Roll Call Alaska 2016

[GGeorge]

I have been planning this trip for 4+ years. It is now time to update my estimates and make my reservations.

Estimate Wash/BC border about 5 May 2016, north on route 97/1/2 to Tok, south to Valdez, make the hump to Anchorage, then to Homer and Seward, north to Denali, Fairbanks, back to TOK and off to Dawson, then south to Watson Lake, Smithers, then to CAN 16 east to Jasper,/Banff, on to Glacier in Montana, arriving early Sept so I can get thru the park then west to Kalispell. South thru the US to Houston area for the thanksgiving holiday and Florida for the Christmas holiday. Since I am sure it will be cold in Ohio I wont return home till April 2017.

Alaska here we come!!!!

G George

On edit, yup it's time to plan 2016. I edited your post to modify the title to be consistent with previous years; it will facilitate future searches for members.

... Eric (Moderator)

[AKsilvereagle]

I had to look hard, however I finally found two railroad spikes on McCarthy Road for souvenirs off the shoulder.

The only time I drove that road was in 1998 (in my camper rig) and it was the roughest road I ever drove on in my camper, but what an adventure !

At the time the route was like 80 years or so old and I was amazed that I still found a railroad spike.....even today at almost 100 year old route there will be rigs that will end up with a spike in their tire.

For those that do not know, the majority of McCarthy Road was actually the railroad leading to Kennicott/Kennecott, hence the railroad spikes.

[petrel]

rag-ftw wrote:
Well, it's been a good 4 days for us.
Sunday was a limit of halibut and rock fish out of Homer.
Monday was two 5 gallon buckets of razor clams out of Ninilchik.
Wednesday was a limit of ling cod and rock fish out of Seward. Now that we have shipped our mandatory 60 lbs of fish home we can get on to other stuff! Oh yes, the icing on the cake was today while returning from fishing out of Seward there were two humpbacks playing in a cove we passed through. We killed the motors on the boat and just watched them for a good 30 minutes. One breached 4 times, once almost totally out of the water. It then came to within 100 feet of out boat waving a flipper at us! What a beautiful sight to see such a majestic animal seeming to just be having fun putting on a show for us. We were in awe!

Hope everyone had a productive 4th and had lots of fun, we sure did!

By the way, when we drove down the beach last night around 4:30 in Seward there
were probably 15 spots open in the beach lots, several on the water! Here at Stoney Creek there was probably 10-15 open spots.

That sounds amazing! Leave a few halibut for us. We just left home in VA at 1pm, headed your way. In IL now, hoping to make it to Portal, ND late tomorrow night.

[bigboomer]

Rambling RV Rat: Kenai, AK - Stop 25 on our Trek North to Alaska

http://ramblingrvrat.blogspot.com/2016/07/kenai-ak-stop-25-on-our-trek-north-to.html?m=1

[rag-ftw]

Well, it's been a good 4 days for us.
Sunday was a limit of halibut and rock fish out of Homer.
Monday was two 5 gallon buckets of razor clams out of Ninilchik.
Wednesday was a limit of ling cod and rock fish out of Seward. Now that we have shipped our mandatory 60 lbs of fish home we can get on to other stuff! Oh yes, the icing on the cake was today while returning from fishing out of Seward there were two humpbacks playing in a cove we passed through. We killed the motors on the boat and just watched them for a good 30 minutes. One breached 4 times, once almost totally out of the water. It then came to within 100 feet of out boat waving a flipper at us! What a beautiful sight to see such a majestic animal seeming to just be having fun putting on a show for us. We were in awe!

Hope everyone had a productive 4th and had lots of fun, we sure did!

By the way, when we drove down the beach last night around 4:30 in Seward there were probably 15 spots open in the beach lots, several on the water! Here at Stoney Creek there was probably 10-15 open spots.

[CountryRoad_REV]

DakotaCamper wrote:

CountryRoad REV wrote:
We are also in Kenny Lake Campground, parked in the woods without hookups. I decided that only electric was not worth it and dumped the tanks and filled with water. The batteries and generator will take take of every need and I will repeat the process as I leave. Not bad for $20 per night.

It was nice meeting you. Safe travels wherever you go!!

Great to meet you guys also. Thanks for sharing stories and a campfire. Safe travels.

[snowedin]

I drove the road to McCarthy about 10 days ago with a half ton Ford F150, had no problems. The folks at air service told me it was about a 2 1/2 hour drive and that was about right. Met a Honda Civic and when I got to the walking bridge was surprised at the variety of vehicles parked there. Living on a farm I have found that the standard P rated tires that come with these half ton pickups do not stand up to the rocks and will have breaks in tires. Switching to the Load E rated tires pretty much eliminates tire trouble. I was passed by a Shuttle Van and it was moving pretty fast. 60 miles-2 1/2 hours, figure it out, just drive slow and enjoy the scenery. While filling with gas at Chitnia a local person told me the road was in the best shape he has seen it for years.

