I have been remiss.

We left Anchorage on Thursday (2 July) and were back on the Alaska Highway on Friday. We didn’t dawdle this time, making it back to Dawson Creek in 4 days. We didn’t meet with as many construction delays as on the way up, but I don’t think it can be driven any faster than that.

Wildfire is a constant danger in the north woods, and there were more than 600 fires in Alaska while we were there. The Tok fire started as we entered the state and eventually consumed several miles of forest along the highway.

And on the trip back, we drove through more than 100 miles of smoke,some of it quite thick, in the Yukon. The smoke alarm goes off when I boil water, but didn’t utter a peep through all the smoke.

Perhaps my largest disappointment with this trip was the fact that most days the vistas, though gorgeous, were no longer than we get in the Smokies. Although we were 1000 miles north of any serious industrial smog, we just didn’t get the “100 mile views” I had expected to see. I can’t help but think that the fires had a lot to do with that.

The Alaska Highway is notorious for going through windshields, but we almost made it the entire length, both ways, without mishap. But Sunday, on a good stretch of road, a gravel truck apparently hit a bump at 100 kph, spewing stone behind it. We were fortunate to come out with only a single stone chip, which we got patched the next morning. But enough is enough. No more repairs, please.

On Wednesday (8 July) we crossed back into the US, stopping for a visit to Glacier National Park. There were 150 glaciers in the park when it was created in 1915. Now it is down to 25, and they are all expected to be gone in another 15 years or so. But ice or no ice, it is still gorgeous.

Friday was an overnight in Billings (MT), then on to Devils Tower, with a brief stop at the Little Big Horn battlefield. Today (Sunday), we will go on to Mount Rushmore.

On Wednesday, we decided we had had enough of Anchorage and rented a car to go back down to the Kenai Peninsula for the day. (In true Alaskan fashion, the only vehicle available was a pickup truck.) We spent the day on a boat, touring the glaciers and fjords of Prince William Sound.

The coastal range around Prince William Sound, like the coastal range near Seattle, traps a lot of moisture, and Whittier gets about 200 inches of rain a year. The mountains around it get around 100 feet of snow a year. Consequently, there are a lot of glaciers in this part of the state. The cruise we took showed us 26 named glaciers in the space of 5 hours. Massively impressive mountains of ice.

Thursday morning we got the call that our part was in and the rig was fixed! We didn’t need a second offer—after a quick stop to replenish the groceries that had spoiled while the refrigerator was off, we left the traffic of Anchorage behind and headed back north toward Tok. Along the way, we were introduced to yet another glacier, Matsunuka Glacier, the only valley glacier we’ve seen on this trip.

Today (Friday), we’re headed back to the Alaska Highway and back into Canada.

Hmm. Last I heard, the part had still not found it’s way to Anchorage. “When it absolutely needs to be there overnight” doesn’t necessarily apply in the 49th state. So we are still holed up in the hotel. It’s a nice hotel, but not that nice. And Anchorage is a nice town, but I’m sure it would be nicer if we had some reliable transportation to get around town. Something other than a bicycle.

But there are some gorgeous views in and near Anchorage.

We’ve had time to do a little birding here in the northland. To date, we’ve seen about 100 different species since leaving Dawson Creek, including 21 life birds. We see bald eagles almost every day. Ravens and magpies are as thick as thieves. But the most common bird in the north country is …

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post anything. Internet access has been spotty at best.

Freightliner had the part, and we left Anchorage on Wednesday, heading for Seward on the Kenai Peninsula. On Thursday, we took a boat (ship?) into the Kenai Fjords National Park. Most of this park is accessible only by water. It was a foggy, rainy, mystical day, and the icebergs floating on the flat calm water were almost eerie, especially after the bumpy ride getting to them.

On Friday, we headed off-grid again, into the Chugash National Forest, where it rained for two days. The northern parts of Alaska are semi-arid, and they certainly needed the rain (forest fire danger was Extreme), but it kept us near the RV for most of the time.

