Alaskan Highway South (Teslin to Dawson Creek)

Well, it's been awhile, but after Leaving Teslin, I travelled the rest of the Alaskan Highway all the way to Dawson Creek in about 10 days time (about 1,200 miles total). Scenery was very good, although not as good as my trip up on Hwy 37, the Cassier Highway. Nothing really of note on this leg; I was trying to leave Alaska behind as quickly as possible. The weather along the way had been much better than Alaska: mid-70's during the day and sunny. One note of accomplishent on this leg was arrival in Dawson Creek, the traditional start of the Alaskan Highway. It felt really good to be done with that part of the trip! After Dawson, it is on to Jasper National Park and Banff, Calgary, then Montana! Anyway, here are some chosen photos of my journey. Don't forget, I have many more photos at www.tomsphotosonline.com (look at the bottom right of the page for the latest entries):

















Watson Lake at sunset

















The Signpost Forest

















"Hoodoos" at Muncho Lake






Muncho Lake

















Herd of Buffalo on the highway near Liard Hotsprings

"Freeze!"

A very old church

One of my favorite photos

The end of the road...finaly!

From Anchorage to Tok

This would have been a fantastic drive, except that it poured rain on me for over 100 miles on my out of Anchorage. However, the I could see that there was incredible scenery all around me. Highway 1 leaving Anchorage is know as the Glenn highway, and it meets up with the "Tok Cutoff", which is a continuation of Hwy 1. If you ever drive up to Alaska, I'd highly recommend taking this highway the reverse direction that I traveled it...that is, drive it from Tok to Anchorage for a little better view.

Anyway, I didn't see much for the first 100 miles, but after that, I could see some really beautiful scenery all around me. I didn't get many pictures, because it was a gray day, but this would be a really great drive in nice weather.

I camped on the side of the road that night, about 20 miles from Tok. Then, the next day, I crossed the Alaskan border, back into Canada, and onto a place called Teslin. It was another pretty drive, and I got the following roadside pictures:

Seward Fishing

So, we left Denali and headed south; the plan was to go to the port of Valdez, and catch a 6 hour ferry to Seward, Alaska. We were about 80 miles east of Anchorage, when we stopped to take in the view. When I got in and turned the ignition key...nothin'. I did my best to troubleshoot the problem, but to no avail. It took a towtruck about 4 hrs to get to us, and we were towed back to Anchorage and dropped off at a repair facility at 2:30 in the morning. The next day, being Sunday, there was no one to help us, so it was pretty much a down day. The next morning, one of the techs crawled under the engine area and found...a broken wire! He put a new crimp-lug on it and everything was good! Whew! It could have been a lot worse, although the two cost $900 and the repair only $170.

Well, Valdez was now out, so we headed down to the Kenai penninsula to do some river fishing. We fished first at a place called Cooper Landing and caught many, many "humpies", which is a type of salmon not very good eating. They were large fish, however, and fun to catch. The next day we fished closer to the mouth of the Kenai River, at a place called Cunningham. Again, a lot of humpies were caught, but no real good-eating salmon.

After that we headed on down to Seward to try to get a fishing charter for the next day. We arrived in Seward around 8:30 pm, and struck out to find a charter. We found a place that was kind of a central booking facility for a lot of the charter boats in the area. Unfortunately for us, there was a major fishing derby going on in town, so the only boat available to us was a full-day Halibut and Salmon boat for $250 each. We were hoping for a half day Halibut-only boat, so we said "no thanks" and went down to the docks in search of a better deal.

Well, there was no one else open at that time of night, so we pow-wowed and agreed to go back to the central booking facility to get the full-day boat. We arrived back at 10:07pm and guess what...they were closed! We knocked on the windows for someone to help us out, but we didn't see anyone. We only had the next day to fish, so our options were quickly running out.

