Day 80 Monday July 18, 2022 We topped off our fuel tank and headed out of Whitehorse for Destruction Bay. We stopped for a break at the Aishihik River Bridge pull out. This is an old historical wooden bridge. We also stopped here on our trip in 2015. We had to travel through some dusty gravel road construction areas today. Don't know which is better dusty gravel or wet gravel. Both make a mess of the vehicles.
At Haines Junction we stopped at the DA-KU Cultural Center/Haines Visitor Center for a break and to tour the facility. We had plenty of time to kill before our arrival window into the next campground. This was a very interesting stop. Lots of local First Nations information about their culture and samples of their hand crafts and artwork plus a very informative film.
Then we stopped a kilometer down the road at a bakery for a coffee and sweet treat. They were very busy. When we went in there was a large rack of sourdough bread and when we left it was almost all gone.
We drove along the Kluane Lake before getting to our stop at Destruction Bay Lodge Campground about 2PM. They have two RV caravans here tonight so we volunteered to boondock for the night since there is not enough site with hookups to allow everyone a hookup site. One of our rigs broke down about 70 miles outside of Whitehorse. One of the men on the caravan was carrying a spare part that the broke down motorhome needed so the WM and him drove 90 miles back to them and changed the part out but they still need a Cummins engine technician to hookup a computer to reset the error codes before he can get back on the road. They will catch up with us in Tok Alaska in a couple of days.
We had a drivers meeting after everyone got settled in the owner of the campground talked to us for a few minutes. He was very glad to see RVs in his campground again. He has owned the campground for 29 years and he said he almost lost everything during COVID because his entire income is from RVs staying with him and the border was closed and the Canadians couldn't travel so he had no business.
He also apologized about not having water for us, which we knew about in advance. His well froze due to the extreme weather in Canada last Winter. He said his property has about two feet of top soil over 165 feet of permafrost so when his well was working the water came out of the ground so cold it would frost up a glass. The water came from an underground glacier stream.
Destruction Bay has a population of 38 humans and about 10 million mosquitoes but the cell service is much better than what we were getting in Whitehorse which is the largest town in the Yukon and we are 70 miles from anywhere. But we did see a small tower just up the road. We got a small rain shower during out meeting so we hope it will lay the dust a bit.
Another caravan pulled in after us and they had just come from Tok Alaska. They said the road we will travel on tomorrow is as one lady said “the road from Hell”. Some of their group had broke springs under their RVs but their WM said they were driving too fast for the conditions.
We saw 1 porcupine, 3 chipmunks and 2 bear today.
Day 81 Tuesday July 19, 2022 We departed at 7:10AM for the 225 miles to Tok Alaska. As expected after about 25 miles of driving we began to encounter some frost heaves so we slowed down. We had long stretches of dirt/gravel all the way to Beaver Creek where we stopped at Buckshot Betty's for a lunch break as we did in 2015. Not sure if Betty has a VERY VERY dry sense of humor or if she is just crabby or was having a bad day but some people would have easily been upset with her. We just shrugged our shoulders and didn't say anything.
The road got even worse as we approached the USA border entry station into Alaska. Then the road got really good and we though we were finished with the bad sections and after about 10 miles the road turned into pure CRAP. There were more potholes than we have ever seen all over the road. I tried to steer around them by driving on any paved section that looked better but I just couldn't miss them all. I was only driving about 10-15 mph and sometimes even slower and sometimes just barely creeping along. The road was much much worse than in 2015. Then we only had about 30-40 miles of dirt and gravel today we had about 150 miles of dirt/gravel and potholes.
We finally got to Tok RV Village in Alaska and setup in site 703 with full hook ups and 50 AMP service. 50 AMP service is kind of rare in Canada and Alaska campgrounds. We were pooped so we were glad that the Fantasy RV Tours had a pizza supper with salad and ice cream for us.
There was a couple on the 2019 Maritimes trip with us that is on another Fantasy RV Caravan in the park tonight so we got to talk to them a few minutes. We told them about the road conditions since they are headed in the opposite direction down the road we just came up.
Day 82 Wednesday July 20, 2022 We got up early and by 7AM was on the road again, this time riding with Tom and Gloria in their truck to Dawson City Yukon 185 miles away and most of it will be dirt/gravel road. We stopped in Chicken Alaska for a quick coffee and breakfast. About a dozen of our caravan group including the WMs are taking this optional trip. We passed through the Canadian border with no issues. The road between Chicken Alaska and Dawson City Yukon is called The Top of The World Highway for a very good reason. The road runs along the top of the ridges and you have a view for miles and miles over some amazing scenery. There is a small community called Eagle about 60 miles off this highway but we didn't have time to go there. The trip was through a vast area of total remoteness. We saw several patches of snow right beside the highway and it is July.
