Roll Call Alaska 2014

[sljohnson1938]

Anyone traveling to Alaska in 2014? We ,my wife and I, are planning a trip and was wondering if anyone is planning on going in 2014 also.
Would go this year, except we have two weddings to go to in MI, one in late June the other in early August.
So next year we are planning to leave home in NC in mid July, we plan a 2 month trip. We were there in 2004, only that time we were with paid RV tour. Loved it, and would take another paid tour in a 'heart beat', but the cost is now too much.
The reason for the mid July date is looking at the 2013 Alaska postings the wx, road conditions and insects are at their worst. Later in the season all three are better. Plus I want to travel back on the Cassiar Hwy in Sept is supposed to be the best time of the year on the Cassiar, plus less travelers.
Finally, money is an issue with us. So we will 'boon dock', stay at
free or low cost CG's, rest areas, etc. when ever possible.


Hope you all have a great trip and hope to see you some where along the way.

[sue_t]

Beaver Creek is my home town so I visit there often. Yup, grew up there. Not many folk can say that, or would want to say that. 🙂

[Ernest]

sue.t wrote:

Ernest wrote:
We found this great campground below the bad road section called Discovery Yukon.

You haven't yet gone through the worst section of the AK Highway if you're there at the White River and headed south.

You're not far from it though... :E

We are in Haines now. The road actually was getting better most of the way south; a few bad sections. Nowhere near the 37 continuous Kms of the border to White river; it's probably been a while since you've gone to Alaska.

[sue_t]

Well, gosh ... there was one "pot hole" so deep that the highway crew simply put a log on its end into it. Thus, approaching vehicles literally saw a pole in the middle of the lane!

For those not paying attention, I guess a dented bumper would be better than being embedded in a hole up to your axle.

Thank goodness it was staying light 24/7 then, can't imagine coming upon that "fix" in the dark!

[Smitty77]

traveylin wrote:
The Cassius hwy is much better than the alcan if you are looking to continue the Alaska experience. The northern half is narrow some what rough but little traffic. On a roughness scale I would put the Tok beaver creak run at 1 most severe, chicken at 3 severe, parts of Glenallen at 5 somewhat rough,Cassius at 6 somewhat rough, south end of alcan at 8 good.

I favor the road less traveled, Cassius. Drop down to the Canada border on hwy 97 and you are in for a treat with the fruit orchards in Canada and northern Washington.

Pops

I know it's been coming up on 7-9 weeks now since we headed South from Tok. And, the highway situation can change week by week.

That being said, we really enjoyed heading South once we made it to Junction 37. Concur it is in pretty good shape, and we had many more animal sightings too. And yes, at least when we traveled, I agree with Tok to around the Beaver Creek run was the roughest and did the most damage to our toad (we lost the fog lights lenses.) But, the Taylor into Chicken was pretty bumpy too:)!

We really liked going up via the ALCAN, and down via 37. And, we did do the 97 run down on into the states, and concur it is a great way to go. (We did cut over to the coastal area eventually. Working our way West thru the always windy Columbia Gorge to Portland. Then South on 5/99 to Eugene area Followed by a nice cut over to 101 to head South down to Coos Bay area, and on into the Redwoods of Northern California.

Best to all,
Smitty

[traveylin]

The Cassius hwy is much better than the alcan if you are looking to continue the Alaska experience. The northern half is narrow some what rough but little traffic. On a roughness scale I would put the Tok beaver creak run at 1 most severe, chicken at 3 severe, parts of Glenallen at 5 somewhat rough,Cassius at 6 somewhat rough, south end of alcan at 8 good.

I favor the road less traveled, Cassius. Drop down to the Canada border on hwy 97 and you are in for a treat with the fruit orchards in Canada and northern Washington.

Pops

[Teacher_s_Pet]

The consensus southbound on US131 north of Cadillac Michigan is " What a way to make their day" Sue...you are sooooo bad!

[sue_t]

Ernest wrote:
We found this great campground below the bad road section called Discovery Yukon.

You haven't yet gone through the worst section of the AK Highway if you're there at the White River and headed south.

You're not far from it though... :E

[Ernest]

krlgswanson wrote:
Here at the Riverview RV Park. Very few campers here and the owners will be closing for the winter in a couple weeks. Heading out after a great breakfast to see what Fairbanks has to offer indoors! Although the rain has let up it is still very damp outside. Another person recommended the visitor center so we will start the day there.

