Alaska Sunday XX

Trip Log - Part IV

June 15 - 25

The fourth installment of the actual trip log of 'The Drive from Texas to Alaska and Back'.

As mentioned previously, this log does not contain too much commentary. It is mainly sequential locations, dates, mileage traveled, photographs showing the trip progress, and how the landscape changed. The Alaska Trip Log is divided into two week intervals (parts) and I am posting it on consecutive Sundays. Past and future posts of Alaska Sunday (apart from the trip log) will have more detailed information, and more photos of each specific area. A small number of the photographs were previously posted when describing specific locations.

Most are new photos not previously seen.

We are resuming our posting of the trip log after time out out for the Olympics.
Last week I only posted one photo of a Large Moose crossing the road.

Be sure to click on the photographs for full screen views.

And so, on with the trip.

6/15 Bellingham, Washington, U.S. to Clinton, B.C., Canada 255 mi

One of 7 tunnels
Shot through a clean windshield.
Martha is a hard taskmaster.
I have to keep it clean for her photos.

Riding the tram down

Martha did not want to go down but relented since she needed to be stocking up on supplies for the journey across the wilderness. They had a store down there where she could buy dried beans, flour, rice, salt, sugar, extra rope, duct tape, extra spokes for the wagon wheels, leather for harness repair for the oxen, canvas patches for the wagon, etc. Instead I found her here at the following location giving in to modern advertising. We bought supplies at the following location.

Supplies here

6/16 Clinton, BC to Cache Creek (Prince George), BC 270 mi

6/17 Prince George, BC to Dawson Creek, BC to Ft. St. John 326 mi

Mile Post Zero
Dawson Creek on the AlCan Highway

6/18 Ft. St. John to Toad River, BC 360 mi


6/19 Toad River, BC to Watson Lake to Nugget City, Yukon 222 mi

If you come in with your hat on, they tack it to the ceiling

6/20 Nugget City to Johnson's Crossing 177 mi

Wild Horses (not mustangs)

6/21 Johnson's Crossing to Whitehorse to Haines Junction (Kluane Campground) 176 mi

Teslin - Johnson's Crossing

Kluane Campground

It was really cold here. There is a mile-thick ice sheet behind those mountains. The brochure for our TrailManor says it can be erected, leveled, and locked in 2 minutes. We did it quicker than that. The wind coming off of that ice was bitterly cold. This may have been one of the coldest places that we stayed during the entire trip. We turned on the propane and Martha went in and turned on the furnace. While she was organizing inside, I connected the water, electricity, and sewer. No cable TV here. After the trailer is warmed, which only takes a few minutes, we keep it toasty with two 1' cube, 1500 watt space heaters.

Destruction Bay
Notice the white sand blowing

6/22 Haines Junction, Yukon to Tok, Alaska 298 mi

Made it to Alaska

Martha cleaning the seals, on the bed rails

We ran through a heavy rain and it cleaned a lot of the road grime off.
We'll give the vehicles a good cleaning and wash tomorrow.

6/23 Rest Day (Tok area) - 3 mi

Go to the grocery store, wash vehicles, check e-mails, read a book, call home (cell service at last), organize maps. Put up the "Milepost Guidebook". The AlCan Hwy ends tomorrow at Delta Junction, AK. Tok is at Milepost 1313 on the AlCan Hwy. We will go towards Fairbanks tomorrow. Going South was out of the question anyway. The bridge was out going South. Big storm and flash flood. As it turns out, the bridge was out for about 2-3 weeks. We came back up that Hwy in about 5 weeks. The bridge was open, but they were still repairing the road and putting the finishing touches on the bridge.


6/24 Tok, Alaska to Fairbanks, AK 206 mi


The Alcan Hwy is really tough on vehicles. I think they were out getting repair parts for this one.

In need of repair

6/25 Fairbanks, Ak (River's Edge RV Park) Around the town 35 mi

Fairbanks at 1 AM

We left our Travel Trailer here for 8 nights as we traveled North to Prudhoe Bay(Deadhorse) and the Arctic Ocean. 1016 miles round trip, of which about 800+ miles were gravel, dirt, potholes, mud, rocks, construction, and repair work on the dangerous parts.

Next week will be the log of the trip North to the Arctic Ocean and back, then down South to Denali and on to Anchorage. Links will be provided to photos and previous post for that section of the trip with mileages.

Mileage for this section of the log ...........2328 mi
Mileage before 6/13 .................................5481 mi

Total miles to get to Fairbanks ..............7809 mi

(Mileage assumes we didn't miss some logs). It's easy to get caught up in the moment. In addition to the odometer, I have 2 separate trip meters on the console. One was for total trip and the other was for the day trips. A helpful service tech in Portland (where I had the 4Runner serviced and the oil changed), reset my trip meters. Grrrrrrrr.

Do you have a favorite photograph?
Comments are appreciated.
Let me know if you are keeping up with the trip, or are just a one-time visitor.

Troy and Martha

DC-3

Workhorse of the Skies
Sky Watch Friday

I photographed this as we traveled through. It was fun to watch even small breezes and wind shifts turn this large plane. Once a workhorse, now a weather vane. One of my favorite airplanes of all time.

DC-3 at Whitehorse Airport, Yukon Terr., Canada
Worlds Largest Weather vane
(Rain Coming from the West)

The Douglas DC-3 is an American fixed-wing, propeller-driven aircraft whose speed and range revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s. Because of its lasting impact on the airline industry and World War II, it is generally regarded as one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made. (Follow the link to read about one of the most famous planes in history)


.....To participate in Sky Watch Friday visit Sky Watch Friday.

