Back in DC, we had to wash down the truck and TT so that we could open the doors and let down the leveling jacks. The mud was like concrete.  We lost the cap to the fresh water tank and a sewer hose. The dinette table pulled loose from the wall and one of the shelves in the ‘fridge cracked. Otherwise, we fared well with our rig.  We went to the Northwest Territories Visitor Center, filled out our paper work and were sworn in as Arctic Adventurers. I will never forget this as long as I live!!!!!!!