While heading out of Whitehorse we came closer to the Elias Mountain Range, the highest mountain range in North America and the second highest coastal mountains in the world. I count this day as one of the most amazing on the trip as far as the beauty of landscape. The Alaska Highway follows the mountains for over 400 km, always keeping distance to the huge mountains as trying to show its respect and without ever making the attempt to cross them or find a way through. To the right, frozen rivers and lakes came in and out of side, home to herds of caribous that we spotted along the way.
We found a nice rest area with a great view on the mountains and the Kluane River where we spend the night.
You might not think this is funny, at all, but we laughed our heads off...I suppose these things happen when you spend a week in the wild without any other form of entertainment around.
-30 Day, March 17, 2011 - 390 km
We finally hit the border to Alaska. My concerns of being harrassed by the officers again- as it happened the two times before - proofed to be needless. In fact, the officers were surprisingly friendly and entertaining, asked us a couple questions about the purpose of our visit to the U.S. and finally let us pass.
Alaska, here we come!
We came to the little town of Tok, the first settlement after crossing the border where we were disappointed by the "high" prices on gas (4.19$/gallon)...who would have thought of that, in a state sitting on a huge amount of oil! Tok also has been the town where we decided to leave the Alaska Highway.
It actually continues to Delta Junction, close to Fairbanks in Interior Alaska but we checked the road conditions to Fairbanks. Due to the mild temperatures the snow started to melt but would freeze through the evenings again which made the roads really dangerous at that time. So we decided to take the route to Anchorage first, right at the coast in order to wait for better road conditions.
With still mild temperatures of around -5°C, we found a neat spot to sleep along the highway.By that time we were so used to lower temperatures than that which made us sleep in underwear and t-shirts.
Damn mistake!
The sky cleared up throughout the night and all the cold air settled to the ground, dropping the temperatures to -30°C within hours. We literally froze our butts off that night and had a tough time getting up the next morning. This definitely has been the coldest night we experienced so far.
The Walmart Lie Day, March 18, 2011 - 592 km
In best weather conditions we drove further south passing by Mt. Sanford and Mt. Drum, both covered in thick layers of snow that didn't even show a piece of rock - white giants.
We finally got a couchsurfing host, Kelvin, who agreed to host us for two nights some days after our arrival in town.
So we were trying to find a place to sleep which is damn difficult in a city like Anchorage. I heard a lot of people saying that camping/overnight parking on Walmart parking lots is allowed and pretty convenient. Anchorage Walmarts are probably the only ones putting on signs that explicitly warned not to use the parking lot for camping, otherwise all vehicles would be towed. I am pretty sure that this is the case with almost all other store locations in the country - ergo: the a.m. statement is definitely a lie!
After spending half of the evening searching for another good spot, we decided to drive into an RV park. Fortunately, we found one that was still open but without someone around to pay for the night.
Happy as we were, we fell asleep just to be woken up by the RV ranchers who friendly told us that the park is closed for camping in winter and open for day-use only. However they also suggested to spend the night right in front of the gates of the park where we should not be bothered by anyone.
And another lie: In the middle of the night, a police officer woke us up and told us that camping is absolutely prohibited. We explained the situation to him and then something weird happened. He demanded to get our names and dates of birth to check and - at least this was our suggestion - to write a ticket for us. When he heard we were Germans however, he got back to the police car and headed off without returning that night.
He left us puzzled but glad and we got our rest that night, at last.
Ocean Walk Day, March 19, 2011 - 174 km
Since we had a couple days until we could stay at our host's place in Anchorage, we decided to drive down to Kenai paninsula for the weekend. Alaskans I met in Canada suggested to visit the town of Homer for seafood and the great view that the town is supposed to provide.
The highway leads along the coast following an arm of the Cook Inlet that narrows more and more the longer you drive on the highway. The water at the coast was still frozen and icy so that we actually could walk on the ocean at that point.
21 Pieces Day, March 20, 2011 - 384 km
After we left the Kenai Range towards Homer, the landscape, for the first time being in Alaska, became kind of boring. Flat land with farms and small towns, some moose occasionally crossed our way and we spotted more and more bald eagles as we came closer to the coast again.
10 km before we reached Homer we came on top of a hill and were blown away by the scenery that suddenly opened up before us without a warning: high-up mountains, a coast line that bend around the neat town of Homer to the foot of the mountains and the rough ocean (the weather changed dramatically that day).
We were driving through town and reached the Spit, a small strip of land in the sea, where all the fishing boats come in to unload the catch. That was exactly the spot where we decided to have seafood. Fresh Alaskan salmon with Parmesan, actually the best salmon I have ever had, and loads of deep fried cod (we ended up eating 21 pieces of it).
After that we drove to town trying to get into the Pratt Museum. It was almost closing when we arrived, so they let us in without paying and we rushed through the exhibits of Alaskan history and nature before leaving the town again.
And again we chose the same spot we spend the night before to sleep under a star covered sky.
