Fairbanks and The Steese Hwy, May 19-June 2, 2016

Fairbanks and The Steese Hwy, May 19-June 2, 2016

We spent about 2 weeks in the Fairbanks area, including the 4 day trip on the Dalton I write about in the next blog entry. We also took an overnight trip part way up the Steese Hwy towards Circle, AK.

Snow bank on the Steese Hwy near Eagle Summit Rest Area.

Steese Highway

While you are in the Fairbanks area, take a trip up the Steese Hwy to at least MM107, Eagle Summit. BLM Brochures for Steese & Elliot highways here. Or stop by the BLM office in Fairbanks for a paper copy.

The best time to go is in sunny weather. This can be a day trip, but a more relaxed trip is to boondock for two nights at a pullout from MM60-107 and take a day trip from there. If you are members of Escapees be sure to get the Days End Directory for details of places to stay. There are other sources for boondocking sites by searching online for “free campgrounds”.

The first 60 or so miles of the Steese is pretty nondescript. Mostly driving on a highway through birch, aspen and spruce trees. Beyond MM60 the highway begins to open up and around MM80 you begin to leave the trees behind and get into tundra covered hillsides with small black spruce trees at lower elevations.

The Steese Hwy is paved to about MM85. After that for at least the next 30 miles the road was in excellent condition, suitable for any rig if the road is dry. If it is wet, it can be slippery.

We drove our RV to MM65 and boondocked at a huge viewpoint/pullout well off of the road. The next morning we drove our pickup truck to Eagle Summit at MM107.

Our boondock spot at MM65:

The afternoon and night we stayed at MM65 was when we realized that, in this far north climate, trees and bushes grow best on the south facing slope. This is unlike most of the western US where vegetation grows best on the cooler and wetter north facing slopes. Here in the far north, the sun defrosts the ground and permafrost deeper, and the ground gets warmer, on the south facing slopes. This way the vegetation has a longer and better growing season. I detailed this more in my next blog entry about our Dalton Hwy trip here.

In the morning we drove our pickup from our overnight spot at MM65 to Eagle Summit at MM107. Here are some pictures along the road:

Starting the unpaved part of the Steese Hwy.

12 Mile Summit MM85.5.  A good boondocking spot with great views

At MM94 is Birch Creek. A rest area and a launch point for 110 mile canoe or raft trips down Birch Creek. The take out is at MM140. More info here.

Birch Creek and the launch point:  

Eagle Summit rest area

 

Lots of the fairly level parking here at MM107 

There is very nice ¼ mile loop trail with information signs about the tundra plants here.

Picture of a Wooly Lousewort wildflower on the trail

Also Eagle Summit is the start or finish of the 27 mile Pinnell Mountain National Recreation Trail, which follows the ridge lines back to 12 Mile Summit.

However you don't need to walk for miles to enjoy the trail and a walk along tundra covered hillsides. Starting at the parking lot, the trail follows a series of easy switch backs, with an elevation gain of about 125' and about 1/3 mile, to the ridge line. From there the trail is fairly level for the next few miles. Walk as much or little as you like. In the summer wildflowers bloom here. We were too early for most of the flowers.

The trail along the ridge line

View from the trail along the ridge line

More views of the tundra covered hills from the road near Eagle Summit

Snow bank along the road near Eagle Summit.

FAIRBANKS

Our “campground” of choice was the parking lot at Pioneer Park. They have designated RV spots for $12/night. Nothing fancy, but it was better than being in an RV park.

Our “campsite”.

There is a 5 consecutive night limit at Pioneer Park, so we also spent a couple of nights(not consecutive nights) at Sam's Club parking lot. It was very quiet parked behind Sam's Club gas station. At Sam's I did ask a manager for permission to park. Much, much quieter than at Walmart. Walmart is extremely busy. Lots of RV's coming and going, plus the store is very busy. Thre are 2 or 3 rigs parked there, long term, as well. They were there when we arrived and had not left by the time we were leaving the area. Also it didn't look like they had any intention of leaving this free parking spot.

We didn't do anything exciting in Fairbanks. Mostly just tourist things. I didn't take any pictures in Fairbanks.

