Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Alaskan Roadtrip! Day 7 June 29th, 2012


A few days earlier, while driving through the Canadian Rockies, I commented that Alaska would have to try pretty hard to impress us with scenery. Well, the Richardson Highway to Valdez did just that. With Hundreds of waterfalls and dozens of lakes, glaciers and beautiful vistas, it is easy to see why this is known as one of the most scenic highways in the country. The wonderful weather we had certainly helped too. We were even lucky enough to spot a mama grizzly and her cub wander a river bed from a nearby bluff.

Once we got into Valdez, we hemmed and hawed a bit about where to camp. We finally settled on Valdez Glacier Campground, just outside of town and were very happy with the decision. While it didn’t have laundry, it did have an excellent thing, free showers! We ended up finding a Laundromat just down the road so it all worked out. The campground even had a waterfall that fell right into it! After doing our laundry, we drove into town with a couple of MRE’s and ate dinner by the ferry landing along the water. A perfect end to a great day.
          

Alaskan Roadtrip! Day 6 June 28th, 2012


Finally getting into Alaska!
Though obviously we enjoyed our time in Canada, the real goal of our trip was, of course, Alaska. Today would also be our first real experience with frost heave. With my light weight trailer, it was a lot smoother than for folks with bigger rigs which meant I passed a lot of people while going through the Yukon today.

We saw more bears today, a mama grizzly and two cubs plus several cinnamon bears, black bears with brown coats. There was also a moose we spotted standing in a river near the Alaskan border. Before we got to the border, we had to pass Kluane Lake, the largest lake in the Yukon. Also a very scenic tundra like area, it had lots of frost heave and plenty of construction work going on trying to fix it.

Eventually, we got to the border. After a few quick questions, we were allowed to enter Alaska! We were so elated we didn’t even stop at the sign to commemorate the event. We did however stop at a viewpoint to have dinner, where we got RAINED on, soaking us a bit but also providing us with a wonderful rainbow.

We got as far as Tok River, where we took advantage of the cell phone service after maintaining radio silence for the previous three and a half days. It was good to know everybody back home was surviving without us.
                      

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Alaskan Roadtrip! Day 5 June 27th, 2012


After a wonderful (free) shower to start off our morning, we paid for the previous nights stay the hit the road. We had a wonderfully scenic day ahead of us as we would be crossing back through the northern Canadian Rockies on our way west.

The highway first took us north towards Fort Nelson, crossing the Muskwa River, the lowest point on the Alaska Highway at 1000 feet. There we gassed up, got more ice and continued west, first along the Muskwa River before climbing around Steamboat Mountain. The highway then drops down and follows the Tetsa River as it climbs to it’s head at Summit Lake, in Stone Mountain Provincial Park. This is at Summit pass, the highest point on the Alaska Highway at 4250 feet.

We’d been warned we might see stone sheep on the highway in this area and sure enough we passed a male, then a few curves later, a female and lamb, all just hanging out on the road. Just a few miles further, we pulled over along with several other travelers to watch a moose cow drinking from the river below us.

Then we started seeing bears. First one crossed the road in front of the car in front of us, then we started seeing them munching on the grass on the shoulder. By the end of the day we’d seen 13 black bears, plus a mama grizzly and her two cubs just before we crossed into the Yukon Territory. We also saw easily 40 bison in the Liard hot springs area, mostly hanging out on the shoulder.

The scenery along the Rockies was absolutely spectacular, huge mountains, blue rivers and wildlife galore! By the end of the day, I was wondering if Alaska would be able to impress us after this spectacular highway through the Rockies.

One final stop for the day, was the Watson Lake Sign Forest, in Watson Lake, YT. Started by Carl Lindley in 1942 during construction of the Alaska Highway, visitors have been adding signs ever since. It is said that are more than 70,000 signs here today. We brought along a sign that was signed by members of NAXJA at Northwest Fest the previous weekend.

Our campsite our last night in Canada ended up being Big Creek, east of Teslin. Our favorite thing about this campground was that it had absolutely free firewood, pre-cut into rounds for the campers. We may eve stop there again on our way back, just because of the free firewood.



