Muiriel's Alaskan Loop

After one short shake-down type maiden voyage, our new 560 (Muiriel) was aligned with our family just in time for our first big Alaskan summer adventure. My Army unit was on "block leave" status (basically, planned leave/vacation for the majority of the formation in order to reduce the amount of people who take leave during training periods) for a two and a half week period beginning the 4th of July weekend. We intended to be camping for most of it.

The route plan was basically a big loop, which covers a shocking majority of the highway system in Alaska. We planned to head east and south, with the first major stop at the end of the road in Valdez for a few nights. Then back north a shade and connecting to a highway to take us west towards Anchorage, with a stop along the way. In Anchorage we would link up with friends from Seattle who had flown in, and then after some resupply time head south around the Turnagain Arm and to a secluded spot at the end of the road in a quaint town called Hope. From Hope we pushed a little further south to the end of yet another road in Seward. After Seward we returned our friends to Anchorage and the airport, then continued north to Talkeetna for two final nights of camping. The road north from Talkeetna took us back to Fairbanks, completing the loop.



Alaska is a contradiction in so many ways. One example - the state is simply enormous, and the road system that we can travel on is also enormous. But when zooming out, it continues to amaze me how that lengthy road system only covers a fraction of the state. If you remove the Dalton Highway from the equation (which isn't even paved but for a few short lengths, and is also only a temporary road that will disappear when the oil leases run out), this trip covers (bad napkin math) something like 75-85% of all the paved highway in Alaska. And yet, the amount of the state that we cannot access from a road network is staggeringly more. This route covers more than 1300 miles (portions of that are doubling back). Those 1300 miles look like a blip on the map of the whole of Alaska.



The itinerary:
Launch: Fairbanks traveling east on the Richardson Highway
Night 1: Delta Junction stop-over
Drive: South on the Richardson Highway until it ends in Valdez
Nights 2, 3, & 4: Camp in Valdez
Drive: North out of Valdez on the Richardson until the juncture with the Glenallen Highway in the town of Glenallen, then west on the Glenn until aprox the midway point of that highway
Nights 5 & 6: Camp at an RV stop on the Glenallen Highway
Drive: West on the Glen to Anchorage for re-fit and to link up with friends flying into town, then south out of Anchorage on the Seward Highway, around the Turnagain Arm, and then turning north by northwest onto the Hope Cutoff until it ends in Hope
Nights 7 & 8: Camp in Hope
Drive: Return down the Hope Cutoff to reunite with the Seward Highway and head south until the road ends in Seward
Nights 9 & 10: Camp in Seward
Drive: Back up the Seward Highway to Anchorage, deposit friends at the airport, and proceed north up the Parks Highway to Talkeetna
Nights 11 & 12: camp in Talkeetna
Drive: Home up the Parks Highway to Fairbanks

This post will unfold over multiple parts over time bit by bit. For those who don't care as much for my verbose preacher storytelling voice, there will also be lots of pictures.

 

Launch through Night 1:

Driving east from Fairbanks is a neat experience for us. Though we have lived in the state for almost half a year, we have rarely gone any further east than the close semi-burb of North Pole, which is virtually a Fairbanks suburb (but don't say that in NP). This is perhaps our third trip headed east out of Fairbanks, and we are traveling down the road we came up when we drove to Alaska in January. To say the scenery is different that what we saw in January is an understatement. What had been covered in snow is now lush and green, what had been frozen rivers and lakes are now both running and placid.

The day before our trip launched, we had a surprise visit from old Army friends who were on vacation and popped into town. A late night of reconnecting led to a sleepy morning ... so we got a pretty late start to our grand trip. Not to fret. Instead of pushing too hard, we drove only a couple hours east to Delta Junction and set up camp at a state park there in town.



DJ is known as the point where the Alaska Highway ends and connects with two other highways in Alaska. For those who take the big Alaska Highway trip, it is a signifiant marking point. Nearby in the town is also a small (but actually enormous) Army base named Fort Greeley. The fact that Fort Greeley exists keeps people in Fort Wainwright (where I served) from complaining too much about living in a remote part of Alaska. If Fort Wainwright is remote, Fort Greeley is dang near a frontier outpost.



The park we camped in was crowded with the rush of 4th of July camping but still enjoyable. Surrounded by black spruce, the boys threw the baseball while dinner was cooking and we got a good night's rest before pulling up stakes and heading out in the morning. After a cup or two of home roasted hand ground artisan coffee, of course. We might be in the wilderness, but we aren’t neanderthals.



Imgur

This image was captured at 10:10pm


…and this one at 11:01pm



While we are on the shortening side of the summer solstice and every day is getting shorter and shorter by about seven minutes per day, and while we are headed south which means the dramatic effect of the sub-Arctic long days will be reduced, we are very much in the “meat” of the season of long days and no darkness. The summer solstice was 13 days ago, which means the day in Fairbanks is already aprox 90 minutes shorter than it was at peak.

By the end of this trip, the solstice will have been 25 days in the past and the day almost three hours shorter than the solstice peak. Having never camped in the sub-Arctic summer, we pack all the usual stuff for our journey: a propane lantern, flashlights, headlamps, LED markers for guide wires, and battery powered lanterns for the tent.

We camp for a dozen nights straight and never use a single one of those items.

 

Drive: Delta Junction to Valdez
Route: South on the Richardson Highway until the road ends in Valdez

This is a long driving day. The listed mileage is under 275 miles, but we are talking about Alaskan highways here. On top of the fact that we are towing our new camper for the first real long haul and headed over rough terrain on roads that sometimes rapidly change condition, we are taking it slow. We also make some stops along the way to soak in the scenery. I think it takes us about 6 or more hours to make the drive.

One of those first stops is a turnout just after crossing the bulk of the Alaska Range. This mountain range is known for many gems, chief of which is Denali. On the southern side of the range looking east as it runs north/south, a traveler on the Richardson Highway can see Rainbow Ridge, so named for the colorful conglomeration of rock types that paints a palette of colors across the ridge line. We stop for pictures.