We then headed across the street to a resturant/bar and asked the bartender if she knew of any charters for the next day. Before she could answer, a guy sitting at the bar said that he knew a boat captain that might have room for us. So, he called the captain on his cell phone, and the guy was down to the bar in about 10 minutes. He met with us, explained who he was, and what kind of boats he had (pretty good-sized ones), and that he had room on a full-day, Halibut/Salmon boat for only $195! Score!

So, the next day, we were up bright and early to catch the boat at 6:30 am. I took a fabulous shot of the docks at dawn:



We "drove" for over 2 hrs. to get to the Halibut. It was a cold, dark (but not rainy) day, and the coastline was really beautiful:



I've got a lot more shots on my photosite. Anyway, the fishing was really good. The 3 of us each limited on Halibut within a short time (2 fish each) and we caught 8 large silver salmon between the 3 of us. I also had the distinction of catching a "ling cod", a rather ugly-looking fish weighing in at around 45 lbs:





Anyway, we all had a really fun time, and wound up with around 80 lbs of filet!

We stayed overnight in Seward, and the weather cleared up a bit for us to take some pictures of the beautiful surroundings.





We had to get going later that day...Dad and Greg were leaving that night. We took care of some laundry and cleaned the coach, then headed back to Anchorage. We had a fabulous steak dinner at a Chinese resturant in downtown Anchorage, then I dropped them off at the airport. That was about it for Anchorage and Alaska, as the next day, I headed out of town, back towards the lower 48.

Denali Revisited

After leaving Seward, I drove back to Anchorage to pick up Dad (from West Virginia) and my brother Greg (from Hawaii), who were visiting me for a week. The next day, we drove north to Denali, but on the way, stopped on a whim to fish a place called Montana Creek. It was great fishing, and we managed to bring home 6 large salmon. We continued the drive late in the afternoon, stayed overnight near Denali, and arrived the next morning to catch a bus tour 50 miles into Denali Park.

The bus tour lasted 8 hrs, but we saw moose, cariboo, sheep, and a momma grizzly with 3 cubs. Not to mention incredible scenery all along the way. Here are the pics:



One of several moose



A caraboo sporting a huge rack



Really great scenery throughout



Momma bear and 3 cubs


Really cool colors in the mountains



Another moose



A flock of sheep on the mountain

I've got a lot more pictures on my photosite at www.tomsphotosonline.com. Check it out!

Homer, Alaska

Homer, Alaska, is on another souther-tip of the Kenai penninsula, about 160 miles from Seward. To get there, I drove along the Kenai River for quite a ways. This river was really beautiful, having an aqua-color that you'd expect to see in tropical waters:




As I approached Homer, I got a nice view to the West of several volcanoes, one of which was Mt. Redoubt, that errupted in 1989:



I arrived shorly thereafter in Homer, a very small town with an 8 mile stretch of narrow land jutting out into the ocean, known as the "spit". I camped all the way at the end of the spit and, as luck had, camped 20 feet from the "Eagle Lady". The Eagle Lady lives there year-round, feeding the balk eagles in the area in the winter months. She's been doing that for something like 20 yrs or so. I did manage to get a short glimpse of her, but she's something like 80 yrs old now and doesn't get out much. Speaking of eagles, I was a little dissapointed that I only saw one, as soon as I arrived. He was perched on a nearby rooftop:



A magnificant bird, I will tell you.

My campsite was right on the water again, and I had some spectacular scenery all around me of the mountains and some really large glaciers.





I even managed to spot an otter in the water:



One of the things that I saw while I was in Homer was the Northern Lights. I was lucky to see them because they are most often seen in the winter-time in much more northern locations such as Fairbanks. They weren't the real colorful ones you'd expect to see, but more light flashlights in the sky shining a grey light for a few seconds, then fading out. It was pretty cool.

After my stay in Homer, it was time to drive back to Anchorage to pick up my Dad and brother, who were going to be with me for about a week...

