Trip Update #7 - The Rest of the Ultimate Road Trip (Alaska,Canada)

It’s nearing the end of July and we had plans to meet Deb’s parents in Anchorage the beginning of August, so we headed south along the smooth (a rarity in AK) Parks Highway. There are several vista points from which it is possible to see Denali if you are lucky enough to have good weather…we weren’t so lucky. We stayed a few nights near the town of Wasilla, which is a fast-growing bedroom community of Anchorage, to visit the Iditarod headquarters and Independence Mine State Historic Site. Wasilla is the official start of the annual sled-dog race that commemorates the delivery of serum to the village of Nome to stem an outbreak of diphtheria. The Independence Mine was a booming gold mining camp high above Wasilla near Hatcher Pass. Despite the pouring rain, we took the self-guided tour of the old mine workings and buildings and found it to be another interesting chapter of Alaska’s rich mining history. There is a lot more to see in and around the Wasilla-Palmer area on our next visit, including a musk oxen farm.

We met Mary and Boyd (Deb’s parents) at the Anchorage airport a few days after settling into the Anchorage RV Park, running errands, and touring Earthquake Park (remembering the landslides wrought by the 1964 Good Friday earthquake). We truly enjoyed the Anchorage RV Park in its beautiful setting and were even visited by a moose and red fox in our campsite…we heard later that it is being converted into condos, which makes you wonder where all these campers are going to stay in the future as Anchorage doesn’t have many other options. The airport had a great exhibit of aerial photographs before and after the quake that were worth a gander as well as a funky light show celebrating the Northern Lights…we figured this was about as much entertainment value you can find at an airport. Mary and Boyd were glad they used some frequent flyer miles to enjoy their first-class cruise from Massachusetts as it was a long trip.

After a great day of sun and relaxing at our Anchorage camp, we boarded the Alaska Railway and rode the rails to the village of Whittier, located on the western edge of Prince William Sound. The train trip was especially memorable and offered incredibly scenic views of Turnagain Arm (Cook Inlet) and took us through a 2.5-mile long tunnel, one of the longest in North America. Once in Whittier we boarded a high-speed catamaran, which zipped us around to 26 tidewater glaciers in the Sound over the course of 4.5 hours, passing by rafts of sea otters, a kittiwake rookery, and many seals and sea-lions. We even were mooned by a group of diehard female kayakers, which seems to be a popular thing to do in Alaska as we were “exposed” to it again on the train ride home. On the trip back, the lady working the dining car on the railroad made the statement “nothing shittier than Whittier”, referring to the typical depressing weather on this part of the Sound, so we felt fortunate to have been blessed with a sunny day. After making it back to Anchorage, we saddled up and headed north to Denali National Park for a second visit so Mary and Boyd could meet the grizzlies up close and personal. We made a lunch stop in Talkeetna, which is probably best known for being the spot from which to launch a climbing expedition of Denali, as well as the inspiration for the TV show Northern Exposure. The average cost of an expedition to climb Denali is around $10,000, so this is definitely a serious proposition. We visited the climbers memorial, which honored those that lost their lives climbing Denali or nearby Mount Foraker. Once at Denali Nat’l Park, Mary and Boyd took the day-long bus excursion into the park, while we opted to drive up to Savage River and go hiking in the light rain. There are few hiking trails in Denali…most hiking is a back-country experience and cross-country, either along gravel stream beds or ridgelines.