Sunday brought us back to Anchorage, to fix the EGR valve once again. Seems a temperature sensor is bad, and this time they don’t have the part. Maybe tomorrow (Tuesday). And Patrice is homesick, so we are revising the outline dramatically, skipping Southeast completely and starting back as soon as the RV is road-worthy. Meanwhile, we are holed up in a hotel, so we will skip Camp Freightliner on this visit.

We’re still going to head for Jasper, Banff, and the Black Hills, but overall we should get home about 10 days early.

Our travel plan looks more and more like an outline. After spending an extra day in Denali, we pushed on to Anchorage two days early. Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska, and in area, is larger than the state of Delaware.

On the way, the “check engine” light came on, again. Different code this time – the exhaust gas recirculation valve is failing. And, apparently, a failed EGR valve can cause the engine to shut down completely. So, this morning, we left the campground early (or early for us) and headed over to the only Sprinter dealer in the state. Took the bikes off the rack, went out to breakfast, and then headed downtown, while they worked on the truck.

Fortunately, “downtown” was not that far, and Anchorage has very good bike trails (and wide sidewalks where there are no bike routes). We checked in at the city visitor center, and then jumped on the shuttle for the zoo, where Patrice took some great pictures of owls, hawks, and eagles.

After a late lunch, we headed back to the dealer, only to learn that there is some uncertainty about what part needs to be replaced and whether they have the part or not. So now we are camped out in the Freightliner parking lot. We’ll learn tomorrow whether they have the part. If not, we are here until at least Thursday.

After a couple of days in Fairbanks, during which we repaired both a bicycle and a truck tire, took a riverboat cruise down the Cheena River, and enjoyed a vaudeville show on the history of Fairbanks, we dropped down to Denali.

This is what we came for.

Transportation within the park is almost entirely limited to shuttle buses. Most of the road is a narrow dirt track and it is simply not equipped to handle personal traffic. Today, we took a shuttle out to the Eielson Visitor Center, about 66 miles into the park. We saw caribou, grizzly, watched a golden eagle being harried by a gyrfalcon… and had the Great One watching over us. Mt. McKinley is often shrouded in clouds, but we got a good long look at it today as we drove in.

A truly awe-inspiring sight.

One surprise was this mew gull, sitting on the visitor center steps, with Mt. McKinley looking over its shoulder. I don’t often think of sea gulls at 4000 feet, but they are quite common out here. These gulls nest on the gravel banks of the (nearly empty) glacial rivers, and then spend their winters on the coast.

Sunset last night was gorgeous, so I was up at 4:00 a.m. this morning to see if the sunrise could match it. Glanced out, saw everything was clouded over, and went back to sleep until a more civilized hour.

The tour book said that the Alaska Highway between Kluane Lake and Beaver Creek had conditions ranging from good to very poor. I think that judgment was overly generous. It took us over 5 hours to drive 131 miles. And the worst part is, this is the only section of the AH that we will have to do twice. Later in the trip, we will drive from Valdez to Haines, which can only be reached by driving through Canada. I can only hope that the road crews have had time to get some work done before we go back through.

We did finally see a grizzly bear this afternoon, munching calmly along the side of the road and ignoring the people who stopped to look. We learned that the grizzly and the Alaskan brown bear are the same species, as is the Kodiak bear (found only on Kodiak Island). Both the grizzly and the American black bear come in all colors from blond to black. We saw a gorgeous brown black bear earlier on the trip.

We passed the 4000 mile mark on the trip today. For a change, I was driving. (Patrice had the wheel for the first 3 milestones). After 16 days on the road, we are finally in Alaska, but not yet at the end of the Alaska Highway. I think we are at mile 1315 (of about 1350). Tomorrow, we will pass the end of this highway on our way to North Pole, AK, and then on to Fairbanks.

I didn’t expect to have wifi tonight. We are miles from anywhere, and this campground has satellite wifi, which is quite slow, so I won’t waste bandwidth with words …

Two days and three nights in Whitehorse, YT. Yesterday, we visited the local wildlife preserve, 700 acres devoted to showcasing the mammals of the Yukon. More than a zoo, more reliable viewing than in the wild. And although most of the mammals were captive, all the birds were wild, and we found two life birds, including a pair of trumpeter swans. I was as fascinated by the ground squirrels as the elk and bison.