We are excited to 'lean into' the teardrop experience, and that means using the galley as a mobile eatery when on the road. What better place to do this than Alaska, where one often can't even find a fast food restaurant/pit stop to eat at anyway? Somewhere along the Richardson Highway we pull off at a scenic overlook to make a picnic lunch. The "scenic" view is stunning - a full view of an enormous glacier. This is probably only the second glacier we have seen at this point in our time in Alaska (including the one we visited in winter when we hiked into an ice cave (!!!). There will be many, many more glaciers in the hours and days and months to come.





At a pitstop in Glenallen, we capture a gorgeous view of some imposing mountains. From Glenallen one can see mountains from 4 different ranges: The Chugach Mountains to the south-ish, the Wrangell Mountains to the northeast, the St. Elias mountains that arch up from the southeast, and of course the Alaska Range which is now to the north of us. I used to know what mountain is in this shot but I've long forgotten. It might be Mount Drum? Let's go with that. Mt. Drum is a 12k foot monster of a volcano.



Continuing south on the Richardson Highway, we eventually arrive at the crest of the Chugach Mountains that dominate the Valdez landscape. Just before we can enter the mountain pass that we will traverse to descend into town, we are stopped by a flagger for some one-way traffic management. We just so happened to be the first vehicle stopped by the flagger, so I have a prime chance to hop out of the driver's seat while we wait for the pilot vehicle to return and escort us forward. The image is one of my favorites from the whole trip. There are more glaciers in this shot, one of which we will visit on our way out of town in a few days.





The eventual highlight is the actual descent into Valdez. This actually feels like a jet airliner's descent into an airport. One moment we are thousands of feet in elevation above the ocean, and then we are suddenly, dramatically, descending down winding roads and cuts in the mountains until only a few dozen miles later we are along the coast.

But first, before the descent, a chance to pull off the highway and bask in the commanding views and some short quick hiking.









And when you're headed downhill so much, so quickly, in an bio-zone that is nearly a rain forest, you're bound to get some good waterfall shots. This is just one of them.



Upon arriving in Valdez we set up camp in a military-owned recreational campground. It is 4th of July weekend and the place is a zoo - in more ways than one (more on that later). On top of it being 4th of July, the pink salmon run is at full-tilt, so there is a surge of visitation to Valdez to take advantage of the fishing during the salmon run (more on that later). The large campground is running at capacity. We tuck into our space and set up camp, looking forward to the next couple days.

 

Neat trip and story however I’m confused when the trip took place. Was I in a coma overnight and July 4th 2022 come and gone or was this in 2021?

 

You have accurately discerned a time-shift in storytelling! However, you’re still off by a couple years.

This trip happened in the summer of 2019, our first summer in Alaska. I haven’t posted any detailed trip reports because I’m a lazy, procrastinating bum. So I’m catching up these days and starting from the beginning.

The oldest boy you see in these pictures was just about to enter his freshman year of high school. He will be a senior next year. Cue Dad tears.

 

Thanks dirty. Regardless of when it occurred I enjoyed reading about it.

 

Nights 2, 3, & 4: Valdez

After the breathtaking jaunt over Thompson Pass and its multiple glaciers, we descend dramatically more than 2600 feet in just 13 miles to sea level.

The campground is hustle and bustle and we have (thankfully) a reservation for one of the only unoccupied spots. We are celebrating the birthday of our middle child the first evening and he gets to name the meal request, since we have inflicted upon him the insufferable indignity of camping on his birthday. We make philly cheesesteak sandwiches. Yes, that is a ribeye directly on the fire cowboy style for the sear.



Just a short shuffle up the road from where our campground is, a classically Alaskan space exists - basically a huge clearing where folks can park and camp for free. This sort of space is why the RV is so popular in Alaska - there are no bathrooms, or water sources, or other facilities. Just a space to park in where you and your RV are expected to be totally self-sufficient during your stay. This sort of space is also why True Alaskans often think that spending money to stay at an RV park or a campground is utterly preposterous. In general, campgrounds and RV parks cater not to Alaskans, but to tourists and long haul travelers. Since we are in a 560 without a bathroom (and since we are not True Alaskans, either), we do the unthinkable and shell out cash to camp.

Just past that space is the terminus of Valdez Glacier. In colder weather, this lake (not surprisingly named Valdez Glacier Lake) has huge ice chunks all the way up to the shoreline. The glacier recedes considerably in summer, and kayakers have a great time poking around in the lake among the iceberg giants. Careful attention is required though, because the lake flows out into a river that has some pretty wild rapids before draining into the wide, calm Lowe River. Some kayakers show up specifically to shoot those rapids in kayaks designed for that kind of activity; we get to see a few of them making the attempt.

We don’t have kayaks, so we just wander around the lake soaking in the views and admiring the brave souls who flirt with getting literally flushed down a glaciated river.



Later that day (or the next, I don’t really remember), we wander down to the highlight of Valdez for us - fishing. The pink salmon are running and the action is pretty good. This specific fishery allows a unique method of fishing in a specific area during the salmon run.

Thanks to the environmental disaster of the oil spill years ago, the oil company put in a fish hatchery here in Valdez as a part of the environmental recuperation costs. The hatchery seeds the river with a few different species of salmon, which return to the hatchery (or attempt to get upriver from the hatchery) in enormous numbers every year to spawn. The hatchery has a special fish “gate” that blocks the river to keep the salmon from overwhelming that part of the ecosystem. They let a certain number of salmon pass through the gate to spawn upstream and they capture a certain number to harvest reproductive parts from to fertilize and seed the next year’s batch of fish. The rest of the fish that don’t make it upstream or into the capture system are just stacked up outside the fish gate (fish weir) in a seething mass of thousands and thousands of salmon with no where to go.

For the wildlife, it’s an all you can eat buffet. There are sea lions and otters and birds all over the place, just picking off salmon from the school as fast as they can eat them. This is a prime spot for seeing bears, who also come down for the easy fishing. And the other animal that shows up for easy fishing is us, the humans.

