Oh, How Things Change

Six years ago, when we last drove to Alaska, the only place you needed reservations was at Denali. This time, our three day drive from Valdez to Skagway found two of our target overnights full before we got there in early to mid afternoon. This happened multiple other times on this trip as well - clearly an indication of the popularity of RV travel and the reduced number of available options.

We fueled in Tok after carefully driving the Tok Cutoff. There was a fair bit of construction, but we thought the road was much improved by the summer construction projects. We could have boondocked at the gas station but knew that came with trucks coming through all night. We could have sprung for an RV park, but preferred a more solitary experience. Our target was the State Recreation Area at the Tok River, but we found it full AND the highway bridge adjacent was under 24 hour construction, so we kept going, ending up with a slightly sloped spot at the rest area on the west shore of Tanana River. One other rig came in and parked at the other end for a surprisingly quiet night.

We left the main portion of Alaska in our rearview mirror, but would visit two more parts of Alaska before we left for good. Crossing into Canada was a two minute process this time with just the normal guns, veggies, and recreational marijuana related questions.

Our target for the second night was Congdon Creek Campground, one of the many Yukon Government campgrounds. All of them are dry campgrounds with outhouses and usually some sort of water source. The campgrounds are much nicer than they were six years ago, but are still only $12 per night. Congdon Creek had over 40 sites including a number of large pull-through sites with good visual separation between sites. We had lots of choices when we arrived, but it appeared the campground was full by the time we went to bed.

Congdon Creek featured a dedicated tent camping area behind an electrified fence. The campground is known for bears wandering through, but once again, we didn't see any - near or far!

Our plan for the third night was to stay at Wolf Creek Campground, another Yukon Government campground located near where Highway 2 heads south towards Carcross and Skagway. We arrived before 1 p.m. to find every single spot in the campground full. After a tour of the campground, we headed south, looking for an unsigned pullout. Many of the rest areas were marked "No Camping" but most of the other turnouts were unmarked. We found one near an abandoned section of the railway and called it home for the night.

We had some time the next morning since the RV Park in Skagway (where we had reservations!) recommended no early arrivals. A check of the Geocaching website showed some nearby caches so it was time to explore. I was amazed to discover a large complex of log buildings that had once served as the Robinson roadhouse. It turns out, it's accessible from a rest stop just down the road from where we stayed, 

but that one is marked with the dreaded sign.

In spite of no availability at two out of three places we anticipated staying, it would turn out better than we could have hoped. We had quieter nights, less expense, and found some things we might not have found otherwise. Fact is, we finally found a bear in the woods!

Valdez

After our stops in the Fairbanks area, we headed south, through Delta Junction, headed for Glenallen and on to Valdez. We stopped for the night at a very nice pullout across the road from the very quiet Allen Army Airfield.

We stopped in Glenallen to enjoy some excellent Thai food from the Thai restaurant. It's progressed from a food truck to a small building, but it's still a take-out only operation.

As we continued south we started getting into glacier country approaching Thompson Pass.

Blueberry Lake State Recreation Area had been recommended to us, and it was a beautiful setting, especially if you had a day with clear skies. Unfortunately, the state has licensed it to a local organization that's trying to keep it going but the increased prices and decreased services, along with the cool weather, led us to look for something else.

The other disadvantage of Blueberry Lake was that is was still quite a distance to town. Even when you got to the welcome sign, it was still 22 miles to city center.

That was 22 miles of outstanding beauty, however, with waterfalls that were several hundred feet tall.

Earth caches took us to some interesting places including Valdez Lake, complete with icebergs at the base of Valdez Glacier, barely seen up the valley in the background.

As usual, I enjoy checking out the marinas, but what really caught my eye was the beautiful flower baskets everywhere.

One of the reasons I wanted to visit Valdez was because it is know for bear watching. We didn't see any bears in spite of the huge number of humpies entering the creek. We did see people who couldn't read...

And, as luck would have it, we did spot one bear. There are several RV Parks in town, most located at or very near busy intersections near the center of town. We opted for the KOA about 5 miles out of town since the layout wasn't as crowded and it was closer to the bear viewing area. Rarely a fan of KOA, but we were very pleased with this one!

One of the things we did while in town was to visit the local museum. I'd highly recommend it, especially for the film they've done about the history of the town.

While there, we observed a stuffed version of the very rare fur fish, "It's fur coat is an adaptation to the frigid glacial waters of the area." "New information just in suggests that the Fur Fish is still alive! It has gone through further adaptation since this specimen was caught. It is rumored that one caught recently was not fur covered, but was instead covered with Gore-Tex with a Thinsulate liner!"

After three days in Valdez, we had the first of five road construction stops at same place that we thought was so beautiful going the other direction. Everyone was taking advantage of the wait to take pictures.

We'd planned to stop for the night at a State Recreation Area just east of Tok but there was bridge construction adjacent to it so we opted for another very nice roadside area on the west shore of the Tanana River.

Next stop Skagway.

Denali

Last time we visited Denali, we had wet weather and our time was consumed with dealing with Turk's trauma. This time we scheduled four days in hopes of getting a nice day in the mix.

Campsites at Riley Creek are reserved by size. We hit the jackpot when chatting with another fiberglass trailer owner as we were checking in. He told us about the site he'd just left and we were able to snag it. I was expecting that we would have 4 days with no gain from the solar panel, but we got enough light through the trees to offset more than 1/2 of our utilization leaving us with lots of power cushion.

After setting camp the first morning (arrive early for better choices!) we went out to see if we could see the mountain. It's supposed to be "right there" but not so on day 1.

The weather, however, was shirt sleeve warm that first day.

On day two, BJ went for a bus ride inside the park while I nosed around the local area. The paths are beautiful, but with the exception of the "roadside trail" and the campgrounds, Turk was not allowed on the trails.

Timing was right to see what one of Riley Creek Campground's noise sources was. It doesn't pass by often, but Holland America / Princess's McKinley Explorer does stop at the park's railway station.

Meanwhile, BJ didn't see the mountain but did see some animals, but none close enough to photograph.

On day three, it was my turn to ride the bus in search of the mountain. My driver works on a crew building and maintaining ice roads during the winter.

We saw a number of caribou, usually with elbows and arms framing the view. We also saw a solitary brown bear and a moose cow & calf.

The picture's not great since I had to do a LOT of cropping, but Denali cooperated with us for a little bit, sneaking out from behind the clouds. A bit further down the road at a "better" viewpoint, it was totally obscured.

Of course, the bus stopped for all sorts of nature.

Day four of our time in Denali we wandered to downtown Glitter Gulch where all the tourist shops and large hotels are located because they had a beautiful bike path where we could take Turk for a walk.

We left the park and continued north to Fairbanks where the pantry was restocked, and we visited Alaska's only webcam cache where we got a screen shot of us and the truck & trailer. It turned out that this was our most northern cache of the trip.

The last important stop in the general Fairbanks area was at the North Pole where we checked to make sure Santa's list was correct.  Now it's time to start progressing south, although we'll occasionally do that by driving north.

Next stop, Valdez.