Today I woke up to 41 degrees in the van…who knows what it is outside. With everything we need in our little capsule of steel and rubber, there’s no big rush to go outside and find out.
The sun is making its way into the sky, creeping slowly from behind the snow capped peeks, but has yet to shine on the opposing peeks across the river valley.
Our camp last night was right beside the Matanuska River, surrounded by Alders, sporting their new yellow fall colors, Drayas, also in showy white tops, and Fireweed that has lost its towers of red flowers and turned to tangled white silky seedpods. The mountains surrounding this valley are topped with snow from the thunder storms 2 nights ago, accenting the harsh, craggy peeks.
Yesterday, we drove up from Ninilchik to the Russian River Ferry crossing and joined the throngs of fisher people hoping to catch a nice coho salmon, or at least hook into one of the giant red sockeye on the Kenai River. These fish are huge! As your standing in the water, these fish are lined up, heading upstream. Every now and then, one will breech the surface slowly or jump out of the river all together. With your concentration on your line and indicator, this is quite alarming at first, but soon becomes the norm and you settle in to the rhythm of casting.
It’s time to begin our month long procession east then south, out of Alaska, into Canada, and finally, the lower 48. Time to say good-bye to the wildness of this beautiful land, where it is easy to forget your worries, clear your mind, and refresh your inner most being. To the fresh, crisp, cool air, the bears, moose, squirrels, seagulls ravens and bald eagles, all etched firmly into my mind, a sorrowful good-bye. A fond farewell to the mountains and glaciers, turquoise rivers and milky white glacial streams and waterfalls, thousands of lakes and fiords. To leave behind the thousands of miles of pot-holed, wavy, and frost heaved roads of dirt and tar.
Although the journey has not ended just yet…we’ve traveled almost 6,000 miles since Salt Lake City. We’ve driven on almost every road in Alaska, been from the Continental divide (Antigun Pass) to Lands End (Homer). We’ve traveled by ferry along the Inside Passage between Juneau, Skagway and Haines. Took a wild ride down the Tatshinini and Alsek Rivers, played with icebergs and bergy-bits. We’ve had our share of bear encounters, some too close for comfort. I’d say it’s been a wild and encompassing ride for sure with still more to come.
The clouds, like ghostly apparitions, glide across the mountain tops, getting stuck in the rocky crevasses and at mid-mountain, the tops of black spruce groves. White gashes of the snow fields and silent glaciers, creep across the mountain passes, carving deep scars into the ancient Arctic tundra. The tree stands dot the sides of the hill in a spattering of greens, yellows and reds, as the fall closes in. A hint of chill hangs heavy in the air tonight. It’s gonna be a cold one, clear skies and a light breeze from the NW. The lake stands still as glass, reflecting the grandeur of the surrounding alders, willow and poplars. All is silent and eerily still.
It’s been a week of travel from the Antigun Pass of the Dalton Highway above the Arctic Circle. We took a side trip to Chena Hotsprings for my birthday, before heading south down the Parks Highway. Denali, or more correctly, Mount McKinley, was playing peek-a-boo with those of us that hunkered down for the night in the makeshift view point parking lot campground for a night of boon-docking. The sun is starting to actually go down now at a more reasonable hour. The long days of the mid-nite sun, have gone for the summer, and the march towards the winter darkness has begun.
The weather has been, well typical Alaskan. In any given week, at least two days will have sun, two will be cloudy and three will be wet. The wet days are usually drizzly and overcast, which both ignites the colors and makes for flat lighting, muting the contrasts. Good trade. Sometimes these are prime wildlife spotting days, since a lot of the visiting humans hunker down and stay dry. Bears, both black and brown, love to forage for the blueberries and raspberries that are covering the hills and road sides. Moose are a rare sighting in any weather, so the fact that we saw one was almost a miracle. The fish don’t much care if it’s raining, bright in sunshine and clouds, we caught our fair share of the Arctic Grayling. Porcupines waddle across vast empty ribbons of highway minding their own business. Ground squirrels and prairie dogs scamper about the puddles and dig in the soft black soil. It’s a struggle for survival that we have had the good fortune to observe while here.
The salmon run has begun in most of the streams and rivers. These mighty titans of the fish world, fight with every ounce of life they have left to make sure the population survives. Their bleached bodies, still sporting the deep red color of the end of life, struggling upstream in shallow creeks and streams or their corpses lie rotting on the sides of these rivers and streams, providing nutrients and sustenance for opportunistic predators and scavengers like the raven and gulls. Even the majestic eagle makes a showing at this feast. In the way of the salmon’s final goal…stands humans and the grizzly bear. Both worthy foes.
