49th State - One More to Go

The city of Anchorage has not deterred me as almost every city I've stepped foot in prior had. The clean streets and active community have been tugging at the typical "let's just stay here" conversation of a trip.

On Ship Creek you can fish for salmon... in the middle of the city. A casual 30 minute drive out to wilderness. It's different from most larger US cities I've been to.

The pride the state and it's residents seem to have when they make sure to separate themselves from the rest of us barbarians as they echo, "the lower 48" during conversation; and for good reason. AK is gorgeous whether in the city or wilderness.

This is our last day here in Alaska and it has been phenomenal. You can explore the state by land, air, and water and be blown away by any choice.

A recap of the last few days. We made our way back from Fairbanks in one 400ish mile road grind. We got a hotel for the last two nights and explored the city more so than a couple of weeks ago. Cross Northern Lights off the bucket list. Light in color but spanning across the sky, pulsing between visible and not, a wonderful sight.

Argo

Our first full day in Fairbanks we went to check out an ice sculpture museum and ended up talking to a local for a while, skipping the museum. We looked around a local co op where handcrafted items amongst other things were being sold. We questioned one of the shop employees about things to do, she suggested to check out Pioneer Park.

We obliged, Pioneer Park had peculiar cabins. These cabin’s had been relocated from downtown, which reminded me of kitchen kettle from Lancaster, Pa. The cabins were filled with all sorts of shops like museums, food, and adventure. We peeked around the Pioneer museum and really enjoyed the diaramas. We left Pioneer Park for some lunch. 

After a nice lunch and cozy nap we took advice from another local and went to the Fountainhead Automotive museum which housed unique vehicles I’ve never laid my eyes on. Near some of the vehicles were manicans on display with time period specific clothing making it a bit easier to put yourself in their shoes. Some being the last claimed in models left. The model T snowmobile was especially memorable as it was adapted for the Alaskan winters with ski's instead of tires!

No northern lights so far, but the weather should be clearing up.

Sweet & Sour

Made it to Fairbanks in hope to see the Aurora Borealis, or Northern lights. Bucket list item for sure and occurs this time of year. Nothing is guaranteed but a claimed 240ish days of the year they are visible near Fairbanks. We will probably be staying in the city for a few days to give us the best chance. It’s been raining and overcast so far.

The landscape has changed from mountainous Seward/Anchorage to less towering mountains and more of an open/ rolling mountain feel. Closer to the city are vast overlooks that dip your eyes into the fall colors of yellow, green, and orange. Winter is spoken about by the locals and prepared for as we’ve seen sleds for kids in shopping areas waiting to be sold.

Off of topic - many of the streams/rivers we’ve seen are grey in color. The sand and mud have also been grey, interestingly.

We spoke to a local resident and found out a few things. One of which is why a lot of people have cracked windshields. Due to the temperatures they don’t use salt for the roads, they use gravel. This gravel gets kicked up putting cracks in cars.

We made a pit stop at a local Chinese restaurant for food and ordered too much for our stomachs to hold.

Side by side

September 4th

We stayed at Riley Creek campground within the Denali Park. The overcast weather lasted the entire day. Starting off we went to the visitor center to finish exploring the exhibits. At 1pm we hopped on a bus that transported us to an old coal mining area, which was cut out from the park, to drive a side by side ATV. We were looking forward to this excursion when we were in the planning stages of this trip.

The ATV adventure was enjoyable way to spend 2.5 hours. Crawling up hills to overlook the town of Healy and rolling through a broken river left some mud on us. I attempted to take some footage with the go pro but keeping it steady was difficult.

After bussing back we ate lunch and went into the park. We decided to drive along the main drag until forced to stop around the 15 mile mark. During the drive we spotted a couple snowshoe hares and moose. We even climbed a rock along a trail near the Savage river to get a better view.

Denali - the tall one

After staying at Nancy Lake campground we backtracked to Independence Mine. A camp that was set up, in 1936, to extract gold. Roughly 150,000 oz of gold was mined between 1936 - 1943. The  geography made this a difficult ordeal. The surrounding land was just shy of magical.

Returning to the pavement we began making our way to Denali National Park. Along the way to Denali we came across Byers Lake campground. We stopped to check it out. The campground was packed making us extremely nervous that no more spots would be available at Denali considering sites 50+ miles away were full.

 We continued to venture through tundra and found an abandoned igloo structure  near the side of the highway. I had seen pictures posted online before and knew that it was built as a hotel. Unfortunately it was never finished, left abandoned for quite some time. We peeked around and found graffiti plentiful. We peeked to see the inside; dilapidated. Perfect place for an under age party. After skulking around for a bit we decided to continue.

A while later we arrived at Denali National Park and Preserve and read a sign stating all campgrounds were full. We inquired inside and found out that we got there at a good time and tenting sites were opened up. We bought two days...and considered a third.

We checked out pieces of the visitor center, bought some memorabilia, watched a sled dog demonstration, and left the park to celebrated our adventure at 49th State brewery.

On the way to the brewery we spotted a train hugging the mountains adjacent to us. Ahead we spotted a bridge that the train would pass. We raced to overlook, hurriedly exited the Escape, grabbing cameras, and grabbed a few pictures as the train crossed over bridge with a water flowing underneath, with the sun shining the mountain from the background.

Once we arrived at the brewing company we immediately spotted a beaten up bus. I jokingly mentioned to Liz that it may be the bus from Into the Wild ( book then later movie). To my excitement IT WAS the bus prop from the movie! Liz took an appropriate picture of me sitting next to it. The bus was opened to walk around within, which we did.

So far we’ve spotted a porcupine and a moose with antlers. Still keeping an eye out for a grizzly. We’ve been sleeping for 8+ hours a day, and just taking it slow. The slow approach method of travel is the best way, in my opinion.

”roads are not maintained”

The first of September. We didn’t get moving until noon due to getting great sleep. About 5 days without a shower is not a pleasant sight or odor. We’ve been using body wipes sparingly, so finding a shower topped the to do list. We decided to head back to Anchorage, along the Seward highway, to a hostel.

Neither of us had ever been to a hostel and were anxious about the event. We arrived, followed the instructions on the door, and next on the phone. The hostel seemed like a place to exchange information and stories between travelers. We stayed long enough to take a shower (5 bucks each) and went on our way. Well worth the money.

Earlier in Seward while looking through our traveling guide , "Independence Mine Historic State Park" stood out, which is located about an hour and a half North of Anchorage.  We fueled up the vehicle ($3.17/gal ; surprisingly cheap) and arrived just before the park closed. We didn’t have enough time to explore so we decided to drive around and to venture back in the morning.

We stumbled upon another state park right beside the mining town and lost the next 2 hours to exploring. At close to 4000 feet we found parasailers jumping from the crests, families picking blueberries in the mountains, and absolutely unbelievable views. We couldn’t stop driving our curiosity telling us to press on. ATV and side by sides were everywhere in the mixed forest /subalpine level of the mountains. This area is known as Hatcher’s Pass. Ending up an hour away as we found a campground at Nancy Lake, camping spot #20.

We set up camp and I, depressingly, spilled our dinner all over the ground. I specifically saved that rehydrated meal for last, since it was the best. Liz is giggling as I’m writing this. I tagged Liz in to take over to became the chef of our next option, the pasta side.