And hiked along Miles Canyon, where the Yukon flows between basalt walls, about 30 feet down. A cross-country ski trail runs right along the canyon rim.

Whitehorse is only about 90 miles from Skagway, Alaska, a town that, on our plan, we would not get to visit for another two weeks. Today, we took the White Pass and Yukon Route railway (a narrow-gauge train) from Fraser to Skagway. Looking at the mountain walls, there was a reason that they used a narrow gauge train. The WPYR originally ran from Skagway to Whitehorse, and provided an easy ride for the gold miners trying to get to the upper reaches of the Yukon. Because of a famine in Dawson in 1897, the Canadian government required that anyone coming into the country to mine for gold have provisions for a full year; this amounted to about a ton of supplies per miner (or stampeder, as they were known here). A ton of supplies does not fit easily on one’s back, so the miners brought pack animals, sleds, anything that could carry the load. Once the train was running, the trip got a bit easier.

Whitehorse is semi-arid, getting only about 11” of precipitation a year. Skagway is coastal, and snow stays only a day or two when it falls. But in between, winter brings 8 to 12 feet of snow in an average winter. Which required really big snow removal equipment.

Snow Blower, WPYR Rwy. Made in Paterson, NJ in 1898. Retired, 1965

Tomorrow, we are off to Kluane Lake, our last night in Canada for a while. On Monday, we should enter Alaska for the last third of the AH.

Blog

9 June: We stayed overnight at the Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park. A dip in the hot springs is almost mandatory for

travelers of this road, and well worth the stop. The hot springs are 53oC at the source, allowing a number of more southerly plants to survive in an otherwise inhospitable environment. And for mere mortals, the hot springs were a welcome replacement for the (now drained) hot tub in NC.

The rig has been difficult to start mornings. I’m beginning to be concerned.  We had this problem earlier in the year, and it seemed to resolve with a new battery,  but why the battery would now be draining so quickly is a mystery.

10 June: We tried to second guess the rig last night, leaving both the slideout and the stairs unused, and it started right up for the first time in several days. We were pleasantly surprised, and hopeful that we had a handle on our somewhat unpredictable starter. But when we turned it off after a 3-hour drive, it was slow to start up again. First time we’ve had that happen.

We stayed the day in Watson Lake, a small town in the south of the Yukon Territory, mostly famous for it’s “Signpost Forest”, a collection of more than 80,000 signs. The signposts were started by a homesick GI in 1942, and just grew from there. (The original sign is long gone.)

More lore on the AH: There was talk of building the roadway as early as the 1920s, but the Canadians were reluctant to grant the US permission, fearful that the US might take over parts of Canada. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese assault on the Aleutian Islands, it became clear that a land route north was essential, and the US Army built the “Pioneer Road” in about 9 months in 1942. The original road was intended for use only in the winter (when the bogs froze over). A close reading of the history shows that the US Army began troop movements for road building about a month before the Canadians actually agreed to let us in. A larger army of Canadian and US civilian contractors followed the US Army and built a more permanent , 4-season road the following year (18,000 men; military and non-military). There were actually 3 different routes that were considered; the one chosen was the most difficult, least understood route, chosen because it was the only route that could link a number of airfields that had already been established in upper BC and the Yukon. After WWII Canada bought the AH for half of what it cost the US to build it.

11 June:  We pushed on to Whitehorse, where we stopped at a truck repair shop to see if there was anything obviously wrong with the starter. Of course, it had worked flawlessly all day. Best guess was that the starter solenoid was sticking on occasion, but of course they didn’t have the part for this German engine. We’ll have to try again in Anchorage.

Along the way, we crossed the Continental Divide (rivers to the east flow into the Arctic Ocean, rivers to the west flow into the Yukon), and watched a summer storm cross over the valley.

We learned that the Alaska Ferry has changed our schedule again, and now to an unworkable one. We’ll have to revisit the whole “southeast” thing when we get to Fairbanks (and free cellphone calls). For now, we’re going to enjoy a couple of days in Whitehorse, and maybe take the Skagway-Whitehorse railway from this end, instead of from Skagway.