Boondocking Alaska

[UNSTUCK]

Well, kind of. Boondocking purists will scoff at most of this, but there is some full blown middle of nowhere stuff as well.

I grew up in Anchorage and have been meaning to get my family up there for a while. My two daughters have spent a couple weeks up there the last few summers, minus last summer. We tried, and failed, to get up there last summer. Today is our day. We have either packed all our camping gear, or shipped it to my sisters house in Anchorage.
We happened to tell John (they guy I build cars for) and his family about our trip. He quickly invited himself and his family to come along. We were pleased to have them. Then out of the blue a good friend from AZ called me to tell me his family was planning a motorhome trip to AK in June and asked for advice. I advised him to join our group. So we now have 4 families and 16 (!!!) people in our group. Here's the breakdown:

-Friday: Fly to Anchorage. Land around 10pm. Pick up "party van" rental. (it's a dually 4x4 ) Sleep in hotel by airport.
-Saturday: "Drivers meeting" at my sisters house. Drive to Denali Park, in no hurry. A few planned stops, but nothing set in stone. Camp somewhere in the park.
-Sunday: Spend morning exploring a bit of the park. Afternoon, raft the Nenana river (glacier fed, basically freezing cold). Drive to Fairbanks. Rental house.
-Monday: Gear up again as needed. Drive to mile marker 115ish of the Dalton Highway, aka Arctic Circle line. Summer solstice - midnight sun. Camp somewhere.
-Tuesday: Head back to Fairbanks. Drive to North Pole. Visit Santa (my son wrote him his letter and is so excited to hand deliver it this year). Drive to Paxon Lake. Camp.
-Wednesday: Drive to Valdez. Hike a glacier. Random boring stuff like that. Sleep in Hotel.
-Thursday: Alaska Marine Highway ferry to Whittier. Hoping to combine travel and whale watching together. Drive to Seward. Camp Seward KOA.
-Friday: Some of us will go halibut fishing in Resurrection Bay. The rest will explore Exit Glacier and the beaches of Seward. Drive to Girdwood. Sleep Alyeska Resort.
-Saturday: Mt. Alyeska (ski resort), hike up & tram down. Drive to Anchorage. Tour downtown. Eat Reindeer hotdogs. Fly home.

Including the ferry ride, that should be about 1800 miles of planned driving, with probably a bunch more in side trips. We'll have a radio in each (3) car with the idea of stopping anytime someone sees something they want to look at. Just jump on the radio and say pull over. Super excited (and nervous) to have no cell phone coverage for a lot of this trip. Turn them off and at least attempt to enjoy mother nature with family and good friends. I'm excited to cover some new ground as well. I've never been to the Paxon Lake area or Valdez. The ferry ride will be a first as well. Naturally, Alaska had great weather this week and looks to be turning to rain next week. We have just decided to make the most of it, pouring rain or not.

Stay tuned....

 

[Pile of parts]

Cool trip!!!
I wish you would have posted sooner and I'd invite myself as well to make it 5 families. 😁

Hope to see lots of pictures. Have fun!

 

[anderson750]

It has been about 12 years, but there was a great little pub in Talkeetna. If you run into any problems in Valdez, I have a friend that lives there.

 

[J-mobzz]

Sounds fun! I love Alaska

 

[ID Bronco]

Headed there fishing in August, but nothing as epic as this. Next time all of us are going. Good for you making great memories with your kids.

 

[UNSTUCK]

Headed there fishing in August, but nothing as epic as this. Next time all of us are going. Good for you making great memories with your kids.

You guys should go mid September and drift the kenai for rainbows. I know you guys like your trout. I caught a 32” ‘bow doing that a few years ago.

 

[benjy]

I was really hoping this was a trip report Looking forward to the end result!

 

[UNSTUCK]

I was really hoping this was a trip report Looking forward to the end result!

It’s live!

 

[UNSTUCK]

 

[UNSTUCK]

Denali was awesome. Rained the whole way from anchorage and stopped right as we pulled into the park. Low clouds removed any views. That was no surprise to me as it’s cloudy there 364 1/2 days a year. We were just happy to put up our tents dry.

This picture was taken right next to our campsite. It was close to 1030pm.


