Alaska Highway, Day 10: Anchorage, AK to Cantwell, AK (via Denali National Park)

Today: ~300 mi from Anchorage, AK through Denali National Park to Cantwell, AK

Approximate Route Map

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Our adventure began today with JT and myself going off to finalize the sale of the Subaru. The buyer was interested in the car, but did not want to deal with the complications of a California title. So, first we had to transfer the title to Alaska, and then he would buy it. Easy peasy. Of course, it had taken us heroics to get a California title in under two months. Wouldn't that be a bit of a problem here?

"Yeah, this isn't California," our buyer told us. And right he was:

A little weird, right after getting the CA title...

We managed to get one last picture with the car before parting ways:

We hopped a ride to a nearby car rental agency, who rented us a Kia Rio at a frankly extortionate rate of ~$100/day. Protip: if you're ever thinking about buying, renting, or even just borrowing a Kia Rio...kill yourself. It's a terrible car. You can do better. Maybe by walking! On the other hand, the rental agency did have a sweet sign inside:

On our way back to the hotel after brunch, JT and I checked out the Alaska Law Enforcement Museum in downtown Anchorage, which had an interesting collection of uniforms, weapons, assorted gadgets, and one beautifully restored 1952 Hudson Hornet patrol car:

Shortly thereafter, we returned to the Howard Johnson, played a bit of luggage Tetris to get all our gear packed into the back of the (rather smaller than the Subaru) Kia, and headed north to Denali National Park. At this point, we were all still happy, because we'd spent all of zero miles in the Kia:

Nathan's excited to drive again!

We haven't yet realized that the seats were made to fit a dwarf with severe scoliosis!

 The road up to Denali is interesting. As you leave Anchorage, you pass through the outer suburbs, and then hit an intermediate zone between the cities and the totally isolated interior. In this zone, it seems like the principal business is selling lots of fireworks to bored Anchoragites:

Yes, yes, there are nice views along the highway. You're probably tired of them by now. This one is unique, though: thanks to the really nice weather while we were driving up, this was the best view of Mount McKinley that we had on the whole trip (it's that white thing, just left of center). And we're still a few hundred miles south of the mountain, here.

Mt McKinley

The previous night, we had looked for lodging closer to Denali, so that we could spend a day and a half at the park without having to make the roundtrip from Anchorage. We originally made a reservation at the Latitude 62 Lodge in Talkeetna, having heard that that was closer to Denali. "Closer" was right - but it was still at least a couple hours from the park. On the way up, we drove past a couple small towns, and ended up deciding to stay in Cantwell for the night, at the Backwoods Lodge. After dropping our things off at the lodge, we moved on towards the park.

Denali was the "other" destination that we had pre-planned before coming up, so actually making it out the day right after we got into Anchorage was pretty exciting. I had to get a picture of myself at the park entrance sign:

While we were figuring out what to do in the park, we stopped by the bookstore. Nathan, the whole trip, had been simultaneously fascinated by and terrified of bears. Seeing a big book of bear attacks didn't really help matters:

Yes, Nathan. It's usually ugly when a bear attacks. 

Denali is set up such that (in the summer), you can only drive your own car a limited distance into the park. To go deeper than the Savage River Campground (14 miles in), you have to take a bus. We arrived pretty late - around 6 pm (leaving us 5ish hours of daylight still, remember) - so the buses had stopped running. We decided to just go in to Savage River for the evening and see what could be seen.

Denali is also unique in that there are few explicitly marked trails. In most places near the bus stops or parking lots, there are a couple easy trails that are marked out; those interested in anything more than trivial hiking are not only allowed, but encouraged to go off the trails and hike anywhere. This leads, in many places, to informal trails being beaten into the tundra. Savage River was no different. On one side of the road, a formal trail winds along the river for a mile or so, allowing you to get a lovely view of the water and the valley beyond:

At the distal point of the river loop trail, you can either head back, or start hiking uphill along an informal track that takes you up the side of a mountain. Naturally, we took this one, and of course, the view from above was quite a bit better:

On the other side of the road, there are no trails, but you're free to hike down into the river bed. The Savage is a "braided" river, meaning that the river's track follows a number of meandering paths along a rocky bed, splitting and merging many times as it flows. After coming down off the hill, we hiked down the river bed for a ways, until we got tired of jumping over (and occasionally in) the flow of the river between rock piles. Rolling clouds also threatened rain, making the prospect of being outside significantly less pleasant:

