Monday, August 24, 2009
Outside Fairbanks
We saw these two moose next to the road and stopped to watch for a little while. This is what going to Alaska is all about!
Nothing all that interesting happened after this video was taken, and we made it home safely in 7 days.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Valdez to McCarthy
The Internet has not been cooperating with me lately, but finally I'm having some luck. So: our adventure in McCarthy...
We tried waiting out the fog in Valdez, and it worked. The town was still shrouded in fog when we left it Tuesday morning, but as soon as we got a few miles away, it cleared up. We stopped at Worthington Glacier (see pic below about collapsing ice cave!), and then went on our way. We had lunch at an awesome little lodge where I got some sort of Russian food that I will now crave for the rest of my life. Then we headed down the infamous McCarthy Road.
Some views of the road. We kept hearing/reading things about how it's not really as bad as everyone wants you to believe, etc. Well, if you ask me, it was worse than everyone said. The pics can't do it justice, and besides, on the worst parts, I was just trying to stay alive, not take pictures!
The way into the town of McCarthy: you park on one side of the bridge, and then walk across the river on this footbridge and a mile into town. Seriously.
This is pretty much the whole town. The hotel is across the street, and the backpacker's hotel (where we stayed and which is NOT heated) is around the corner.
Although McCarthy wasn't quite what we had expected, we took a flightseeing trip with a guy who had been doing it for 30 years. It was definitely worth the crazy experience.
The "Silver Bullet" we flew in!
The abandoned Kennicott mine.
The Wrangell Mountains from the Richardson Highway after leaving the McCarthy Road.
We tried waiting out the fog in Valdez, and it worked. The town was still shrouded in fog when we left it Tuesday morning, but as soon as we got a few miles away, it cleared up. We stopped at Worthington Glacier (see pic below about collapsing ice cave!), and then went on our way. We had lunch at an awesome little lodge where I got some sort of Russian food that I will now crave for the rest of my life. Then we headed down the infamous McCarthy Road.
Some views of the road. We kept hearing/reading things about how it's not really as bad as everyone wants you to believe, etc. Well, if you ask me, it was worse than everyone said. The pics can't do it justice, and besides, on the worst parts, I was just trying to stay alive, not take pictures!
The way into the town of McCarthy: you park on one side of the bridge, and then walk across the river on this footbridge and a mile into town. Seriously.
This is pretty much the whole town. The hotel is across the street, and the backpacker's hotel (where we stayed and which is NOT heated) is around the corner.
Although McCarthy wasn't quite what we had expected, we took a flightseeing trip with a guy who had been doing it for 30 years. It was definitely worth the crazy experience.
The "Silver Bullet" we flew in!
The abandoned Kennicott mine.
The Wrangell Mountains from the Richardson Highway after leaving the McCarthy Road.
Friday, August 14, 2009
The McCarthy Road
So...I've been absent for a few days, and this is partly why. We drove into McCarthy: 60 miles on the absolute worst road I have ever seen in my life, and then 60 miles back out. Nothing but washboard-like surface with potholes, etc. This video was taken somewhere around Mile 20 on the way in, while we still thought it was funny and were kind of delirious from being jarred so much. Our trip mascots, Roger and Morris, couldn't handle it, and tried to leap off the dash to their deaths several times. No worries, I caught them.
More pics coming eventually, but for now we are hitting the road home. Should be back in Chillicothe by next weekend, and back in Cincinnati early the next week. See you then!
More pics coming eventually, but for now we are hitting the road home. Should be back in Chillicothe by next weekend, and back in Cincinnati early the next week. See you then!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Still Foggy and Gross Outside
But the forecast looks okay. We're trying to wait out the weather for a bit here in Valdez, and then we'll head into McCarthy. I have no idea if we'll have Internet access there or not (it's in the middle of nothing). We are staying there anywhere from 1-3 nights, depending on how awesome it is...
Sunday, August 9, 2009
The Tok Cutoff and Richardson Highway: Tok to Valdez, AK
Today the plan was to drive to Valdez, take a quick look around, and then drive back north to Copper Center. But the weather was so nasty that we decided to stay in Valdez and hope for better conditions in the morning. There are gorgeous mountains all around us and all we can see are clouds and fog. Hopefully the drive tomorrow will be better, and we will make it into McCarthy, the tiny town in the middle of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. We'll be based there for the next few days. Below are the only two interesting pics I took today.
