Category Archives: Alaska 2019

Alaska 2019 recap

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We have been in Redding for more than a month now so it is a good time to do an Alaska recap.

The planning started last year when we were traveling with the Chens. We were staying between Jasper and Hinton. In that area, I saw a turnoff that stated ‘Scenic Route to Alaska’. Some thoughts were that we were very close to the starting point, we should just go last year. Alas, we had obligations at the end of August. In hindsight, the decision was good since my mother passed away at the end of August. So we made plans to go in 2019. It would also mark 55 years since I was there last!

The only real plan we had for Alaska was a scheduled meetup with a group from Facebook on the 4th of July. We reserved a spot and it gave us a target for at least that date.

We made that date and pretty much winged it for the entire trip. Often I would make reservations for our next stop only, not any further ahead. The one exception was Denali NP. I actually made two reservations and canceled one of them once we knew our location better (it was only $6 to cancel).

For this recap, I consider the start of our trip when we entered Alberta north of Glacier NP on June 10, 2019. Then the end will be when we came back to the US at Sumas WA on Sept 3, 2019.

Here are the numbers:

Total mileage: 8673
Fuel Cost: $2303.57
Gallons: 696.15
MPG: 12.07
Avg price per gal: $3.33
High price per gal: $4.292
Min price per gal: $2.559

Trailer miles: 5783
Average miles per travel day: 199
Min travel day: 40 (Palmer to Eklutna Lake)
Max travel day: 291 (Liard Hot Springs to Teslin YT)
Travel days: 29

RV park expenses
Total: $3088.99
Overnights: 85
Avg per night: $36.34
Min: 0 (Walmart in Chilliwick)
Max: $62.11 (Seward KOA)

There were also numerous locations for pulling off the road, dry camping but we were never at a point where we had to rely upon it. One negative that we have found is that virtually every turnout in the Yukon was signed to NOT allow overnight parking. If there was an area off the highway, it didn’t appear to have a sign. There were many areas in BC that would not allow it also.

Alaska is huge, but the easily driveable area is not. My estimation is that you have about 500 miles north to south and east to west that you can drive. Most other areas are only accessible via sketchy roads, water or air. It is all pretty civilized also. There are some stretches of not much but not at all like you might expect. We thought it would be much more barren.

The stretch that seemed more like what we thought Alaska would be like was Northern Alberta and Yukon Territory. Long segments between towns. The biggest town in, and capital of, the Yukon was Whitehorse. Whitehorse’s population is 26K, the rest of the territory is another 10K.

Anchorage is a metropolis (300K) with 2 Costcos! It is a stark difference to other locales but helpful if you need to get something done. Roxie had to have a medical procedure and we were able to get it done there.

We tried to take day trips to some of the other smaller, well-known towns (Skagway, Whittier, Valdez). Fairbanks was a smaller version of Anchorage but much more palatable. Denali was both very rural and touristy. Homer was, by far, our favorite! We will spend about a month there the next time.

We also did not do everything while we were there. This gives us some more to do when we get back there again. We will go back, but it won’t be for another 5-10 years. We have more to see in the Northern Hemisphere.

If you decide to head to Alaska, you can not fret too much about the planning ahead but there is one thing you must do. Join the RVing to Alaska group on Facebook. Every year a new one is started so pick the right one. There is a huge amount of information available there, you can learn a lot from others and you can save it right in FB and get to it later. Here is the 2019 version: https://www.facebook.com/groups/rvingtoalaska2019/

Back in the 48

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We got Roxie’s SCS battery replaced and still ended up waiting another week for her followup appointment. All was good and we headed back on the road. We were a little gun shy about the change in the weather. You could feel it in the air. We decided to head directly back to the lower 48 as we had a date to be somewhere. However, we kept track of the places we passed to visit in the future.

We headed to Tok for a night, entered back into Canada and spent one night at Cottonwood RV Park on the shore of Kluane Lake. This RV park has some wonderful views:

We dry camped here as their power is via a generator. They only allow 15 amps so that really doesn’t help us at all. We can’t do the microwave with it, nor did we need the A/C.

The next one night stop was Hi-Country in Whitehorse YT and then on to Watson Lake and the provincial campground there:

You can barely make out the lake through the trees

At Watson Lake, we changed our route off the AlCan highway to take the Cassiar highway down through British Columbia. This is a much less traveled path, much more beautiful and much more remote! It took us 2 days to traverse the road and we had ZERO cell coverage. I am not sure if that is good or bad.

