Day 15-18 D/A Adventure

Day 15- Actually it is day 18 as I write this. It feels like forever since we left. It's just hard enough to remember what we did 2 days ago. Here I go.

We left Wolf Creek Government Campground just outside of Whitehorse, Yukon. We quickly drove into town to resupply with groceries, water, fuel and dump our tanks. That done we headed north on the Alaska Hwy. We started to notice that the road was actually getting worse. I think the Milepost book calls it fair to good. I would say mostly fair. Lots of frost heaves and sections that have been repaired. This is one of those sections that you hear horror stories about. Since we weren't in a hurry we just took it slow and enjoyed the scenery.

The vastness and the remoteness is amazing. You would think that the scenery doesn't and wouldn't change a whole lot but you would be surprised at what you see along this trip.

From snow-capped mountains with glaciers.

To very large and immense lakes. As we got closer to this lake, Kluane Lake it was called, the scenery took yet another change. I thought the mountains looked like mountains you might see in the desert. Kind of arid and devoid of pine forests on them. Complete with dust storms from the winds coming out of the mountain passes.

We are still a long ways away and as we drew closer we realized that we have to drive thru that.

We got through that without getting too sandblasted and then stopped for some pictures on the other side.

We were close to our next campground. Another government park called Cogden Creek. $12 a night with all of the firewood you want again. We were greeted with this sign as we pulled into the campground.

I guess it is official. We are in bear country. Not only just bear country but grizzly bear country. That is something we have never been in before and we were kind of nervous at first about it. I mean that if they go to the trouble to put an electrified fence around the tenting area, what about the rest of us campers?

We got settled in and every squirrel that made a noise in the brush had Lisa jumping out of her chair, bear spray in hand. I was safely inside the camper with the door locked. I'm just kidding of course. I left the door unlocked so she could get in.

This is Kluane Lake from near our campsite. We were okay with being in bear country as long as we took precautions. We went to bed and it really doesn't get pitch black here at night. How I know is that at 2 o'clock in the morning our propane ran out and I had to switch tanks because our fridge was beeping.

Lisa took this picture while I was outside in my pajamas looking for bears and switching tanks. I guess she was ready to catch the whole thing on her phone in case I was attacked.

Critter count- 0 Sasquatches. 

Day 16- The next day we were headed to our next destination. Snag Creek Government Park. Further up in the Yukon. As we were driving we saw a couple of critters, finally. 

That just reconfirmed to us that we were in grizzly country. Or as we say in Tennessee, "Grizzle bar country".

We got to our campground after a short drive and settled in for the night.

Our view out the back window.

This is our site looking up at it from the lake. We really like these wooded government parks, but I think I have said that before. Next up, Alaska!

Critter count- 1 grizzly and 1 moose.

Day 17- We got up and headed out. Today we crossed the border back into America. We stopped for fuel at Beaver Creek and paid for some of the most expensive fuel yet. It was over $1.80 a litre. Yikes. Doing the math it is $6.81 a gallon! Oh well. When we got to Tok, Alaska, I got a 30 pack of beer for $18.99 so that makes up for it.

Once on the Alaska side the roads got bad again. They trick you by posting a speed limit of 65 mph. Anyone stupid enough to go 65 over that road deserves what they get. We were going 45 to 55 most of the time and sometimes we had to slow to 30. There where so many frost heaves and gravel sections.

We made it to Tok without much fanfare. We checked into the Tok RV Village. A private campground that was pretty big so that we could charge everything back up again and get our laundry done. With our chores done and beer drank we went to bed. The next day we were headed towards Valdez, Alaska.

Critter count- 2 squirrels.

Day 18- We got up eager to hit the road again. We didn't realize it at the time but this would lead us to some of the most breathtaking scenery yet.

What we have seen yet has been incredible for sure. But before we could see that, we had to get through some of the roughest roads to date on this journey. We thought yesterday's roads were bad. It was like the highway department said "Hold my beer, you ain't seen nothing yet".

They were replacing a big stretch of road. We had to wait for a pilot car and then it was single file through the zone. This is the type of road they were replacing. It would just be like a roller coaster driving on this thing.

After that, there was more amazing scenery.

That road construction really slowed us down and I was getting tired so we decided to make our destination a state recreation area before Valdez. Blueberry Lake.

We kept getting closer to these snow covered mountains in front of us. We rounded a bend to this view.

It was incredible. It was like being on another planet or something. 

The recreation area wasn't very far from where we took those pictures so that was our view for the rest of the evening.

This photo is from the front of our campsite.

And this is our campsite. A sunny day like that has been a rarity for this trip. 

Critter count- 1 porkypine.

Next up, Valdez.