There are several signs to watch for horses in the road, which I still can't get over. It just seems like such a bad idea to me having horses grazing in the middle of the highway. Here's one on a big rope, in between the 4 lane traffic. WTF??
And, below, the best hotel bathroom wallpaper of all time! The original townsite of Valdez was completely destroyed in the Good Friday earthquake of 1964, and they rebuilt the town 4 miles away. My theory is that the place we're staying was brand new when the town relocated, and has not redecorated since then. Check it out!
There are several signs to watch for horses in the road, which I still can't get over. It just seems like such a bad idea to me having horses grazing in the middle of the highway. Here's one on a big rope, in between the 4 lane traffic. WTF??
And, below, the best hotel bathroom wallpaper of all time! The original townsite of Valdez was completely destroyed in the Good Friday earthquake of 1964, and they rebuilt the town 4 miles away. My theory is that the place we're staying was brand new when the town relocated, and has not redecorated since then. Check it out!
The Alaska Highway: Whitehorse to Tok, AK
Yesterday (August 8) we finally crossed the Alaska border. Below is still in Canada, when the sun was shining for us:
Dinner at Buckshot Betty's in Beaver Creek, Yukon, just 30 miles from the US border:
Some of the ridiculous road conditions we've been encountering. This one isn't nearly as bad as some, but you can see the washboard-crappy gravel that jars your teeth enough to give you a headache.
Welcome to Alaska! There was no one around to take our picture, so I used the handy-dandy timer on my camera to take this:
The last bit of sunshine we saw before the rain/clouds last night and today:
Dinner at Buckshot Betty's in Beaver Creek, Yukon, just 30 miles from the US border:
Some of the ridiculous road conditions we've been encountering. This one isn't nearly as bad as some, but you can see the washboard-crappy gravel that jars your teeth enough to give you a headache.
Welcome to Alaska! There was no one around to take our picture, so I used the handy-dandy timer on my camera to take this:
The last bit of sunshine we saw before the rain/clouds last night and today:
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The Alaska Highway (Yukon 1) to Whitehorse
Yesterday (August 7), we left the Cassiar Highway behind and started on the Alaska Highway. We stopped for a short hike to stretch our legs and I got this pic of a ptarmigan, which is Alaska's state bird (obviously they exist in the Yukon too). They're really cute, but they're also really stupid. We've seen tons of them just hanging out in the road (both alive and not so much), and they rarely seem to fly across; usually they run. Guys, you've got wings: use them!
As we neared the town of Teslin, we noticed a change in the atmosphere, and sure enough, when we rolled down the windows, it was smoke. It only got worse as we got closer to town, and then we saw a sign to tune to a certain radio station for emergency information. We did, and pulled into a little rest area to listen. Fires are burning on both sides of the Teslin River, it informed us, and people with breathing problems were advised o relocate to Whitehorse. Fortunately, that's where we were headed anyway, but it was pretty scary. Below is what the sky looked like overlooking the town/river; then later as we drove further west, we could actually see the smoke from the individual fires (there are 5 in all). I feel so scared for the people who live there. I don't even know if they have enough resources to fight the fire, since it's so unpopulated.
Just outside the city of Whitehorse (which, by the way, is a "big" city, with a population of 24,000), is Miles Canyon, which is awesome. Here is a scary pedestrian suspension bridge over the thing that moves A LOT when you walk on it:
Me on the scary bridge trying not to panic.
Mom on the bank of the canyon.
Other things we saw on this drive that I didn't get pics of: a red fox running across the road, and later, a horse grazing on the side of the road. It started walking up to our car and everything. Do people not believe in fences or what??
Today we should cross the American border and make it to Tok, Alaska. I'm planning a stop at Starbucks before we leave this town, because who knows when I'll see one again! haha!
