Portage Valley

We spent the last week at the Williwaw Campground in Portage Valley.

Mama moose & baby running past our campsite

It's about an hour's drive from Anchorage. No hook-ups, so that means dry camping. No electric, no water, no dumps, and most important, no cell service. The scenery here is absolutely amazing. We're surrounded by mountains with glaciers and snow. That makes it cooler here, about 10 degrees cooler than Anchorage. Here's some highlights of our last week....

June 18   We met Raschad at the Portage Train station for a ride to Grandview. This was our first train ride and really enjoyed ourselves. The whole trip was about 4 hours long.

First class seats

Eagle's nest

Trail Glacier

June 19    We went for a drive out to Hatcher Pass and Independence Mine. Both were closed., too early in the season. Was a nice drive anyway.

June 20   We drove out to Seward today. It took us about 1 1/2 hours from Portage. When we got to Seward we called Raschad. He was working on the train to Seward today, and when we called him, he was at a hotel, taking a 5 hour break. So we picked him up and he showed us around.

Sea otter cruising in Seward

 June 21     Met Raschad at the train station to pick up some Avon skin so soft. Hopefully, it'll help with the monster mosquitoes.

Raschad backing it up

Ready to take off

June 22     We took a long drive out to Soldotna today. Just checking out places and things to do when our family comes for a visit next week. We're really looking forward to seeing everyone.

June 23     I wanted to go hiking today from our campground. There is a nice hiking trail called Blue Ice Trail, it goes to the visitors center on Portage Lake, about 1 1/2 miles one way. There's lakes and glaciers and suppose to be a very nice, scenic hike but it rained all night and this morning was still very rainy and wet.  So we waited until about 1 pm and it still didn't clear up so we just drove to the visitors center instead. Joe didn't mind because he keeps thinking a bear is going to attack us on one of these hikes that I drag him on. This was one of the nicest visitor's center that we have gone to. There's a short film that they show, which is excellent and the exhibits are really interesting.

Portage Glacier

Ice on the lake

This is the only moose I'm getting close to

In the afternoon we drove out to see the bore tide come in. This was something to see. It comes in slowly and it looks like a small wave, like white wash. But it picks up in certain places. There were 2 stand up paddlers and a few surfers out there but no one caught the wave for very long. These guys are crazy, the water is freezing cold. Very different from surfing in Hawaii. There's only 1 wave so you better catch it. When the wave passes, there's a lot of surges of water, especially close to the shoreline.

 

Anchorage

June 7     Tok to Glennallen     152 miles     3hrs 30mins
We're trying to make our way to Anchorage, it's 328 miles away so we're going to break it up and take our time. Joe wants to do some maintenance and get some things done on the RV, Anchorage would be the best place to get parts and other things we need.

Our campsite at Tolsona Wilderness Campground

Plus, that's where Raschad and Tracy lives. Today we camped at Tolsona Wilderness Campground. We had to drive pretty slow today, the roads were not too good. It's a nice campground, real woodsy, along a river. Got caught up with the laundry and Joe cleaned the vehicles.
We skyped with the family this evening. Everybody was at Papa's to celebrate the June birthdays. The Galapia's have 5 birthdays the first week of June. When we see the family getting together, we miss home. Especially miss our kids, Josh and Miki. Some of the family will be flying to Alaska to hang out with us at the end of June, so we're looking forward to that.

Beautiful scenery on our drive

June 8     Glennallen to somewhere between Palmer & Glennallen  63 miles   1hr 30mins
We moved 63 miles up the road today to Grand View Cafe & RV Campground.

Grand View Campground

This place is really nice. They have a Good Sam discount so it's $33.30 for full hook-up.

We took a drive to Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Site. This site has exceptional views of the Matanuska Glacier. We went on the Edge Nature Trail, a 1 mile hike through boreal forest to glacier viewing platforms. We made sure to carry our bear spray because nobody else was around.

Matanuska Glacier

On our drive back to the campsite, we saw a moose just cruising on the side of the road.






June 9     Grand View Campground to Eagle River    85 miles     2 hrs 45mins
We drove to Eagle River today, it's about 10 miles from Anchorage.