Due to the abundance of the fish in this specific spot, during certain times of the year anglers are allowed to “snag” salmon. This method involves no lure, no bait, and almost no technique. It is as close to shooting fish in a barrel as one can get. The angler puts a weighted treble hook on the end of the fishing line and finds a position where the low tide channelizes the running fish into a narrow stream of water. The line is cast out perpendicular to the stream of fish traffic and then the angler hopes to just “snag” a fish on the way in. Maybe in the mouth (unlikely), but more likely somewhere on the broadside of the salmon. Once the hook is in the side of the salmon, the angler reels it in, kills the fish, and repeats the process.

An Alaska resident is allowed something like 6 pink salmon per day when the run is happening. This is a common way of stocking the freezer for winter. A family of 5 can arrive in Valdez on a Friday evening and hope to catch the low tide and snag 6 salmon per family member before 11:59pm Friday. Then, as Saturday begins (remember, its not dark out even at midnight), the limit resets. Depending on tides, a family might get a chance to also fish the limit on Sunday as well. In three days of snagging, a family could realistically put almost 100 salmon in the cooler to take home and can or freeze or dry or smoke or otherwise preserve for the winter. And then they can do it again when the sockeye salmon run later in the summer.

In this image, you can see how the low tide creates small channels. Those channels are chock full of running salmon. By the time we finish our short fishing trip, the tide has risen and those small “islands” that are visible in the photo below are completely gone. The water rises up the rocky sloped shoreline to just below the point where you can see greenery.



We are not on a “stock the freezer” kind of fishing trip. We are on a 12 day camping trip and we are living out of a single cooler for that entire trip. We can only snag as much fish as we can reasonably expect to consume ourselves in the next couple of days; anything else would be wasteful. We decide to limit ourselves to 4 fish - one per kid and one for me, too. All three kids snag and land a fish and I catch the 4th in less than half an hour. There was a fifth fish that appeared thanks to a far more … dubious sequence of events, but I’ll save that story for sharing over a beverage and refrain from posting it in a public (searchable) forum.



You can see in this image that my daughter clearly snagged her salmon right in the tail.



We do not know it at the time, but this is one of only two really significant fishing experiences that we end up having over our 2.5 years in Alaska. It was a highlight of this particular trip, and a cherished memory of our entire Alaska assignment.

The weather is quite warm for Alaska, as a heat wave is spreading all over the state. Between that, and the seasonal demand for ice because of the fishing runs, and the fact that it is 4th of July weekend and the entire state is camping or otherwise doing outdoor activities, the state is practically sold out of ice. We can’t find any to fill our cooler, which creates some angst about whether our 5 beautiful salmon are going to last us even a day. It turns out that Valdez is a small enough and isolated enough village that the majority of commercial ice isn’t even made in Valdez - it is driven in by truck every day from Anchorage (that’s a 5-6 hour drive). The story around town is that the ice isn’t even making it to Valdez this weekend, as it’s getting consumed before leaving Anchorage or siphoned off at various spots along the way.

Alaska, as I said before, is sometimes a contradiction. We are surrounded by glaciers in all directions, and cannot get any ice into our cooler.

 

Nights 2, 3, & 4: Valdez, with a bear visitor

When we had arrived in Valdez, the town was abuzz, the salmon were running, and the campground was chock full.

On our first full day out and about, we went fishing and exploring (previous post) and didn't return to camp until dinner time.

As we pulled into the campsite, something seemed a little off. It was hard to say what it was. We unloaded from our vehicle and prepared to unwind for our evening meal (I think this was the birthday dinner philly cheesesteak meal).

My spouse wandered around the back of the camper and made a startled sound. Then she looked at our roof top tent annex and made a very loud declaration "I think we had a bear visitor."

We quickly scanned all the spaces and tried to get a damage assessment. The door to the roof top tent annex had clear holes in it and were the most-damaged part of the camper.



The window to the rooftop tent also had some holes, where it looked like a curious bear had put two paws up on the screening and poked his little bear feet claws through the screen.



We did not get a picture of the galley hatch, but it had very distinct bear paw shapes that stood out from the otherwise uniform layer of road grime and gravel road dust that coated the camper stem to stern.

After clearing the camp space and ensuring the bear spray was out and ready, I hopped in the vehicle and ran up to the campground host to make our report. He was .... unimpressed with my story. Apparently a little black bear had been in and out of the campground most of the day and the host had fielded quite a few "OMG YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS BUT GUESS WHAT" sorts of visits from the campers. He assured us that he had run the bear off twice, and now that everyone was returning to their campsites from a day out and about the bear was unlikely to return for the evening.

So I went back to the campsite and made Philly cheesesteaks ... with two cans of bear spray close by and my handgun on my hip the whole night.

We usually keep a pretty clean campsite, so we were surprised that a bear poked around in our space so curiously. It made sense that the bear put paws on the galley hatch, because there's probably always lingering food smells under the galley no matter how well we keep it clean. But what in the world would have inspired the bear to poke into the annex? There was no food in there, just smelly socks and the puppy crates.

The puppy crates. That's it. We concluded that the puppy crates probably had small bits and pieces of dog food on the bottom of the crates from when we had fed them on the road. There's always a little spillage. And dog food crumbs probably smell pretty good to a bear. The actual stored dog food was not in the campsite - it, and all our dry food, and our cooler, was with us in the car all day long.

Best guess is that the bear was trying to get in our annex to get to those crates, and got spooked/ran off in the midst of ripping our expensive new annex apart. I was pissed! We had only used this dang pricey tent setup for four whole nights and it was already jacked up!!!

We slept ... decently well that night; there was no bear visit that we know of once we got back to the campsite. The next day in Valdez, we mostly stuck to town and did some wandering about, to include spending a few lazy hours at a coffee shop and a cute restaurant next door.



We went back to the campground around 3pm and were shocked to see that the place had nearly emptied out. The mad rush of folks in town for the salmon run/4th of July weekend were on the tail end of their trips and had bailed out for their long drives back to wherever home was. But we were still there and still planning to camp for another night in Valdez! I guess not everyone gets to take two straight weeks off of work.

