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Published: August 21st 2007
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Young Caribou
Didn't know what the monster chasing him was. 13 August: We left the Denali area (Rainbow RV Park) late this morning, heading for the Denali highway and (we hope) some good grayling fishing. Grayling are supposed to be about halfway between a trout and a salmon, and we’re going to try to catch some. We have no more reservations or solid plans. A note about the RV park at the Denali’s Glitter Gulch: it had the best high-speed wifi we’ve experienced in a long time, and if it doesn’t work in your camper, the Subway store also has an unsecured site. The strip also had a coffee shop with unlimited wifi access for $5.00. Other than that, the campground is grim.
We’re driving through Cantwell, and confirmed our opinion that there are many more liquor stores here than grocery stores. We also discovered a bag of Tostito chips that cost $8.39 - each! - at the Denali Park store. We have been looking for fresh veggies, and learned that they have them, but they’re sold by the “vegetable lady” who doesn’t work on Sunday (good for her).
14 August: What a ride! We’re back on the 21 miles of pavement at the eastern end of the 135
mile long Denali Highway. “Highway” is not the term I’d use for this road, though it’s magnificent and wild. There are more glaciers to be seen here than in all of Glacier National Park, plus views to the horizon of tundra and spruce, lakes, creeks and rivers. You can see all this if you’re NOT the driver, since all but the eastern 21 miles are mostly dirt road. Some stretches are gravel, but not many. We started from the western end and were thrilled to see the yellow line start, but this section of road (while I’m typing) is possibly worse than the dirt section. Lesson learned: dirt roads don’t have frost heaves. Though the speed limit is 50, you’re taking chances if you’re going more than about 25 or 30 on the paved part. We averaged 20 mph on the dirt part.
This road carries with it many contradictions. It’s remote wilderness, largely managed by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, but the trails from heavy ATV use scar the landscape. We routinely use our ATV on our farm in Tennessee, but we’re careful not to cut the turf - and the tundra here is much more
Alaska Pipeline
By the Taylor Highway, near Delta Junction fragile. We also saw many bicyclers taking advantage of the deserted road, but felt their pain on the dusty way. We shared supper one night with two commercial fishermen from Cordova who are trying to “get back in shape” with a 450-500 mile round trip ride from Valdez. We stayed one night at the Brushkana BLM campground, which is beautiful and located right on Brushkana Creek. The only other campground on the 135 mile road was just at the eastern end of the dirt section, and is obviously much used by hunters and fishermen. Brushkana was much nicer. There are many pulloffs along the road, but it’s hard to get away from the dust.
Tom had a hard time looking for wildlife since he had to negotiate the road, so I used my nearsighted eyes and found caribou and swans. Even though homes here are far from the conveniences of modern life, we drove past a nice log cabin/lodge and its 7.7 acre lot that was for sale for $595,000. Remember that the place isn’t on the grid, may have a well, and is 170 miles on paved and dirt roads from the nearest real grocery store.
We just stopped at the Paxson Lodge, newly reopened at the intersection of the Denali and Richardson Highways. Although they do NOT have diesel fuel (nor does anyone on the Denali Highway), the gas pumps are now open and he has a few supplies as well as a bar and a café. Lesson: we used half a tank of diesel; don’t try it without a full tank. We also saw an important poster for anyone (like us) who might be considering a hike on the Swede Lake trail system: land mines. Yeah, really. Apparently they’re left from some 1960’s military exercises and have just been rediscovered. Though the EOD people are looking, hikers are advised to “retreat and report”. That’ll keep me off those trails, all right. Any we worried about the grizzly bears!
We’re seeing dozens of campers and ATVs coming into the area and believe that the caribou hunting season has started. As in Tennessee, hunting season puts a crimp in hiking season. We decided not to stay another night on the Denali Highway in the dust, so are headed up along Summit Lake toward Delta Junction. More glaciers and tundra, but the Richardson Highway is pretty quiet.
The Gulkana glacier feeds streams that both go north and join the Yukon River and go south into Prince William Sound. The mountains are huge (Rainbow Mountain is 6000 feet high), and one can only imagine the size of the glaciers that formed it. As happens so often in Alaska, the landscape has changed completely from the tundra on the Denali Highway to huge mountains and the wide braided Delta River, milky with the silt of its glacier source.
The Alaska pipeline runs along the highway here, tunneling under the Delta River on its way from the Arctic to Valdez and the terminal across the bay from our campground.
15 August: Stayed at Donnelly Creek SRS last night, another good government campground at the edge of the Delta River, but not near the water. The Delta is another of those Alaska Rivers that is literally miles wide, and in this case, the main body of the river was over a half mile away from our shore.
We just passed through Delta Junction, home of two handy businesses, one of which is the PetroWash, located just as we came into town, with gas, diesel, propane, a GREAT RV wash with ladders so you can wash the top of your rig, free dump station and potable water fill, plus a little store and nice people. They recommended that we go to the Buffalo Center Drive-In just down the road which has free unsecured WiFi, and (we learned) good buffalo chili and tacos. Hey, I’ve been recommending these places with free services, if you use them, don’t be a jerk - buy something! We’re now running toward Tok, covering the one northern-most piece of the Alaska Highway that we missed on the way up. Tom’s up to 70 mph for the first time in many weeks. (I’m sorry I wrote that; Tom’s just started singing, “Back in the frost heaves again.”) We’re hoping the current rainy (sigh …) weather breaks before we head up the gravel roads through Chicken AK and the Top of the World highway. Given good weather, we could be back in Canada in a couple of days.
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