North to Alaska - Valdez

It was so quiet last night it was almost eerie. When we awoke around 7am it was still clear, not a cloud in the sky. To the right of Mt. Sanford was Mt Drum at 12,010 ft. In the morning it's not unusual to see a bear in your campground. We weren't so lucky. Just another beautiful snow capped mountain to look at.



This is Gakona Lodge and Trading Post. It was built in 19o4 and was an essential stop for travelers between Valdez and Fairbanks. It's on the National Register of Historical Places. They had a great collection of Indian made moccasins, jewelry and clothing.



The Alaska Pipeline you see below, was begun in 1975 and completed in 1977.The construction employed over 30,000 employees and was the largest and most expensive privately funded construction ever undertaken. Today it's owned by BP, Conoco/Phillips, Exxon/Mobil, Unocal and Koch Alaska. It's 4 ft in diameter and travels though 3 mountain ranges where the crude oil is loaded into tankers in Valdez.

The road to Valdez travels through the mountains via a long 8% grade road to the top of the pass before descending down into Valdez. On the climb to the pass we traveled alongside the Worthington Glacier. If you click on the picture you can see 4 hikers traversing the glacier.

The road down from the pass was actually worse than the climb up. We engaged the exhaust brake on the motorhome and were able to keep our speed around 35mph with limited use of our brakes. Without the exhaust brake we would have quickly picked up speed and burnt out the brakes trying to slow down on our 40,000 lb. monster.

On the way down we stopped to check out this waterfall alongside the road.

Kathy couldn't resist her urge to climb partially up this waterfall. Of course I had to follow her to document this feat.

We pulled in Valdez around 2pm this afternoon with the sun shinning and a temperature of 67 degrees, 6 degrees over their average for June. Tomorrow we'll either drive to the glacier to experience it first hand or take a cruise around Prince William Sound.

North to Alaska - Christochina River

We crossed into Alaska from the Yukon this morning. It certainly was a welcome site especially the smooth highway. As I mentioned yesterday the road has been absolutely terrible.



It's pouring down raining this morning and the temperature is about 60 degrees. We stopped at the Visitors Center for Tetlin National Refuge Center pictured below. The park is the site of the spring migration of trumpeter swans from as far away as S. America.



Even in the pouring rain we continue to see bicyclists along the Alaska Highway. In this group we saw 3 riders spaced 1/2 mile apart.

We stopped for lunch at Fast Eddy's in Tok during a break in the rain. It's the most popular place in town with great food. After a drive around the city visiting some of the Indian craft shops we decided to move on towards Valdez. Luckily the rain began to break and some more great views came into site.

Be sure to click on this picture to enlarge it. The snow covered mountains jumped out at us as we rounded the next bend.

We found a great spot to make camp for the evening. In the Canadian and Alaskan wilderness areas, it's permissible to camp in pull off areas just off the highway. There was absolutely not a soul in sight. We didn't venture too far from our camp for fear of the bears in the area. After the rain stopped and the clouds cleared we had a beautiful view of Mt. Sanford 16,237 ft.

We're getting close to the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Although the sun sets around 11:00 and rises at about 4am it never gets very dark. You could read a book or play baseball all night long. This picture was taken at 10:30pm.

North to Alaska - Beaver Creek

We left Whitehorse around 9am this morning. This next section of the road has a lot of frost heaves. The glacier soil holds lots of water and in the winter it freezes as far as 200ft deep. This is called "perma-frost". In the summer, the top foot or two melts. This freezing/thawing causes tremendous frost heaves in the road. Some of the heaves raise the blacktop roads as much as a foot or more. This reeks havoc on the smooth road surface. Travel over this 200 mile section sometimes slows to 15mph and speeds over 35mph are not recommended. Many of the sections are under a state of constant repair. Some of the gravel sections are as long as 25 miles.

None the less, the scenery is still spectacular. This is the St. Elias Mountain Range, Canada's highest and the world's largest nonpolar alpine ice field.