The next morning we woke up to no clouds anywhere!!! Got out of my tent and walked around a tree and the tip of Denali was popping out from above a hill in front of it. I’ve never seen the mountain from the park before. It was pretty cool.



We checked out a few sites as we made our way to our rafting adventure. When we got there they outfitted us in dry suites and life jackets for the 12 mile “scenic” tour of the 36* water of the Nenana river. It consisted of mostly class one and two rapids but there was a good section of class three as well. That was a good time and perfect for the young kids in our group.



After rafting we headed to Fairbanks where we found our rental house sitting on the banks of the Chena river. It’s a neat river with some large paddle wheel boats that people tour on.



No cell service for the next two days. If you never hear from me again you’ll know the Dalton didn’t go as planned.

 

[ID Bronco]

You guys should go mid September and drift the kenai for rainbows. I know you guys like your trout. I caught a 32” ‘bow doing that a few years ago.

Yes I should! I am down for that next year. I want to drift, but this trip will be on Prince of Whales Island. Silvers, pinks, Dolly Varden. I've been tying a lot getting ready.

 

[UNSTUCK]

Yes I should! I am down for that next year. I want to drift, but this trip will be on Prince of Whales Island. Silvers, pinks, Dolly Varden. I've been tying a lot getting ready.

That sounds great. Throw any pinks back. We leave those for the tourists. 😉

 

[Houndoc]

Well, kind of. Boondocking purists will scoff at most of this, but there is some full blown middle of nowhere stuff as well.

I grew up in Anchorage and have been meaning to get my family up there for a while. My two daughters have spent a couple weeks up there the last few summers, minus last summer. We tried, and failed, to get up there last summer. Today is our day. We have either packed all our camping gear, or shipped it to my sisters house in Anchorage.
We happened to tell John (they guy I build cars for) and his family about our trip. He quickly invited himself and his family to come along. We were pleased to have them. Then out of the blue a good friend from AZ called me to tell me his family was planning a motorhome trip to AK in June and asked for advice. I advised him to join our group. So we now have 4 families and 16 (!!!) people in our group. Here's the breakdown:

-Friday: Fly to Anchorage. Land around 10pm. Pick up "party van" rental. (it's a dually 4x4 ) Sleep in hotel by airport.
-Saturday: "Drivers meeting" at my sisters house. Drive to Denali Park, in no hurry. A few planned stops, but nothing set in stone. Camp somewhere in the park.
-Sunday: Spend morning exploring a bit of the park. Afternoon, raft the Nenana river (glacier fed, basically freezing cold). Drive to Fairbanks. Rental house.
-Monday: Gear up again as needed. Drive to mile marker 115ish of the Dalton Highway, aka Arctic Circle line. Summer solstice - midnight sun. Camp somewhere.
-Tuesday: Head back to Fairbanks. Drive to North Pole. Visit Santa (my son wrote him his letter and is so excited to hand deliver it this year). Drive to Paxon Lake. Camp.
-Wednesday: Drive to Valdez. Hike a glacier. Random boring stuff like that. Sleep in Hotel.
-Thursday: Alaska Marine Highway ferry to Whittier. Hoping to combine travel and whale watching together. Drive to Seward. Camp Seward KOA.
-Friday: Some of us will go halibut fishing in Resurrection Bay. The rest will explore Exit Glacier and the beaches of Seward. Drive to Girdwood. Sleep Alyeska Resort.
-Saturday: Mt. Alyeska (ski resort), hike up & tram down. Drive to Anchorage. Tour downtown. Eat Reindeer hotdogs. Fly home.

Including the ferry ride, that should be about 1800 miles of planned driving, with probably a bunch more in side trips. We'll have a radio in each (3) car with the idea of stopping anytime someone sees something they want to look at. Just jump on the radio and say pull over. Super excited (and nervous) to have no cell phone coverage for a lot of this trip. Turn them off and at least attempt to enjoy mother nature with family and good friends. I'm excited to cover some new ground as well. I've never been to the Paxon Lake area or Valdez. The ferry ride will be a first as well. Naturally, Alaska had great weather this week and looks to be turning to rain next week. We have just decided to make the most of it, pouring rain or not.

Stay tuned....