The most angst-producing moment happened next: as we turned down the road to our campsite, we saw the bear culprit emerge from a dumpster and plod along to another campsite, nosing around looking for something yummy.

I quickly doubled back to the campground host and told him what we had seen (after taking some very bad grainy pictures of the bear, of course). The host looked at me with this most disgusted and frustrated of looks that communicated something like "I swear to all that is holy, if I see this bear I'll kill it myself with my own two hands just for the extra work it has given me the last two days." The host didn't say anything, slung his .45 in a shoulder harnesses around his torso, and hopped on a 4 wheeler to go on his nth wild bear chase of the weekend.

We went back to the campsite and began deliberating. On the one hand, we were in a fairly clean campsite and were well postured and well prepared for bear defense. On the other hand, it's a freaking bear we are talking about - one the has been here already. On the one hand, we slept here just fine last night and didn't get bothered. On the other hand, the campground was full last night but tonight it is nearly empty - which means the bear will have far less food smell targets than he did the night before.

Caution won over bravado. We knew there were RV-park type campgrounds down in town with vacancies as the weekend crowd dissipated, and we concluded that the security of being in a more population-dense area was worth the hassle of re-positioning camp (and paying for another campsite when the one we were parked at had already been paid for).

We quickly broke camp down, rolled into downtown, and set up at an RV campsite that had a few (cheaper) rustic sites.

Even though we were in an RV park on gravel, the views were actually stunning compared to the campsite we had been in the previous two nights. Instead of being tucked into deeply wooded campsites up on the mountainside, we were out in the open and able to take in the majesty of the mountains that rose around us from all directions. I took a lot of photos that night from our spot, but this was my favorite:



Plus, the RV park had showers. After 4 pretty smelly days, that was a relief. We also enjoyed cooking up most of the salmon that we had not yet eaten from the fishing trip the day prior. It was divine.

 

Drive: Valdez to midpoint of Glenallen Highway

After the high adventure of Valdez bear defense in depth, we finally score some ice for the cooler and hit the road for our next stop. The target is an RV campground around the midpoint of the Glenallen Highway (point B to point C on the overview map at the very top of this post).

As we retrace our steps through Valdez and up through the Thompson Pass (2600 feet of climbing in just more than a dozen miles), we pull off into the parking lot for Worthington Glacier for a small hike.

From the parking lot/visitor’s area at Worthington glacier, hikers can elect to start at the south of the parking lot for one hike or to the north of the lot for another. We decide to do both, and start with the southern option.

The south hike climbs immediately and dramatically over a number of sharp switchbacks. We are huffing and puffing right away, and some of the footing is less than sure. My youngest daughter doesn’t last long before she is ready to bail. My spouse returns to the parking lot with her while I press on with the boys. After the sharp climb, the trail gains a ridgeline and then follows that ridgeline. The exposure is a little uneasy (especially for one of my boys) but the slope is now gradual. The trail at this point essentially runs parallel down the southern boundary of the glacier for quite a way. We don’t make it very far because we are trying to be considerate to those who had turned around and were waiting on us.

This photo is from the furthest point we hike – you can see the trail leading up to an overlook of the glacier in the distance.



We turn around and retrace our steps down the trail. You can appreciate both the exposure of the ridgeline trail and also the steepness of the access to the ridgeline in this shot. This image contains a clear shot of the parking lot, where we started. You can also see the start of the northern hike that winds down quickly to the glaciated river.



Back at the parking lot, we reunite with the others and set out for the second hike. This trail is far less severe but is eventually a little kinetic. It starts by wandering down lazily past some interpretive signs to the glaciated river where the glacier is melting and pouring out into the river that eventually feeds into the ocean. We cross some large flat areas and begin to approach the foot of the glacier.

Along the trail, we keep getting warnings from other hikers returning from the foot of the glacier. “Be careful!” they say, “rocks fall of the top of the glacier and can be VERY dangerous!” “Don’t get too close!” “If one of those hits you in the head it could be a really bad day!”

Most of our family heeds those warnings and decides to stay in the wide flat space without getting close to the glacier. My oldest son, however, is bent on touching the glacier. So we push on, a foolish dad listening to the foolish exhortation of his teenage son with an undeveloped pre-frontal cortex and a questionable amount of testosterone helping him make his decisions.

The trail itself is short but rugged. The closer we get to the glacier, the louder the rushing water from the melt gets. Eventually it is nearly deafening. The terrain in this place is steep enough and the weather this time of year is warm enough that the glacier is producing a lot of runoff and that runoff is immediately rushing downhill very fast, with multiple white waterfall drops along the way adding to the volume. In this picture, you can see some of those rushing waterfall type features. It is also remarkable how dramatically the air cools as we approach the foot of the glacier – it is like walking into a store with air conditioning on a hot summer day.



The above picture also demonstrates the error in judgement that we make by even getting close to the glacier. In my mind, when fellow hikers warned about rocks falling off the top of the glacier, I assumed that the rocks would be falling from the lower lip of the roof of the glacier. I imagined the lower lip melting a little bit, and then no longer supporting a rock that had been perched on the edge, causing the rock to fall straight down along the face of the glacier.

This is not what happens. As we get close to the glacier, it suddenly becomes apparent that the rocks are releasing from the *upper* lip of the glacier, and then tumbling down the steep slope of the glacier accumulating speed with an uncertain trajectory. Instead of falling in a straight line down the face of the glacier (which I thought could easily be observed/avoided), the rocks come flying off the slope of the glacier at a high rate of speed and impact the ground 20-30 feet in front of the foot of the glacier.