We’ve seen the landscape change. Not just the beginning of autumn’s colorful show, but the craggy mountains, smooth rolling hills, flat Arctic tundra and massive lakes and rivers, glaciers and gigantic snow fields. We’ve floated down a river, through an iceberg choked lake and seen temperate maritime weather. We’ve flown over 12,000 feet in a seaplane through the snow laden Fairweather Mountain peaks. We’ve seen thick subarctic boreal forest and sparse arctic tundras, vast inlets, bays and fiords. The wildness is everywhere.
A trip to Alaska is a once in a lifetime thing…especially if you drive there.
We set out almost 2 months ago from Salt Lake City, UT…and hit the road for the long 2500 mile journey to Skagway, Alaska. Since, we’ve hit a good deal of Eastern British Columbia, The Southern Yukon Territory, and have made our way to Fairbanks, Alaska and up to the Antigun Pass on The Dalton Highway. Over 3500 miles covered.
I must say that the Dalton Highway, or the Haul Road, has been the most technical driving we’ve done. On a dry clear day, the road is just a dusty mess, rocks flying from passing vehicles, and deep pot holes. Now let’s add in road construction where they thoroughly soak the road with water and grade the road. Our once dusty road, becomes a swampy mess with mud showers for the van as semi trucks blast through the now water filled pot holes. By the time we reached Yukon Crossing, the van was covered in grey brown mud half way up the sides. The running board were piled an inch thick with mud and gravel. The back of the van was covered in mud and made it difficult to open the doors without becoming covered yourself.
The first night, we camped at Mile 60 BLM Campground and slept well. The next day was more of the same road conditions, but the landscape has changed dramatically. We had gone from huge Alder trees and thick, lush green forests to scrubby conifers, aspens and birch trees. Soon we reached the Arctic Circle, 66.33 degrees latitude…the goal we set out to accomplish. We pulled into the BLM Campground and settled in feeling very satisfied at our achievement.
The next morning, blue skies and sunshine, beckoned us to venture the next 60 miles to Coldfoot, a small town of about 125 people living a sustenance life off the land. It’s the last stop for gas and food before heading into the Arctic Tundra and the North Slope Mountains, Perdue Bay and Deadhorse, big oil mining towns and the beginning of the Trans-Alaskan pipeline. We buttoned up the van, cleaned off the windows and set out north for Coldfoot.
Just outside of Coldfoot, is an Interagency Visitors Center with the most helpful rangers who will answer all your questions on road conditions, weather and wild life sightings, mainly grizzly, Dahl sheep and Muskox. They also encouraged us to drive to the Antigun Pass, another 50 miles further north, and another notch in the ‘been there, done that’ belt. We were given a weather forecast for both Coldfoot and Antigun Pass, told the driving etiquette, and again, encouraged to explore further north.
The next morning, fog hung heavy in the treetops, but the skies were wanting to part so we made the decision to make the drive. I didn’t have much faith that the weather would clear with rain and snow in the forecast, and I was not getting my hopes up for a great photo day, but we packed up and bit the bullet, and we were on the road.
“The first 30 miles are paved,” one of the rangers told us the night before. Yes, indeed the road seemed like it was better than the last 200 we had driven…until…One thing I can tell you is, I’m not sure which is better, paved or unpaved?
Paved roads seem to sluff off on the sides where the permafrost has begun to melt, leaving no substrate to hold the tarmac in place. Second, the frost heaves are accented by skid marks as the drivers before had slammed on the brakes as they were launched into the air. Next are the potholes, they seem to grow in size as each passing semi bounces through them, some covering almost the entire road.
Dirt roads, well they have their issues and advantages as well. Rocks are by far the worst part of a dirt road. The Dalton Highway is renowned for breaking windshields. Second would have to be the mud, thick grayish mud, resembling concrete. The rain turns this into a slurry mess, coating everything it touches in a casing of grey slop, making entering the van nearly impossible without gloves or wiping handles and the edges of the doors with a rag. The dust, on dry days, is a fine powder that infiltrates rubber door seals, mechanical objects begin to squeak, and everything becomes covered in a light coating of white dust. The potholes are much more numerous and often times lined up just perfectly that there’s no choice but to slow to a crawl and step through each one. The best thing about a dirt road though, is it can be graded and potholes filled and compacted. This was witnessed by us both north bound and south as the crews watered and graded.