                        

Friday, July 13, 2012

Alaskan Roadtrip! Day 4 June 26th, 2012

We got off to a better start on our fourth day on the road. No more rain fell overnight and the tent was dry when we packed it up. We were also fortunate to have a warm bathroom with running water to clean up in before we left. We stopped in Williams Lake to get more Canadian money and have a recommended breakfast at Tim Horton’s and, of course, gas, then continued north to Prince George, where we got ice, gas and a phone card. We wandered the “strip” for a while, looking for a pay phone to use before decided to just use on in “the next town.” That actually turned into a bit of an ordeal and we didn’t find one until Fort St. John, late in the evening. The night before, in camp, we decided it would be worth it to drive a few more miles in order to go through Dawson Creek and visit Mile “0” of the Alaska Highway. It was definitely a good decision as it allowed us to cross the Canadian Rockies twice. There was amazing scenery as we crossed the continental divide before traversing a good amount of Canadian prairie coming into Dawson Creek. We also saw our first black bear, an adult grazing in grass along the highway. We wasted little time in Dawson Creek before turning west, hoping to find some trees to camp near. We stopped briefly in Fort Ns John to use the payphone then had dinner a few miles west of there before continuing on, looking for camp. First we tried the Sasquatch, which seemed run down and fairly exposed to the wind, then Pink Mountain, which didn’t seem to have a campground as much as a large gravel lot next to the gas pumps. No thanks. Finally, at the bottom of suicide hill, we crossed the Sikanni Chief River and found a small campground, complete with laundry and free showers. This was our first real experience with the late night sun as at 10:40pm it was still plenty light out. This was also the first time we would see an interesting Mercedes bus/coach/camper. The front half was seats while the back half was some sort of dormitory/sleeping area. It had 15-20 passengers and seemed pretty self-contained. A very cool rig indeed and the first of many we would see multiple times on the road.
      

Alaskan Roadtrip! Day 3 June 25th, 2012


The plan for Monday was to get into Canada, then cover some good ground towards Alaska. Chopaka Lake is located just a few miles from the Nighthawk border crossing so it was an easy choice to cross there. Additionally I had hopes of the crossing going quickly since it is the quietest border crossing in Washington.
Unfortunately, the guards see it a different way. Namely, since it’s a quiet crossing, they have more time to be thorough. Apparently two brothers (with short hair) on an adventure together is suspicious enough to warrant a search of our persons, the Jeep and the trailer. After 45 minutes and, of course, them not finding anything, we were allowed to repack our gear and go on our way.

The first stop in BC would be Merritt, where we would first hit up an ATM (ATB in Canada) for some Canadian money then a gas station. Before we went in to use the ATB, I decided to fire up my laptop to take advantage of the Wi-Fi from the Starbucks next door. In the middle of a Google Voice call with my mom, the screen went white. After tinkering with the computer some, I came to the conclusion that there was some sort of physical defect causing the issued with my laptop, something I wouldn’t be able to take care of on the road.

Great. All the planning I’d done, all on my computer. At least I’d be able to access my email on phone to review our reservations. We would later pick up a calling card and call home to request the delivery of Keegan’s laptop to us in Seward. The very laptop I’d determined unnecessary before we’d hit the road, "because we'll have mine."

 The next issue, we headed into the gas station to get cash from the ATB only to discover that it was out of order due to a power spike earlier in the day. Unfortunately, this meant a nearly 40 mile detour to another ATB in Kamloops, putting us even further behind schedule.

After running around southern BC for several hours, and seeing our first moose, a calf running along the highway, we eventually pulled into 100 Mile House to look for a campground. We found a pleasant municipal campground but decided we could just keep going as it was still fairly early (7pm) We opened the trusty milepost and settled on Lac La Hache Provincial Park, another half hours drive north.

As we got into the area, we noticed lightning to the west. We found a camp site in the campground, dropped the trailer then headed for the day use area alongside the lake to watch the storm and enjoy dinner. Rain soon moved into the area but died down for the night by the time we got around to setting up camp.