Just as I settle into the point where I decide I am close enough to record a video of my son running up to touch the glacier, the first rock lands only a few feet away from me. I’m still 30 feet from the foot. My son senses the urgency and starts sprinting as fast as he can manage while hopping from shale rock to shale rock up to the glacier. I realize with a bit of dread that there is no way to predict where these rocks are going to land. They are falling all around us almost like artillery rounds indiscriminately and randomly blowing up on a battlefield. The only way to avoid them is to go as fast as possible and make the time spent in the danger zone as short as possible. My son races up to the glacier, turns around for a quick photo thumbs up, and races back. As he makes his moves, “rounds” land to his right and left. And then he is with me again. Relief. Yikes, that was too close.

Alaskans have a saying that goes, “Alaska will give you one mistake. Then Alaska will kill you.” It’s an acknowledgement that the wilderness of the state poses many extra risks that have to be attended to, and the only way to learn about those risks is to experience the danger of them (or, you know, heed the warnings of fellow hikers like a sensible person would do). As we turn our backs to the glacier and head back to the family and the parking lot, the slowly quieting roar of the rapids joined with the retrospective feeling from the adrenaline fading away leads to a moment of reflection – “Was that our one mistake?”



Maybe a bit melodramatic. Into the vehicle we load, back north up to the junction of the Glenallen and Richardson highways in the town of Glenallen. We point our rig west at that point, and travel a couple/few more hours down the Glen to an RV park we have reservations at. The Glenallen is a gorgeous stretch of highway that doesn’t have a mile without beautiful scenery. However, the weather is hot and dry, and wildfire smoke (there are terrible wildfires along much of our route that summer) significantly obscures our view. We make it to our RV spot and tuck into a very pretty space with some adorable German neighbors on a grand Alaskan adventure themselves. In broken English we share some stories of the road and the homes we come from.

Our RV campground is situated on the south side of the Glen and faces some steep, sharp bluffs. Without the wildfire smoke, we would be able to see some of the expansive Matanuksa Glacier to our south and west. Lucky for us, the smoke doesn’t obscure the other featured viewing opportunity available from our spot. Those bluffs to our north are actually centered in a short stretch of highway and wilderness space where Dall Sheep are protected from hunting, and they are often visible on the rocky bluffs and lush meadows of the mountains to our immediate north. With some good binoculars we are able to spot and follow multiple herds of Dall Sheep. Of course, a photograph would just show tiny white dots, so you’ll have to take my word for it.



The boys throw the baseball back and forth, we enjoy some camp food, and hesitatingly make our plans for hiking on another glacier tomorrow.

This photo was taken at 1106pm. If not for the smoke, there would be a glacier in the shot.

 

Springer! This springer is actually an Alaska puppy - we got him only days after we moved to the state in January. He was born in November well after the snow pack had been established for the year. He is a winter dog, for sure. He was fully house trained before the snowpack melted, and he was so accustomed to “outside” meaning “snow” that when it did finally melt he had a hard time learning to go to the bathroom on the grass.

We had two springers when we took this trip - this Alaska puppy and a much older, quite sick fella. By the time the next summer’s trip happened, we only had one friend to come along with us.

 

Nights 5 & 6: Midway point on the Glenallen Highway

When we wake up on our 6th day, the plan of action is to visit the Matanuska Glacier. The Matanuska is a massive, expansive, *mellow* glacier that sits roughly parallel to the Glenallen Highway. Mellow being the key word, after the previous day’s approximation of a war zone visiting the Worthington Glacier.

A family privately owns a healthy chunk of land that abuts and includes a large portion of the Matanuska Glacier. The easiest way to access the glacier is to visit the landowner’s private entry point, which includes a small gift shop and visitor center, and select one of a half dozen options to pay for access onto the glacier.



At the base level (cheapest), what one is really paying for is the right of passage on the road and bridge that the owner maintains to get right up to the glacier. Up from that price point, one can also pay for guided tours, ice climbing experiences, multi day excursions on the glacier surface, and so forth. We opt for the cheapest option – access to drive down to the glacier, hike on a self-guided route, and that’s about it. The owner has a marked route and maintains/adjusts it for safety as the glacier changes its course and composition through the year, but this is a very flat, very mellow glacier. It’s nice to be safe for a change.

Now, it is worth pointing out: proper Alaskans think it is bat-sh** crazy to pay for access to a glacier. The state is beyond full of them. They are all over the place on the mountains surrounding us as we drive. Many can be accessed with little to no difficulty. This is absolutely a tourist type experience, targeting road trippers and RV wanderers who are not “from around these parts.” We, however, fit in both categories. And after the previous day’s (mis)adventure, I’m ok with shelling out a little cash for the more tame version of walking on ice.



We drive down the access road past the pay-gate, and park in a generous parking lot. Of course, first there is a little-advertised Alaskan adventure – the road crosses a glaciated river that is running pretty strong in the hot summer season. The owner of the property has constructed a bridge that would not be declared safe in half the countries in the world – but in Alaska, if it works, it works. This video view is actually from our return trip back to the highway after our hike. When we go over the bridge the first time, the language from the driver is fairly foul and the knuckles are white. On the return trip, I ask my spouse to get the video rolling to capture the craziness for posterity.



Other than the bridging experience, the hike is pleasant. Our pups both do well and we wander about on the glacier’s surface for a few hours, taking dozens of pictures. The glacier hike starts out on very silty/rocky glaciated surface, but that eventually gives way to just walking on ice. Again, the feeling is similar to walking inside an air conditioner.



After the hike and surviving the return trip over some very shady bridging, we catch some ice cream at a spot close by and return to the campsite for a relaxing evening. The RV park has a small restaurant and after dinner my spouse and I go inside to share a beer. The service is …. Well, after 25 minutes we leave without ever having ordered a beer. That’s ok, we have beer in the cooler.

Tomorrow it is on to Anchorage to re-fit and then push on to a campsite on the Kenai Peninsula to the south of Anchorage. There we will reunite with friends flying in from Seattle who will rent a car at the airport and drive with us to our campsite.

 

You are a good writer, dirty.

 

Thank you, that’s a kind compliment. I enjoy writing and storytelling, but I’m bad about the discipline of doing the work. Which is why you’re seeing this story drafted a solid two years after it happened!

