Tag Archives: alaska

North to Alaska (again) – Part 3

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We bypassed the Top of the World (TOTW) highway due to weather concerns but while in Tok we all took a day trip to Chicken so we could see it, and say we went there, in case we could not take the TOTW on the way out of Alaska. It was interesting to see the small town:

We drove past Chicken toward the Canadian border but stopped short of actually crossing since it would have been difficult for us at that time.

But we got a nice view from a viewpoint.

On the way back we saw our first moose on the road.

The next day was the 4th of July. Since we were in the US there was a minor celebration. Tok shut down the ALCAN highway for a cute little parade.

Most of the participants in the parade threw out candy to the viewers. There was a lot of candy strewn about.

At Tok, travelers need to decide on which way they want to go. Head south toward the Anchorage area or continue the northern track onto Fairbanks. We opted for Fairbanks so we could head out on the Dalton highway toward Prudhoe Bay.

We stopped at Delta Junction, the professed end of the Alaska highway. However, I have seen other places that say they are the end.

We continued to Fairbanks and stayed at a not-very-nice RV park. We all had to do some laundry and also stopped by an Alaska Pipeline information stop.

It was time to get on the Dalton Highway. The Dalton goes from near Fairbanks to the Arctic Ocean for a total of about 415 miles, pretty much all gravel. Like the roads our family traveled in 1964:

The Dalton highway was pretty similar to this. We crossed the only bridge on the Yukon River in Alaska. We ran into road construction and lost the lead vehicle, going down the wrong road in a construction zone with me leading the group, naturally. I rounded a corner and found a large tractor in our lane. I got out and started telling everyone behind that we had to backup and get on the correct lane. Luckily the pilot driver came back and the tractor moved.

The road is pretty rough, especially for our trailers. I wanted to get to the Arctic Circle so we only went to Coldfoot, we didn’t have a desire to drive all the way, on those rough roads, to the ocean. We stayed at Coldfoot for 3 nights, George and Marcia left their trailer in our care and took their truck only up to the Arctic Ocean. We had 50amp electric hookups in Coldfoot so we had Starlink working and the AT&T service was very good. We were set.

Coldfoot is primarily a truck stop, with some tourists coming through. Pricing on things, like fuel, is pretty high. Part of the cost for staying overnight in their ‘RV Park’ is they include a shower. The shower is inside one of the rooms that they rent, for $250/night!

The Chens made it back from the Arctic Ocean and we determined it was a very good idea to NOT take any trailers up that stretch of the road. They had some dicey issues with just the truck.

We were already having some issues with our trailer wheel on the road up the Dalton. I noticed the tire pressure increasing on one wheel, and it was getting hot. I initially thought it was a dragging brake heating it up. I tried to break the brake loose with a mallet, I even cut the brake line to stop it from possibly locking.

On the road back, about 90 miles from Fairbanks, I checked it again and found the entire wheel was loose! We raised the trailer off the bad wheel and were able to pull the complete wheel off of the trailer without removing the lugnuts. That should not happen. Our bearings had failed on that wheel.

My father had an issue with an Airstream many years ago as I was a kid and I remember him towing it for a short distance on only three wheels. The axles that Airstream uses, Dexter, allow this to happen, most RVs don’t have this capability. Off we went on three wheels, monitoring the tire pressures on those, which are overloaded now. We would drive until the pressures got too high and then pull off and wait for them to cool down. It was only a 220-mile drive from Coldfoot to Fairbanks but it took us almost 12 hours to accomplish it, the last 90 miles at 30mph. George and Marcia stayed right with us the entire way, many thanks to them. We finally made it to our RV park and ended up eating dinner around 10:30 pm that night (and it was still light). The next day was starting the process of finding out how to repair the trailer.

We had initially planned to only spend a few nights in Fairbanks and then on to Mt McKinley (Denali) National Park. We knew this would take more than that so the Chens went on to Denali and used the reservations we had, we had been to Denali in 2019 so the trailer did take priority.

My mind went through all kinds of permutations about the repair. Dexter axles are not tremendously common and somewhat specialized so I didn’t hold out hope of replacing it, if needed. If we had to get a replacement, we would have to have the trailer shipped back to the lower 48 or store it locally to get fixed later. There was a place in Fairbanks that was a Dexter dealer, which surprised me. I talked to them but they did not have a shop there, only in Anchorage. That was better, we would only have to go to Anchorage (360 miles). I called Anchorage and they weren’t confident in repairing it. They, however, did know of a place in Fairbanks I could try, Bulletproof Trailers.

There was hope! I talked to Brett, describing the problem, and he immediately knew it was a Dexter Nev-R-Lube axle. He was very confident that they could fix it. We set up a time in a couple of days and I got with it ordering a new hub overnight from Toscanos in California (not cheap). The repair was scheduled to start after the weekend so we tried to put it behind us and become tourists again.

As most of you know, my family traveled to Alaska in 1964. Here is what Fairbanks was then (the most recent population is 32,000):

I was able to recreate a 1964 photo again in Fairbanks:

We had a few more things to do in Fairbanks, I needed an oil change, we had to get our windshield replaced (a small crack) and one of my crowns came off. We got those three items checked off and finally took the trailer in for repair:

Not knowing how long the repair would take we headed to the library. After we were there for about 20 minutes we got a call that the trailer was done:

Bulletproof trailers came through for us in Fairbanks and it was very reasonably priced. We ended up staying just over a week in Fairbanks for all of this and finally headed down to Denali for one night. On the drive down we were able to see Mt Denali from the road (I hear not many people get to see it):

Hopefully, all of our angst is now behind us.

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/