Yesterday we stopped by the pipeline viewing area...very cool.

Hello Ken,
We missed you by a day. We moved down below Beaver Creek YT. We found this great campground below the bad road section called Discovery Yukon. A really neat place with great pull thru's and full hookup's. The Internet is great near the office. It was a great "Oasis" for us. It took us 8.5 hrs to get here. By the way the lowest price diesel is on the southern end of Tok $4.32/gal.

[Ernest]

sue.t wrote:
The pressure is on to get gas/oil field operations wrapped up before the snow flies so workers are in a hurry. We found that too -- crazy silly speeding pickup trucks on the highway with no patience for other vehicles. Some of the local transport trucks also took some risks to make time too; it was like playing bumper cars. It was a stressful stretch the September we drove it.

The mud comes onto the highway from the side roads used by those pickup trucks. Makes a slick mess.

I think you called that driving "Bogging".

[sheltieRV]

Found all the campers! They are in Jasper/Banff Area. Barely got a spot for the next 2 nights in Jasper NP and had limited pickings for Lake Louise over the weekend. The good news is that things seem to empty out after labor (or labour in Canada)day as the reservations site shows a ton of sites open in Banff.

BTW, stopped for a night at the KOA in Hinton, very nice. Most KOAs are designed to cram as many units into a square foot as possible, this one has nice wide spaces and lots of surrounding open space.

[krlgswanson]

Here at the Riverview RV Park. Very few campers here and the owners will be closing for the winter in a couple weeks. Heading out after a great breakfast to see what Fairbanks has to offer indoors! Although the rain has let up it is still very damp outside. Another person recommended the visitor center so we will start the day there.

Yesterday we stopped by the pipeline viewing area...very cool.

[daily_double]

For those planning on the next year or after, I wholeheartedly recommend the Morris Thompson visitor center in Fairbanks! It is much more than just a visitor center!

[hr0082]

Last night, we arrived home from our 11 week road trip to Alaska. We left our Hattiesburg, MS home on June 4 and visited 13 states and 3 provinces while covering about 15,000 miles with our 2012 Toyota Tundra and our 2011 Scamp 5th wheel.

Other than the usual commonly reported issues with the door, in general, the Scamp performed very well. Later today, after I get the Scamp cleaned up, I will try to figure out where all the screws go that magically appeared on the floor. This occurred when we were on the roughest parts of the Al-Can Highway and other such roads.

We ended up having to buy new tires for the truck and also installed the Kumho tires which we had purchased prior to the trip and had with us. Our gas mileage was very good (between 14 and 20 mpg), but this is because when towing, our highest speed is 55-57 MPH. Yes, it does take a long time to cover 15,000 miles when going that speed, but we certainly do get to enjoy the trip. We also try to stay off the interstates and away from large cities.

We mostly boon docked, stayed in state or provincial parks or the least expensive campgrounds we could find. We rarely ate out and since we had stocked up on food before we left home, the trip was relatively "inexpensive" when compared to what it could have been. I certainly recommend the Tour Saver Coupon Book. We used it for the Hurricane Turn Train and the Stan Stephens and Lu-Lu Belle glacier cruised out of Valdez.

This was our third trip to Alaska and we will probably make one more, either next year or in 2016 and then we will be of an age where such travel might not be possible or advisable.

If any of you are planning an Alaska trip and would like information/help, I will be happy to assist. I started out keeping a blog, but since we had extended periods of no internet or electric source, that became difficult and after awhile, it simply seemed like work and was taking away from the enjoyment of the trip. I ended up posting much about the trip on Facebook so if you friend me there, you can look at some of my pictures, etc.

[sue_t]

The pressure is on to get gas/oil field operations wrapped up before the snow flies so workers are in a hurry. We found that too -- crazy silly speeding pickup trucks on the highway with no patience for other vehicles. Some of the local transport trucks also took some risks to make time too; it was like playing bumper cars. It was a stressful stretch the September we drove it.

The mud comes onto the highway from the side roads used by those pickup trucks. Makes a slick mess.

[reelgalnita]

We drove from Fort Nelson to Fort St. John in a rainstorm, could not believe the mud! Speeding pickups passing us over double yellow lines, really taking chances to gain a few minutes. We looked like we had gone through a mud bath by the time we reached Fort St. John! We stayed in a horrible RV Park in Fort St. John, parked in a huge puddle... definitely would avoid that area in the future.