We stayed at Kinaskan Lake campground for one night. It was a wonderful campground, almost all spots were on the lake and quiet (except during generator times from that big bus a couple of spots away). Here views from the evening and the next morning:

Sitting by the lake
Smooth as glass!
A bit different the next day!

At the end of the Cassiar is the town of Hazelton, BC. This worked out great to be our next stop. We stayed at the ‘Ksan Campground. It is set in a historical village of the local indigenous peoples.

One interesting part of this was the bridge we went over to and from the campground, the Hagwilget Canyon Bridge. It is a single lane suspension bridge and was exciting.

https://youtu.be/TBB-pHVk6_0

Since we were back in civilization we made a quick stop at Walmart in Prince George BC and spent one night south of there at Mama Yeh RV Park (they are Passport America). The road south of Prince George as you start to enter the Frazier River valley is very beautiful as well as the valley itself. Nice rolling hills and green everywhere. Another overnight near Clinton BC at the Willow Springs RV park as we continue our trek back to California to help Roxie’s sister with her total knee replacement surgery.

Once we entered the Frazier River valley, it was a lower altitude and warmer. Our last stop in Canada was at the Chilliwack Walmart. This was our ninth night in a row on the road back with each stop only one night. Time for a rest. Our border crossing back to the US was pretty easy. They asked us about food and we had avocados and apples. They pulled us over and the AG guy came by but we were safe since the items were from the US. Great!

We stopped in Mt Vernon WA for 3 nights. This gave us time to visit Roxie’s nephew who lived in the area. That area, north of Seattle, is very beautiful and the weather was great. We got to decompress a bit before we headed south. As we left the campground, I heard a loud noise from the left rear of the trailer. The ingress/egress to the campground was a bit steep so I thought that I just scraped the tail in the gravel. We stopped down the road a bit further for a bathroom break. While parked I noticed my stabilizer jack, on the left rear, was bent all out of shape! I had forgotten to raise it as we were leaving the RV park. This is not normal for me but it happens. I spent about 30 minutes removing the old jack.

The dead jack. RIP

We stopped for another 3 nights at the Columbia Riverfront RV Park in Woodland WA. While there we had a couple pull in next to us in a brand new Airstream. This was their first Airstream and the first trip in it! We were able to talk with them a bit and help answer some questions they had. I am confident they will have many years ahead of them of fun travels.

On our way through Portland, we stopped at the Airstream dealership. This is where we initially purchased our trailer. I needed some parts for our step as one of the washer assemblies had failed. I got 3 sets of parts.

Our final destination was Redding but we were a bit ahead of schedule so we headed to San Francisco to visit our family there. We stopped at an Escapees park in Sutherlin, OR, a single night in Yreka CA at the Waiiaka RV Park.

Mt Shasta

The next overnight was a freebee in Corning at the Olive Pit restaurant. Another one night stop in Rio Vista by Sacramento delta. The last stop was in South San Francisco to stay at our usual stop (Treasure Island RV).

Treasure Island has changed. It appears they are trying to get out a lot of the older full-time units. They parked us in a spot where there was no possible way for me to park. After calling management, the directed us to a new spot. This spot was very tight also. It took me about 15 minutes to get parked. The guy behind us was not happy that I was so close but what else could I do?

Encroaching on our neighbor!

The park said this was a 35′ site but no way! Our trailer is 31′ and we are past the end of it. Now I was thinking about how I might get out of the spot. There was a pole right next to the trailer at the front:

There really wasn’t enough space to exit to the right especially thinking about the tail swing. The solution I saw was to go directly through the opposing set of spots.

Our escape route!

After our visit, we hadn’t been there for over 10 months, we used our escape route and headed to Redding. We stopped off in Chico (I went to school there for 3 years) for 3 nights. Before we took the trailer to the RV park in Redding, I checked with a local welder.

Whenever I set up our satellite I like to secure the dish to the trailer. It is easy in the front as I just use the A-frame. In the back of the trailer I have always had to use the stabilizer jack for the security cable. I believe doing this the last time, north of Seattle, messed with my sequence. I left the jack down because I had to remove the cable. This is it looks under the trailer:

I had the welder do this to give me a security anchor:

We are in Redding for about a month now and will then go back and visit our son in Visalia after that.

My next post will be an Alaska recap.