Map of our Alaska Trip

Not all the stops are shown on this map but it traces our major stops both up and back - 9895 miles!

Our 2016 Alaska Trip

We're Home

Tuesday, July 19, 2016  Start: Fillmore, Utah  End:  Scottsdale, Arizona

After 66 days and 9895 miles, we are back home!  We slept well after a relaxing day in Fillmore and woke to a cool morning in Utah.

flower garden in Fillmore, UT

Original territorial capital building of Utah

Fillmore UT capital park

 The ride through Bryce Canyon and Kanab whetted my appetite for stark red desert mountains and far-reaching vistas. We stopped for lunch at Glen Canyon Dam, just like we had done on the way out, 66 days ago.

It was a great adventure.  There were no major issues at the house and we were greeted with an Arizona sunset as we unloaded the RV.  It's great to be back and we're looking forward to seeing family and friends again.  Love to all,

Mike and Bonnie

Almost home

Thursday July 14, 2016 through Monday, July 18, 2016  Start: Vanderhoof, BC  End: Fillmore, UT

We left Vanderhoof, BC on Thursday morning for a day of driving and ended up in Cache Creek, BC.  After we got settled in he went up the hill across the street to play golfand I took the jeep and went back to check in with everyone via phone.

Cache Creek area golf course

Cache Creek is the junction of Highway 97 and Highway 1, where we head west to work our way further south toward the U.S.  On the way out of Vanderhoof we just missed a major hail storm and saw piles of frozen rain as we headed over the summit beyond Vanderhoof.  We stopped in a quaint town called Quesnel for some baked goods (I popped into the store while Mike circled the block) and halted today's journey at Brookside RV Park in Cache Creek, just across the street from the Semlin Golf course.  Mike got to play nine holes, losing several balls to the wind before the storm kicked up and he quit and we went to dinner.  We had pizza at a local spot (Ane's) and before taking it home, drove over to Horsting's Farm Market.  They had fresh cherries, corn, greens, pies, and scones.  I don't know how we'll eat all of it but we loaded up and stocked the frig.

a real evening - Cache Creek

We've moved far enough south that we're getting really dark nights -- the trade off being that we're getting warmer days and nights too. We're averaging 300 miles a It's really been great having the jeep for transportation and hauling it was well worth the added flexibility.

Friday morning we headed out of Cache Creek BC and went through the Canadian National Parks on the route, one of which is also called Glacier National Park.  We took a couple of short walks; one through the skunk cabbage wetlands and another among the giant cedar grove. Even with the drizzle, it was peaceful and awe inspiring among the ancient giant trees.

ferns

skunk cabbage plants

cedar forest

We ended up in Golden, BC for the evening at a Golf RV Park, a frequent option in this part of BC where they have miles of green rolling hills.

boardwalk through cedar forest

snow tunnel (it goes over the roof)

Saturday morning Mike was going to play in a shotgun tournament at the golf course but Mother Nature had other ideas and we took off early in pouring rain.  The extra time resulted in our second visit to the U.S. Glacier National Park.  More on that it my next post.

We ended Saturday in Polson, Montana at the Wal-Mart parking lot, a freebie, and repeated that option Sunday night in Idaho Falls, Idaho.  It's quiet and secure.  The drive after Glacier NP was long and we didn't get into Polson until almost 11:00 pm.  First time driving the rig in the dark.  Mike said it was fine except when he saw a deer cross in front of a vehicle in the opposite lane - that gets your attention!  Idaho Falls has few RV options so the Walmart was the best choice for just an overnight.

Toady, Monday, we travelled a little over 300 miles to get from Idaho Falls to Fillmore Utah, named after the president.  Mike played 9 holes on a "spongy" course and I walked to the downtown and toured the original Utah territorial capital building.

Wagons West RV Park Fillmore UT

A genealogy note: I saw a business with a family name (Dearden) and asked if anyone knew where they had come from.  I was given the phone number of a family member who keeps track of those things - her name is Bonnie Dearden.  Strange coincidences!

The heartland of British Columbia

Wednesday, July 13, 2016  Start: Stewart, BC   End: Vanderhoof, BC

We left Stewart this morning and shot down toward where the Cassiar Highway (97) meet up with the Trans-Canadian Highway (1).  We're reaching the plains, the mountains rising behind us now, and entering the logging forests.  There are many marshes that should have moose but the wild life is hiding and we haven't seen much of anything for awhile as the weather continues to warm up.

The berries are starting to appear, which will bring out the bears and the water plants at one of the rest stops netted me my first itchy bug bite.

We stopped Wednesday night in a town called Vanderhoof, it's claim to fame being that it is at the geographic center of British Columbia.  Dave's RV park was welcoming and had all the amenities.  We got nice hot showers and exchanged some books.  We're not doing a lot of exploring as "get-home-itis" is starting to kick in.