The day we decided to do the Antigun Pass, the weather didn’t hold and it rained most of the way. The first 30 miles of paved road was a pacifier for the last 20+ miles of muddy dirt road. I can’t imagine how we could’ve managed without the BFG KO2 tires on the van. At times the road was a soupy mess of mud as slick as snot. We made it to the top of Antigun Pass, covered thick in heavy clouds and rain, we jumped out of the van and took some photos and turned around for the decent back into Coldfoot.
We’ve just returned from an amazing Canada/Alaska River trip down the Tatshashini and Alsek Rivers, down into Alsek Lake and take out at Dry Bay. The whole trip took 13 days plus travel time of another 13 days to Haines, Alaska.
Although the river trip was not on our bucket list, traveling around western Canada and Alaska was. The river trip became the catalyst for this new chapter in our adventure.
As we sat in Bali, melting from the oppressive humidity, we realized our travel in the blazing sun, and blazing kindness of its people, needed to come to an end. We had covered much of SE Asia in a 4 month period: countries like Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It was an other-worldly experience, and touched both of us deeply…but our bodies were screaming for a break from the heat.
We found ourselves thinking of very cold places, Antarctica, Iceland, Alaska, Patagonia. Big dreams of cooler temps, zero humidity, even some of our old haunts just didn’t excite us. When Chris saw the Facebook post from Bio-Bio River Expeditions, for a trip down the beautiful Tatshashini/Alsek Rivers. Pictures of rafts floating around stunning blue icebergs grabbed both of us by our sweaty hands and led us down the rabbit hole. This was it!
So we set off on planning to see if we could make this happen. We picked up a Sprinter Revel Van, outfitted it for the arduous trip, bought the necessary clothing and secured a seat for us on the trip.
The drama began with seeing the expensive nature of this undertaking. We bought the van because renting a van or RV was exorbitant. Then came my tummy health issue, then the breakdown of the van as we set out. We made it to Skagway, caught the ferry to Haines and settled in a few days before the trip and one more hiccup, Chris broke her tooth and needed an emergency appointment with the only dentist in town. All that was now water under the bridge, no pun intended, as we suited up in supplied dry suits and met our group.
The next morning was glorious, sun shinning, smiles all around. An amazing feeling of joy and a bit of trepidation hit me as we stood on the river bank, red dry tops, blue dry pants and insulated black and brown mud boots, red life jackets cinched up tight. Within an hour or so, we came to our first splashy wave trains, one finding its way into my dry suit, chilling me and reminding me to hold on.
Camp was always beautiful and we scrabbled to find a level, clear area for our tents. After a few days, the tents became a pain in the ass! They were short and squatty, making entering and exiting very difficult without crawling on hands and knees across wet, rocky ground. The sleeping bags were warm and cozy…bonus!
There is just so much running through my mind when I think of the days on the river itself. Once in a while we were asked to paddle, sometimes to help propel the rafts, other times just to stave off the cold chills of the cold rain and biting winds blowing downstream. We all looked like a blue rubber basket of Easter eggs, as we curled up in tight balls to conserve heat. Some days presented with sun and a promise of grand vistas and windless travel. These days would take your breath away as around each river bend, new wonders appeared. It was somewhat difficult to figure out how to layer under the dry suits, but no matter when we left shore, dressed like small children going out to make snowmen, we soon were adding or removing layers…from hot to cold and back to hot if you were lucky, but little in between.
Camp life was usually pleasant, except when the mosquitoes would swarm. The weekend before we arrived at Purple Haze camp, there had been 6” of rain in a 24 hour period, probably why we had wind and rain further upstream. This rain awakened the veracious insects. Black flies and mosquitos topped the ticket. These tiny, or not so tiny in the case of some mosquitoes, will drive you mad! We were lucky that only a few camps seemed to be utterly infested with the biting menaces, and happy they were only one night stays. Everyone adorned head-nets and deet was the preferred perfume of the evenings meal. Dessert was passed on as we all ran for the shelter of our squatty little tents and played the game of smash the rouge mosquito that found its way into the tent, it only takes one of these little bastards to drive you batty.
Alaska has its beauty and also is a harsh environment. It is not for the faint of heart. True Alaskan wilderness is not forgiving and should be entered with caution and care. On the last day, we found out that our pilot had gone missing with 2 others the day before. Due to the search, no plane was coming to get us. These were seasoned veterans of this Alaska wilderness and its small communities that depended on their services. Tragedy and grief is not an emotion I thought I’d experience on this trip.
I can’t tell you if I was ready for the myriad of emotions I went through but in the end…it was an experience of a lifetime and one that will be remembered. Alaska is wild, natural, stunningly beautiful, incredibly demanding and deadly.