From Denali, we headed south again down the Parks Highway, through Anchorage, en route to Seward along the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet. We retraced part of the train trip we had taken a few days earlier, but the scenery was just as good the second time around. Seward is a commercial fishing and tourist town located on Resurrection Bay on the Kenai Peninsula. We weren’t lucky enough to get a clear day in Seward, but we did get a spot in the municipal campground right on the water. We enjoyed watching the tufted puffins at the Alaska Marine Mammal center, and took a trip out to Exit Glacier in adjacent Kenai Fjords National Park to do some hiking. It is amazing how blue the glacial ice is. From Seward we drove to Homer at the other end of the Kenai Peninsula. The king salmon run on the Kenai and Russian Rivers was over several weeks before, so we missed the “combat fishing”, where anglers stand shoulder to shoulder with each other and some bears, too! We camped right on the water on the Homer Spit, a 5-mile long skinny strip of land that extends from the town center out into Kamechak Bay. Mary and Boyd treated us to a couple great meals and Deb and I tried our luck kayak-fishing for silver salmon…unfortunately all we caught was a minnow. Bald eagles were a common sight at Homer…one time Boyd and Marty walked out of the trailer and saw 4 of them together near the infamous “Fishing Hole”. From Homer we cruised back to Anchorage, where we saw Mary and Boyd off at the airport after a great 9-day visit with them. We found the trailer to be quite comfortable for the four of us.

From Anchorage we headed up the Glenn Highway, then south along the Richardson highway en route to Valdez past Worthington Glacier, over a high mountain pass, then down a steep-walled canyon filled with crashing waterfalls…this was a beautiful drive! Valdez is located on Prince William Sound, not far from the epicenter of the 1964 earthquake as well as the not-to-be-forgotten oil spill of the Exxon Valdez. Unfortunately, in the 5 days we spent in Valdez (what some call “Little Switzerland”), we endured several days of biblical rains and didn’t see the sun once. But, hey, other than that, Valdez was great. They do have a great museum with a lot of detailed information regarding the oil spill and the relocation of the town of Valdez in response to the quake. From Valdez we headed north up the Richardson Highway and stopped for a night on the road that leads to the old copper mining towns of Kennicott and McCarthy, which are located inside Wrangell-St. Elias Nat’l Park (the largest Nat’l Park in the U.S.). We debated taking the trip into Kennicott/McCarthy, but only made it as far as Chitina on account of the weather…the road in is relatively long and in our opinion wasn’t worth the effort in rainy drizzle…there’s always next time. The sun came out to play for a few hours in Chitina, located on the Copper River (famous for its sockeye salmon), where we savored some great views of the rotating fish wheels set against a backdrop of the snow-capped Wrangell Mountains.

Up the Richardson Highway and Tok-Cutoff we drove to the crossroads of Tok, which we had hit earlier in our trip. At Tok we rejoined the Alaska Highway, then crossed back into the Yukon Territory. There is something about the Yukon that makes this place special. It seems so less touristy than much of the Alaska we saw, more rustic, more authentic. We especially enjoy the Yukon Government Campgrounds, which are only $12/night and that includes unlimited free seasoned firewood. The only hitch is that you pretty much need to arrive with freshwater in your tanks as the water they supply requires boiling to make it suitable to drink. We stayed a couple nights in a waterfront site on beautiful Kluane Lake near Burwash Landing fishing and dayhiking in nearby Kluane Nat’l Park. Surprisingly, there is a natural history museum in tiny Burwash Landing that will knock your socks off with its incredible northern wildlife displays.

After passing through Haines Junction, we left the Alaska Highway and headed south along the scenic Haines Highway. We crossed back into Alaska and entered the town of Haines. Haines is located on a fjord called Lynn Canal and is drop-dead gorgeous when the sun is out. We dry-camped for 5 nights at the Alaska State Park campground at Chilkoot Lake, about 10 miles north of town. We fished for salmon (only the pinks were running) and caught several, not to mention a tasty little Dolly Varden. Alaskan anglers are more or less indifferent to pink salmon (one of 5 Pacific salmon species and is the most plentiful, though smallest), but we found the fishing fun and the fish were good-eating as well. The kayaking and hiking opportunities in Haines are endless and the wildlife watching is especially good. Every November Haines hosts a bald eagle festival, during which thousands of bald eagles congregate to feed on a late run of spawning salmon. Though we were early for this, we still were able to see quite a few eagles soaring amongst the trees lining the Chilkat River on the way into town. The other river in town, the Chilkoot, is host to grizzly bears, which come down to rivers edge to join fishermen in catching spawning salmon…this was a treat to see. We wanted to take a day trip to Juneau on the “Fjord Express”, but they only have one boat and its driveshaft was broken so we were out of luck on that account…next time.