I'm getting a lesson in Canadian geography, city and towns as we go, it doesn't seem like a foreign country any more.

We dip our toes in Alaska again!

Tuesday, July 12, 2016  Start: Boya Lake C.B. BC   End: Stewart B.C.

We headed out toward Stewart B.C. Tuesday morning, a side trip from the Cassiar Highway.  It winds through a canyon filled with glaciers and waterfalls.

Stewart is a teeny town that abuts the Alaskan border town of Hyder.  We set up the RV in Stewart and drove two miles to Hyder.  There's no U.S. border check here because there's no place to go except back to Stewart, where the Canadian police politely checked our passport cards on the return.

We'd crossed over to see the Salmon Glacier but it was a ways off and it was raining and we had "glacier overload".  There's a salmon run with bears but it is a bit early in the season and the rain was getting heavier.

We headed back to Steward and hunkered down for the night in the pouring rain clear through to morning.  Tomorrow we head back to the Cassiar Highway.

O' Canada

Sunday, July 10, 2016 through Monday, July 11, 2016

Start: Lake Creek Provincial Campground, YT  End: Boya Lake Provincial C.G., BC

Sunday we drove from Lake Creek to Whitehorse. We passed Kluane (pronounced "clue" "ah" "nee") Lake,part of the National Park on the way but it was raining and cloudy so not many pretty pictures this time.  We did stop at the Visitor's Center and learned that the lake was formed during a mini ice age only in the last 500 years.

Rain clouds settling around mountains

We did our second only "freebie" camping - at the Walmart in Whitehorse! There were probably fifty or more RVs in a section of the parking lot, convenient to stocking up at Walmart with a Starbucks across the way.  The last bits of glass from the headlights on the jeep were broken out by rocks so Mike replaced them and fashioned some covers for them for the rest of the trip.  

Monday, July 11, 2016  Start: Whitehorse, YT to Boya Lake Provincial Park, BC

We drove from Whitehorse to Watson Lake, re-tracing our route from early June. 

Teslin River Bridge

 It was sunnier and greener everywhere this time through.   Our sign is still at the signpost forest. 

Mike taking picure of our sign at Watson Lake Signpost Forest

Canoes and Kayaks at Boya Lake

We stopped in the Visitor’s Center in Watson Lake and got information on the Cassiar Highway.  It heads 450 miles southwest, so the right direction. 

We went about 75 miles to Boya Lake Provincial Park for the night.  The provincial parks in Canada are wonderful. Inexpensive ($12 to $20 CAD), free firewood in most places, clean, spacious, level and great scenery.  

water flower at Boya Lake

The water is crystal clear and aquamarine.  I went for a swim, gingerly stepping among creamy white stones, stirring up the silt for the tiny fishes.  It was bracing but refreshing!

kayker heading out for the island about 7:00 pm at Boya Lake

firepit in the rain out the RV window

  I built a fire and we sat outside admiring the view until it started to thunder.  We got a downpour then a steady rain to douse the fire as the evening came to a close.  I think this is the prettiest campsite we’ve had all trip.  

Where did the week go?

We've been winding our way back to the states since we left Anchorage on Tuesday, here's a recap:

Tuesday, July 5^th 2016 – Start: Anchorage,AK  End: Glennallen, AK

Finally back on the road!  We headed out toward Valdez, stopping for the night in Glenallen, AK, the junction of the Glenn and Richardson highways.  We’ll go south on the Richardson to get to Valdez.

The Glenn highway from Anchorage had some fantastic views of the Matanuska Glacier from the highway.  We stopped and did a short one mile hike to get some different perspectives and then ate lunch at one of the rest stops with a view of the glacier.  We’re at Dry Creek State Campground, a primitive campground a couple miles past the junction.

Mantanuska Glacier

Mantanuska Glacier

  

Wednesday, July 6, 2016  Start: Glennallen, AK   End: Valdez, AK

Another beautiful drive, although in the rain a lot of the grand views are lost.  We stopped at the top of Thompson Pass to walk out to the overlook. We’d done a little hike at Mantanuska Glacier but they wanted $25 to go down to the glacier so we moved on to Worthington Glacier which is in a state recreation area and we were able to walk up to the glacier.  Mike found some interesting rocks (gold?) and decided to go back on Thursday.

Worthington Glacier up close

The view in the clouds of Thompson Peak

  After the glacier we stopped at Bridal Falls and Horsetail Falls in Keystone Canyon.  We stayed the night in a campground near the Valdez Glacier but that glacier is only accessible by boat.  The town of Valdez wasn’t much to see but we had some good halibut and drove out to a great view of the bay and saw some sea lions scooping up fish from the hatchery.

