We traveled the Glenn Highway from Wrangell National Park through the mountains to Wasilla where we celebrated the fourth of July in Sarah Palin's home town– just outside Anchorage. The traffic is getting much heavier and we are seeing LOTS more RVs than we have seen before – summer travel appears to be in full swing in Alaska! It seems that many Alaskans celebrate the fourth of July by camping and riding their 4 wheel ATVs – we’ve never seen so many people pulling a trailer with 4 wheel ATVs on it – at least 2 and sometimes as many as 4 on one trailer!
We celebrated Fourth of July in Sarah Palin’s home town….
We celebrated the fourth of July in Wasilla. They had a good old fashioned home town parade and a picnic afterwards. No sign of Sarah though and as hard as we tried – we couldn’t see Russia from Wasilla ! The weather was about 50 degrees at 11am when the parade started – pretty chilly for the fourth of July! Some of the spectators had on jackets and winter hats while others wore shorts ( just pretending it’s summer)! We still have to turn our heat on at night and have worn jackets almost every day since we left home on May 10! The fireworks shows in Alaska are on July 3rd because they have to wait until after 12 midnight when it’s a little darker – it’s still not dark enough to see them very well though! Amazing the differences from the lower 48!
Our most unusual camping experience yet!
We camped in Portage Valley at a very lovely and quiet campground in the national forest. At least we thought it would be quiet! We took a walk with Molly around the campground only to discover the campground is on a major fault line, in an avalanche zone, right below a mountain with a hanging glacier and bear alert and bear danger signs posted around the campground. Risk takers that we are – we decided to stay anyway!
We stayed four nights without an earthquake or an avalanche but we did have an encounter with a bear!!!
All was peaceful the first night. On our second night all of a sudden we heard several car horns honking simultaneously …then all of a sudden the family in the pop up camper across from us came rushing out of the camper, jumped in their car and drove off. We were wondering what was going on and then we saw the bear…. It was a big black bear that had obviously smelled some really good food around their campsite. We saw the bear walking around the camper and then the bear stood on it’s back legs and looked in the screen window of the camper – just like in a movie! The family must have gone to get the campground manager – he drove up and yelled at the bear – the bear ran off but came back again several more times. Finally the bear left and didn’t come back that night but the family in the pop up didn’t come back either. Thankfully the people and the bear were not harmed – it was so entertaining – who needs a DVD to watch!
The drama wasn’t over yet……
The next night the campground manager and a state trooper drove up to the campsite. The manager knocks at our door and warns us that we may hear gun shots that evening because the state trooper is going to try to lure the bear back to the campsite with food and shoot it. We were so upset – how could they do that to the bear – we’re in his home. Fortunately it started pouring rain and got really windy so the state trooper left – the bear was spared, thank goodness. The next morning we went to the national forest office and talked to the manager, expressing our concern about what was going to happen to the bear. She explained that is was another agency that controls what happens in this type of situation but she agreed to call them and talk to them about possibly relocating the bear instead of shooting it. Well – we don’t know what the outcome will be for the bear but we do know that the state trooper did not come back the next night and the forest service put up a notice at the campground about keeping food in a bear proof container, not in a soft sided camper or tent. So….we hope the bear will have a good, long life deep in the woods somewhere eating salmon and berries!
Highlights of Wasilla/Palmer area:
• Experiencing Fourth of July celebrations in Alaska
• Hatcher Pass and the Independence mine
• Visiting the headquarters for the Iditarod race
Highlights of Portage Valley:
• The bear encounter at the campground
Click on the arrow to see the bear looking for food at the campsite
• Moose in the campground
• Portage Valley with 6 glaciers visible in the mountains surrounding the valley
• Forest service whistle stop train ride through the back country to Grandview – beautiful scenery
Next stops: The Kenai River – famous for salmon fishing and Ninilchik on the Kenai coast – famous for halibut fishing and razor clamming and also views across Cook Inlet to the active volcanoes – Mt Redoubt and Mt Illiamna….