When we got to the Yukon River we had to put the truck on a small free ferry which only holds about 6 vehicles or one large motorhome. We had reservations at the Dawson Lodge in town. We did everything online including the check-in process. We were surprised how nice the rooms were. I guess we were expecting them to be somewhat basic and maybe a little rustic but the room was very nice and modern even though it was in an older building. In fact most of the town is older buildings. They had the easiest WiFi connection process we have ever used. You just scan a QR code with your smartphone and click an internet link and you are connected. This is a gold rush era town and it still looks like a pioneer town. Not a paved street in town.
Lena and I walked around and took photos and then we met Tom and Gloria and we went to a bistro for a late lunch/supper. I watch a TV series named Gold Rush that is filmed near Dawson City. One of the three groups of mines that is filmed is the Tony Beets family. The daughter is Monica. While we were eating she came down the wood sidewalk (yes their sidewalks are wood) with her young daughter which is about one year old.
When we came out of the bistro I talked to a lady that was standing beside two motorcycles with licenses plates from Ireland. She said her (Jackie) and her husband (Davide) had packed the motorcycles and their camping gear in two crates and had them flown to New York. They are documenting their travels to post them on their YouTube channel “J&D On The Road”. This trip will be for 3 months. She agreed to let me photograph them. Then we rode all over town to work up an appetite for some ice cream. We each got two scoops in a cup. I have never got two scoops of ice cream that big anywhere. It was almost more than I could eat but I forced myself.
Then we returned to the Lodge to rest until 9PM when we went to the Downtown Hotel Bar for the locally famous “Sour Toe Challenge”. This may sound gross so hold on. To do the challenge you buy a shot of your choice of some type of whiskey, the Sour Toe Captain gives you the rules and then he drops a human toe, yes a real human toe, into your whiskey. You have to drink the whiskey and let the toe touch your lips but not let the toe get in your mouth. If you swallow the toe it is a $2,500 fine. Tom and CW our WM did the challenge together. There were lots of people in the bar doing the challenge. It cost $10 plus the price of the whiskey. I would have done it but someone had to take the photos. That's my story and I am sticking to it. We all returned to the Lodge pooped from the long day.
Day 83 Thursday July 21, 2022 We checked out of the Lodge and stopped for breakfast at Red Mammoth Bistro where they do their own baking. Then we boarded the ferry again to cross the Yukon River (they do not have a bridge here). It was a foggy 48 degree ride for awhile before the fog finally lifted. The views again were just awesome. We saw two ground squirrels and a Lynx. We have been told it is rare to see a Lynx since they are very elusive. We had another easy border crossing and stopped in Chicken for lunch. Since we all needed to use the restroom after than long drive we got to experience something rather unique. We got to use the Chicken Poop (a real Outhouse). There is only one place in Chicken that has flush toilets.
After we got back to Tok, Tom and I washed our toads and Lena and I got a few groceries and some fuel for the Jeep. Jerry and Jinny, the couple that had the break down outside of Whitehorse had arrived, so were all glad to see them.
Day 84 Friday July 22, 2022 Tom and I fueled the motorhomes across the street from the RV Park where we could get a $.10 a gallon discount since we were in the Tok RV Village campground. And then headed for Valdez Alaska 253 miles away. The first part of the drive was rather bland compared to some of our drives on this trip even though there were mountains all around us but when we got closer to Valdez the WOW factor really went up several levels. Amazing views, even with intermittent rain. It was a fairly good climb up Thompson's Pass. Worthington Glacier was off to our right. We stopped for a kodak moment at Bridal Veil and Horsetail Falls. There were dozens of smaller waterfalls coming down the mountain side from the snow melt on the top of the mountains.
We stopped just outside of Valdez to unhook the toads because the Bear Paw campground is kind of small and it will be quicker and easier to get in with the toads unhooked and will be easier on the WM directing us in. We got site 28 and FHU 30AMP site. It began to rain lightly so we had a quick meeting on the office porch.
Day 85 Saturday July 23, 2022 Lena found a coffee shop called The Coffee Co right behind us across the street so we walked over there and had a good Latte (for a change) and a slice of pumpkin roll. It is really foggy this morning. We are setting right in front of the Small Boat Harbor.
