We made it to Alaska

July 2 – Chicken, AK and beyond

After three fun days in Dawson City, we boarded the free ferry across the Yukon River and drove the Top-Of-The-World-Highway.

Renowned by travelers, it is a 62 mile dirt and gravel road that works it’s way from Dawson City on the east and the U.S./Canadian border on the west. There are some great views but one has to watch the road for pot-holes while enjoying some great views.

One of the fun parts of out traveling friends if someone is likely to pop up almost anywhere and it happened on the OTWH. We came around a corner and saw another Roadtrek parked in a pull off so we diced to stop and say hello. I’ll be darned if it weren’t Doug and Jane MacArthor who we had met at a retirement party a few years ago. We laughed, shared a couple stories, snapped a photo and were off on our adventures. That was fun!

After crossing the border, we came across Walker Fork campground. A nice Bureau of Land Management campground in the middle of nowhere. The campground host filled us in on the cost...$5.00. That included free fire wood if we wanted and he would bring it to our camp site is we wanted it. What a deal and of course Carolyn never passes up an opportunity for a camp fire.

U.S. /Canada border crossing

We found a great site and were rewarded with a rainbow. The fire was lit and we cooked foil wrapped chicken breasts on the coals. A couple of other campers walked by with their fishing poles and just a few minutes later came back with a small grayling. Here’s dinner she said...and on the first cast.

The next morning, we drove the seventeen miles to Chicken - 55 more to Tok. The roads were a mix of dirt, gravel and occasional blacktop for the next 30 miles. We would hit blacktop and be excited before being let down by more dirt or gravel a quarter mile up the road. Finally, the road turned all blacktop about 40 miles to Tok...not perfect blacktop but enough to be content with the improvement.

Whoops, in my excitement over blacktop, I forgot to talk about Chicken, Alaska. Back in the gold rush days, some miners named Chicken. Well, the town was supposed to name it Ptarmigan after a grouse like bird found in the area. Unfortunately, no one knew how to spell Ptarmigan so it became Chicken. Today, it’s mostly a tourist attraction but gold mining continues in the area. We had lunch at the Chicken Creek Cafe (also known as Sue’s place) and had...chicken of course! We topped it off with a piece of home made blueberry/cherry pie. We agreed Sue has pie making figured out!

Official mascot of Chicken, Alaska

Just outside town, we approached a couple four wheelers parked beside the road. As we slowly passed, I could see why they stopped. A cow moose was eating her breakfast in a small pond beside the road and she was gracious enough to all me to take a few pictures.

Also, soon after we left Chicken, we came around a corner and passed a Milepost car. For those who don’t know about the Milepost, it’s an annual publication that gives mile-by-mile explanations of the roads Alaskan roads. We assumed he was checking to see if there were any changes on the Taylor Hwy. We had the dash cam going so maybe we can grab a still of the car when we get home.

Tok is a town of about 4,000 residents. We stopped at the visitor center to gather some info about Valdez, our next stop and to confirm Alaska’s rules about boondocking. Yup, as long as there are no NO CAMPING signs, it’s OK to spend the night. YIPPEE, that works for us. We topped off with gas and were on our way to find a free camp site. $2.68 per gallon at the Shell station. Wow, that’s the cheapest since Montana...2,200 miles ago.

We continued on and stopped by Wrangell National Park. We talked to the Rangers in the visitor center and learned some fun facts about this beautiful Nation Park in southeastern Alaska. Wrangell NP is big, really big and will be added to our places to explore on our next trip to Alaska.

 We ended the day with a fun adventure at the Worthington Glacier. The glacier is visible for miles. We drove into the visitor parking area and learned there was a makeshift path that led all the way to the edge of the glacier. Why not, we said so off we went. We had to just some small streams of glacier melt and soon found ourselves walking through blocks of ice.

What a great experience so with that, we found a camp site and called it a day.