Eagle River Campground

Very nice area, we're going to stay here for a few days. It's a state campground called Eagle River Campground, it's $15 a day but no hook ups. It's close enough to Anchorage where we can hang out with Raschad and Tracy. Tracy had to work this afternoon but Raschad took us for a ride to Turnagain Arm. Very, very scenic we enjoyed ourselves. Then he took us to Whittier. We had to go thru a tunnel that was 3 miles long. You go real slow because this is the tunnel that the train goes thru so you need to straddle the train tracks. It's only one way at a time, so you wait your turn, about every 1/2 hour the direction changes. Joe & I was getting kind of claustrophobic, I don't think I want to go to Whittier again. I forgot my camera, so no pictures today.

June 10

Joe and I just cruised around and explored downtown Anchorage today. The weather is really nice, the high is about 75.

June 11
Tracy and Raschad is off today so we jumped in his van and went for a ride.

Raschad & Tracy

We went up to Flat Top Mountain trail head where there's a beautiful view of Anchorage. There's a trail to hike up to Flat Top mountain and had a lot of people hiking but we decided not to do it. We rather ride around and just do some sightseeing today.

Flat Top Mountain

We took a drive out to Hope. It's a small community and was nice to see.

Hope, Alaska

The scenery from Hope

We went up to Girdwood to see Mt Alyeska. When the kids come to visit, maybe we'll do the gondola to the top of the mountain. We also saw the bore tide come in. Was really small today, some days, when the tide comes in, it's big enough where people actually surf it in. They need wetsuits because the water is still very cold, still got ice in some places.

Filling water on the side of the road

June 12
Joe & I drove around Eagle River today. This is a really nice community.
We saw a black bear on our drive in.

 

We went to the Eagle River Nature Center and ended up doing a short hike on the Rodak nature trail. Beautiful views of the Chugach mountains. When we drove back to our campground, there was a brown bear close to our site. He was checking out some camp sites, sniffing in the fire pits and smelling around the picnic tables. Click on the arrow to view a short video.

He came right next to our site, then he went down the hill to the river. That made us pretty nervous. We waited for about an hour before going outside and starting a fire.

There's a lot of mosquitoes here and Joe is having an allergic reaction to the bites. He'll get bit and then the next day, it'll start to swell. He got bit around his forehead, on the right side, had about 4 bites that got pretty ugly. On the left side of his head he got a bite and it swelled so much, it looked like a golf ball. I'm not kidding....I wanted to take him to see a doctor because it looked like his whole face was going to get swollen. I thought maybe it'll affect his breathing. But when he got up the next day the swelling went down...thank goodness. So we're trying to keep up with the mosquito repellent.

June 13
Today we moved over to the Galimba's.

Raschad's van in front of his house

We're parked in front of their house,

just hope none of the neighbors complain. Joe & Raschad worked on the RV and did some much needed maintenance. While the guys were working on the RV, Tracy & I went to go get haircuts, color, and wax jobs. I needed it....feel like a new person now.

 

 June 14
Raschad took us to his friends house on the lake. Pete owns some property near Big Lake. We went out on the paddle boat and Raschad did some stand up paddling in a canoe. It's really pretty out there, there's about 7 miles of shoreline. Pete took us for a ride on his speed boat. Was a real nice day and the sun was out but the water is still a little too cold for swimming.

June 15
Joe & I went to the Anchorage Market and Festival today. It's in downtown Anchorage and very similar to our flea market at the stadium. Lots of crafts, food, and touristy stuff. I thought it was going to be a farmers market with a lot of produce. I guess I'll keep looking. Then we went to Walmart to look at bicycles again. We're debating whether to get bikes or not. We talked about getting bikes for our RV trips before and here in Alaska, there's a lot of nice bike trails all over.

Leave comments

Aloha friends & family.....we changed the settings so it's easier to leave comments. No more signing in. Here's what you do...

1.  When you pull up our blog, on the right side of the screen, under Blog Archive, click on one of the titles.
2.  At the bottom, in the comment box, enter your comments. Don't forget to enter your name so we know who's making the comment.
3.   Under the comment box, click on the arrow next to "select profile".
4.   Click on anonymous, click on publish.