Here is a neat old time bridge built over Canyon Creek. Is was originally built in 1920, then rebuilt in 1942 by the Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Alcan. In 1987, the Yukon government refurbished it, and it's still in use today. Not with our motorhome at 40,000lbs.



We called it quits after about 220 miles of dodging frost heaves. The town of Beaver Creek, our camp site for the evening boasts a population of 112. It's one of the bigger towns we saw today.

North to Alaska - Whitehorse 3

Whitehorse's downtown area is very nice. Lots of unique stores and restaurants. You will recall from a previous post that Whitehorse has a population of 24,000 and represents well over 1/2 of the entire territory's population. Yet they seem to have everything they need including a Walmart and a 2 McDonalds.



Sternwheelers, like the one here were used to ferry goods and people from Whitehorse to Dawson City more than 100 years ago. This one was recently restored and placed on the Yukon's historic registry.



The steam powered ship would burn a cord of wood per hour to power its huge paddle wheel. Strategically located along the river were huge stores of wood to replenish their wood supplies.



In addition to hauling goods there where 15 first class cabins that could accommodate the passengers that could afford the $35 fare. Second class passengers would often barter with the captain to sleep on one the folding cots on the freight deck. They were not allowed in first class areas.



Kathy liked the upper deck because of the view it afforded. She said she'd love to take a trip on one of the paddle wheelers that navigate the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers.



Later that afternoon we decided to get some exercise and ride the great bike trail that runs around the city. We took a tour of the fish ladder that the salmon climb each year to lay their eggs in their natal home upstream.



We headed over to Boston Pizza this evening to catch some diner and watch the Boston Bruins win the final game of the Stanley Cup. There were 6 of us rooting for the Bruins. The other 200 were Vancouver Canuck fans. We survived!!!

Thursday we are going to continue on "North to Alaska".

North to Alaska - Whitehorse 2

We headed back to Whitehorse this morning because there were a number of things we wanted to do but didn't get a chance to do on our one day visit.



One of the attractions that was both interesting and informative was the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center. Beringia is a sub continent that existed during the last Ice Age. It existed because the glaciers, 26,000 years ago absorbed a great deal of the oceans water. This loss of water resulted in the level of the ocean dropping 400ft. When this occurred, a grassy tundra appeared connecting Siberia and Alaska.



Kathy decided to feed one of the extinct ice age animals.

Following the exhibits, we tried our hand at using an "Atlatl to throw a spear. It was used in prehistoric times to fell large animals. It's basically a stick with a hook on the end that inserts into the end of the spear. The thrower used the stick to hurl the spear long distances with great velocity.

This evening we headed down to take in the "Frantic Follies". It's a vaudeville review with dancing girls, singing and slapstick comedy. Of course we sat in the front row of this 500 person theater. The cruise ships bus in a hundred passengers each day to take in this popular show.

It wasn't just girls dancing. These guys and gals could play a mean fiddle.

Gary is pictured here with the star of the show. She sang, danced, played several instruments and was a pretty good comedian too.

Remember to enlarge any picture. Simply place your curser over it and click. To return to standard size - press Escape.

North to Alaska - Skagway

We're on our way to Skagway this morning. It's about a 90 mile detour off the Alaska Highway down to the coast. There is only one road into Skagway. And as you can see from the picture below the scenery is great.



We came across this lake, pictured below, and thought the various colors of blue were really neat.

(Click on picture to enlarge, hit escape to go back)

About 2/3 into the drive, we crossed into the state of Alaska. If you look just to the left of Kathy's shoulder you can see the road as it winds down the mountain. The road heads down for 11.5 miles with a twisty turning 11 percent grade. It makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. There are truck run away ramps all along the route.

This bridge is near the top of our descent.

The town of Skagway is very quaint. Many of the buildings were erected near the turn of the 19th century at the height of the Alaska Gold Rush. During that 2 year time frame over 100,000 people showed up here to start their journey to Dawson City to strike it rich. In the end only 30,000 made it over the 500 mile mountainous route to Dawson City. The other 70,000 turned back.

One of the reasons Skagway was a jumping off point for the gold rush was it's deep water port. Today this port is used by 2-3 cruise ships on a daily basis as they bring upwards of 8,000 passengers a day to wander through the many shops.