Sea lions at hatchery in Valdez

Valdez bay

Thursday, July 7, 2016  Start: Valdez, AK  End: Tosina River, AK

Today we turned toward home!  We’re going back toward Tok and then will take the Cassiar Highway south to B.C.  We left Valdez in beautiful sunshine and since we decided to drive separately so as not to strain the RV going up Thompson Pass, I took another look at the bay in the morning fog. 

Valdez in the morning

Dayville Road on Valdez bay

Keystone Canyon

2nd visit to Worthington Glacier

It was a short drive through Keystone Canyon and over Thompson Pass down to Tosina River.  We stayed at a campground near the turnoff to Chitnia, the last town before the entrance to the Wrangell-St Elias National Park.  We got caught up on household stuff and Friday will head into the park.

Friday, July 8, 2016 Wrangell-St Elias National Park

We woke up early to take the 90 mile or so ride into Wrangell-St Elias National Park.  We passed the Chitnia River salmon fishing areas and crossed a 14 foot wide bridge to get to the very commercialized  Kennicott Mine site at the end of the highway. I couldn't capture the vastness of this glacier.  The moraines stretch out at the leading edge for several square miles.  They looked like piles of sand until we got closer and could see the glacier silt was covering several hundred feet of ice.

Kennicott Glacier (30 miles away)

Moraines (glacier leftovers) of Kennicott Glacier

There's a fee to park before the footbridge across the Chitna River and a fee for a shuttle to the town of McCarthy (pop. about 50) and on to the mine.  Then, if you want to tour the buildings there's a fee for that too,  We opted to hike out to get a closer look at the glacier.

Kennicott abandoned mines preserved as historic buildings

narrow bridge to access park

Kennicott Glacier

fishing ladder on Chitnia River

 Not what we expected, a different version of a national park.  It was a 2 mile hike to see the Kennicott glacier and its moraines up close and were back at the RV after a long day.

Saturday, July 9, 2016  Start: Tonsina Lake C.G., AK   End: Lake Creek Campground, Yukon, CN

Goodbye to Alaska!  It was a wonderful 30 days in Alaska.  Today we left Tonsina and stopped in Tok to fill-up and then crossed into Canada.  We spent the night at the Lake Creek Provincial Campground, about 150 miles from Whitehorse.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day, big fluffy clouds, green everywhere and sparkles across every lake.  Summer has really come to the North!  We’re losing a couple minutes of sunlight each day too.  I’ll be glad to see a night sky, though I did spot a new moon peeking out of the clouds about 6:00 pm tonight while sitting by the fire. 

Some reminisces about Alaska:

The mailboxes jutting out from the driveways to be above the snow in winter; electric outlets in parking lots to plug your car into to keep the engine warm in winter; fishing and more fishing; mountains; purple, yellow, red, and white flowers, “drunk” spruce trees, frost heaves, road construction,  glacier silted rivers, just to name a few.  

Wrangell mountain 

Lake Creek campground, Yukon

And to think, we only explored a very tiny part of this huge state!  There were some t-shirts at the Farmers' Market in Anchorage that had the saying "Alaska - pissing off Texas since 1959" with the "tiny" state of Texas overlayed on the 4 times larger state of Alaska.   We talked to several people who when they found out we were from Arizona said the wintered there and summered in Alaska.  Maybe someday!

Mountain tops and hippies

July 3, 2016 Sunday  Start: Anchorage, AK to Girdwood and back to Anchorage

Today we took off in cloudy weather to Girdwood, AK, a little tourist town off of the Seward Highway.  They were having a Forest Festival and I should have figured out from the "flower power" and "all you need is love" signs on the roadside on the way in that we were entering a hippie town.

We bypassed the festival at first to head for the Ayleksa Ski Resort where there was a tram to the top of the mountains.  We took the 10:45 a.m. that included lunch at the deli at the top and spent a couple of hours enjoying the view.

After getting back down the mountain Mike dropped me off at the festival and he went on to check out a nearby gold mining place.  The festival was sort of like being dropped in the middle of Woodstock!  There was loud music, lots of tie-die, henna tatoos, pierced body parts and flower garlands.  The arts and craft selection was local fair that imagine keeps people occupied with creating and making during the long winters.  The gold mining was pricey so we headed back toward Anchorage and stopped at the Indian Mine.  The proprietor was friendly and shared the history of the mine and its owner and gave us a short tour.  Mike panned a bucket of dirt and got some gold bits and I took some pictures of the site.  

Indian Mine entrance

miner wood carving

Alaskan chickens!

small animal traps

We did some grocery shopping for the next week and looked at campgrounds to stay at on the way down to Valdez.  We haven't found any announcement of fireworks for the 4th, what with it not getting dark at night, so we'll have to see what happens.  Happy Fourth of July to everyone!