We survived ( for the most part) driving the Alaska Highway….

We traveled the entire length of the Alaska Highway– 1,422 miles and we still have 750 miles to go to get back to the lower 48 from Dawson Creek, BC to Glacier National Park in Montana!

The end of our 1.422 mile journey on the Alaska Highway. We started at the north end and ended at the southern most point!

 

Our first stop along the highway was Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory and then a side trip to Skagway in SE Alaska. There’s lots of gold rush history in both towns. The stampeeders traveled through Skagway and then Whitehorse to get to Dawson City where gold was discovered. Out of 100,000 who started the journey to the Klondike, only 30,000 made it there and only about 400 struck it rich. Not great odds for the sacrifices they made to get there but fascinating stories about that period in history!

 

Our next big stop was Watson Lake also in the Yukon Territory. It’s known for the sign post forest. There are over 70,000 signs that people have posted there. It all started in 1942 when a homesick serviceman who was working on building the Alaska Highway posted a sign for his town in Indiana. It’s fascinating to see where people are from that have traveled the highway – literally all over the world! We added our sign to the thousands already there – it was fun to be a part of the long standing tradition! About 3,000 signs are added every year!

 

Laird Hot Springs was a really special treat that we stopped at along the highway. We camped in a provincial park and relaxed in the natural hot springs that were nestled in the forest at the end of a boardwalk. What a treat to be in a natural Jacuzzi!

 

We saw some beautiful mountains and lakes and encountered bison, stone sheep, elk, a lynx, foxes, coyote and moose along the highway.

 

But the journey down the highway wasn’t all rosy. Poor Rose had lots of rocks thrown at her by the passing trucks – she was able to dodge most of them but THREE of the rocks hit her right in her windshield..what a bummer!

Highlights:

• Learning all about the 1898 gold rush in Whitehorse and Skagway

All that's left of a gold rush town with 10,000 people in 1898

Gold Rush cemetary

Sternwheeler that delivered stampeeders and their supplies to Dawson City

 

• Watching a brown bear fishing for salmon

Click on the arrow to see the brown bear catching a salmon. A very good fisherman!

 

• Posting our sign at the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake

 

• Relaxing in Laird Hot Springs – so natural

• Wildlife along the highway

 

Next stops:

  

We’re hoping the roads ahead are kinder to Rose ( and us)!  Next stops are the Canadian Rockies to see Lake Louise again ( it was frozen over in May) and then on to Glacier National Park in Montana - back in the lower 48 ( or as the Alaskans say - outside)!

 

Ice Trucker's Highway to the Arctic Circle

We traveled 200 miles north of Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle on “the Ice Truckers Highway”. The road was a bumpy gravel road that is primarily used by truckers to haul freight to and from the pipeline at Prudhoe Bay. Our driver and guide is actually an ice trucker in the winter so we found out about what it’s really like to drive the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay when it’s 50 below zero…. They have to find a level spot to park because they can’t apply their breaks because their breaks will freeze and – they can’t turn their engines off for their entire trip because they won’t start up again in the cold! Plus – they aren’t really in danger of the truck falling through the ice – it’s only 2 feet deep!

 We stayed at the Walmart in Fairbanks for 6 nights – a record length of stay at a Walmart for us. We were hoping to see the northern lights but the only lights we saw were the lights in the Walmart parking lot! Fairbanks has lots of things to do so we stayed really busy while we were there plus we got to see our friends Joni and Rod that we went clamming with on the Kenai Peninsula!

It gets so cold in Fairbanks that companies like Walmart provide electircal outlets  (on the orange posts) for employees to plug in a heater in their car to keep the engine, transmission and battery from freezing!

Molly showing off her Husky Wanna Be kerchief from Walmart! It's her souvenir from Alaska......She's still practicing to be a sled dog!

After Fairbanks, we started our journey south on the Alaska Highway . We will drive the entire length of the highway 1,422 miles plus another 400 miles to get back into the lower 48! We had planned to drive back through Chicken, Alaska and Dawson City – destination of the 1898 gold rush stampede but the road past Chicken to Dawson City was washed out by mud slides and closed “indefinitely”. So, instead, we took a side trip to Chicken - we just had to see it. It’s a quirky little gold rush town where people are still prospecting for gold.  It’s 66 miles off the main highway and there’s no water, electricity or phones in Chicken – the summer population is 40 and in the winter it drops to 15! It was named Chicken because the miners who lived there couldn’t spell Ptarmigan which is the name of the state bird and the name they wanted to use for the town. We were tempted to stay in Chicken and prospect for gold ourselves with the price of gold now but winters on its way and we're headed south!

 

 

Our campsite on our way south…..a sunset over the Kenworth truck that was next to where we were parked! Oh how we wish for the campsite at Deep Creek with the view of the volcanoes and the ocean lapping at Rose’s tires!!