A beautiful waterfall is only a short hike into the mountains near the town.

On the hike to the waterfall, you pass the cemetery that was used during the gold rush era. The gravestone here is Frank Reid's, a Skagway civil servant that got into a gun fight with Soapy Smith, a local con man. One of his scams was to sell people telegraph service for their message for $5. No telegraph existed in Skagway.

Of course the drive back was just as beautiful.

Originally we had planned to stay in Skagway for a couple of days. We were going to take the old time train for a day trip to the top of the mountain. After talking to the guide in the visitors center, he said the train pretty much followed the road route we had taken and that the drive was just as spectacular. We saw all we wanted to see by 8 that evening and headed to Carcross to make our camp for the evening.

The days are getting longer and longer here. There is only about 4 hours of darkness and it's more like twilight.

North to Alaska - Whitehorse

We broke camp early this morning and headed for Whitehorse. Our "Milepost" magazine told us to look at a certain mile marker for a group of rock formations that spelled our various messages. It was started by the the Ft. Nelson swimming team taking a "P-Break". Now there are over 15 miles of messages written along the road.

We really got a taste of the gravel roads today. These gravel sections are areas that have had severe frost heaves occur over the winter. The road crews rip out the bad sections, sometimes 20-30 miles long and replace them with temporary gravel roads. If a vehicle is in front of you, the dust can be so bad that you can't see the vehicle ahead of you. This section was about 8 miles long. It's not rough but you can't drive much over 30mph.

The vast majority of the peaks along road still have snow on them.

We stopped for a mid-morning break at the Continental Divide Lodge and Store. All the water from the east side of the the Northern Rockies Mountains flow north 2650 miles and empties into the Arctic Ocean. The water from the west side flows 2300 miles to the Bearing Sea.

The largest water span on the Alaska Highway is the Nisutlin Bay Bridge ( click on photo to enlarge). It is over 1900 ft long and takes you into the town of Teslin with the largest population of native people in the Yukon Territory.

We arrived in Whitehorse around 3pm this afternoon. It's the largest city in the Yukon with a whooping population of 24,041. It's really an interesting city with lots of history we'll explore later in the week. We are only staying here over night but will return after our 2-3 day side trip to Skagway. This evening we did a little shopping at the supermarket. Boy is it expensive to live here. Milk is $5/gallon, sliced cheese is $11 and gas is almost $6/gallon.

North to Alaska - Watson Lake - Yukon

Before heading out today we decided to install our new stone shield. We had heard that the Alaska Highway from this point on has numerous gravel sections. This shield will protect the jeep from rocks being thrown up by the motorhome. Unfortunately there are no guards for our motorhome windshield. Both sides of our windshield have rock damage. In both cases a rock was thrown from a large truck heading the opposite direction.



The trees throughout Canada are some of the tallest I have seen. Here is a grouping of Aspen trees that grow to 60+ feet.

The Black bears are very shy. Here is a photo of one running from our motorhome as we pulled off the road. But they will attack if threatened and at 500-700 lbs I wouldn't want to tangle with one.

Just like in other forests there are forest fires that occur throughout this vast wilderness. Here is one section where the fire jumped the highway and shut it down for a day.

We entered the Yukon Territory around 10am this morning. In square miles it's larger than all the New England states combined but with a total population of less than 35,000.

We decided to make it a short day today and stop in Watson Lake. It's the second largest city in the Yukon with a population of 1,500. Our next possible stop was over 4 hours away and we didn't want to push it. We're on vacation. One of Watsons Lake's claim to fame is the Sign Post Forrest. It was started by a guy from Danville, Ill. in 1942 when he erected a sign commemorating his home town. It started a trend and today there are over 71,000 hometown signs from all over the world

We are staying at the Downtown RV park. It has lots of amenities, like cable TV, sporadic Internet and an expensive laundry. Unfortunately the camping area is nothing more than a large gravel lot with electrical/water/sewer connection between each motorhome. Following dinner we took in a movie about the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) shown in an Imax type theater.