We hopped back into the car (me with a completely soaked shoe) and drove back to Cantwell for a lovely meal of canned chili and popcorn. The chili was a bit of a joke: I had bought it in Seattle, thinking that it would make a convenient camping meal (open can, heat can over fire, eat). But, no one else seemed quite as enthused with that plan, and we had alternative food both camping nights (Subway at Liard River, pizza from Fast Eddy's at Eagle Trail). Here, though, with few food options in Cantwell (and no energy to explore them), the chili was a lifesaver. Score!

Tomorrow: Cantwell, AK to Moose Pass, AK (via Denali National Park)

Alaska Highway, Day 9: Eagle Trail, AK to Anchorage, AK

Today: ~300mi from Eagle Trail State Recreational Site, AK to Anchorage, AK

Approximate Route Map:

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Well, this was it: our final destination. Given the fact that I'd driven all of 30 miles the previous day, I broke the rotation and volunteered to take the morning shift. I also made this the only shift, since I wanted to close out in Anchorage the drive that I'd begun in San Francisco.

As you descend into the Anchorage area from the hills up north, you get the scenic vistas that you get on all the highways around here. Ho hum. Totally boring.

Yeah, this sucked

 A few hours of simply awful scenery later, we came upon the first real markers of civilization we'd seen in days. Whitehorse may have had multiple exits, but this was the first city that had proper suburbs since Seattle. Anchorage welcomed us,

Awww yeah.

Our very first target in Anchorage was the post office on Strawberry Rd (the only post office in Anchorage that actually answers their phone), the destination of our new California title for the Subaru. We knew by this point, through the miracles of Internet tracking, that something was waiting for us in Anchorage, but we had no idea whether it would be a title or just a piece of paper chiding us for not submitting Form 1295QS in triplicate and carved in stone.

Amazingly, it was the real deal. Somehow, we managed to beat the bureaucracy and get a brand-new title shipped to us, waiting in Alaska. This might have been the emotional high point of the trip, just because it was the one thing none of us was really confident in!

The most beautiful sheet of paper we'd ever seen.

After picking up the title, we headed over to our reserved hotel, the downtown Howard Johnson in Anchorage. Protip: don't stay at the downtown Howard Johnson in Anchorage. It's expensive, the stairways have a faint smell of urine, the Internet access hardly works, and if you request an extra towel it will never arrive. But, since we were only planning to stick around for a night, we decided to deal with it. First order of business: unpack, and document the state of the car at the end of a California-to-Alaska drive.

State: filthy.

Best way to sell a car, bar none.

 After unpacking, JT revised the Craigslist post (adding a phone number and reducing the price), and we headed out for lunch at the Glacier Brewhouse downtown. Lunch continued on the exotic meat theme with a reindeer hot dog. It was a pretty good hot dog.

After lunch, we decided that we wanted to move the car FAST, so we could get on with our trip and (most importantly) get out of Anchorage. While I napped, JT revised the price downwards again and Nathan started investigating places to get the car washed. Turns out a low price is really all you need - we got three calls in the space of an hour, one of whom didn't even care about a clean car. A quick showing later, we had a tentative deal. Not bad for a couple hours of work!

To celebrate, we went out for the first (and only) fancy dinner of the trip, at the Southside Bistro in Anchorage. We were certainly the worst-dressed table at the restaurant, but that didn't seem to faze the staff. The seafood was excellent and perfectly cooked; recommended.

Tomorrow: Anchorage, AK to Denali, AK

Alaska Highway, Day 8: Haines Junction, YT to Eagle Trail State Recreation Site, AK

(cross-posted to http://1lap.tumblr.com)

Today: ~300mi from Haines Junction, YT to Eagle Trail State Recreational Site, AK

Approximate Route Map:

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By this point in the trip we had worked out a pretty consistent driving rotation: Nathan would take the first shift until lunch, JT from lunch to dinner, and I had the third shift. We deliberately planned to front-load the driving during the trip so that we'd have more time to see the more-exotic sights in the Yukon and Alaska. Thus, today didn't really involve a whole lot of driving - less than the distance between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. This also meant that my shift was a whopping 32 miles. Oh well.