 

Drive: To Anchorage (re-fit) and then onto the Kenai Peninsula to connect to the Hope Highway until the road literally ends in a National Park campground (from points C to D to E on the map at the very top of this post)

Nights 7 & 8: Camp in Hope

After a week on the road and away from any significant population center, we load up for a much-anticipated pit stop in Anchorage and an even more anticipated chance to link up with friends flying in from Seattle to join us on a portion of our excursion.

Thankfully, everyone is able to get a decent shower at the RV spot on the Glen highway before we appear back in civilization. As we descend westward on the Glen highway into the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, we begin to hit some familiar places for the first time on our trip. We have been to Palmer before and the road becomes familiar as we turn south and roll into Anchorage. The bevvy of Alaska’s most significantly populated city awaits us: restaurants, ice, a brewery to fill up the growler at.

It turns out our friends have a delayed flight, so they encourage us to press on. The plan all along was for them to rent a car, so they insist we press on and set up camp without them. They will simply catch up to us at the campsite. And so we roll out of Anchorage, once again on road unfamiliar to us. We have been to the greater Anchorage area previously in our time in Alaska, but never further south than Anchorage.

The road runs south out of Anchorage and turns into the Seward Highway. It quickly turns sharply east and follows along the waterway of the Turnagain Arm, parallel with the railroad that follows the same body of water until some mountains stop it (well, there’s a huge tunnel that runs to Whittier and represents the main supply link for almost everything that comes into Alaska by way of anything other than airplane). Before the railroad hits the mountain tunnel, the road diverges and turns south again onto the magical playground of the Kenai Peninsula. This particular highway runs until it runs out of pavement in Seward, which we will get to in due time. But for now, we hang a hard right off the Seward Highway and follow the Hope Cutoff or Hope Highway. This road goes only to two places – Hope and one other slightly larger town just before Hope.

Hope is as quintessential as any Alaska town can be. It is on the water, a river runs through it, it is rugged yet quaint, there is an air of hospitality to it but also a sense of “when will these tourists be gone so we won’t have to deal with them anymore?” The town itself is nestled on the south shore of the Turnagain Arm and looks across the water generally to the point where the Seward Highway comes south out of Anchorage and makes its sharp eastern turn along the waterway. It is kind of quixotic to look out over the water (when we can, thanks to wildfire smoke) and realize that we are looking across the wild water to where we drove just a short time earlier.

The Hope Cutoff goes through town and keeps going and literally ends in a National Forest Campground, where we have reservations. We set up camp, cook our dinner, and wait for our friends who finally arrive just before midnight. The reunion is sweet and somewhat liquid-fueled. Between the drinks and the fact that it is still bright as day outside, we stay up way too late.



The next day we deliberate between doing some serious hiking or being less energetic. Our fuzzy heads lead us down the less energetic path. We wander into the village of Hope for a nice brunch and then walk the loop around the village, enjoying a few small historical spots along the way.



We also check out the waterfront area where a creek feeds into the Turnagain Arm. The name of the creek, where the salmon are running and plenty of folks are working to catch their limit for the day, is Resurrection Creek. The preacher in me and in my friend from Seattle (also a preacher) revels a bit in the names of the place – Resurrection Creek flowing through Hope.



While we don’t do anything too wild in Hope, it is still a place on the precipice of Alaska’s wild-ness. One of the few established backpacking trails in Alaska begins dead south of Hope on the Sterling Highway and runs north through Resurrection Creek’s valley crossing Resurrection Pass before ending up in Hope. That puts the idea in my head for a backpacking trip the following summer – an idea that gets squashed when we read about a relatively recent backpacker’s death on the same trail from a bear mauling. That’s the kind of precipice of wild-ness we are on – just a couple dozen miles from a recent bear mauling. It’s stunningly lush and has a haunting enchantment to it. It is both a tourist place but far enough off the usual beaten path that it’s still a bit of a quiet gem. We love it.

 

Drive: Hope Highway back to the Seward Highway, south on the Seward Highway until the road ends in Seward (from points E to F on the map at the very top of this post)

Nights 9 & 10: Camp in Seward

We return down the Hope Highway until it connects to the Seward Highway. The mountains are everywhere, lush, and gorgeous. There weather is relatively cool and misty and it adds a sense of spiritual vivacity to the landscape.

The drive south down to Seward, where the road (yet again) comes to an end, is a brief one compared to some of the others we have done on this trip. In Seward, we have reservations at a military-owned resort that features hotel rooms, RV spots, and tent camping spots. The resort is a well-used location by military members in Alaska and features a significant fish processing and flash freezing facility that resort guests can use for no extra charge. The resort also offers boat rentals and connects guests to fishing charters, that sort of thing.

Our friends from Seattle brought a small backpacking tent with them in their luggage. At our campground in Hope, they pitched the tent next to our 560 and slept in the tent. The plan in Seward is to do something similar, except the tent spaces are a short walk away from the RV spaces where we have rented a slot for Muiriel. Problem: It turns out the tent spaces are all occupied, even though we were told they are first come-first served and are almost never all occupied. What gives?

The resort employees sheepishly admit to us that it appears people are taking advantage of the tent spaces and “pretending” to camp there in order to access the fish processing facility. The tent spaces are, obviously, the cheapest lodging option at the resort. The tent camping fee is also lower than the daily access fee for the fish processing facility. So people are paying to pitch a tent in a camp space, and then driving to a local hotel and sleeping there. The small fee they are paying for a tent space is really an “access” fee to the fish processing facility. The resort staff really have no way of enforcing a rule that requires tent campers to, you know, actually sleep in their tents. Absent posting a guard in front of the tents to verify residence, they therefore can’t just go knock down someone’s tent to make space for our friends. Which all sounds great, good for those who have found a loophole in the system. But our friends have nowhere to sleep and there is nowhere in our RV space to pitch their tent.

We improvise. Our friends gladly suggest that they can just sleep on the ground in the annex space of our roof top tent. This obviously isn’t ideal (for starters, that’s where the dogs are sleeping) and makes for some deliberate going-to-bed maneuvers to ensure no one gets stepped on. But it will work. It works fine. It’s wonderful to be with our friends, and they graciously don’t flinch at the curveball.