Troy and Martha

Alaska Sunday XIII

Crossing into Alaska

June 20:
We spent the night at Johnson Crossing in the Yukon, Canada. We were about a week behind schedule (that is if you want to say that we had a schedule). The Johnson Crossing Lodge (historic Milepost 836) is one of the original lodges on the Alaska Highway and this business has been advertising in "The Milepost" every year since the first edition in 1949. The area is known for its wildlife - muskrat, porcupine, moose,eagles, wolves - also bugs and lots of rain.

Original Lodge

Camping spot
We heard a Boreal Owl,
in the tree next to our camper
during the night.
po-po-po-po-po-po-po

Mile Marker 836

I bought my first Milepost in about 1952. It was then that I decided that I wanted to drive the "Alcan Highway" some day. It only took me 54 years before I realized my dream. It was well worth the wait. Little did I realize back in 1952 that I would be on the road 16 weeks roundtrip. Also little did I realize back then that I would be married and have 3 nice Nikon digital cameras instead of my little Kodak Brownie box camera. I am still going through the 18.000 photos that we kept and burned onto DVD's. I now use 2 "1 Terrabyte" cross-referenced external hard drives for photo storage. It's just about time to buy another.

Four things ahead
(Muddy road, Mountains, Border crossing, and Alaska)

Fast forward to
June 22:
We had been driving hard all day and we were heading for Tok, Alaska and our campsite for the night. We had heard that they had been closing the Border Crossing station at night. We finally crossed at 4:30 PM Alaska time and after another 30 minutes found a nice turnout to rest a little before the last leg of the day. The first Tundra Swan of the day was only a couple of miles after we crossed into Alaska. Whoo-hooo. Also just after crossing into Alaska our Navagation system changed screens. For the 5 weeks we were in Alaska, all it showed was the Latitude/Longitude and direction. That was OK, I had a box full of maps.

Alaska Crossing
(only 4 degrees below Arctic circle)

Variable Darner
(A new Dragonfly for our Life List)
(Our first Dragonfly in Alaska)

Tune in next week for further adventures.

Troy and Martha

Yellowstone, Yukon, Yosemite

A Fellow Traveler in a Yellow shirt,
and Late Summer Yellow flowers,
and a Yeti friend.

Two of my favorite National Parks,
my life-long love in yellow,
one of my favorite rivers,
some yellow flowers,
and a tall Yeti.
Enjoy all

Yellowstone Twin Storms
Storm approaching and
Storm below
(Remember to click on the photos for a better look)


The mighty Yukon River
in Yukon Terr., Canada



Yosemite w/Yellow
Typical tourist photo
in front of Half-dome



Yellow flowers in Montana Buffalo Country
Rocky Mountains in the background
The Rockies are composed of several Ranges in this area such as,
The Lewis and Clark Range,
and The Flathead Range


~~~ Yeti ~~~
A friend that Martha made on the trip.
This Yeti (from Asia) was visiting
his Sasquatch relatives


I hope you enjoyed this tour of Y's.
Leave a comment if you have visited these places,
or if you enjoyed the mini-trip.

Troy and Martha

To participate, visit ABC Wednesday, mrsnesbitt's place. Click here.

An Odd Fact about Foxes

.
The Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes, may sometimes be gray and the Gray Fox, Urocyn cinereoargenteus, is sometimes tinged with red.

A general identifying characteristic is the white tip on the tail of the Red Fox, whereas the Gray fox has a black tip on the tail.

Native Red Fox

(Click on the photos for a better look at the fur)

A nice look at that innocent face

We photographed this fox by the Yukon River near Carmacks, Yukon Terr., Canada. This Red Fox is a native of North America as are all Red Foxes in boreal North America down to the Rocky Mountains. The Red Foxes in the Southern US were imported to the Southeast from England somewhere between 1750 to 1800, for fox hunts, and were later taken to California for the fur trade.

This Red fox was in its short summer coat. Notice some of the long hairs which it has not yet shed and you can see why people usually think of the fox as having short legs and a big bushy tail. In the winter, this fox would have a tail probably 3 times as big and would look like a short dumpy little fellow with all of that long hair. Nearing winter, it will put on some weight and they do store extra food in caches for the winter. They also have been known to clean out a hen house in a night, however its typical diet includes rodents, rabbits, birds, insects, fruit, earthworms, reptiles, and carrion.

The Gray Fox is the only North American wild dog that regularly climbs trees. Even though the Gray Fox is found over most of N.A., it usually avoids farmlands favored by the Red Fox.

See the Arctic Fox in the post below.

These odd posts all started over at Katney's.

Troy and Martha

From Upper to Under (U)

w/ Udder in between

Up on top of the Mountains
Near Keno, Yukon, Canada

Udder
Where the baby Stone Sheep gets his milk.
This is a two spigot model.
Photographed in B.C. Canada

Under the Ice
Ice cave Above Valdez, Alaska
(photographed by my sidekick, and
top photographer of the Expedition - Martha)

The river of water must have been a lot bigger earlier in the Spring to have cut a hole or ice cave this large. The cold wind was really whistling coming through the tunnel. I could see light at the other end of this river tunnel (Cave), but wasn’t too sure about the stability of the ice. I sure would like to have explored it to the other end. There are a lot of Glacier and Ice Fields above Valdez.

To play, visit ABC Wednesday, mrsnesbitt's place. Click here.

Scroll down to see:
Mt. Rainier and
Scott's Bluff

Troy and Martha
Texas Travelers