Fairbanks to Denali National Park

We got up fairly early, having changed time zones when we crossed the border. This means we don't have to change all the clocks in the rig again, now that we've figured out how to do it.

The weather was gray, but not raining. We headed out to a Pioneer Park in Fairbanks, but the GPS led us astray. Instead we headed off to Denali.

We bought gasoline just outside of Fairbanks. Opportunities fade fast once you leave town.

However, we didn't find a propane dispensary. RV stuff: the RV has central heat, propane powered, as is the refrigerator (when we're not hooked up to electric power), hot water heater, and range. The heat has come every night, but the gauge on the control panel still says 2/3 full (next step being 1/3) after two weeks. Is it real or imaginary? We stopped in Nenana to top up the propane. It took about a half tank, so the gauge wasn't lying, and we have the assurance that the 'frig won't run out while we're dry camping in Denali.


Nenana has a big time ice-out contest every year. We stopped in the visitors' center (their first customers for the year) and heard all about it. This past year, the ice went out rather early, and there was just one person to collect the prize - $350,000! We saw the huge book/printout of all the entries but didn't take a picture of it. It was a good 4" thick. The black and white wood pylon across the street was a previous ice-out pylon.

Alaska Railroad trestle across the river. ~All who come to Denali are either on trains or the road. The cruise/tour business is huge. We saw innumerable Princess Tour buses in Alaska, and we ended up in one of their resorts by mistake.

A welcome sign.

We checked in, got our tickets for tomorrow's tour, and found a nice campsite. After lunch we took a drive as far as we could go into the park. The road goes about 100 miles, but only the first 13 miles can be driven by civilians.

 

 

Caribou bulls hanging out. We learned the cows are off in another locale for birthing.

 

The road seemed to have every culvert dug up for replacement. A lot of paper plates gave it up for the cause. All the construction signs were like this.

I'm trying to do some blogging. It's 10:30 pm, we have no lights on, and it's quite light out. At Fairbanks yesterday, there were 19 hours 55 minutes of daylight. The RV has good shades, so all that pesky daylight hasn't interfered with sleep.

Miles for the day 153, total 4079.

Discovery Yukon Lodging, MP 1169 to Tok, then Delta Jct, winding up in Fairbanks

This is the telephone connection for the Discovery Yukon Lodgings [nee White River Campground] which is aimed at a  mountaintop somewhere over there. Internet apparently comes through something buried as it worked while the phone didn't.

Amanda gave a recommendation for the next stop at Delta Junction, AK. She also said we'd been through the worst of the permafrost heaves. That may have been true, but not by much. The road was pretty lumpy.

The White River. There is no shortage of gravel up here.

We occasionally used the other side of the road to avoid rough patches.

 

We passed a few sections of experimental road construction techniques aimed at preserving the permafrost underfoot. These appear to be vents or heat pipes to reduce thawing.

This is a joint Canadian - US project since most of the traffic is US based traveling from Alaska to Alaska through Canada.

The last town in Canada is Beaver Creek, YT. Canadian customs is located here, about 30 km from the border. After we passed this, Ginnie asked if I felt funny, like we were in no-man's land. I did wonder how we'd be treated if we turned back before leaving Canada. Just keep driving.

We got through the gauntlet at the U.S. border, minus our citrus, including a lemon we bought in South Dakota. Apparently they are afraid for all the citrus grown in Alaska.

While the road was a bit rough at the north edge of Canada, it was smooth as silk after entering into the U S of A - for about 10 miles.

Showing off? Nice driving, though.

Ah, Tok, Alaska.

We've been quite careful to keep a good supply of gasoline in the tank, mindful of how far it can be between potential gas stations, watching how many former gas stations there are along the way - many failed and abandoned businesses. All that said, we did manage to cruise from Whitehorse, YT to Tok without buying gas.

I did a lot of mental math on that leg. Let's see, the tank holds 55 gallons, we're probably getting around 8 mpg for planning purposes, it's 200 km to the border, must be a gas station near the border even though the GPS doesn't show one, Tok is another 100 miles from the border, the gauge is at half staff, etc.

We made it to Tok without running out, filled up and got change back from $200. Have a nice day.

We stopped in the Tok visitors center where we had heard that a woman I knew from work in Vermont years ago worked. She wasn't working that day, but I left her a note.

Heading north out of Tok. There was a nice bike path alongside.

We noticed many birches in this stretch. A few days later, our guide in Denali mentioned the north spread of birch as an indicator of climate change.

We drove to Delta Junction with first priority being lunch at historic Rika's Roadhouse a bit beyond Delta. We opted for some warm soup given the drizzly conditions outside.

From the parking lot, we saw the Alaska pipeline where it was coming off a bridge across the Tanana River.