There's something pretty cool about waking up in your motel, and this being the first thing you see as you walk out the door: a sign directing you to either Anchorage or Fairbanks, set against the mountains of Kluane National Park.

We're not in Kansas anymore.

We deliberately took the morning pretty slow. Tracking our DMV package on the Internet (in the fits and spurts of connectivity we were able to eke out) revealed that it had arrived in Anchorage on Friday the 22nd - which meant that the Post Office might get rid of it before we arrived on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the Post Office to which we had it delivered didn't open till 10am (11am Pacific Time), so we couldn't even call them and ask them to hold the package for quite a while. We settled down to a lazy breakfast at the Cozy Corner Motel (one of the few other establishments in Haines Junction). As we walked in the door, we overheard the following exchange between the elderly proprietor and a customer settling his bill:

Customer: "Yeah, it was all great. Hope to see you again sometime!"

Owner: "Hope not. Hope not to be here. Probably will be, though."

Despite the negativity, breakfast was pretty good. After eating we were able to call the Post Office, who were quite willing to hold the envelope an extra day, and then chatted a bit with the staff at our motel, the Alcan Motor Inn:

Motel: "So where are y'all from?"

Us: "Oh, California"

Motel: "What? Why would you want to leave that weather?"

Us: "Well, [joking] sometimes you get a little bored and want to see something else?"

Motel: "Yeah, come back when it's 40 below and we'll see how you like it."

Hot real estate tip: You can probably buy land in Haines Junction real cheap, because apparently no one wants to live there. At all.

Since we still had plenty of time to kill and really hadn't done anything of significance on the road yet, Nathan suggested we go hiking in Kluane (pronounced kloo-ah-nee) along one of the trails on our way on the Alaska Highway. On the way to the park, we stopped by Kluane Lake and took a bunch of pictures over the glassy-smooth water surface. Nathan also managed some epic rock-skipping.

Looking out over Kluane Lake. There's nothing to see thanks to the clouds, but I'm looking anyway.

We stopped at the Tachal Dhal (Sheep Mountain) Visitor Center, where the friendly rangers suggested we hike the Sheep Creek trail and check out the nice viewpoints. Here's the view; it's nice:

View of Slims River Valley in Kluane National Park, from the first viewpoint on the Sheep Creek trail

The trailhead and first part of the trail were mosquito-infested. Thankfully, we were able to run past those quickly, and head back to the visitor's center for lunch. The rangers joined us and told us lovely stories about bear encounters and how we had just missed one on our way down. Nathan, ever intrigued by and terrified of bears, was dismayed that we didn't get to see it...and immediately blew $50 on a big bottle of bear spray, just in case. More on the bear spray later. By the end of lunch, around 3:30pm, the sky was beginning to clear, which made everything look far more impressive:

O Canada! (Tachal Dhal Visitor Center, Kluane National Park)

One constant along the Alaska Highway (and, indeed, most northern highways in the summer) is road construction, and where there is construction there are usually flagmen controlling traffic. The quality of equipment can vary quite a bit, though. We weren't entirely sure whether this flagman (actually, flagwoman) was actual road staff, or just someone who decided to have a bit of fun with a stop sign and electrical tape:

Oh yes, that sign looks very official.

Soon enough, we came to very exciting landmarks. Beaver Creek, YT: the westernmost city in Canada, marks the "almost" point to Alaska:

So....close...

Of course, very shortly thereafter, we saw the signs that we had been waiting for for days: "Welcome to Alaska"!

Drove to Alaska!

Yeah, we're all pretty stoked about it.

Right leg in Canada, left in the USA

At the border crossing, the one item in the car that we were concerned about was a load of firewood from BC - we had bought CAD5 worth of wood at Liard River, but only burned about half. As expected, the border agent confiscated the wood, but then promptly exchanged it for some birchwood from the Alaska side! Apparently the Forest Service (or USDA, not quite sure) was doing a study of incoming bugs, but they were happy to supply people with extra wood to compensate. This was probably the friendliest border crossing guard I've ever seen when coming into the US.