Sounds fun. Few years ago my 15 year old daughter chose camping in Alaska as her trip with a parent (each child got to pick a trip of their choice with one parent at 14-15 years old.)
We flew in and out of Fairbanks. Spent a couple days in Denali including running the Nenana and lots of hiking then headed up the Dalton Highway, camping for several nights just up from Cold Foot. Fun drive north (including funny experiences with "Billy the Hitchhiker), making it past the Brooks Range onto the North Slope.
Would love to go back!

 

[UNSTUCK]

Cell service and internet has been super spotty. It’s been fantastic! My phone hasn’t rang for days. 😎

After leaving Fairbanks we headed north to the Dalton highway. It’s about 80 miles to get there. Then the fun began. To our huge surprise and enjoyment, that 80 miles proved to be the worst section of the entire drive. Paved road, but front heaves and pot holes. At the junction and start of the Dalton it turned to gravel.



The road was in amazing shape. We were expecting rough gravel and pot holes everywhere with speeds in the 25mph range. We had almost no pot holes and speeds in the 55-60 with as high as 73. We got to the Arctic circle much sooner than expected.



We decided to press on a bit further to Goblers Knob where we could see the Brooks Range. What a great view.



I was hoping to camp there but the group outvoted me so we turned around and headed back to 5 mile, close to Yukon Crossing. We ended up with a mediocre “midnight sun” experience. Our camp was in the shadows of a hill which blocked the view of the sun. This is the best I got. Taken at 12:00 am June 22.



We later heard from another group that the view of the sun was amazing at Goblers Knob that night. 😡

Being close to Yukon that morning was putting us way ahead of schedule though. So we thought. We pulled up to the pump only to discover it was turned off. Turned out they didn’t open till 11am. It was 9. A few other groups were pulling in as well. We had time to kill so we pulled out the stove and whipped up some pancake batter and served breakfast to all that wanted some. It was cool to heard all their stories.





We also got our toes wet in the mighty Yukon River.



More to come.

 

[UNSTUCK]

From Yukon we headed to North Pole. It’s an interesting little town and worth looking up the history. In short, they are stuck on Christmas 24/7/365. My son is super excited to tell his friends he went to (the) North Pole for his summer vacation.





Unfortunately Santa was in the Bahamas that week.

From North Pole we headed on to Paxson Lake campground and another leg of this trip I had not been to before. Just another typical boring campground on a beautiful lake. It wasn’t full, but pretty close. Far too many people there for my liking. We got in trouble for making too much noise during “quiet hours”. I told them we’d be quiet when the sun goes down.





Reindeer sausage was on the menu though and it was great!

 

[UNSTUCK]

My favorite leg of this trip was from Paxson to Valdez. Imagine the rainforest covered mountains of Hawaii with all their waterfalls. I have to say his drive was at least as beautiful. This drive added the extra element of snow and glaciers as well. We pulled into the Worthington Glacier parking area to an empty parking lot…. Well except for the brown bear walking down a side walk. We stopped and I scrambled for my GoPro. He saw us, stood up on his hind legs, dropped back down to all four then ran into the bushes. With my GoPro rolling I ran to the sidewalk, half freaking out and half dying to see it again. We never did. The rest of the group pulled in after that and we enjoyed our bragging rights of seeing the first bear of the trip. Moose were ole news by this point.
We carefully headed up the trail to the glacier. It was cool (see what I did there) to walk on it.








From there is was more mountains and waterfalls as we pulled into Valdez.

 

[UNSTUCK]

From Valdez we jumped on the ferry and rode it to Whittier. It was a 5.5 hour ride through the most popular whale migration area. We were skunked. No whales to be seen. It was very foggy most of the trip and rough waters. It was a fun ride for me. Not so much for my wife.







It was pretty nasty in Whittier. So we didn’t hang around too long. Just long enough to eat, see the one building where everyone lives a see a neat creek leading intro the bay.







It used to be that getting in and out of Whittier from the mainland required putting your car on the trail that then takes you through the mountain. They now have made a single lane road between the rails. Every half hour they change the direction of travel as well as mix in some trains as well. It took about 15 minutes to drive through the tunnel.



The tunnel comes out at Portage. We headed off to Seward. One of my favorite places in Alaska.