[lizzie]

We are in Delta Junction tonight. We left Dawson City on July 2 and drove over Top of the World to Walker's Fork, BML campground. We left our TT there yesterday and drove up to Eagle and back. I can't believe more people do not do this; it was absolutely fabulous! Left Walker's Fork this a.m. and continued through Chicken and Tok. We plan to move on to Fairbanks tomorrow, no plans after that. lizzie.

[PA12DRVR]

Chitina - McCarthy/Kennicott road is an old railbed from the 1920's. It has all the pitfalls of that era (i.e. not primarily designed for wheeled vehicles) plus the assorted debris of construction of the McCarthy / Kennicott /Mines area plus the assorted debris of the exodus of the McCarthy/Kennicott /Mines area in the late '30's plus the assorted debris of the intervening 80 years (all in round numbers).

In summer, IMNSHO, as noted, it's best to travel long after or just before a grading to avoid freshly turned up debris. In Winter, better to travel just after a grading. It's been a while, but on one of my early trips, I made a point of looking for spikes.....was able to pickup 10 - 12 of them before McCarthy.

[MORSNOW]

There are a lot of old scrape metal pieces, nails, etc in that road. I've been told that if you travel soon after grading your chances for punctures go up, but the road is smoother...I guess you can't have it all.

[nevadanick]

If getting flats on gravel roads its the tires most likely and not the surface. I travel thousands of miles on gravel roads when working and dont get flats, but i also dont run the OEM tires.

[Kidoo]

PA12DRVR wrote:

fanrgs wrote:
We also stayed at Kenny Lake--twice--when visiting Kennicott and to and from Valdez.

The Kenny Lake store/gas station is a stop for the Kennicott Shuttle van tour from Glennallen to McCarthy (Shuttle van). We utilized the Kennicott shuttle to minimize wear and tear on our truck tires. Good thing we did too, as the shuttle van had two flat tires on the round trip over the gravel portion of the road.

My experience on the Chitina-McCarthy road has been interesting.

Have driven it maybe 30 times, but other than a winter trip a couple of years ago, not for about 6 years.

I recall one trip where I had 4 (!) flats....probably some sort of karmic effect since I had two spares, 3 patch kits and an engine driven compressor on that trip. Other trips where I wasn't sure the spare was even inflated, I've had no problems. Go figure.

Probably some sort of heresy, but traveling that road with a pickup, I've always found that it is much more comfortable to travel as fast as one can....which means slow enough to manage the curves....higher speed tends to minimize the bumps and washboards.

All of my inlaws are in McCarthy this weekend....a good weekend to catch up on chores in Los Anchorage. 🙂

Wonder what type of gravel they use to have so many flats? I traveled on a 40 miles gravel road to my cottage for the past 15 years and never had a flat tire, no flats either going twice to Deadhorse with a heavy truck camper.

[DakotaCamper]

CountryRoad REV wrote:
We are also in Kenny Lake Campground, parked in the woods without hookups. I decided that only electric was not worth it and dumped the tanks and filled with water. The batteries and generator will take take of every need and I will repeat the process as I leave. Not bad for $20 per night.

It was nice meeting you. Safe travels wherever you go!!

[PA12DRVR]

fanrgs wrote:
We also stayed at Kenny Lake--twice--when visiting Kennicott and to and from Valdez.

The Kenny Lake store/gas station is a stop for the Kennicott Shuttle van tour from Glennallen to McCarthy (Shuttle van). We utilized the Kennicott shuttle to minimize wear and tear on our truck tires. Good thing we did too, as the shuttle van had two flat tires on the round trip over the gravel portion of the road.

My experience on the Chitina-McCarthy road has been interesting.

Have driven it maybe 30 times, but other than a winter trip a couple of years ago, not for about 6 years.

I recall one trip where I had 4 (!) flats....probably some sort of karmic effect since I had two spares, 3 patch kits and an engine driven compressor on that trip. Other trips where I wasn't sure the spare was even inflated, I've had no problems. Go figure.

Probably some sort of heresy, but traveling that road with a pickup, I've always found that it is much more comfortable to travel as fast as one can....which means slow enough to manage the curves....higher speed tends to minimize the bumps and washboards.

All of my inlaws are in McCarthy this weekend....a good weekend to catch up on chores in Los Anchorage. 🙂

[fanrgs]

We also stayed at Kenny Lake--twice--when visiting Kennicott and to and from Valdez.

The Kenny Lake store/gas station is a stop for the Kennicott Shuttle van tour from Glennallen to McCarthy (Shuttle van). We utilized the Kennicott shuttle to minimize wear and tear on our truck tires. Good thing we did too, as the shuttle van had two flat tires on the round trip over the gravel portion of the road.

[CountryRoad_REV]

We are also in Kenny Lake Campground, parked in the woods without hookups. I decided that only electric was not worth it and dumped the tanks and filled with water. The batteries and generator will take take of every need and I will repeat the process as I leave. Not bad for $20 per night.