Thursday, July 30, 2009
Chicken to Dawson City – The Top of the World Highway
Today we drove 108 miles. And it only took us 4 1/2 hours.
Gary has talked about driving the “Top of the World Highway” since we started planning this trip. I wasn’t so set on it, having heard stories of flat tires and bad road. I’m so glad Gary persevered and we did the deed. (Mind you, since he’s the driver he usually does get his way!) Part of the road we had done before when we drove to Eagle, so we were expecting the washboard roads, sheer drop offs and blind corners. What we weren’t expecting was the incredible feeling that we were indeed on the top of the world.

We saw lots of caribou-

Their antlers are so impressive. Both male and female have antlers – and they grow a new set each season. And they are HUGE! It was a treat each time we came upon some!

As you can see in this picture of the road – it’s easy to spot when traffic is approaching. That’s the plume of dust coming down the center of the picture!

But more often than not the road ahead looked like this –

(Pardon the dirty windshield – you just can’t control those bugs!)
We made it to Dawson City with all tires intact, and although I have a film of dirt over almost everything (You could write your name on the toilet seat cover. Guess there was a window open? Oops.), it was well worth the journey. More pictures are here, and I’ll have more to say about Dawson City, Yukon Territory (and the place where the Gold Rush started) on my next post. In real time it’s Friday morning (hey, only one day behind!), and we’re getting ready to pull out of this nice little campground with such great internet!
Have a good weekend, everyone!

Day 7 – 108 miles. Mostly dirt (though the Canadian side had parts that were paved and on the whole was much better driving than the US side). Standing on the Top of the World.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Chicken to Eagle and back again!
Did you hear about Eagle, Alaska this spring? Right about when we were starting our trek north, we heard that the village of Eagle had been devastated by flooding caused by an ice damn. Eagle is on the Yukon River, about 8 miles from the Canadian Border (via the river anyway – it’s about 140 miles by road to the closest Canadian crossing), and it is at the end of the Taylor Highway. In some ways it’s like Chicken – no public utilities. But because it at one time had an Army Fort there – Fort Egbert , is home to the Yukon-Charley Rivers Natural Preserve and has river access (obviously!), it is a little more populated (115!). While most homes do not have private wells, there is a public well that they can get water from. Not piped to their homes, mind you. They need to come and get it. I think it’s still generators for electric and we saw a phone company building, so there must be some kind of phone service. From Chicken it’s about 100 miles. All of it dirt. Most of it winding. Some of it one lane. All of it spectacular. It was a long, bumpy drive, with some major scary parts for the passenger, but we were very glad we did it. Apart from the drive (which would have been worth doing in and of itself), seeing this community bouncing back from such wreckage was inspiring. It was hard to capture in pictures how much damage renegade ice and flooding can do to a community.
The Complete Set of Day 6 is HERE – but I thought you might enjoy this sampling….
Scenes from the drive -


Company on the road



The fireweed doing it’s part to rebuild the forest.

The Yukon River at Eagle – looking pretty peaceful now.

Just one of the homes moved from it’s foundation during the flood.

Need I say more about the utilities?

Day 6 – RV miles – 0, Truck miles – 200 dusty ones. No Flat Tires. And that’s a good thing (if not a miracle!).

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tok to Chicken
We were reunited with John and Rosie and Jay and Naomi in Tok as we had planned! Plus as a bonus, friends Pete and Ellen were staying at the same campground. Everyone but Pete and Ellen had planned on driving to Chicken for the day. Since J&R and J&N were returning to Tok and continuing on south from there, they piled into the trusty white Honda. We had decided to take the RV to Chicken and then take the “Top of the World” highway through Dawson City and then down to Whitehorse. (If this is really confusing – check out the map I have posted on the “where are you know” page. That might help!), we lumbered on behind them.
The road to Chicken traveled through mile after mile of charred forest, the result of the huge (over 1 million acres) Taylor Complex Fire in 2004. (Alaska lost 6.6 million acres to wildfires in 2004!)

