Yearly Archives: 2011

It Was On the Marge of Lake Laberge

Day 18: Anchorage to Tok, AK (318mi, 7061mi total) Leaving Anchorage, we passed through Mat-Su County, a region named for its two spectacular glaciers, the Matanuska and Susitna, which form the two main rivers of southeast Alaska. It was a tourist experience again, basically, but I got to see and almost approach the Matanuska glacier. (Leave it to my parents to stay off the ice, even the part on the tour, on trumped up fears of falling through!) From a distance, the glacier looks almost like a snowfall. But not so much standing at its icy face! This was as…

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Around the Wild

Day 16: Fairbanks to Denali to Fairbanks, Alaska (292mi, 6382mi total) Planning the trip, I kind of dreaded Denali day. This seemed like about the worst possible experience for a repressed outdoorsman, having to take in the Alaskan wilderness from the window of a tour bus. As much as I tried to tell myself it would be just like a safari (like I ever wanted to go on safari?) the idea just seemed depressing, missing out on it all when it's right outside the window. This wasn't exactly Alexander Supertramp's bus; I wasn't going 'into the wild', just around the…

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So Long To This Cold, Cold Part of the World

Day 14¼: Deadhorse to Wiseman, Alaska (241mi, 5819mi total) All this and we were only halfway! Starting back southward, the enormity of the continent really started to sink in. It took two weeks to go north, it would take as long again to get home. We were fully a quarter of the way around the world from where we started, in a place where caribou roam free, and a pile of dirt laid out in a more-or-less straight line was called a "highway". We would see a lot more of this... before there would be any recognizable pavement, let alone…

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On Thin Ice

Day 13: Fairbanks to Wiseman, Alaska (266mi, 5317mi total) So started the next stage of our adventure: the notorious Dalton Highway. The northernmost road in the Western hemisphere, the Dalton was built as a trucking road, to bring loads to the Beaufort Sea oil operations in the winter, and provide maintenance for the Alëska Pipeline, which carries crude oil south from Prudhoe Bay to the refineries in Valdez. Tourist travel on the Dalton wasn't even allowed until 2003, and was never any more than a total afterthought, with a 400+ mile dirt road to nowhere being so far out of…

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On Top Of The World

Day 11: Dawson, YT to Fairbanks, AK (623km/387mi, 8129km/5051mi total) In the mountains above Dawson, last winter's snow still hasn't melted, this despite being above tree line and in direct sunlight at least part of the day! It wasn't even cold here... maybe 60-65 degrees. Starting to sound like a broken record here but... I want to get outside and be a part of this! The border checkpoint was tiny, and consisted of this informational sign, a cabin, and a little shack no larger than a toll booth. Which is probably about what one would expect all the way up…

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There are Strange Things Done in the Midnight Sun

Day 9: Fort Nelson, BC to Whitehorse, YT (951km, 6974km total) Finally, this was the North we were looking for! Back on the Alaska Highway, the scenery opened up into the far northern end of the Canadian Rockies, towering stone peaks I would have loved to climb if I ever had the chance again. We were isolated enough though that even car-window wildlife watching was possible. Mountain goats would wander straight into traffic, giving the perfect opportunity to see them up close and personal. One of the more notable roadside attractions on the way to Alaska is the Signpost Forest.…

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