The places we visited in Fairbanks:

– The Visitor Center in the downtown area. Great, informative displays about Fairbanks, the area around Fairbanks and the four seasons in the interior and north country of Alaska. Well worth spending 2-3 hours looking at everything plus more time for the videos.  Plus there is a inter-agency information center here with information about the natural areas in the interior of Alaska.

– Museum of the North at UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks)

An excellent museum on the UAF campus covering the people and animals of interior and northern parts of Alaska.

– Pioneer Park

This is not only the place we parked in our motorhome most of the nights we were in Fairbanks. There are also a number of attractions and museums in the park. Go to the link above for a full list. We were here before Memorial Day so most of the visitor activities were not yet scheduled. The museums were open on limited hours though.

Here are the places we visited in Pioneer Park:

Pioneer Museum.

Well worth the visit if you have the time. Lots of pictures and artifacts from the Fairbanks area. An excellent series of small dioramas depicting gold mining methods from the 1890's to 1930's. A theater type show "Big Stampede" about the gold rush and the early people in Fairbanks. It was interesting but the last 10-15 minutes got real wordy. It was like the narrator was trying to extend the length of the show to reach about 45 minutes.

Riverboat Nenana

A restored riverboat which operated on the Yukon River. Only takes about 15 minutes to go though the riverboat.

Alaska Salmon Bake $35. All you care to eat.

While the Salmon and Beer Battered Cod were good, and the salads looked good, we were disappointed in the overall setting and ambiance of the place. The prime rib was just so so. An extremely thin slice and not very tasty. The weather the evening we were there was cool by our standards, low to mid 60's. At the booth where you paid they gave you a quick introduction and handed you a good sized “cold” fish shaped plate. They said you are welcome to use the plate for all your food. If you wanted a clean plate you could come back and ask for a clean plate. We would have preferred to have clean plates available at salad bar and the grill area. It would have been especially nice to have warm plates at the grill area. The seating was either outdoors, or in a large dinning hall which was just a little warmer than the outdoors. Probably about 68-70 degrees inside. It wasn't cold enough for them to heat the dinning hall I guess. For drinks (included with dinner) there was one soda dispenser, the kind you find in gas station convenience stores. All the refills you want. For condiments, catsup, tarter sauce, etc there is one cart outside. There is a pay bar for fancy drinks or for adult beverages. If you are there when 3 or 4 tour buses show up for dinner you will be standing in line for drinks or condiments. Getting there at 5 to 5:15pm you shouldn't have a problem with crowds. We noticed most tour buses didn't show up till 6-8pm.

– Georgeson Botanical Garden at UAF

This is a nice place to stroll through a botanical garden full of flowers which grow in Alaska. The flowers were not as well documented as I would have liked. It was an enjoyable place to spend an hour or so seeing the flowers and other plants which are either grown commercially or in the wild. We lucked out and got to chat with the botanist who “discovered” that growing peonies commercially in Alaska could be a great source of income for small farmers. We spent about 30 minutes talking with her about peonies and the Alaska interior in general. Alaska is the only place in the world where peonies mature to the harvest point in the June-September period. The rest of the year, there are other locations in the world which grow and export peonies. In 2016, Alaska expects to export around 100,000 to 150,000 flowers and in 2017 about twice that many. Links to Alaska Peonies here and here.

We enjoyed our stay in Fairbanks. There was a lot of relaxing and quiet time. Plus the two great trips on Steese & Dalton highways. Weather was decent. A few days of off and on rain, but no real downpours.  

Free potable water fill at Pioneer park and free dump stations at gas stations in town.  The easiest dump station to maneuver your rig in and out of is at the Tesoro Station at the corner of College Rd. and Illinois St.  No potable water though. 

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Skagway to Fairbanks, via Whitehorse, AK. May 13-19, 2016

Skagway to Fairbanks, AK via Whitehorse, YT. May 13-19, 2016

The day we left Skagway we purposely took our time driving around the Skagway area before leaving. We drove over to the start of the Chilkoot Trail at Dyea and we visited the historic cemetery in Skagway. Both worth a visit if you have the time. 

A photo from the road to Dyea. 

I didn't want to leave town until around 1-2pm. This would allow us to arrive in the high country several miles east of the mountain pass at the Alaska/BC border in the mid afternoon.

