North Ploe

September 11: Left our roadside camp and headed for Fairbanks. Next stop was the North Pole. Edna did her “thing”…. shopping. We then saw Santa’s reindeer.

Next, we proceeded to the Visitors Center in Fairbanks. It is in the center of the city. We spent a good bit of time at the Morris Thompson Cultural center there. Got information on what we thought we might want to see. First was a trip to Creamers Field Wildlife Refuge, once a dairy farm and now in the city . It is more like a city park with lots of people walking and dogs everywhere. Not necessarily well behaved, the dogs that is. After walking the mile trail, we looked at each other and said “we’re over this”. We skipped all the other places on our list and headed south.

Spent the night at a wonderful BLM campground (Chena Lakes Recreational Area) , the area resulted from a Corps of Engineers project to protect the city of Fairbanks. In 1967 the city was almost flooded and the Corps built huge dikes to divert flood water. The lake was a result of the removal of gravel to build the dikes. In addition they also built the recreational area with two campgrounds managed by the city. Best of all it is free after Labor Day., but seniors are always free. It was a beautiful evening and we walked the lake area and just goofed off.

Campsite

September 12: Headed south on the Alcan Highway. Both stops we had planned were closed. However, Rika’s Roadhouse was still open. It is an historical landmark with a very colorful history. Had a very good lunch at the restaurant and toured the grounds. We had planned to stay in Tok, but most campgrounds had closed for the season or had limited services.

Old verison of our travel guiide

Motor used on river

It turned out it was a good decision to head south, as the season is over here. We kept going toward Border City Motel and RV Park. Gas is 40cents a gallon more here than Tok 100 miles away. The water is still on in the park and we can wifi at their office. The road crews have made the park base with their trailers and RV’s. Road crews work 7 days a week on the road, because of the short construction time period. They told me last night it was 32 degrees and they are almost done for the year. We can’t believe what they have accomplished from when we were through here in early August. Water may be off here tomorrow; this has been a “ go with the flow” trip. Tomorrow the border.

Denali Highway

September 9: Mailed our letters at the Cantwell Post Office and then we were off down the Denali Highway from Cantwell to Paxton, both have populations of about 100. It is a gravel road and there are two passes to go over. One of which is the second highest peak in Alaska. This road is used by birders, naturalists, and in September by hunters. Therefore, we saw many hunters. They park their Camping trailers, RVs and ATV trailers anywhere you can pull off the road. The road has a speed limit of 50 MPH butthe most you can do is 20MPH. We did not see any state troopers, but then we have seen only two our entire time in Alaska.

We stayed the night at a BLM rest stop. Numerous vehicles were already parked there. There were vehicles pulling ATV trailers, a substantial large tent, and even an RV with a horse trailer. The horse trailer with RV had a wife, two kids and three dogs in camp. Pretty soon, two guys came hiking in packing moose antlers, equipment and meat. Come to find out this was their third 4 mile pack out and they had 2 or 3 more trips to make in order to bring out all the meat. I took some pictures for them. Then they were off on the way back to their base camp.

Next thing we saw were 4 horses coming in, 2 packing meat and 2 with riders. Edna couldn’t stand it (horses you know) and went to talk to them. They have been back in the mountains for four days at a camp they had set up many years ago. Upon getting back to the trailer, the first thing they did was take care of the horses.

They were hunting on the side of the road where no motorized vehicles were allowed. Thus the reason for the on foot hunters and the hunters on horse back. I think because of the horses Edna now approves of camping in a hunter’s camp. We never saw the guys on the ATVs come back with any moose. Maybe that’s a statement about hunting, or maybe just the ability of these guys.

Night at camp

September 10: Started out again on the gravel road, and continued climbing up the tundra. We saw a family of swans on a pond and some ducks and loons on other ponds and lakes. Finally we saw some Ptarmigans for Edna. She had been wanting to see some. There were a bunch of them alongside the road.

Back to the real road and up the Richardson Highway. Thought we might get a quick dinner here, but the season is over and the buffalo joint was closed.

We stopped for the night at a pull off (Shaw Pond) with informal camping. “Informal camping” means the spot is level enough for a few vehicles. As we pulled up, a moose was wading and munching in the pond. We set up our chairs and drank a beer or two as we watched. Good way to camp in my opinion.

morning on pond we camped by