Alaskan Roadtrip! Day 2 June 24th, 2012


I was woken briefly at around 5am to a small passing thunderstorm before falling back to sleep for a few more hours. Lucky for us, when we woke up around 930, the rain had stopped and we quickly packed up camp before things got wet.

After saying our goodbyes, we headed east, picking up supplies and gassing up in Yakima. We turned north, traveling through territory we’d only seen once or twice in our life

We grabbed a delicious lunch at Campus U-Tote-Em in Ellensburg then continued northward. We checked out a few scenic viewpoints along the way but mostly stuck to driving on hwy 97.
We got fuel in Omak before turning NW onto Pine Creek road, crossing over |HILLS| into Sinlahekin Valley. It was a beautiful valley with spectacular vistas overlooking many lakes, sandwiched between huge mountains.

Eventually we got to Loomis, where we headed uphill to Chopaka Lake. Touted as one of the premier trout lakes in Washington, it takes a bit of work to get there, with the road clinging to a steep mountainside as it climbs over 1,000 feet in the first mile. The road continues to climb as it weaves through the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest on its way to the lake.

I was utterly surprised at how many people were camped at the lake on a Sunday night. At least 20 other groups were camped in the side-by-side BLM and USFS campgrounds. We choose the FS campground  because of the picnic tables. Another thing that surprised me was the abundance of bird life at Chopaka Lake. I’d never personally witnessed so many different birds in such a small area before. The evening air was alive with the calls of different species. Truly amazing!


This was the last night we’d really be able to see the stars and boy were they spectacular. The combination of high elevation and us being far from any light pollution mean we could easily see the milky way and other normally invisible stars.

We also had our first MRE’s that I’d pack. The first meals were satisfactory and novelty was pretty great. That would definitely wear off soon enough…



            

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Alaskan Roadtrip! Day 1 June 23rd, 2012

An adventure!

Reading Into the Wild for the umpteenth time, my yearning for an adventure was at a boiling point. I made a deal with Keegan, my brother, if he graduated high school in June as planned, we would take an epic road trip to Alaska.

The planning began at once. First, I formulated a basic route, the i started researching specific places to go. ExPo was a huge help in that area as it gave me numerous perspectives from people who'd actually done the trip. I started adding must-visit destinations to the itinerary and pretty soon, we had a plan! necessary reservations were made, a departure date was set, supplies were purchased and a to-do-before-we-go list was created.

Keegan graduated on time (yay) as expected and our "hit the road" date arrived!

Our goal on day one was Long Meadow in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and home to Northwest Fest, NAXJA's annual Northwest Chapter big wheeling run and campout. 

Because of my dislike of interstate freeways and constant sense of adventure, I decided I wanted to take a back route towards central Washington. Looking at the map, I found a route from Woodland, WA around the south and east sides of Mt Saint Helens via SR 503 to FS-25 then FS-90. Unfortunately, I didn't do enough research and we discovered the road was still blocked by snow, only after driving 38 miles up into the mountains.

So, we turned around and headed back down to I-5 and headed north, turning off onto highway 12. We followed that up to Packwood then turned north on hwy 123 to hwy 410, cutting through Mt Rainer National Park. The scenery over the pass, the highest we would traverse on our trip at 5,400 feet, was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, because of low clouds, we couldn't see the mountains that surrounded us.

Since we were about to drive thousands of miles, we decided against wheeling, instead showing up the final night for the annual BBQ and raffle to benefit the NWC. Chapter President Darren's wife Brenda made delicious tacos while newly appointed treasurer, known only as TORX ran the raffle.

Keegan and I each put in $20 to the cause. Sadly, Keegan didn't win anything, though I walked away with some Flowmaster swag and a 25% off coupon from ARB! We also got goodie bags loaded with stickers, key chains and other good stuff. Darren was gracious enough to give Keegan and I some leftover swag to drop in Geocaches along the way.

After a fun (and late) evening around the campfire, we hit the sack shortly before the rain started (and the sun came up) along with some distant thunder in the distant. Not a bad ending to our first day.