In Seward we enjoy a few highlights. The town itself is adorable and also a little more eclectically updated than most Alaska towns. We are told this is attributable to the huge influx of tourists from the cruise ships, who roll into town and gobble up good restaurant fare and fancy cocktails at a pace that regular Alaska towns wouldn’t normally sustain. So, we enjoy at least one very nice restaurant meal while in town to break up all the camp cooking we have been doing. We also take in a wonderful marine life museum and nature center, which is a highlight of the town. We regularly ‘check in’ on the publicly posted wildfire information, just to keep an eye on it in case something shifts and we need to evacuate. So far so good. The second morning we are in town is Sunday, and our families visit a local congregation pastored by a colleague of mine. For my preacher friend and I, it is a highlight to experience a new place and take it in from the pews as opposed to leading the worship from the front.





The major event of the Seward leg of the trip is a marine tour. Months ago my wife had purchased our tickets for passage on a guided tour boat of the area, which includes all sorts of geographical highlights and wildlife viewing opportunities. The company offers various options -some of which will take guests very close to a calving glacier and others that focus on whale watching. We are signed up for the “wildlife and lunch” version where the goal is to cover as much ground as possible over 5 hours and see as much wildlife as possible, but not necessarily to get too close to any of the unique geographical features or landmarks. We will see plenty of glaciers, but all of them from a distance.



The trip is a great experience. We see tons of wildlife, mostly from a healthy distance so the photos are all of tiny black dots. But we enjoy it immensely. Sea otters, sea lions, puffins, a zillion other varieties of bird, and I’m probably forgetting half the list. The viewing starts immediately; this bald eagle is perched on the buoy at the entrance of the harbor and poses beautifully as we get underway. After some profile shots and staring us down, s/he takes to flight and provides an up-close view of a soaring bald eagle as well.









After a couple hours of wildlife viewing, the captain of the boat pulls us into the slip on a small island where the tour company has prepared an all you can eat feast for us: king crab legs, prime rib, and salmon highlight the menu. After gorging ourselves we walk around outside on the rocky shore of the island, taking in the view and breathing in the mist. To say it is hauntingly beautiful with a sense of spiritual depth is not quite right. Because it is all that, and more.



We load back onto the boat and take in more wildlife en-route back to the harbor in Seward. The weather is generally wet and cold, and we vacillate between wanting to be outside of the boat’s cabin to take in the scenery and wanting to be inside where it’s warm and dry. This picture was taken on July 13th, in the peak of summer weather. Alaska is amazing.



As Seward wraps up, our trip begins to draw down to a close. From this point forward, all of our driving will be “towards” home. For the intrepid reader who has hung in there this far with me, there’s only a couple more posts to go. Thanks for riding along for the first 8500 words. Now, the long road home begins to unfurl.

 

Drive: Back up the Seward Highway to Anchorage, deposit friends at the airport, and proceed north up the Parks Highway to Talkeetna (from points F to G on the map at the top of this post, through point D).

Camp: Nights 11 & 12 in Talkeetna

Our time in Seward is complete, and our vacation is on its final legs. The plan was to return to Anchorage with our friends and see them off at the airport, but there is an opportunity to see something unique before we get to Anchorage. Our friends encourage us to split apart from them so we can check out the opportunity. We say a fond farewell and they head out for the big city and its airport for a flight back to Seattle.

As we head north on the Seward highway and follow it around the Turnagain Arm, there is a point right in the elbow of the road where it turns back on the north side of the Turnagain Arm and the Portage Glacier Road (and the railroad) veer off west through the mountains to end up in the major port town of Whittier. At this elbow, the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center sits and invites us in to see some Alaska wildlife up and close.

The AWCC is a cross between a wildlife refuge and a large outdoor zoo. The animals there are generally rescued in some way, whether they are sick or orphaned, being rehabilitated, or otherwise in need of support. They live in a large outdoor space separated into zones. The center tells the story of many of the different kinds of wildlife in Alaska and their habitats, challenges, etc.

Now, this is another thing that proper Alaskans think is insane to pay money to do. All these animals are all over Alaska, why would one pay to see them? I have heard friends describe the place as “the cheater’s way to see Alaska wildlife – pay a few bucks and you can see every significant animal in the state in an hour without having to venture far or risk a bear encounter.” We decide to give it a try.

Right as we enter the center, the wolves in their pen gather around and begin a semi-routine howling performance. Our kids are hooked as the wolves sing their sad melodic song to the hills.



We see animals that we have already seen in the wild in Alaska – mostly moose and reindeer (technically, we haven’t seen reindeer in the wild b/c reindeer are domesticated caribou. We have seen caribou in the wild). We also come across foxes (which we have seen in the wild) and Dall sheep (which we have seen in the wild on this trip). There is also a significant bear ‘exhibit,’ with both black bears (saw one of those in the wild on this trip, still have the holes in the tent screen to prove it) and brown/grizzly bears (haven’t seen one of those in the wild yet). There are no polar bears and generally no other marine creatures, if you’re curious. But, we do arrive right around the time that the bears are being fed, and we get to see them a bit more active than usual because of that.







We also come across muskox, which is a pretty unique arctic/sub-arctic animal. The undercoat “wool” of a muskox is a highly coveted (and therefore wildly expensive) super lightweight fiber that is some mind blowing multiples of a multiple warmer than standard wool. When in Anchorage earlier in the year, my spouse had her eye on a genuine qivuit woven hat, until she saw the price tag (north of $200 for a simple skull hat or a headband).

And did you know there’s more than one kind of buffalo? It turns out, there are two varieties of bison – the Plains bison and the Wood bison, sometimes called Mountain bison. The Plains bison you may be familiar with as the standard North American buffalo. Apparently, the Wood bison is native to further north and more mountainous boreal forest regions than the Plains bison. However, Wood bison were nearly extinct and may not even exist anymore in a genetically true form due to crossing with Plains bison.