Chill-out Days, March 21-22, 2011 - 50 km
We came back into Anchorage and even within these two days the mild temperatures caused a lot of melting of snow, walking on the ocean was not possible any longer.
Kelvin, our couchsurfing host, has been really hospitable and amazed us with his huge collection of movies - the number of DVDs should be around 1,000 by now, he told me!!!
Guess what we did while being in Anchorage these two days?!
Besides walking through downtown there is not much to do in town. There are some really interesting museums about the native history of Alaska that I was quite interested to visit. Unfortunately, most of them were closed.
We said goodbye to Klevin, not knowing that we were going to see him again pretty soon.
Spring Day, March 23, 2011 - 219 km
Spring was completely arriving in Alaska the coming days: day-time temperatures were around 10 to 15°C and only -10°C overnight. This was exactly the reason why we decided to drive to Fairbanks in the Interior Alaska.
Since we couldn't move our butts off the couch while watching some more movies, we only got half way close to Denali NP.
The question that I asked this lady at the gas station if we could spend the night on the parking lot behind the house, came so surprisingly for her that she agreed before even noticing what she was saying.
"Magic Bus" Day, March 24, 2011 - 361 km
This day has been pretty exciting for me because it was the day that we would be driving through Denali National Park which is important in two ways at the same time: it is the place where Christopher McCandless decided to "live off the land", where he found the "magic bus" and where he finally died of starvation; secondly it is also where Mount McKinley is situated, with an elevation of almost 6,200 km the highest mountain in North America.
As far as the bus, we already read blogs and other information on the net saying that it is a pretty tough hike of around 50 km round-trip and is best to be done in winter because a hiker could easily walk over the ice of the river. On the other hand, winter in the Interior Alaska means hiking and most of all sleeping at temperatures around -30 to -40 °C. Obviously we decided against it; nevertheless, it has been an interesting feeling to be that close to this particular spot.
In the late afternoon we arrived at a rest area with a great view over the vast valley below and the mountains in the distance.
After we had dinner, an old guy on a bike approached us and we started chatting a bit (it turned out that his German was pretty good).
Right after he left, two police cars drove onto the rest area and Richard and me were sure they would tell us that over-night parking and camping was not allowed and send us away. Instead, they asked us for our passports, about our travel plans and finally asked us about a white van with three black guys in it that they were looking for (that was when we also spotted the helicopter in the air).
We denied seeing them and tried to get to sleep, even though the fact that three criminals were on the run didn't really help to calm us down.
Nice Lady Day, March 25, 2011 - 120 km
In the morning while still being on the rest area, Richard told me about the nightly visit we apparently had: Someone stopped his car right next to ours in the middle of the night, knocked on the roof of our camper calling for us and finally went away; additionally, some animal surrounded our van at night but Richard couldn't figure out what it was. He tried to wake me up while these occasions took place but was able to do it. :D
Without being harmed by both animals and humans, we came into Fairbanks, checked out the town (we found out about the International Ice Sculpture Championship that was going on at that time) and really needed a laundry and a kitchen to wash our clothes (this being the first time on that trip) and to precook pasta and pancakes (you can see: our culinary menu was pretty diversified).
That's why we made it to the next hostel to ask for these things.
We ended up meeting the owner of a Bed and Breakfast Hostel who immediately allowed us to use the laundry and the kitchen for as long as we would like to. She only asked for 7 bucks!!! Sweet little lady.
In the evening we drove back to that same spot because it was still close to town and we could sleep there undisturbed - well, kind of, haha!!
We decided to visit the ice sculpture championship the next day. We also got a message from a couchsurfer in Anchorage who agreed on letting us stay. We thought spending some more days in Anchorage would be quite relaxing. We should soon enough find out that this was in deed the case - but in a different way than anticipated.
We ended the day with a badminton match on ice.
The Ice Question Day, March 26, 2011 - 160 km
As planned, we went to the ice sculpture championship which was amazing. Some of the artwork is made out of one ice block only. Sometimes we were wondering, if some of the sculptures were actually made out of glass instead of ice. But let the pictures tell you more.
Bad Couchsurfer Day, March 27, 2011 - 560 km
When we hit Anchorage in the afternoon after a long drive through Denali NP, we still had no answer by that couchsurfer. In order to do the final check, we decided to get back to Kelvin's place to use his internet access.
He welcomed us and - after finding out that we had no answer and with that no place to stay - he offered us right away to stay again for a few days.
And that was how the marathon of movie watching went on.
While watching we talked about food in Alaska and I mentioned that we were really stoked on eating moose meat as we heard it's supposed to be very lean. "Hey, you know what?! I still have some moose meat in the freezer! Why not make it for dinner tomorrow?!".
And that was exactly what we were doing. We had moose steak with mashed potatoes and veggies.
Chill-out Days vol. 2, March 28/29, 2011 - 20 km
Besides watching DVDs, eating moose and relax we actually didn't do anything. I went to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art one day just to find out that it is closed Mondays.
On March 29 we decided it was time for the way back to the Yukon. We planned on staying in Whitehorse with the option of applying for jobs. But this will be part of my next update.
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