Day 39: ALASKA!

May 23, 2014

We finally made it.  We are in Alaska!!! After all the planning, dreaming and driving we finally crossed the Canadian/USA border into Alaska at 11:30 today (Alaska time). 

We left our Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada campground this morning and drove the few miles to the ferry.  We crossed the Yukon River on the George Black Ferry.  We were concerned about Fred not having enough ground clearance for the on and off loading from the ferry because of the dips just at the end of the ramps.  However, the extremely nice and professional crew on the ferry were right on top of things and prior to us voicing any concerns told us that we were a little low so they would place boards at the end of the ramp to keep Fred from scraping.  Everything worked just great and couldn't have been easier.  Once again we had stressed over nothing!   

Pilot Scout has the situation under control

Now all we had to stress over were the roads for the next 180 miles.  It's all that red print in The Milepost that causes the stress – if they would just use regular black ink we wouldn't stress to much. 

Anyway – the first 8-10 miles was some of the best paved road we have been on in weeks.   

Really spoiled us because then it went to gravel.  Really it wasn't bad.  It was a good dirt/gravel road.  There were washboard areas but generally it was in good shape.   

We saw 2 ptarmigan – the Alaska State Bird – but didn't get pictures.  They were too fast.  One still had a lot of it's winter white color and the other was changing to is summer colors with the brown and white.  Such pretty and large birds.  As we gained elevation, there was more and more snow piled on the side of the road.  At one point it was taller than Fred and had some blue layers of ice in it.  There was one section that was a little tricky because the melting snow had the road wet and very muddy and slick.  

This was a very short area and within a quarter mile the road was dusty again.  It was unbelievably dusty for most of the way.  We actually drove less than 35mph a lot of the time to keep from vibrating everything so much.  We saw a black bear but also missed the picture.  He was running quite fast so it would have just been a butt shot anyway.  We got a real laugh as we were approaching the border crossing because after all that dirt road the GPS told us that our selected route would take us on dirt roads for the next 59 miles.  We don't know what the roads we had just driven were to the GPS but to us there were definitely dirt!  We also saw another porcupine and hoary marmot.   

Hoary Marmot

We also saw another Ptarmigan couple and one single as we approached the border.  Just before the border is the highest point on the Top of the World Highway. The "Top of the Top of the World Highway" is 4515' in elevation – above the tree line and you can see forever.  Yep, we walked through the snow to climb to the top.   

click to enlarge

The Border crossing was a breeze again.  He asked us if we had any guns or alcohol.  We answered no to both and he wished us safe travels.  Oh, and he asked us to sign our passports.  Oops!  Yep, we have been using our passports without ever signing them.  He is the first one to point that out.  We will make sure we take care of that little chore. 

Yea!  Back in the USA and finally in Alaska.  However – the welcome home was not very nice.  The  first 13 miles of road was under construction and awful.  If was 2-3 inch stones and horribly rough.  

When they finish this project the road will be much nicer, wider and probably safer, but it took us 1 hour to go that 13 miles.  It then went to just normal dirt road – like a lot of county roads we have driven in the past so not too bad.   

We stopped at the Walker Fork Bureau of Land Management (BLM) campground to fix some lunch and decided to just stay.  Since one of us is old enough to have his Senior Pass, it only costs $5 a night. Didn't make it to Chicken, Alaska today – it's about another 16 miles.  This little campground is real Alaska.  Tonight there is only one other couple here.  We can't see another campsite from ours.  There is a creek running thru the campground and the forest just smells so fresh.  There are so many birds here – some we are working on identifying.  There is public gold panning in the creek nearby.  Love this place!  We just might stay an extra day.   

View from our front window

Gray Jay is known here as the camp site thief

Anyway – the views today were spectacularly beautiful.  Would we recommend this drive to others?  Well, we haven't finished it yet so can't really say for sure so we will let you know when we finish it tomorrow or the next day.