We arrived at a pullout along about 3pm after a 23 mile drive and a short stop at Canadian 
customs.

A caution about boondocking along this highway.  The US and Canada customs check points are several miles apart and close at night.  If you park between the them and have a need to leave you are stuck until they open in the morning. 

Here is our overnight parking spot:

Here is our view of the lake and snow covered mountain the next morning:

Before we left the high country we got to see this beautiful mountain goat from a distance.

A little north of Carcross on the way to Whitehorse there is a pullout with a great view of Emerald Lake, an emerald blue-green lake.

The blue green color comes from calcium carbonate forming from the run off from the limestone hills and settling to the bottom forming a white marl. Also Diatroms, an alge, grow in these shallow lakes and form a calcium carbonate shell which falls to the bottom adding to the marl. Although the info plaque in the image below doesn't state it, I believe the blue green is because the water absorbs all the colors except the blue green spectrum which is reflected from the white bottom.

More info about the color of the lake:

Whitehorse, YT area.

The first two nights in the Whitehorse area we stayed at Wolf Creek Provincial CG. $12. No dump or electricity. There is a hand pump for water. We took campsite #43, a very long backin site. If you can figure out a way to turn around you can pull in and have a nice view of the tiny Wolf Creek out your window. A very private site.

The first afternoon we drove into Whitehorse, drove around to locate grocery stores, visitor centers, museums, etc.

One site I hoped to visit was the big stern wheeler paddle boat. However it is not going to open until the “Long weekend in May”. That would be Victoria Day, a three day weekend kind of like our Memorial Day. This year that is May 21-23rd. Victoria Day is always the Monday before the 25^th of May.

The term “Long weekend in May” is a term we are seeing frequently in Canada. Many times it is in a statement something like “We are open from the long weekend in May until the long weekend in September.”. The long weekend in September coincides with our Labor Day weekend.

We did our shopping at the “The Real Canadian Superstore”. Similar to Walmart or Fred Myers. This store was recommended by a woman we talked with in Skagway. Seem like the people in Skagway drive the 140 or so miles to Whitehorse to go shopping.

I had an interesting surprise at the superstore. I went to grab a grocery cart and they were all chained together! I asked a store worker how to unhook the cart. He said you take a coin, stick it in this slot on the handle and it releases the cart. Come to find out you need a Loony coin. (a Canadian one dollar coin). The coin is captured by the lock mechanism. To get your coin back you need to take the cart back to a covered spot in the parking lot or back into the store and push it into another cart. Taking the chain from the cart in front of you and pushing it into the lock releases the coin. Or just leave the cart in the parking lot and you have paid $1 to use the cart.

While I was helping Sharon back into the truck an older gentleman (looked homeless or very poor) came by offered to take the cart back for us. I wonder just how many loonies he gets in a day?

The next morning I walked the 3km loop trail at Wolf Creek. A nice trail through the woods with a view of the mighty Yukon River.

I saw this Ptarmigan right at the start of the trail. Not a good picture, not enough light go get a better picture.

A little hard to see the ptarmigan, but look at the right center of the photo. It blends in really well with the background.

A view of the Yukon River. Not a very exciting river at this spot!

The Yukon River is the major drainage for much of the Yukon Territory (YT) and a very large part of Alaska.  It extends almost 2000 miles from its headwaters in YT to where it empties into the Bering Sea.

That is all the pictures I took in and around Whitehorse.

We stayed a 2^nd night at Wolf Creek and then moved about 12 miles to the Walmart parking lot for the next two nights. Walmart is not as nice as Wolf Creek, but we do get sunlight for our solar panels and we don't have to make a 24 mile round trip to town to visit the museums and do laundry.

We visited, and highly recommend these two museums in Whitehorse:

Berlingia Interpretive Center. http://www.beringia.com/ This museum covers the land bridge from Alaska across the Bering Strait to Siberia and the peoples who migrated here some 12,000 to 20,000 years ago.  The land bridge existed during ice ages when so much water was tied up in the glaciers that the ocean water level dropped about 200 feet.

They did an excellent job of explaining the land bridge, the animals which crossed over in to the North American continent, and the humans which followed. We spent about 3.5 hours touring the museum and viewing the two very good videos.