The day started off almost as good as the one before with sunny skies and great scenery. The forecast wasn't as good for the north, and we eventually ran into rain. The recommended RV park was closed in spite of it being the start of a holiday weekend. From Church's guidebook, I scoped out a couple of parks further up our route and figured out that Fairbanks wasn't that far away (100 miles) if all else failed.

The first potential stop was closed, and for sale. Oops. We ended up in a state campground in Fairbanks that was just fine. The rain kept us in, and kept me from the grill.

So we drove more than planned, but we're closer to Denali. Miles for the day 363 out of a total 3926.

I'm not sure where this fits, but in our days driving the Alaska highway, we've seen dozens of U-Hauls: trucks, trucks towing cars on trailers, cars and trucks towing trailers.  It seemed that more were heading south than north, but we could be wrong. Here's a suggestion for future work, or a kid's game: keep track of the count, north vs. south, trucks vs. trailers. I envision ships loaded with U-Hauls coming to Alaska in the spring to supply all the hardware heading south. Maybe there's a reverse migration in the fall. Maybe U-Hauls are made here?

Whitehorse to historic mile 1169, Alaska highway

What an incredible day. For a change we awoke to sunny skies with bonus mild temperatures. We drove about 240 miles with non-stop gorgeous scenery. The route was all at ~low elevation, mostly about 700 meters (the GPS is set to metric now so we can use it as the speedometer without doing math).

We were always in sight of mountains, mostly snow capped.

I had read that the highway from Whitehorse to the Alaska border was the worst section of the Alaska Highway to drive because frost heaves are the rule of the day. It was quite lumpy at times, and we definitely slowed down, but it was much better than last year according to someone we met along the way.





Beware of orange signs and flags. They can mark serious heaves.










A bit of construction to level out things.

A rare sight on the Alaska Highway - an intersection and a decision as to which way to go.

This is Haines Junction, in the Yukon, yet all the destination choices on the signs are in Alaska.

The southern shore of Kluane Lake.

We drove around the end of the lake across a large aluvial fan (?) - huge expanse of gravel that looked like it must be under running water sometimes.

Sheep warning. They were in the mountains although we didn't see them - yet.

Lunch stop along still quite frozen Kluane Lake.

We didn't see sheep in the hills until we dug out the binoculars.

 

Oh, there they are.

Roadside signs were common telling what was available in the community ahead.

I was surprised to see electricity featured along with fuel, food, lodging, etc. It appears you can also get cell phone coverage.

From a Yukon communities web site, I read that mail is delivered here three days a week, and a bank is open Mondays and Fridays. Schooling only goes to 8th grade, then one has to move or board the kids at Whitehorse or Haines Junction for high school. Wow. What a difference being this remote.

We drove farther than planned, stopping at Discovery Yukon Lodgings, a park recommended in Church's guide book. As we approached, the proprietors were just removing barrels blocking the driveway. If we had been 15 minutes earlier, we would have thought them closed as others in our fleet did to their dismay. Good thing we slept in this morning.

The owners met us and explained that they were not fully open as they were waiting for a fuel delivery, and they'd be shutting off the generator when they went to bed. As a result we'd get a reduced price which they would come by to get later. We mentioned we didn't need the generator, but we did take advantage of it.

The place has an interesting collection of stuff around. Amanda, who showed us to our campsite, took off to town (?). A fellow (turned out to be her husband, Bob, a fun guy) started to chat with us. I was looking at an old military vehicle that was used in the construction of the highway. He said "would you like a ride? It runs". We sort of declined, but he proceeded to start it up, then told me to get in and take it for a spin around the grounds which we did. We were glad the property was flat as the brake pedal went to the floor when I tried to stop. It is a 1942 Dodge 6-wheel-drive open truck.

He told us quite a bit about the history of the highway then said we should take a nearby Kawasaki mule (ATV) down to the bridge to see some of the original wood that was still evident from the 1942 bridge. We started to walk to the bridge when he came driving up in the mule and again offered it, this time mentioning something about a bear. We took the mule.


We may have brought the campground business as about 10 other rigs pulled in after our debut for the season.


Today is the first we've encountered many mosquitoes probably attributable to the pond on the property. Won't be the last I suspect.  

[Actually, we never were bothered by them again. Timing is important.]

Bob lit the campfire which we enjoyed. We got to meet more of our classmates.

We would highly recommend this campground. If you are early or late in the season you should email or call them to confirm that they are open. When we were there, their phone wasn't working (see next post for how that works), but email was.

Wildlife for the day - much less than yesterday - 3 bald eagles before we got out of Whitehorse, a bunch of Dall's sheep high up on a mountain, and 1 grizzly.





Today: 244 miles, 328 photos! Total miles 3563.