Alaska

In 2011 we flew to Alaska and hired a “small” camper from “Go North”. Here's a piccy or two.

Arrived a day late as got stuck in Detroit

Stayed in the Long House Hotel.

Picked up camper from Go North - a modest little F350 with a 6.8 litre V10

We then drove 240miles to Denali National Park, staying at Riley Creek Campground.

From Riley Creek Campground we took the shuttle bus to the Eielson visitor centre - a 4.5 hour round-trip through the scenery, you pretty much stay on the bus & look out at the scenery although the bus does stop at certain points to pick up or drop off hikers.

We were lucky enough to be able to see Mount McKinley / Denali - supposedly you've got about 70% chance of it being covered with cloud - as well as spotting mountain goats and a family of grizzly bears.

The back of a mountain goat's head.

In the morning we went to the Denali Kennels to see their sled dogs and see a demonstration:

We also went for a little walk in Denali where we encountered some very curious marmots:

Then we hit the road heading for Fairbanks, 125 miles up the road, stopping at Silver Gulch Brewery for an evening meal and boondocking it in their car park overnight.

We set off for a 400 mile round-trip up the dirt road that becomes the infamous Ice Road (of Ice Road Truckers fame) to get up to the arctic circle:

We ended up back in Fairbanks, stopping to get provisions at the Fred Mayer and then stopping for the night at River's Edge campground, which was full of HUGE camers, our neighbour was a very nice Canadian chap with a Volvo and a tiny (by comparison) Eriba caravan - looking round at the huge buses and 5th wheel rigs he said “Talk about conspicuous consumption, eh?”.

310 miles - we had to stop at North Pole even though it's not at the north pole, it IS home to a giant plastic Santa Claus and obligatory tacky gift shop as well as some slightly forlorn looking reindeer in pens out the back.

Unfortunately we've totally forgotten where we stayed in Chitina.

60 miles including a fair bit of dirt road, ending at Glacier View campground, a very basic camp next to the glacial river and home to one of the most rickety composting toilets ever - we were very glad we had toilet & shower in the camper!

Moose - as the prophecy foretold!

I can still smell this picture - I think the flies were holding it together!

McCarthy being the old mining town inside Wrangell St. Elias National Park where we were camped, and Kenecott being the abandoned copper mine a short trek from McCarthy - everybody got that? Good!

Kenecott was home of one of the richest copper mines that has ever existed, with ore so pure it barely needed refining - but when the copper ran out in 1938 they pretty much turned the lights off and reversed the train out taking the tracks up behind them, leaving the buildings and all the equipment behind exactly as it was.

The place was so rich that the mine hospital (below) was home to the first X-Ray machine in America

We walked across the footbridge and up the track to Kenecott where we joined a half-day glacier hike with a local guide, hiking across the Root glacier:

With that done, we then joined the tour of the abandoned mine buildings - mostly still standing as they are incredibly heavily built, the main one takes advantage of the hillside - ore drops in at the top level from the cable-carts and passes through the crushing machinery etc. until it falls out of the bottom straight into waiting train cars.

Fred Dibnah would approve of this sort of thing.

We set off early to hike up to the Jumbo mine on the Bonanza Ridge - a 10 mile round trip climbing 3,400ft loosely following the route of the old cable hoists that carried ore (and workers!) from the mines down to the mill buildings.

The route is strewn with old mining equipment that no-one could be bothered to drag back down the mountain - frankly it's incredible to think about how they got it all up there in the first place in the early 1900s.

If you were a prospector, this would be the cause of much rejoicing.

Much of the copper that came out of the mine was so pure they did nothing to it other than tip it straight into the train - apparently these days if you find deposits that contain a few percent copper it's considered good news, this was often 70% pure.

Those timbers would not be out of place on a galleon - it's all massive.

These towers are where the cable-bucket thing changed direction on its way down the mountain, workers using it to save walking up/down the mountain had to remember to duck for this. You only forgot once.

314 Miles, with a stop at Glacier View rest stop to get a view of a glacier, natch.

The glacier in question is Matanuska Glacier on the Matanuska river.

These three were doing it in style:

Damn traffic!

It is an glacier!

Another moose! Or possibly the same moose, we didn't get his licence plate.

Zoom and enhance!

Once again, history does not record where we stayed in or around Anchorage.

127 3.15 Millers Landing

Crow Creek Gold Mine

Millers Landing

127 3.15 Ship Creek Landing

Historic Anchorage Hotel