Fairbanks, Denali & the Mat-Su Valley

Hello and greetings from Homer and the Kenai Peninsula.

We’re in Alaska’s “playground” where fishing is king and the sights are spectacular. We’ve had an exciting 2 weeks since our last update and I’ll talk more about the Kenai later, but for now let’s review Fairbanks and our trip moving south.

We arrived in Fairbanks in the middle of summer: high 80’s and excessive smoke from the wild land fires. The biggest is now over 200,000 acres and still burning. Started by lightning it has continually grown and while not threatening any inhabited areas some backwoods cabins have been destroyed but many saved.

They need rain, lower temperatures and reduced winds to get it under control; something that’s not happening soon in interior Alaska.

We were lucky. The winds shifted the day after we arrived in Fairbanks and we had great weather (warm for interior Alaska) and a very busy week. We spent our arrival day cleaning the dust and dirt from our coach and toad and recovering from the rough roads and isolation of the earlier week.

Welcome to Fairbanks

Fairbanks is the 2nd largest city and has lots to offer. Several large military bases, plenty of shopping and some interesting sights. It’s also right next to the North Pole. Well, geographically it’s not but the Alaskan city of North Pole is a suburb of Fairbanks and yes, Mr. Claus lives there. There are reindeer, Christmas trees and lot’s of elves at the workshop and we made sure our grand children our on the “good little boys and girls list” for this coming December !

A visit to the North Pole

A great Ice Sculpture Museum, a downtown city park and some great restaurants are surrounded by two rivers and lot’s to do. We took the riverboat ride; saw dog sled teams and did a tour of Pioneer Park and a great salmon bake and visited a tribal Pow Wow. Gene & I got in a round of golf at the northern most USGA rated golf course in the US. We visited a fabulous museum run by the University of Alaska and the highlight was a ride up the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle.

Ice Sculpture

On the 9th Tee....opps, looks who's here...

A visitor to the Tee Box !

Laurie & her "scottish" indian ! Dancin' at the Pow Wow !

A dancer in costume

Beating the Drum at the Tribal Pow Wow

Is something looking over our shoulder ?

Dog sled teams practice.

If you’ve ever watched the History channel’s series “Ice Road Truckers” you’ve seen the Dalton Highway. Over 600 miles of dirt and seal chip highway from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay. Miserable conditions in any season. We traveled in a charted van with a driver and 6 others some 150+ miles to the exact latitude of the Arctic Circle, had a picnic lunch and came back. Long day but great scenery and the road follows the Alaska Pipeline route. BTW, it was 75 degrees at the Arctic Circle !

Our Group at the Arctic Circle.

The Alaska Pipeline

The fireweed is spectacular along the Dalton Hwy.

So, the day we leave Fairbanks and head south the winds shift and the smoke returned. Whew ! A rough ride down the Parks highway toward Denali National Park. We stayed outside the Park in Healy and really had some bad smoke conditions. Our friends had never been there and took the long 12 hour bus tour of the Park.

We’d seen the Mountain in 2004 and with the smoke conditions there were not too many animals to be seen. Mount McKinley was totally obscured. We stayed only 2 nights and moved further south to escape the smoke and haze. Some rain helped but it was still pretty unhealthy.

We made an overnite stop to the Talkeetna area and reprised our 2004 visit there and a stop at an art gallery. The town’s the same but they did blacktop one of the dirt streets since ‘04 and there were lots more local folks. We toured the Mt. McKinley Climbers Cemetery. Since 1932 there have been 249 deaths of climbers on the mountain many of which were never had their bodies recovered. It’s a somewhat chilling experience.

The river in downtown Talkeetna

The list of lost climbers in the cemetary.

We moved onto Wasilla and the beautiful Mat-Su Valley. This is suburban Anchorage, home to Sarah Palin and some of the nicest views of mountains and glaciers in Alaska. We were able to get sites at the Palmer Elks Lodge overlooking Finger Lake and nestled in the valley. We took a ride up to Hatcher Pass and toured an old gold mine.

At the top of Hatcher Pass near Wasilla.

Hatcher Pass looking back to th Mat-Su Valley

View from our coach at the Palmer Elks Lodge


We have revised our itinerary somewhat and headed straight south from Wasilla to the Kenai Peninsula skipping Anchorage on the way down. We'll stop on the way back up.

We stopped at the Wildlife Conservation Center near Portage Glacier and got to visit with some of the residents.

A MuskOx giving his opinion of my actions !

Can you find the Caribou in this picture ?

I'm wet, I'm hungry & you look hmmmm !


We did an overnite at the Soldotna Elks Lodge and arrived in Homer, the halibut fishing capital of the world this past Monday.

Unfortunately the rain has arrived with us and it’s been raining the whole time. The views are spectacular, the fishing was great but it’s cold and wet. Most days it never gets out of the low 50’s. We’ll this Monday for Kenai, Seward and Anchorage.

We’ll talk more about the fun and excitement of Homer next time. Till then,

Best Regards,

Gene & Laurie

Dawson City - Top of the World Hwy. & Chicken, Ak !

Hello & Greetings from Fairbanks !

Yep, we made it to Alaska and the coach is intact with no damage; the car is too but all had quite a bit of dust and yesterday was cleaning day. But more about that later.