I also decided that I wanted my passport stamped coming in, and requested it of our friendly agent. The standard Homeland Security stamps (which I've gotten at airports) have a small indicator for which border crossing you used. I figured it would be cool to at least get that standard one with a really weird code. We lucked out, though, with probably the coolest stamp I've yet acquired in my passport. Just a small perk of driving the Alaska Highway:

Yeah, that's right. That's a BEAR. And a MAP OF ALASKA.

The road into Tok from the border runs along the eastern edge of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the largest (by land area) national park in the US. There are a number of overlooks from the highway with absolutely stunning views. Pictures can't do them justice (I took hundreds, and ended up deleting most because they're completely inadequate), but here's an attempt:

The valiant Subaru, overlooking Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Dinner in Tok (pronounced "toke") was at Fast Eddy's Restaurant, recommended by the AAA Tourbook and apparently the only game in town. Small serving sizes and health food haven't hit Fast Eddy's yet. We ordered a plate of nachos as an appetizer, and got something which, even divided among three people, basically kept us from eating much dinner:

Gigantic chicken nachos at Fast Eddy's in Tok

After Fast Eddy's, it was a (blessedly short, for food coma comes fast) 30-ish mile drive south on the Tok Cut-Off Highway to Eagle Trail State Recreational Area, a very nicely appointed yet very empty campground. We saw only one other group, consisting of two cars, in the entire area. Pitching and staking the tent was significantly easier here than in Liard River: rather than a hard, rocky soil, we were finally in the land of tundra, which in the summer has a soft, spongy top layer. Easy to drive stakes into, and really pleasant to walk on! We did get a bit of a raw deal on the firewood, though. The wood from Liard River was basically like gunpowder - very dry, and would burn easily. The birchwood we got at the border (packaged by a Boy Scout troop from Wasilla) seemed a bit damp; it didn't catch easily (except the bark). Our lack of kindling didn't help, but Nathan's skills got us a nice warm campfire eventually.

Tomorrow: Anchorage, AK!

Alaska Highway, Day 7: Liard River, BC to Haines Junction, YT

(cross-posted to http://1lap.tumblr.com)

Today: ~500mi from Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park, BC, to Haines Junction, YT

Approximate Route Map:

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Ladies and gentlemen: Yukon, ho! Today we left humdrum, too close to Seattle, British Columbia and entered the frontier: Yukon (formerly the Yukon Territory).

We did not, sadly, have peanut butter, honey, and marshmallow sandwiches in the Yukon.

The directions from Liard River to our motel in Haines Junction were pretty simple: 1) take the Alaska Highway for 497 miles; 2) stop. Looking at a map of the route, you'd think the Alaska Highway is totally desolate, but that's not entirely true. I was expecting stretches of hundreds of miles with no human presence (other than the occasional car, of course). Instead, at most every hundred miles or so there would be some kind of settlement - the largest were towns of a hundred or so people, ranging down to individual lodges. There's also a non-trivial amount of traffic during the summer months. Plenty of RVs and trailers, which can be mildly annoying to deal with in an underpowered car.

That said, it's certainly not like driving down 101 in the Bay Area (or even I-5 down to LA). The Alaska Highway really is quite isolated for much of its length, and this isolation (and proximity to provincial and national parks) supports a large wildlife population near the road. We got very used to seeing warning signs for elk, moose, and bison; we mostly laughed at them until quite a ways in, we saw an entire herd of bison just hanging out by the side of the road:

Hamburger on the hoof

The wildlife on the highway isn't all big game animals, though. Insects of all kinds are present in absolutely astonishing quantities. Our radiator testified to this (to say nothing of the bumper!). It's the first time I've seen TWO dead dragonflies stuck to the front of a car. The first order of business at every gas stop was to clean off the windshield.

Dead bug special coming right up

Our first gas stop of the day was in Watson Lake, YT. We stopped there because it was conveniently timed, and the last marked town on the map for quite some time (implying relatively cheap gas). Completely serendipitously, right across from the gas station we saw a very odd sight: a large collection of signs nailed to posts. Walking closer, we learned that we had stumbled across a well-known sight on the Alaska Highway: the Watson Lake Signpost Forest:

Nathan wanders through the Forest. It's probably 10-20x larger than what you can see in this picture.