But even in the charred remains of so many acres, God had already given thought to its rebirth. One of the first plants to take hold after a forest fire is the beautiful Fireweed. From being interspersed with the blackened trees


to seeing it blanket the hillside


it speaks of God’s goodness.
But on to Chicken. Now Chicken, Alaska, is a pretty interesting little town. Even the name comes with a funny story. Apparently the miners wanted to name their community after the ptarmigan, but no one could figure out how to spell it. But they did know how to spell chicken, so Chicken it was. And when I say it’s a little town I mean really little. First of all, there are no public utilities. No electric except that which is made by generators. No public water or sewer. The entire town consists of three business, all pretty much claiming to be “downtown” Chicken. Summer population – 21. Winter population – 6.
There’s “The Town of Chicken”

This consists of a gift shop, an RV park (just electric hook-ups), a small gas station, 24 hour electric (apparently a big deal), and (free) flush toilets. They also offer tours of “Historic Old Town Chicken”, including the schoolhouse written about in the book Tisha.
There’s “Downtown Chicken”

This consists of a gift shop, a café, a “saloon”, and a gas pump.
And finally there’s Chicken Gold Camp and Outpost

Gift Shop, Café, RV park (but they turn the electric off during the night) and they give tours of the Pedro Dredge.

This is the Pedro Dredge.
Oh, and they all offer opportunities to pan for gold.
There is also an airport (which among other things takes out and brings in the mail twice a week) and located just up the hill is a cute little US Post Office.

Since the Post Office is the only business open 12 months, I think that’s really the center of town, but don’t tell the guys at the three gift shops!
I guess there must be some homesteaders around somewhere, but none that we’ve seen. Most people that stop here are on their way over the Klondike Highway (like us), but some do just come for the day to see what there is to see. And I think some of the folks here are honestly trying to find some gold. Go for it!
Here are a couple of other shots from “around town” -




(Those are the buckets from the dredge.)

Day 5 – 78.3 miles – Saying farewell to our dear traveling companions.

It has been such a joy to share this adventure with them, and although we won’t be going down the road together as we head back to the Lower 48, I know we’ll meet up again soon. Here, there, or in the air!

Monday, July 27
Chitina to Kennicott, back to Chitina in the truck. 60 Miles of Gravel road each way.
Chitina to Tok with the house.
Another early start day, but we had 60 miles of dirt/gravel road to cover, so it made sense to get a good start. Besides, it was a lovely morning – and the early views were lovely!

These big wide rivers are in valleys made by glaciers – you can always tell by the wide “U” shape of the valley. It often has a lazy braided look, but just as often has quite a strong current and can be quite treacherous. Glacier fed rivers have a lot of glacier “dirt” in them and I think they look like concrete slurry. Very gray.
Although the day started out quite clear (as you can see in this clear little pond with the beaver house in the back),

we soon began to notice a layer of smoke settling around us.

This is the Kuskulana River Bridge built in 1910 (had I mentioned that this road follows the railroad bed that ran to the copper mine community in Kennicott?). It’s one skinny lane, 525 feet long and 238 ft. above the river. Gulp.


Although the wildfire was still far away, the smoke continued for quite a while.



We came out of the smoke and upon a lovely lake at just about the same time. We climbed down an embankment to get a closer look at the lake –

(The smoke is hanging just above the horizon)
Finally we made it to the end of our 60 mile dirt road. Of course, we still had a mile walk to McCarthy and then a 6 mile shuttle bus to Kennecott, but we were happy to be done bumping along for a bit! There is a long pedestrian bridge across the Kennicott River – plenty of photo op’s there….



A little background on McCarthy and Kennicott.
“The 2 settlements in this area, McCarthy and Kennicott, both originated with the establishment of the Kennecott Mines Company in 1906. (An early day misspelling made the mining company Kennecott, while the glacier and river are Kennicott.)
The mining town of Kennicott, perched on the side of Bonanza Ridge above the wide and rocky Kennicott Glacier moraine, housed the mine offices, homes, a hospital, school and a movie theatre. Today, the 14-story Kennecott Mine mill and concentrator building towers the narrow gravel road through “town”, which includes historic structures like the old hospital and assay office, the restored recreation center, some private buildings and Kennicott Glacier Lodge.
McCarthy, 5 miles away, sprang up to provide miners with more housing, saloons, a newspaper, stores, hotels, restaurants and a red light district. A number of these pioneer structures have been restored or rebuild and now house a variety of businesses that serve the influx of summer visitors and the small year-round population of homesteaders.” The Milepost, 2009.
Apparently, in 1938 when the mines closed, the owners removed what they thought was valuable and pretty much just packed up and left everything else. Along with several private establishments, it is also a part of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. We found it to be very interesting, and well worth the 60 miles of smoke and bumps!