Our Alaska adventure is sadly coming to an end , we can’t believe we’ve been up here almost 3 months! We have one more stop in Skagway and then we travel almost 1,800 miles through Canada to get back to the “lower 48” where we plan to visit a few more national parks before we “high tail it” home!

Highlights of Fairbanks:

• Trip to the Arctic Circle

• Getting together with Joni and Rod again

• Panning for gold – we got $44 worth. At least it paid for our tour of the goldmine that day!

Click on the arrow to see a prospector wanna be panning for gold!

• Riverboat trip on an old sternwheeler. We saw Susan Butcher's sled dogs and a recreation of an old Athabascan indian village

Click on the arrow to see Susan Butcher's sled dogs in action

• Trip to North Pole Alaska to ask Santa to be extra special to our granddaughters Emmy and Lyla

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  Picking high bush cranberries on the way to Chena Hot Springs

Next stop Whitehorse, Yukon Territory and Skagway Alaska!

The mountain was out!!!!

We spent 9 days around the area of Mt McKinley – 3 days in Denali State Park and Talkeetna and 6 days in the national park. On our 5th day the clouds finally parted and the mountain was out in all it’s glory at 10:30 in the evening – what a beautiful sight! It towers over all of the other mountains in the Alaska range. It is 20,320 feet high. 18,000 people have attempted to climb the mountain – 60% succeed. 1% die trying. On the average it takes 2-3 weeks to climb the mountain. In the early 1900’s it took 3-6 months and sometimes longer than a year. 1,200 climbers attempt to climb the mountain each year.

 

 

 

 

 

We stayed at a campground in the national park for 6 nights and attended the campfire programs each night, guided ranger hikes, several hikes on our own and took a shuttle bus 85 miles into the park to wonder lake. The shuttle bus is one of the best ways to see the wildlife and we saw quite a lot – grizzly bears, moose, caribou, dall sheep, fox and arctic ground squirrels. The grizzly bears were busy eating the berries that ripen this time of year. There are signs of fall everywhere and it’s just the start of August –leaves are turning colors and the bears are eating berries all day long putting on weight for the long winter. They eat 200,000 berries a day – it doesn’t seem possible to eat that much in one day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Highlights:

 

• Campfire programs each night and hikes in the park

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Seeing

• Seeing Mt McKinley

   

Wildlife in Denali National Park

 

 

 

Click on the arrow to see the grizzly bear

Click on the arrow to see the BIG caribou running toward the bus!

Click on the arrow to see the dall sheep drinking from the river

 

 

 

Click on the arrow to see the trumpeter swan eating grass in the lake

 

 

 

Next stop: Fairbanks and the Arctic Circle!

 

Sea otters, whales and galciers in Seward!

Seward is our last stop on the Kenai peninsula. Seward was one of our favorite stops when we visited Alaska 23 years ago as a family with our son Drew. It was fun to think back on that magical trip as a family – our first time to Alaska – and first time to see glaciers, icebergs, eagles, grizzly bears, moose, caribou and all of the other special things about Alaska! One of the glaciers we had hiked to in Seward 23 years ago has retreated over a third of a mile in 23 years! It was amazing how different it looked!

We were lucky enough to get another campsite right on the sea! It has a great view of Resurrection Bay, surrounded by snow capped mountains – it is so pretty we decided to stay a week instead of just 4 nights! We saw sea otters, seals and dall porpoise swimming right by our campsite every day! What a thrill it was to watch the sea otters diving for sea urchins and starfish right in front of our campsite!

Klick on the arrow to see the video of the sea otters!

We also were fortunate that Beth and Dick - our new friends we met in Homer- joined us at the campground for a few days. They invited us over for a delicious fresh caught halibut dinner! What a delight to see them again!!

Our campground was at mile 0 of the Iditarod Trail. Molly was so inspired by the story of the Iditarod and how the dogs helped deliver medicine to children in Nome that she has decided to train to be a sled dog! She practiced running in the park every day! Molly is also practicing her driving skills so she can help with the driving in Rose on the way back home. We still have 6,000 miles to go before we get back home!

Click on the arrow to see Molly practicing for the Iditarod race!

Highlights:

• Seeing Exit glacier again – 23 years later

• An 8 mile hike to the Harding Icefield - a black bear along the trail, marmots and a fantastic view of the Icefield

Click on the arrow to see the video of the balck bear we "met" on the trail!

Click on the arrow to see the video of the marmot on the Ice fields Trail

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  Boat trip to the Kenai Fjord National Park – whales, puffins, sea otters, sea lions and beautiful scenery

Click on the arrow to see the video of the humpback whale!

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  Camping right on Resurrection Bay

Click on the arrow to see the video of the sea otters from our campsite!

Next stop: Denali State Park and Denali National Park