So after Whitehorse we headed north to Dawson City, Yukon Territory and found warm weather, lot's of dust and some good times in town. We enjoyed Diamond Tooth Gertie's Casino and Can Can Show, a nice meal at the Jack London Grill and walked around the most authentic and rustic looking gold rush town still in existence. Wooden sidewalks, dirt streets and spectacular views all nestled alongside the Yukon River.


Dirt Streets and Wooden Sidewalks !

Can-Can girls at Gertie's

Downtown Dawson City

Gold Panning Championships !

Somebody we know ???

Dawson City & Yukon River behind me !

view of the gold mining areas from the Dome

Dawson City & Yukon River

We spent 4 nights and 3 days in DC and really got to see the town. A tour of the historic Gold Dredge # 4 and golf at the northernmost golf course in Canada.......Top of the World GC made the visit complete.

The GC is owned by a retired miner who wished to give back to the community that helped support him so he bought the land a number of years ago and although he doesn't play golf himself, he carved the course (9 holes) out of the landscape alongside the Yukon River and overlooking Dawson City. Now understand, this is a rough and tumble golf course and the greens are a little bouncy but they are grass and 2794 yards is respectable distance. My friend Gene shot a 39 with 1 birdie and I had a 44.

The clubhouse !

the 1st Tee

The greens are a little bumpy, but the views are great !

Nice wide fairways

Short but treacherous !

Beautiful views and elevation changes

So everyone warned us that the Top of the World Hwy (TOTW) was the worst road in North America and to expect damage and miserable road conditions. One person even sent me an e-mail saying "her prayers and thoughts will be with me as I travel the TOTW." Well yes, it was probably the worst road but we went slow, averaged only 20mph for the entire 107 miles and had no damage. Lot's of dirt and at times we could not even see the car for the cloud of dust and actually lost the use of the rear camera because of the dirt build-up but we made it and we had the experience.


Now to get from Dawson City to the TOTW you have to cross the Yukon River on the only ferry that operates. No bridges, just the ferry. It's small and the landings are dirt, no piers or pilings; just drop the bridge plate in the dirt and drive on ! They actually keep a front-end loader and extra dirt nearby to keep the landing from washing away. The river current is pretty strong.

Yukon River ferry.....dirt ramp

So, given the size of our rigs we knew only 1 coach was getting on at a time and it would be best not to have the toad hooked up, especially with the dirt ruts at the landing site. There was also quite a few campers who were scheduled to leave the downtown campground the same day as us. We set our clocks for 4am and were at the ferry dock at 5am. Across we went one at a time and we were hooked up and on the way by 5.40am. Smooth sailing.

Early morning - Top of the World Highway

An unplanned benefit of being on the road so early was the morning dew ! Yep the mountain road, you climb to an elevation of more than 4,000 feet, was moist with the dew and the dust was much less than expected for the first several hours.

Driving the TOTW Hwy

We arrived at the US border at about 8.40am and the border doesn't open till 9.00am. Well, actually the border opens at 8.00am Alaska time and we arrived at 7.40am Alaska time. The time change is AT the border station. Since it was July 4th we wished the agent Happy Birthday and we were back in the USA !

US Border Crossing-Welcome Back !

Border Crossing

A view to Top of the World

Well, for the next 40 miles it was all dirt and dust and really ugly road conditions but the key again is slow speed and we arrived in Chicken, Alaska in time for lunch.

Chicken, Alaska is a very small town in some of the most rugged, mountainous terrain I've seen. There's not more than half a dozen buildings and lots' of RV's. They also are the only place for fuel and food on the entire 200+ mile journey from Dawson City to Tok, Alaska back on the Alaska Highway and Chicken has one heck of a good 4th of July party.

Downtown Chicken

Gold Miners Assn 4th of July Picnic

The Post Office

No fowl on the menu just steak and hosted by the Gold Prospectors Assn. For $12.00 a great deal. Close to 200 people at the party and gold panning contests, door prizes and some great conversation. Chicken has a population of 15 in the winter and no phone service, electric service or public water. It's dry camping and the shops have their own generators, sat phones and wells. They have 1 small fire truck and an ambulance but in a real emergency, they'll fly you out from the small dirt air strip.

Too much day light for fireworks so Chicken has a cannon they shoot off and a band concert that rocked the town till late. Oh, the price for diesel was $4.36 US a gallon ! Ouch ! and yes, we needed fuel. Sure did help the local economy.

So off we went the next day and drove down the mountain to Tok (pronounced toke) and rejoined the Alaska Highway northbound to Delta Junction and it's official end. We dry camped at a small state park and took the obligatory end of the highway pictures and moved onto Fairbanks and summer !

We've had pretty cool weather for most of the trip since leaving Montana and we've hit the interior of Alaska and it's soring summer heat. We've also hit fire season and there are currently 62 active wildland fires in the state. Two of the biggest are southeast of Fairbanks and northwest of Fairbanks. No matter the winds, we're smelling smoke and lot's of dense haze. With temps in the mid 80's it makes the outdoors a bit uncomfortable.

We've got a week planned here and they expect to have a few days respite beginning tomorrow. The a/c units are working hard. Oh, BTW one of the biggest fires is over 17k acres and in Denali Park. Hmmm, may need to change our schedule again.

Stay tuned, we'll talk again soon.

Gene & Laurie