Then we went to both of the Museums in town. We visited one in 2015 but either missed one or it is new since then. Both were very interesting. They had a lot of information about the March 27, 1964 9.2 magnitude earthquake that happened in this area and destroyed the town of Valdez, with 36 lives lost. They built the new Valdez town about 4 miles away on land that had bedrock underneath which provides a good stable building location. The old Valdez was built on sand and silt runoff from the mountains around here and when the earthquake hit the ground turned to putty.
We have noticed lots of light brown and black rabbits around town so we asked the lady at the museum if they were a domestic rabbit that had been turned loose or some type of wild rabbit. She said with a frown that they were domestic rabbits that people had turned loose and they were a nuisance. She also said this past Winter three Lynx came down the mountain into town and hung around and reduced the population quite a bit.
We had lunch at Mike's Place a stones throw from the campground. We have a scrapping sound in the right rear brake area on the jeep but there is not a mechanic shop open until Monday and we leave here Monday morning. There is an automotive shop 4 miles out of town so I will take it to them and see if they can check it just after they open at 8 Monday morning before we head to Palmer.
We rode with Tom and Gloria to Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery to watch the salmon run, check for bears and watch the seals eat salmon. The hatchery raises and releases millions of salmon each year. After a year out in the deep waters around Alaska the salmon return to their birth place to spawn. We saw lots of salmon trying to get up the small waterfall at the Weir and there was a very large seal that was gorging himself on the salmon. There was a large group of seals farther out in the water and several smaller ones that were having a salmon picnic. There was probably a hundred or so people out in the shallow water catching salmon. There is a limit on how many they can catch. It looked like they were catching their limit quickly. We did see a bald eagle and another large bird that could have been an adolescent bald eagle. Their heads don't turn white until they are 4 years old. We did not see any bears after waiting awhile so we returned to the RV park.
Day 86 Sunday July 24, 2022 The group met across the street at the small boat harbor at 8AM to board the Stan Stevens Tour boat for a all day glacier and sea life trip. It was a beautiful day, not too cold and later when the sun came out very comfortable. The boat can carry 150 seated passengers inside plus outside seats. 125 passengers were on board today. Each table would seat 6 people, two at our table were from Austria.
We saw lots of birds, several bald eagles, marbled murrelet, a black bear, dozens and dozens of sea otters floating on their backs or laying on a block of ice that had broken off the glaciers and hundreds of sea lions basking in the sun. Captain Amanda tried to find some whales but they just didn't want to be seen today. We did get up to within ¼ mile of the Meares Glacier and it calved 4-5 times while we were there. We saw the Emerald and Meares glaciers, had a mid morning bagel and butter snack, a chicken and rice lunch with snack before returning to the dock about 5PM. Captain Amanda and her crew did a great job taking care of us and spotting sea life with their binoculars and providing information about the area including a lot of information about the oil tanker accident in 1989 that dumped millions of gallons of crude oil in the water. Per Captain Amanda there is no signs of the oil spill now but there are a lot of more stringent regulations in place including all US oil tankers must have double wall hulls.
Sea otter
We did some prep work for our departures tomorrow morning.
Day 87 Monday July 25, 2022 As predicted it started raining sometime early morning and rain is in the forecast until Noon tomorrow. We pulled out at 7:45AM and stopped at the auto repair shop on the way out of town to see if they could check out the scrapping noise on our Jeep. We got there just as the workers were arriving. I explained my issue and that we were part of a RV Caravan leaving town this morning headed for Palmer. Steve quickly put the Jeep up on a lift and determined that part of the right rear brake caliper had stuck and the brake pad was worn down to metal and the rotor was severely damaged. He showed me what was wrong and the damage was very apparent. I asked what would happen if we kept driving/pulling it. He said eventually it would get so bad that I would loose all brake action and that would be very bad. I gave them the okay to do the repairs so they got on the telephone and ordered the parts and said they would have them tomorrow morning and should have us back on the road by mid afternoon. The parts have to come in on a truck from a larger town, probably Anchorage. Lets hope so, then we can sync back up with our caravan in Palmer, which is a two night stop for the group.
I called the WM at the RV Park to give them our status and that we would need to stay in Valdez another night so he told the RV Park and they reserved site 45 for us. We were wondering why the WM was still at the park and the TG had left first which is the opposite of the normal morning departures. Well the WM has a tire issue on one of there motorhome tires and is waiting for a tire repair.
We set back up and walked across the street to the coffee shop to chill out for awhile with a Latte. When we got back to the motorhome we found water dripping in from the roof above the electrical monitoring equipment which is NOT good. I wiped it up and tilted the motorhome so the water would run off the roof quicker and put down some towels under the drip.
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