Russell Clifton wrote:
We left western Washington on April 28th. We drove to Eastern Washington so we could take the central access route talked about in the Milepost travel guide. Very nice roads and very scenic. We followed highway 97 north to Prince George, then turned west, than jumped on the Cassiar Highway.
This early in the season many of the parks have been closed. The ones that were open we had to ourselves. This has put us about 2 weeks ahead of schedule because we had to drive sometimes a 100 miles to the next park.
The weather has been very nice, in fact the further north we go, the warmer it gets. Haven't seen any rain in weeks. The Cassiar was good until about the last 75 miles, than quite rough. Once we were on the Alaska Highway it was better a short time, but once you are north of Whitehorse it too was quite rough. After crossing into Alaska it was instantly better road conditions.
Right now we are setting in Fairbanks and the forecast is for over 80 today. We are leaving today to drive up the Dalton to the arctic circle. I expect it will be a very dusty ride. They are doing alot of work on the Dalton this spring so if you are going be sure to check for road closures before starting out.
We have seen lot's of wildlife. So far: moose,black bears,brown bear,fox,caribou,deer,porcupine,squirrels, and every kind of bird you can think of.
That is really a good indicator as to how much climate has changed in Alaska. When I lived in Fairbanks 35 years ago May was break-up. Most of the snow was gone by Memorial Day except in the shade. It did get into the 80's or even 90 but not till mid summer, even then stepping into the shade was like going into air conditioning. I remember waking up in my tent on June 3 to find 4-5 inches of snow on the ground. Took it a week to melt. It really is kind of alarming.