The Signpost Forest was started during the original construction of the Alaska Highway, when homesick soldiers building the highway posted signs from their hometowns. It's since become a tradition for passing travelers in the know to put up signs of their passage; the forest has hundreds of posts, most of them completely full, and we saw signs dating as far back as the early 1980s. (It's not clear what happened to older ones - if they didn't exist, or if the typical lifespan is only 20-odd years.)

Sadly, we weren't in the know, so we had no sign to post. We briefly considered leaving a front license plate, but decided against it. Luckily, someone had made a sign for all the signless!

Sign for the signless (click to enlarge)

The Alaska Highway has a few people you'd almost call "regulars"

Signs in the forest are from all over. Most of the population centers in the US and Canada are represented (at least to within 100 miles or so). There were a huge number of Germans and Austrians (for reasons we don't understand), and even one sign from Iran! It took us a while to find good signs in front of which to take pictures of ourselves:

California sign: close enough.

An interesting fact about Watson Lake: because of the way great circle routes curve over the Earth's surface (at least as viewed in a Mercator projection), this city way up north is almost equidistant between New York and Tokyo:

Our lunch stop was at the Rancheria Falls Recreation Site, where we ate our traditional road lunches (PB&J sandwiches, with the J meaning jelly or jerky, depending on preference, and Clementines) and watched the falls. Not as impressive as Iguazu, to be sure, but still very nice - and remarkably mosquito-free.

Rancheria Falls, Yukon

Our evening dinner stop was in Whitehorse: capital of Yukon and the largest city on the Alaska Highway (around 26,000 people). After the thousands of miles of driving prior, seeing tens of people on the streets was a bit of a shock. It seemed crowded (even though, I realized, seeing the same density of people in downtown Mountain View would seem hopelessly empty).

woooo city

Yup, it's a white horse. In Whitehorse.

Dinner itself was at Klondike Rib and Salmon, a Whitehorse institution recommended by both our AAA Tourbook and the road signs on the highway advertising wild game. How could we turn it down, especially with a menu like this?

Bison? Reindeer? Elk? Sign us up.

We shared some salmon dip, reindeer stew, and elk stroganoff. They were excellent, well spiced, and very filling. Also, they had reindeer in them. Reindeer!

Reindeer stew. Rudolph was never before so tasty.

Before leaving Whitehorse, we drove around briefly to see the sights. First was the world's tallest freestanding log cabin, a three story structure that still looks to be occupied (judging from the bikes and recycling containers outside the doors:

Multi-story log cabin condos. Very rustic.

The last stop before leaving town was a gander at the world's largest weather vane:

Weather vane. That's right.

That's right: they took a whole DC-3, mounted it on a rotating joint, and call it a weather vane. They claim that it's so well-balanced that it only takes a 5 knot wind to rotate it. We didn't try to spin it by hand.

A few hours of driving later, we arrived in Haines Junction, a tiny town on the border of Kluane National Park in Canada. Our motel, the Alcan Motor Inn, didn't really have an address. You don't really need one, either. Drive in on the Alaska Highway from Whitehorse. When you arrive in Haines Junction, it's on the left. And just across from it, you'll see the following spectacular view of the mountains in Kluane:

Alaska Highway, Day 6: Chetwynd, BC to Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park, BC

(cross-posted to http://1lap.tumblr.com)

Today: ~540 miles from Chetwynd, BC to Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park, BC

Approximate Route Map:

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The Alaska Highway (originally the ALCAN Highway) runs between Dawson Creek, BC (yes, the name is correct) and Delta Junction, AK. Up until now, we had merely been moving north to get to the highway; today, we joined up with the Alaska Highway proper. The shortest route to Alaska from Chetwynd actually short-circuited a small chunk of the route, but there was no way that would do: we took a 20-30 mile detour to make sure we got onto the Alaska Highway from the very beginning.

Helpfully, in Dawson Creek, there's a very large sign board as you leave town, proclaiming the beginning of the Alaska Highway. There's a convenient turnoff right across the street from the sign - I suspect we're not the first ones to have pulled off right next to it!

We're finally here - no more roads needed until Alaska.

Traffic on the Alaska Highway is highly diverse. It's the largest road running through significant parts of British Columbia and Yukon, and for many communities and areas, the only road. There aren't a whole lot of locals, so the traffic is primarily passers-through. You'll get an interesting melange of cars, motorcycles, RVs, cargo trucks, logging trucks, and even the occasional bicycle. Of course, by interesting I mean "incredibly annoying to pass in an underpowered station wagon".