MacBride Museum of Yukon History. http://www.macbridemuseum.com/index.html An excellent museum which covers the history of the Yukon and Whitehorse. Sharon wasn't feeling well, so I went by myself. I learned a lot about the Yukon.

It is interesting learning of the perspective of history from the other sides viewpoint.

– We all know about the USA buying Alaska from Russia in 1865. Sometime after we bought Alaska the line of demarcation between Alaska and Canada was determined by treaty to be the 141^st Meridian down to a point some number of miles from the Pacific Ocean. Well sometime after the treaty was signed, Canada sued the USA in international court to extend the border to the Pacific and transfer the long strip of land and islands along what we call the Northwest Passage to Canada. The USA prevailed so we now have this long strip of land bordering Canada. Probably didn't make Canada happy with us.

– Next is the Klondike Gold Rush. This gold rush centers on a little tiny town of Dawson City and nearby area, on the Yukon river just a few miles from the Alaska border. During, and for a while after the gold rush was over, the town and area was about 98% American. Canada got very concerned about America's intentions and were afraid the USA was just going to annex the area to Alaska. That was most likely just what the Americans gold miners wanted anyways.

In 1898 and 1899 Canada sent a surveying party in to survey the border and cut a 3 meter (20 foot) wide path through the trees to give a physical and visual indication of the border. Canada also sent a group to build a telegraph line from Dawson City across this uncharted wilderness to the middle of British Columbia. This communication link would help bolster Canada's claim to the land in case the USA was to attempt to annex the area.

Not that the USA would ever do such a thing!! Smile.

Anyways interesting seeing history from the other side.

Moving on to Fairbanks

As I mentioned, Sharon is not feeling well. This issue has been going on for about 3-4 weeks. She went to a clinic in Skagway, but no help. So we are going to head directly to Fairbanks where we will stay until we get the issues resolved. I suppose we could see doctors in Whitehorse, but we really don't want to stay around for an undermined period and it is much easier dealing with medical insurance issues in the USA.

I had planned on us going up to Dawson City, YT, driving part way up the Dempster highway, visiting the history of the gold rush in the area and then drive across the Top Of The World Highway to Alaska. Probably a 10-12 day time span. That is much to long to wait to get things resolved.

This is another really good reason to be able to travel without having RV park reservations to cancel and change. Things come up and plans need to be changed.

We will just come back from Alaska via the Top Of The World Hwy and visit Dawson City and the Dempster in August.

It was an overnight hop to Fairbanks, about 504 miles.

Not exactly a speedy drive to Fairbanks. Especially from Haines Junction to the Alaska border. Lot of construction and about a total of 30 to 45 miles of gravel road because of the construction. Some of it muddy. Lots of frost heaves outside of the construction.

Pretty country though. Some pictures:

We spent a quiet night at a Yukon rest area about 20 miles south of Beaver Creek, YT and about 37 mile south of the USA customs station at the Alaska border.

Many of Yukon's rest areas have this no camping/parking sign,

but apparently it doesn't mean anything. From all the info I have seen, it is never enforced. People park overnight in the rest areas all the time.

Here we are at the Alaska Border

We made it to Fairbanks by about 1:30pm and went directly to a medical clinic to get Sharon's issues taken care of.

We are parking overnight at the asphalt parking lot for Pioneer Historic Park in Fairbanks. They charge $12 for o/n parking. Five consecutive days and you must move. http://old.fnsb.us/ParksandRecreation/PioneerPark/visitor_information/visitor_information.htm

Photo of the RV parking area in Pioneer Park parking lot.

 

Take a look at our Winegard Satellite TV dish on the roof.  It is pointing almost level with the ground.  We had a good satellite signal with the Winegard dish.  Note: If you have the smaller domed satellite dishes, you won't get a usable signal.  The dish size seems to be too small to capture a signal.  At least that is what a couple other RV'ers said about their smaller satellite dishes. 

We spent a total of 11 days here in three separate stays during our 18 days in the Fairbanks area.

Next up: Fairbanks, Steese Hwy and the Dalton Hwy to the Arctic Circle and Coldfoot.



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