Seward, Alaska

ddd

From Denali, I traveled south for about 240 miles to Anchorage. I stayed in an RV park just outside of downtown and right near a river with lots of salmon making their way upstream. There was a bridge over the river where you could watch the salmon, and just underneath, there must have been 100 10-12 lb. salmon resting before continuing the journey upstream. There were also a few 3 ft monster salmon, probably king salmon, that were completely red in color, indicating that they were almost dead as a result of spawning.

I didn't really do much in Anchorage; it just seemed like any large town/city with its WalMarts, resturants, etc. The weather wasn't great either, so there was no scenery to be had.

So, after a day or so, I traveled out of Anchorage south to the Kenai penninsula. The Kenai penninsula is world-famous for its salmon fishing this time of year. I headed towards Seward, Alaska, on one of the southermost points on the penninsula. It rained on me on the drive down and all the next day. I visited a local aquarium that had a couple of seals, otters, and a very good bird exhibit to kill some time. The next day was also very dreary, obscuring some very beautiful scenery that I knew surrounded me. Finally, on my last day in Seward, the weather broke, and I cruised around town on my bicycle to take some pictures:



Lots of charter fishing here in Seward



A view from my campsite



Another view looking west from my campsite



Another view of the mountains surrounding me



A beautiful stream nearby

That was all for Seward, although I'd be back in a week or so with my brother, Greg, and Dad to do some fishing. More about that later.

Denali

I left Fairbanks and headed south on Hwy 3 (the Parks Highway) to Denali National Park. I arrived around 5pm (still plenty of light) and booked a flightseeing ride on a small plane. It was sunny and warm, so I took off in the Jeep south, hoping to see Mt. McKinly (otherwise known as Mt. Denali). Little did I know that the first viewing of this mountain was over 100 miles away! I drove south for about 20 miles and took some nice pictures of the surrounding "hills":






The scenery was really beautiful. Around 8pm, a group of us went up in a small plane for an hour flight to check out Denali. Here we are approaching our aircraft:



It took as about 25 minutes of flying time till we got to the mountain, which was surrounded by clouds. The mountain itself was very nice, but the entire flight to and from the mountain was even more beautiful:




Denali





I was lucky I made the flight that day, because the next two days were miserable, weather-wise. The entire mountain range was shrouded with clouds, rain, and 50 degree weather. I didn't see so much as a hill after that flight! So, my advise is to skip Denali unless the weather is nice!

Arctic Circle

I arrived in Fairbanks, but there really wasn't much to see in town. So, I decided to drive up north to the Arctic Circle, which was only 200 miles away. The first 85 miles from Fairbanks was on a very nicely paved road (Hwy 2) and connected me to the Dalton Highway.



The Arctic Circle lie 115 miles up on this "highway", the first 80 miles or so unpaved. When I say "unpaved" what I really mean is "hell". I took my Jeep through the most punishing road conditions yet on the trip. It was advised to take along 2 spare tires with you. The memory of being stuck with a flat in Telegraph Creek reminded me that my tires were not in the best of shape.



Above is a shot of the "war zone" that I had to pass. They were doing construction on a 12 mile stretch that required an escort vehicle in front to guide the cars through. I had to wait 30 minutes on the way back because I had just missed the previous line of cars going through.

Once cool thing along the entire length of the road was the Alaskan pipeline, pictured below:



It wound its way over hill and dale, and sometimes dissapeared through the hills. The oil enters the pipeline 300 miles north of here at the coast in a town called Barow. The oil is 180 degrees F as it enters the pipe and cools along the way. The pipeline is suspended over the ground so as not to thaw it and has radiators every few feet to dissapate the heat. The oil continues another 500 miles to the southern coast, to Valdez. Pretty impressive!

Anyway, after 60 miles of hellish road, I finally made it to the Arctic Circle. Not much there, except rolling tundra and this sign:



The Jeep took quite a beating, but luckily, no flat tires!