We are flying at 12000’ above the ice choked mountain tops of Glacier Bay, Alaska. Whenever the clouds part, we all crane our necks looking for a small airplane. The search continues today for the missing pilot and we have become part of the search, as anyone flying today.
We found out the rest of the story today from our taxi driver, Jax. She explained how loved and revered these 3 people were, an integral part of the community here in SE Alaska. Samuel, or Sam, was a seasoned pilot that loved the community and flying. Tanya and Hans, also in the missing plane, were also stand up members of the community. Hans provided air transportation to rafting companies, anglers, hunters and commuting people to other bigger cities around SE Alaska.
According to our taxi driver, the three had just attended a wedding in Haines and were on their way back to Yukatat when the plane went missing off radar around the Fairweather Range, a location of vast mountains and glaciers, rugged and beautiful.
Sam used to play Uncle Sam in Haines’ 4th of July parade. Hans and Tanya had been together forever and were integral members of this small tight knit community. The admiration and sadness, coming through Jax’s voice as she recanted memories. The entire atmosphere of Juneau, Haines, Yukatat and Dry Bay, has grown solemn as the search was called off due to bad weather. Planes have been grounded as a fog and rain blanket the coastal area again.
This weekend is the county fair in Haines. I’m sure that the revelry will be quelled by the loss of these three.
I slept well last night even though I had some butterflies starting. 6:30am was our wake up time but neither of us made it that far. I woke up with a bit of a nervous stomach and it took a while for me to choke down some food but eventually I had talked enough that I began to settle down.
We woke to some sunny skies with just a hint of dark clouds draped high in the mountains. It seemed we had caught a break in the weather. At around 9am, we all piled in the van and set off for the river. The van ride took about an hour and a half, at best guess, since I retired my Apple Watch last night. The scenery was amazing…as always. We crossed the border from Alaska back into the Yukon about 45 miles from Haines.
It’s hard to put words to the depths of the greens covering the mountain sides. When the sun hits the trees the mountains glitter like big green emeralds surrounded in the most true blue sky and skillfully formed white clouds. Snow is draped in the crevasses like garlands on a tree. A wide river valley full of cobble stones and glacier melt full of streams and big rivers, lies between the road we are on and the mountain range.
The rain started again. In the distant canyon, a huge rainbow appeared as the sheets of rain funneled down from the mountain tops. We all took it as a sign. For the next half hour we drove in and out of the rain showers until the sun shown through the last of the black heavy clouds. Perhaps the rainbow was a sign.
We cut off on a steep, muddy dirt road and finally arrived at the river…but not before a bear decided to mozie on down the road in front of us. He reminded me of Gandaulf as he shook his boodie as he walked down the road like a runway model shaking his ass.
Arriving at the river, the guides were busily rigging the rafts. We were suited up, given a life jacket and a paddle, given the safety protocol talk and we were assigned boats and set off.
We were provided with dry paddle suits, top and bottoms, and top quality. The boats were 18’ NRS boats with extra large tubes. Two to a boat plus a guide. We got Carly the only woman guide. Queer thing, the participants are all women! Not planned in any way. All have experience on rivers all over the world, like Chris and I.
Over all, the river was gorgeous! Fast moving current propelled by fast glacier and snow melt. The rapids were quite plentiful, but we deliberately missed the wave trains as much as possible. The first wave that broke over the boat into my lap and down my dry suit was a quick and cold reminder why. The river runs in the high 30s to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. “When the wind blows,” as Andy, the lead guide said, “it’s like a fan blowing over an ice cube.”
Our first camp is situated on a stone bar on the right side of the river. The sun plays games with us and our comfort level. When it is out, it warms up quickly, so you take off a layer, then the wind blows off the river and you put a layer on. Hell, I’d had already met my fitness goals just from wardrobe changes. Today was a good trial for how to layer and how difficult it is to take one off or put one on.
It’s been 12 days since we left Salt Lake City. Twelve days of constant driving, sleeping, hiking and driving some more. Yesterday, we crossed from Canada into Alaska. The grandeur of the views before us just kept getting more and more grand as we pushed through the rolling hills, and back to the Great Northern Rocky Mountains.
White Pass was a long mountainous pass with switchbacks and craggy glacier choked peaks jutting up from the valleys…with rivers flowing out of these behemoths in cascading waterfalls. Scattered snow melt lakes dotted the landscape, each with its own color of blue, green or milky white. The subalpine trees sprung up from rocky out crops and random high spots, stunted by the harsh winter months and many feet of snow. Small creatures darted from tree to tree, outcropping to outcropping. Birds flitted from tree to tree, with some doing crazy mid-air acrobatics, chasing insects we can’t see.