As we neared the town of Teslin, we noticed a change in the atmosphere, and sure enough, when we rolled down the windows, it was smoke. It only got worse as we got closer to town, and then we saw a sign to tune to a certain radio station for emergency information. We did, and pulled into a little rest area to listen. Fires are burning on both sides of the Teslin River, it informed us, and people with breathing problems were advised o relocate to Whitehorse. Fortunately, that's where we were headed anyway, but it was pretty scary. Below is what the sky looked like overlooking the town/river; then later as we drove further west, we could actually see the smoke from the individual fires (there are 5 in all). I feel so scared for the people who live there. I don't even know if they have enough resources to fight the fire, since it's so unpopulated.
Just outside the city of Whitehorse (which, by the way, is a "big" city, with a population of 24,000), is Miles Canyon, which is awesome. Here is a scary pedestrian suspension bridge over the thing that moves A LOT when you walk on it:
Me on the scary bridge trying not to panic.
Mom on the bank of the canyon.
Other things we saw on this drive that I didn't get pics of: a red fox running across the road, and later, a horse grazing on the side of the road. It started walking up to our car and everything. Do people not believe in fences or what??
Today we should cross the American border and make it to Tok, Alaska. I'm planning a stop at Starbucks before we leave this town, because who knows when I'll see one again! haha!
The Cassiar Highway (BC 37) = Bears
Okay, so the big deal with August 6 was the amount of bear sightings! First, we were driving through Old Hazelton, which was supposed to be restored to look like it did in the 1890s. It certainly did not look much like that, and we were disappointed in it. We drove to the end of town where the street dead-ended, and just as we were turning around, we saw something moving across the river. A black bear! We parked and watched him until he disappeared. He was just hanging out by the water, strolling along, occasionally picking up speed, like he was playing. Here he is below (it was hard to get a good pic of him because I don't know how to make the camera focus on the far away object instead of the close up weeds):
We thought we were lucky at that, but then we got luckier. Driving north on the Cassiar Highway is an adventure in itself. The "highway" is actually more like a backroad, with no painted lines and much damage that they're sometimes in the process of fixing and sometimes not. There are enormous dips and bumps from frost heaves (where, when the frozen ground thaws underneath the pavement, it literally heaves the road up in places). Lots of holes, and gravel breaks. I feel bad for my poor car (which by the way is covered in about a pound of dust and bug guts). But anyway, we were rewarded for our perseverance when I spotted something black moving alongside the road ahead. As we got closer, it was obviously a bear, kind of young, foraging. There was one car behind us, but he must have been used to bears because he didn't stick around. We stopped and I got several pics, but I had trouble getting clear ones because my hands were shaking. :) I never expected to be quite so close to a bear!
Just a mile or two on down the road was another! It looked like they were probably brothers; they looked about the same size. Since this one stayed on my side of the road, I got better pics and a video, which I'll try to post separately. Aren't they just adorable? We didn't stay near them too long, because allowing bears to get used to people and cars is bad for both bears and people, but it was still an amazing experience!
We thought we were lucky at that, but then we got luckier. Driving north on the Cassiar Highway is an adventure in itself. The "highway" is actually more like a backroad, with no painted lines and much damage that they're sometimes in the process of fixing and sometimes not. There are enormous dips and bumps from frost heaves (where, when the frozen ground thaws underneath the pavement, it literally heaves the road up in places). Lots of holes, and gravel breaks. I feel bad for my poor car (which by the way is covered in about a pound of dust and bug guts). But anyway, we were rewarded for our perseverance when I spotted something black moving alongside the road ahead. As we got closer, it was obviously a bear, kind of young, foraging. There was one car behind us, but he must have been used to bears because he didn't stick around. We stopped and I got several pics, but I had trouble getting clear ones because my hands were shaking. :) I never expected to be quite so close to a bear!
Just a mile or two on down the road was another! It looked like they were probably brothers; they looked about the same size. Since this one stayed on my side of the road, I got better pics and a video, which I'll try to post separately. Aren't they just adorable? We didn't stay near them too long, because allowing bears to get used to people and cars is bad for both bears and people, but it was still an amazing experience!
Sorry I Suck
I know, I know, I promise I will do a real post very soon, but I am exhausted. Long day in the car again. Let me just say that it's 11pm here in the Yukon and it's not entirely dark outside yet! I will try to make myself get up early enough tomorrow to post some pics before we get started...
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