June 25 - July 17, 2013 Road Trip to Alaska - Part I

My brother and his family recently took a trip to Alaska. His wife's posts made me want to dig up an old website's webpage. We forgot a lot and we are now glad that we took the time to document that trip. We are puttiing it here now in 2 parts.

Canada

We started our trip in the early morning on June 25th and did not arrive in Alaska until June 29th. Our stops at night were Quesnel and Fort Nelson in British Columbia and Whitehorse and Dawson City in the Yukon Territories. On our drive through Canada, we saw:

Deer

Black Bears

Moose

Bison

and a Fox (Fox family, but did not get a picture)

The most interesting place we stayed was Bombay Peggy's Victorian Inn and Pub which had been a bordello at one time. The parlor is where we enjoyed sherry and sweets.

Cross the Border to Alaska

The roads in the North started getting rough. The “Top of the World Highway” was supposed to have gorgeous views, but we went across early in the morning and there was a thick, thick fog in many areas. Since the borders are closed at certain times, we were pretty confident that no one was headed towards us. However, there were times when the fog was so thick and the dirt roads so narrow that if anyone was coming the other way…

From Dawson City, we took a ferry and drove in thick fog

We were looking forward to the views from the "Top of the World Highway"

We, finally, got to the Alaska Border:

Along the highway, we still had fog although it lifted at times.

Our car was a MESS!

On the way to Fairbanks, we saw more moose

We planned to have lunch out of our cooler – sandwiches, chips. Well, we had rain periodically and we had an awful time with mosquitos. So we would try to find windy places in order to eat in peace without mosquitos. Our breakfast bars did a good job of holding us over during the times that we did not have an opportunity to stop. In Fairbanks and before we went camping, we went looking for mosquito repellent and found empty shelves.

This is what happens when there is a mosquito problem!

After going to several stores, we did find some lower strength repellent, something to spray on the tent to repel mosquitos from our tent entrance, mosquito netting for my head and better hats. So at Denali National Park, we were prepared for camping.

Denali National Park

Our tent at Riley Creek Campground..

Prepared for mosquitos!

Our tent at Savage River Campground:

NOT prepared for this bird stealing a cherry off the table!

We were prepared for cold weather…

We saw moose, caribou and a spec on the binoculars that was a grizzly bear that we don’t count since it looked like a rock (except that it moved).

Visitors are not allowed to drive after about the first 15 miles into Denali National Park so we decided to take a shuttle bus to the Eielson Visitor Center. There was a viewing area there and we took a hike on one of the trails. Riding back to our campground, we thought it was wise to limit road traffic into the park:

We read where one person waited 3 weeks before Denali (Mt. McKinley) was revealed to him. We were quite fortunate with the weather, both for camping and to view.

We also went to the dog kennels. The rangers use sled dogs to get around the park during the winter. During the summer, visitors get to meet the dogs up close and see a dog sled demonstration:

Onward to Anchorage to start Part 2...