We exited the ALCAN Highway in Tagish, connecting with the Klondike Highway for our last push into Skagway, Alaska. The history along this stretch of road dates way back to the late 1800s when the gold rush took over this part of Canada and Alaska. The Tlingit people trapped this harsh land for survival. The Russians came to harvest what they could from the gold rich mountain streams and lakes and to buy pelts from the Tlingit people.
In 1942, the Alaska Highway was being completed which brought more and more people into the small villages and allowed for stores, saloons and hotels to spring up creating a booming mercantile market that allowed for easy sale of pelts and goods needed for gold mining. All this collapsed as the gold dried up. The roads to the villages still remained so the Tlingit continued to occupy the infrastructure that remained and created a lucrative trading business of beaver, lynx, bobcat and other large game animal hides. They supplied gas to westward travelers in their fancy new cars, a place to sleep and eat. Some of these towns, such as Dyea, have streets and street name signs, but the buildings have long since returned to the earth. Only trees, pictures on posts, and a boreal forest stand where the buildings once did. It is left to the imagination once again.
We chose to stay in the historic district/town of Dyea last night and tonight. Our camp sits on a tidal river. We learned that there are 22 different species of mosquito in Alaska, and I think we encountered half of them. A strong breeze did keep the rest of them away. We were entertained by a couple of bald eagles hunting on the tidal flats. We were not so amused by the little chipmunks that thought it would be fun to get up under the hood and strip some felt insulation off an intake for the fresh air by digging it off fuzzy piece by fuzzy piece. We decided to tape the shit out of it to prevent any more marauding.
Skagway
Today we packed up, went into town, and got showers at the Skagway Rec Center…much needed. You can pay $10 and stand under all the hot water you want! They even provide towels…bonus. Now all clean and wearing clean clothes, we are going to “paint the town” of Skagway.
We’ve got under 500 miles to go before our turnoff to Skagway. Today’s been a long slog across rolling hills and thickly forested landscape. The rain came down heavy almost from the time we hit the road. The burn scars became more and more prevalent as we came up to Fort Nelson, which is where you finally turn WNW towards Alaska.
It is incredible how straight roads can be. The roads are just tar strips atop a berm built up to aide in run off. These ribbons of black go for miles on end, or perhaps more fitting, kilometers on end, cut through a huge swath of trees. This is by design I’m guessing, to avoid vehicle big game accidents. I’ve heard a story of a guy who watched an elk and calf bolt out of the thick forest and straight across the road in front of him. He didn’t see the bear chasing them until he slammed in his brakes to avoid a deadly collision with it.
There are mystery roads all over. Dirt roads that just veer off into the thick vegetation. No signage and no squiggly line on the gps. Sometimes you can see a river or a lake as you blast by, but other times they just go into the darkness.
Provençal parks in Canada, are like our state parks in the USA. They are dotted all over the map with no real rhyme or reason. Tonight we are at about 4200 feet/1280m. We just got back into the northern Rockies. The horizon changed radically from rolling hills to steep passes and snow capped jagged mountains. We picked a place called Stone Mountain Provençal Park and Summit Lake Campground. Had the weather cooperated, we could’ve blown up our pack rafts and paddled around for hours exploring the coves and shoreline. Perhaps in the morning, the sun will grace us with its shining face and we can start the day off with a paddle.
We took a break from travel today. 2 nights in the same place…yay! We managed to push through Idaho and Montana to burn the miles we had to in order to get caught up on our travel itinerary to Skagway, Alaska.
Canada has been just as beautiful as I remembered. Towering mountain ranges, frozen solid in ice and snow older than I can imagine. Huge glaciers clung to the rocky cliffs and high mountain valleys and passes. Rivers of aqua green and olive, lakes of turquoise, icy waters as clear as glass. Shear cliffs of curved and bent rock from the beginning of the earth. Further north west, turning into an undulating green valleys slowly rolling to a high peak and back down the other side. Scars of forest fires that scorch the land and leave the once majestic towering pines like burnt matchsticks.
Willow is performing brilliantly. We’ve had quite a bit of rain since we crossed into Canada. Last night we sprung a leak from our fan, I’m guessing from driving sheets of rain. It stopped as the rain tapered off. We’re settling back into van life after a pretty rocky start. But this I can tell you…our bed is super comfy, a bit of a pain in the ass to make each day but so cozy. Weather permitting, we will do more home cooking in the van. We’ve just been a bit hurried to this point.
Two Travelin' Chicas... 