So easy. You can check out how it will look, I did a sample. Click on May, Grande Prairie and scroll to the bottom.

Dawson Creek to Tok, Alaska

During the last week we traveled from Dawson Creek to Tok, Alaska. Here's how it went......

May 31   Grande Prairie to Dawson Creek     89 miles     2hrs 

We drove to Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada today. This is where the Alaska highway begins, also referred to as "Mile 0". The drive was nice, only took 2 hours. The temperature was about 70 when we pulled in and will probably drop to the low 40's tonight. We're staying at the Mile 0 RV Campground.

Joe cooking dinner

June 1     Dawson Creek to Sikanni River     155 miles    4hrs 15mins 

Joe taking a much deserved break

Before we left Dawson Creek this morning, we had to stop at a bakery for cinnamon rolls. We've been hearing about all the  ono cinnamon rolls along the Alaska highway, so we had to go find some. Well the ones that we bought was so junk...what a waste of money. There has to be some good ones up the road somewhere. When we got to the Sikanni River Campground we filled gas. $1.56 per liter, that come out to $5.94 per gallon. So for half tank it cost us $201. Wow!!! We knew gas was going to be expensive in Canada, but this is kind of ridiculous. Can't wait to get to Alaska.

 June 2     Sikanni River to Liard Hot Springs    311 miles     9hrs 

 Today was a real long day of driving but we covered a lot of ground. We left pretty early and saw a lot of wildlife today. We stopped at Testa RV Park for cinnamon rolls. Was $5 each but looked real good. Oozing with lots of cinnamon and butter. We're dry camping at Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park. $21 but it includes swimming in the hot springs. There was a boardwalk about 1/4 mile long over some swampy areas to get to the hot springs. The springs are really nice set in natural surroundings. We ended up talking to a lot of people all headed towards Alaska. Shared some stories and picked up a lot of tips.

Not sure what kind of sheep this is

Boardwalk to the springs

June 3     Liard Hot Springs to Watson Lake     129 miles     2hrs 45mins
We saw some wildlife again this morning. Lot's of buffalo and a few black bears. There was this herd of buffalo with some calves playing right alongside the road, I caught it on video.

The big attraction at Watson Lake is the famous Sign Post Forest. It was started by a US Army soldier in 1942 who was working on the construction of the Alaska highway. Travelers are still adding signs to the collection which is more than 72,000 signs.

June 4     Watson Lake to Whitehorse     264 miles     6hrs 30mins 

We drove into Whitehorse today, it's the capital of the Yukon Territory. Was another long day of driving. We pulled into the Pioneer RV Park right outside of town. It's kind of nice, it cost $31, but like the last park, it's just a gravel lot and they park us right next to each other. When we arrived, the Kia was dead. The people at the park had to help us jump the car. So after we got the car going, we had to find NAPA to buy some jumper cables, $104 another unexpected expense. We went on the SS Klondike for a self guided tour. At midnight it was still light outside, kind of weird.

June 5     Whitehorse - Kluane Lake     150 miles     3hrs 50mins
No wildlife on the road today. We traveled only 150  miles but it took us a long time because the road wasn't that good. We checked in at the Cottonwood RV Park and got a spot right on the lake. Really, really nice park with only electric hook up and only 15 amp so need to watch what we run. We paid $35 and they told us they don't have trash bins so we need to take our rubbish with us. What a rip-off, I guess we're paying for the view.

Looks like we're on the water

We paid for the view

June 6     Kluane Lake - Tok, Alaska     238 miles     7hrs 30mins
We left early this morning for our long drive to Tok. We're kind of anxious to be back on American soil. About 1 mile into our trip this morning, we saw a grizzly, right on the side of the road.

Then later on, Joe saw a moose but didn't stop so I couldn't get a picture. The road was real bad in certain areas. This section from Kluane Lake to the border was the worst so far on the Alaskan highway. We put gas in Tok, $4.29 per gallon. Less than Canada, thank goodness. We're so happy to finally reach Alaska.

This is the international boundary marker