On Labor Day we took our truck and land yacht on a 1-hour crossing to Skagway via the Alaska Marine Ferry. They charge by the foot, so it gets a bit pricey but it saved us between 300 and 400 miles of wear and tear and drive time, so we thought it was worth it. We were the last one on the ferry because of our length and they had problems closing the door because we were a little longer than what we had stated because of our bike rack…so we had to take the bikes off. We left Haines in the pouring rain and arrived in Skagway in the pouring rain, go figure. Skagway is a cruise-ship town, with between 1 and 4 cruise ships in port at any time. The main street is lined with wooden boardwalks and false-front tourist shops, especially jewelry stores. The big thing to do in Skagway is take the famous White Pass and Yukon Route train ride to Fraser, B.C. They’ve even got it so the train backs up onto the wharf, so cruisers can practically walk right off their ship onto the train. We went on a historic walking tour of the downtown given by the National Park Service and toured the remnants of an old boom town mining camp called Dyea. Skagway was the starting point of the Chilkoot Trail, the route by which many gold-hungry prospectors labored to the Klondike gold fields.

One of the most scenic roads we traveled the entire summer was the South Klondike Highway between Skagway and Carcross. You get to see a lot of the same terrain that the White Pass train trip traverses. We stayed at a couple more Yukon gov’t campgrounds before heading south down the Cassiar Highway and into British Columbia…the Cassiar has to be driven slowly because it is rough, though it is paved except for a few relatively short stretches. We saw a lot of black bear and fox along this route. We stayed at several BC provincial park campgrounds, which were always situated on beautiful lakes. We missed the free firewood, though, that the Yukon campgrounds provided. After a few hundred miles we turned off on the access road to Stewart, B.C. and Hyder, Alaska (saw even more black bear along this road). These two towns are located on the Portland Canal, another fjord. Hyder is renowned for its U.S. Forest Service operated viewing platform where you can watch the black and grizzly bears gorging on the spawning salmon. By the time we got there, a few days after labor day, the salmon run had already been going on several weeks and we did not see any bears…the explanation was that the bears had already had their fill and started to move higher, feeding on less-heavy food such as berries (kind of desert I suppose). Hyder is also near the huge Salmon Glacier…a drive up the access road takes you to several viewpoints above the glacier – this was a unique opportunity to look down on a glacier…usually you’re looking up at one. The last night we were in town we sauntered down to the Glacier Inn and got “Hyder-ized”...this consisted of drinking a shot of 151 proof grain alcohol...what's the challenge of that? They said if you didn’t keep it down you had to buy a round for everyone in the bar. I don’t know if it speaks well for us, but we had no trouble keeping it down. The local tradition had it that area miners, after doing the shot, would tack up a bill on the wall, so that when they returned from the mine broke, they could still afford a drink. The inside of the bar is literally papered with $55,000 worth of bills from all over the world.
Heading south and east, we took the Yellowhead Highway to Prince George, then another highway south, until we turned off on the Sea-to-Sky Highway that takes you to some fantastic mountain scenery on the way to Vancouver. We camped on the banks of the Fraser River in Lilloet, B.C., which is a funky little town with lots of jade monuments, old bridges, and friendly people. We both would have liked to linger here awhile but we had a date in Seattle in a few days. The Sea-to-Sky Highway has some perilously steep grades (up to 15%)…we made a lunch stop to cool the brakes off before the final descent into Pemberton. We camped a few nights at another provincial park a few miles outside of Whistler Village while we slummed around the village shops at the base of the ski area and rode our bikes in the rain on the miles of paved bikepaths about town. Finally, we cruised through the Vancouver area and crossed the border, relinquishing some ground beef and catfood that we had purchased in Canada. The ultimate roadtrip came to a close, 10,000+ miles after we had first crossed from the U.S. into Canada back on June 1st. This will be a summer we’ll never forget. There was so much we didn’t see, even in 3-1/2 months, that we both look forward to the day when we can travel to the remarkable northland again.