Apart from the abandoned mining community, there are also glaciers and mountains to be hiked and explored. The valley is filled with glacial moraines - they look like giant piles of cinders, but they are actually ice that is just covered with the glacial debri.

The processing plant was gi-normous!

We walked through McCarthy on our way back to the truck –

Took a short cut through the woods –

And came upon a black bear once we made it back to the road.

It was between us and the bridge, but fortunately it decided that the flowers at the little community chapel looked more interesting than we did,

So we were able to continue on our way.
We made it back to the truck without event and bumped along back to the rig (with a few less stops for picture taking!).
The day wasn’t done for us though – we still wanted to get close to (if not all the way to) Tok. Of course, we did have the daylight thing going for us!
We made it to Tok by 10:00, found a nice spot by the side of the road and settled in for the evening. I looked out a little after 11PM and almost saw a sunset!

Day Four – RV miles – 202.3, Chitina to Tok
Truck Miles – 120 and lots of dust, but lots of history too! A Very Good Day!

PS – The complete set of the Day 4 Pictures are Here

Psst….Here’s a map that might help a little with just where we are!

(Real Time update – it’s Wednesday night, we’re in Chicken, AK, and we’re headed to Dawson City (Yukon Territory) tomorrow morning. Here’s hoping our border crossing goes smoothly! More on Day 5 & 6 & maybe even 7 tomorrow (I hope)!)

Valdez to Chitina (pronounced Chit-na – I wonder what happened to extra “I”)
Sunday, July 26
We had planned on staying all day in Valdez, but the weather was really crummy so after we went to church (which included a little cruise out on the bay),

we walked around the town for a bit


and then (after naps) started back UP the road. Yes, that 7 mile hill was waiting for us.

Even with the clouds (and occasional rain), the drive was still pretty –

The pipeline runs along the same route as the road we were on – sometimes underground, sometimes above. Here is a glimpse of it just as it is leaving the final pumping station. I found it amazing that with all the mountains and valleys it traverses (all 799 miles of it) there are only 12 pumping stations along the way. Impressive!


The Edgerton Highway/McCarthy Road

Gary and I decided that we wanted to do a little side trip – the Edgerton/McCarthy Road – so we waved good-bye to our other traveling companions with promises of meeting up again in Tok by Tuesday. Several folks had recommended this drive to us – it’s paved until you get to Chitina and then for the next 60 miles it’s gravel. We decided we’d drive Lizzie to Chitina and then take the truck the rest of the way.
It started out very straight-

and was quite diverse. Instead of wilderness on all sides there was an occasional hay field

And pastures with mystery bovine type animals (does anyone know what this is? Some kind of Yak, maybe?)

But it also had some great views –


We made it to Chitina without event and were surprised at the…ahem…nothingness of it? According to the Milepost book – “Chitina has several picturesque old buildings (that would be 2) and a growing number of services (that would be a gas station and a paved pull-out with an outhouse!).”

Yes, there are three buildings in the picture, but only 2 of them are occupied. That is main street.

Apparently Chitina was a booming town after it was established in 1908 when the copper mine was operational in Kennicott and it was the northern terminus of the railway that supplied the mines. When the copper mine and railroad were abandoned in 1938 Chitina became a ghost town. Today it is mostly the gateway to the McCarthy Road (which follows the old railroad bed) and a portion of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. We parked Lizzie and took a sneak peak at the McCarthy Road since there was a sign for a campground about a mile down the road. I was skeptical, but I figured we could check it out. First the road passes through this teeny-tiny opening

And then winds down for a bit until you come to a nice macadam road and fancy new bridge. While we were checking out the “campground”, I took a picture of the bridge over the Copper River.

The bridge was very nice, but the campground wasn’t really “big rig” friendly, so we’ve opted to just park in a small pull-out just past “downtown”. This is the view from my front door –

We took a walk and actually ate dinner in one of those two buildings. On the way home I couldn’t resist a shot of the Chitina suburbs –

And just as we were settling down for the night (and I was beginning to get caught up with these journal entries) – a big ol’ moose trotted right in front of our rig! Of course by the time I got the camera out she was across the road and heading up the hill –

I think she’s gone that way before!

Day Three – 118 miles. Parked in the moose trail!

Additional shots of Day 3 can be found HERE!