This motorcyclist was carrying four spare tires: two road and two dirt tires, among all his other gear.

Lunch was more peanut butter-and-beef jerky sandwiches at Buckinghorse River Wayside Provincial Park, where the most notable sight (other than a somewhat diminished river) was the incredible mosquito population. The pools of standing water that appear up here in the summer (from the ground melting) support incredible mosquito populations. Half my clothes smell like DEET now.

As we were leaving Buckinghorse, we spotted a worker's camp, probably housing loggers working in the area. The extensive use of prefab structures would continue along much of the highway:

Logger's camp in northern British Columbia

Along US-101 in Oregon, there was tons of logging activity (as evidenced by the logging trucks clogging up the road), but the highway itself seemed pristine, walled in by giant trees. In BC, the logging is much more obvious. There are plenty of trees, but there are also giant piles of logs just waiting for the logging trucks to haul them away.

It's Log, it's Log! It's big, it's heavy, it's wood! It's Log, it's Log! It's better than bad, it's good!

The drive up this first stretch of the Alaska Highway, past Stone Mountain and Muncho Lake Provincial Parks, has unseated the Icefields Parkway (between Banff and Jasper Parks in Alberta) as the most scenic and beautiful drive I've ever done. Muncho Lake in particular boasts amazing views from the road and from lookouts

A lookout over Muncho Lake and a river feeding it.

Muncho Lake

Standing on the shores of Muncho Lake

This night, we were camping, so no restaurants were going to be available. I had brought along three cans of chili, to heat over a campfire, but Nathan and JT were....less than enthusiastic about the plan. So, we stopped for gas in Fort Nelson, BC, and at the same time loaded up on supplies at a local grocery store and Subway. The grocery store was named Overwaitea, a name which surely bore no relation to the...bulk...of many people we saw in town.

Upon arriving at the Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park (LRHSPP for short), the first order of business was setting up a tent:

This tent claims to fit four, but really barely fits three.

Liard River supports a sizable mosquito population of its own. Did you know moose can lose up to a liter of blood to mosquitos, per day? Not only can I not make blood that fast, I seemed a bit allergic to the local mosquito variety. A bite I got in Chetwynd made half my arm swell up (a milder reaction than one I had in Alaska several years ago, which inflated my whole arm). To avoid any recurrences, I took some antihistamines and liberally applied Deep Woods Off.

The insects don't really respect repellent bottles, though:

Flies don't care about DEET

The star attraction of LRHSPP is, of course, the hot spring. It's a popular attraction - the campsite was full up when we arrived (good thing we had a reservation); consequently, Parks BC has done a good job of setting up facilities (changing rooms and a deck) by the springs. It's lovely, and the water is just the ticket after a long day of driving. In one corner, you can see the water actually boiling over a rock formation; the surface layer here is scalding (but you can get past by swirling the water layers). Temperatures fall until, at the other end where the other half of the creek joins in, it's merely lukewarm. We relaxed in the water here for an hour, maybe more; who can say?

The hot springs of Liard River Hot Springs Park

The downside of the water is that because it's geologically heated, there's a ton of sulfur (hydrogen sulfide, actually), floating around. You get used to the smell (useful when you're hanging around people who've also been sitting in the stuff), but it is chemically active. I wore my keyring into the spring for maybe 15 minutes before another visitor showed me the effects of the water on steel: a necklace, blackened. I quickly pulled out my keys to take stock. Aluminum carabiner: fine. Chrome-plated ring: fine. Steel key: now covered in a fine brassy sheen of iron sulfide. Inorganic chemistry at work.

The hot springs aren't just an attraction for bathing. The high mineral content  leads to the formation of tufa, limestone formations coming from deposition by the water. The "Hanging Gardens" are a large tufa formation in LRHSPP supporting a wide variety of plant life. Much of the plant life in LRHSPP is seen nowhere else this far north. The heat coming from the hot springs gives the park an almost temperate climate and plant life which in places looks tropical - ferns and broadleaf bushes and plants.

Hanging Gardens of Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park

Tomorrow: Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park, BC to Haines Junction, YT