The herd that does still exist is almost entirely in Canada, and its survival is thanks largely to the efforts of Canadian government conservation policy. The animal had entirely died out in Alaska (or been killed off). In 2008, an effort brought some 50 of the bison to the AWCC for a quarantine period of two years. Eventually, that small herd was relocated from the AWCC and inserted into the Alaska wilderness, where it has grown and developed into a herd of more than 100 bison today.



After taking in most of the wildlife, we head to the car right as a large guided tour group is getting started. We walk past them as they arrive at the wolf den, and the tour guide encourages everyone in the group to howl and see if it will instigate the wolves to put on a show and howl as well. We stand back and watch a solid 50 folks mimic the howl of wolves, whimpering and yelping and otherwise trying to get the wolves to get engaged. It doesn’t work. For us, though, we get a second dose of entertainment – first, on the way into the center, we got to observe the wolves singing their song. Now, on the way out of the place, we get to observe humans acting pretty silly trying to get the wolves going.



After loading the car back up, we continue to retrace our tracks on the Seward Highway, now heading west along the Turnagain Arm. We manage to stumble into observing a bore tide, which we have no concept of until we get settled for the night and read into it a little bit. As we drive past the town of Girdwood, we divert to the north just a little to poke around in the primary ski town of Alaska, imagining ourselves returning during the winter for some proper downhill skiing at the Alyeska resort nestled in the town. We return north through Anchorage, and now we will be on familiar road for the rest of our trip.

The Parks Highway leads us north out of Anchorage and we follow it just a little ways until we take a small “exit” and drive to the end of the road in Talkeetna. We settle into a small private campground located on the Talkeetna River at its confluence into the Susitna River. The campground is surprisingly nearly empty and we almost have our pick of spots. It turns out we are arriving as a weekend is winding down, so the regular weekend rush has taken off and we select a campsite right on the river but not too far from the outhouse style bathrooms. And yes, these are outhouse bathrooms, not vault toilets.

Talkeetna is a little bit of an odd duck among Alaska towns. It has far more of a hippie vibe to it than anything else we experience in the state. It is very much a town dependent on the tourist reality. Many of the Alaska cruise line experiences that include a railway trip get their start in Talkeetna, which also serves as a major logistical launching point for adventures great and small in Denali National Park. In the early summer climbing season when teams seek to summit Denali, they often launch from Talkeetna because it is close enough to Anchorage for logistical support but not too far from Denali’s slopes to present range challenges for small bush planes.

Even for those who are not planning to summit Denali, there is much adventuring that can be launched from the town. As we wander the streets we are tempted by one business after another offering some sort of truly wild opportunity. Want to hire a bush plane to fly around the summit of Denali? Sure, we can do that. Want to hire a bush plane to fly to the slopes of Denali and/or the surrounding mountains, land on a glacier using ski-type aircraft landing gear, and then get out and hike/ski/play on the glacier? We can do that, too. Helicopter rides. Ziplining tours. White water rafting. Jeep trail rides. Guided fishing trips. All this, and so much more. Talkeetna is a little odd, but also pretty sweet. We take notes, imagining what “big ticket” adventure experiences we might be willing to splurge on before we have to leave the state. The town certainly presents us with a ton of opportunities to spend a LOT of money.

Talkeetna is also known for boasting one of the best viewing sightlines of Denali on the rare moments when the mountain is out. Usually, the weather systems that are generated by the massive mountain’s intrusion into the sky keep it well hidden. There is a statistic that some overwhelming majority of visitors to Alaska never see the mountain. But, when it is out, the view from Talkeetna is supposed to be grand. The mountain is not out. We don’t see it on this trip.

Back at our small campground we kick back and soak in the last days of our journey. We play frisbee with the dogs. I try (poorly) to fish for salmon in the river. We stay up late and try to will the days to lengthen or multiply or otherwise last longer so the adventure doesn’t have to be over. It is here in this campground that we come to the sudden realization that thanks to the long Alaska summer days of abundant sunshine and zero darkness, we have not used a single artificial light (flashlight, headlamp, lantern, etc) the entire trip. In fact, this photo was taken at 11:22pm at “night.”

 

Drive: Home (to Fairbanks, up the Parks Highway)

On the 12th day of our trip, we break camp in Talkeetna and roll up the Parks to our home. This drive is not new to us – we have already traveled down to Anchorage at least a handful of times for baseball tournaments, work trips, and general excursions. The segments of the drive all sort of fade into one another in my memories. We cruise into the Denali South Viewpoint to take a pit stop and check to see if the mountain is out. We glide past miles and miles of not much framed by majesty. Some strange genuine Alaska roadside attractions poke out from the scenery. A host of Denali expedition/flightseeing businesses fade into empty nothingness until we cross the actual Denali National Park entrance. Just north of that is Rainbow Village, then Healy where we stop at a brewery for dinner, and then a changing landscape that drops the mountains and replaces them with endless skies of stunted black spruce forest growing improbably on permafrost. The land and the vegetation clue us into the northern trajectory of the drive, and its accompanying colder and colder climate. A few small towns, a river, a stretch of 95 miles with no fuel stops, it all gives way to a climb into the hills that overlook Fairbanks. We are now deep in the Interior of Alaska and almost home.



The next day in the driveway Muiriel gets a well deserved bath and a host of other checkups. Over the next few days we give some earnest effort to repairing the bear-torn tent annex screen. The goal is to try a simple repair and work our way up to the expensive solution of taking it to a local tent place for a professional repair (read: replacing the screens). The duct tape approach seems to work and is still in pace to this day.



This small jaunt across Alaska saw some 1500 miles of highway roll under the tires of the camper. The mileage is now 4867 and Muiriel has given us 13 nights of camping shelter.

There will be two more short trips before winter closes us in. I’ll write those up sooner or later. Until then, thanks for coming along on my trip through my memories.

 

Thank YOU for taking the time to write this up and share with the rest of us. This is really amazing!

 

Epic trip, brilliant storytelling...
Preach on, brother!