Alaska: Reflections from the Road

People call Alaska “The Last Frontier” and boy, they are not kidding. Everything from the locals to the wildlife in Alaska are rugged and wild. Our Alaskan summer is officially over and now that we’ve had time to reflect on everything that happened we thought we would do a review post for y’all. We’ve had several people ask about tips or how we planned our Alaskan summer so we sat down and tried to put it all down for you in a somewhat organized manner.

 Before we even started to officially plan the Alaska portion of our RV trip, we knew we wanted to spend at least two months in Alaska and we really wanted to see the Northern Lights while we were there. We had read that the best time to travel to Alaska is between Memorial Day and Labor Day…so that gave us a time frame of June, July, and August. Since we wanted to try and see the Northern Lights we went with July and August…since it has to be dark to see the Northern Lights and summers in Alaska are known to be very…not dark. Once we had our time set, I started planning what exactly we wanted to do while in Alaska. What did we want to see, experience, do? The list was long. Really long. So, I had to narrow it down to the essentials and from there we had our areas within Alaska we would be staying. Most people do the Alaska Loop going from Fairbanks to Denali, Anchorage, Valdez, then up to Tok to head home. We, being the weirdos we are, did it in reverse. Our thinking was that if we saved Fairbanks for last which would be in August, we would have a better chance of seeing those elusive Northern Lights.

Our next step was to get The Milepost. If you only take one piece of advice from us, this needs to be it…get The Milepost! The Milepost was invaluable.
This is what our Milepost looks like. They come out with a new, updated one every year. So, what is The Milepost? Well, it takes the roads to Alaska and in Alaska and breaks it all down for you mile by mile. It tells you what the road conditions were like the last time they were there, any services available, and even goes so far as to educate you along the way about different interesting aspects of the route. I could find pull-offs beforehand and know whether or not it was double-ended, if it had a bathroom, and which side of the road it would be on. I suggest you get The Milepost in advance so you can go through and familiarize yourself with the way it’s laid out. I highlighted throughout mine and then sticky tabbed each drive so I could easily flip right to it. I found most of our RV parks from the Milepost. Speaking of RV parks…make sure you reserve. Seriously. There were so many times we would pull in and the spot we’d reserved was the only spot empty and there were people dry camping in the parking lot hoping for a spot to open. We’d never seen so many RVs in our lives! It really was insane how crowded most parks were. So plan ahead and reserve your spots!!

What I wish I’d known as I was planning is that the speed limit throughout Alaska is usually 55 mph and the distance between cities is often insanely long. We could quite literally drive for hours and not see another person. Alaska has twelve main highways, numbered 1-12. Most streets seemed to be named after mountains or animals…and presidents…with a lot of roads name Hidden this or Lost that. Quite a few parts of Alaska are only reachable via boat or plane, so when you’re planning your Alaskan vacation make sure to pay attention to whether or not there’s an actual road to your destination. Since we’re on the subject of roads…let me dish the dirt on the roads in Alaska. There are some very nice highways and then there are the towns where the main road is paved, but all of the side roads are dirt.

Road construction is a given in Alaska.

Expect it.

Accept it.

And be grateful to those willing to do it. The road crews in Alaska have a horrible time trying to keep up with the destruction the hard winters and permafrost due to the roads. It’s just one of those things. Keep your eyes peeled for frost heaves. They’re very cleverly hidden sometimes…or maybe we were just too busy looking at the amazing scenery or wildlife…whatever the reason, sometimes you’re going to miss seeing the frost heaves until you’re going over them. It can be scary. If they’re grouped just right, they’ll throw you in the air and by the time your back wheels get to the first one you’re bouncing and flailing pretty badly. You know how on a trampoline you can double bounce someone? It’s kind of like that. You get to bouncing along and the back end of the RV is double bouncing the front end. There are some experiments going on trying to help prevent frost heaves. I really hope they pan out.
There are many roads that aren’t paved. The road crew grades them, so what you’re left with is miles of washboards, potholes, and mud because they come through and water the roads. It makes for very slow going, but just slow down and take your time…you’ve made all of your RV park reservations, right?

This was something we saw quite a bit of. Wait for the pace-car…and wait we did…sometimes 20 or more minutes.

Bicyclers were another big road irritation. There were loads of these guys just willy-nilly on the roads. They were usually so laden down with gear they could barely pedal down the strait road in front of them let alone the huge hill coming up. And if the shoulder (when there was one) was unfit for a bike, well, they’d just stay in the lane. I don’t get the bikers. They really were a thorn in my side. Alaska is a wild place filled with animals and plants that want to eat you. Humans aren’t really on the top of the food chain there. I don’t understand why someone would willingly choose to put their lives in danger by biking across Alaska.

Are all roads in Alaska crap? No, not at all. They’re not stellar, you’re going to run into frost heaves, pot holes, and washboards. Just be aware. In the photo above, you can see the road was nicely paved, but there was an accident. People forget to watch where they’re going because the wild beauty of Alaska really is like throwing a squirrel in front of a group of dogs…it’s a huge distraction. And slow down…we heard horror stories of bolts being sheared right off and the insides of RVs breaking apart…I can only imagine it was because those drivers didn’t slow down.

We drove a LOT. Above is a map of exactly where we went in the RV, from the time we crossed into Canada in June, to when we crossed back into the Lower 48 in August.  That’s over 5,620 miles in the RV!! This data is taken directly from our GPS unit, and shows all the gritty details. You can find a few places where we had to double back or re-route due to the GPS giving us questionable directions.

The weather in Alaska is a complicated topic. People want to know how to pack, right? Well, it really depends on where and when in Alaska you’re going. At night when we would watch the local weather man (I’m pretty sure all of the news and weather comes out of Anchorage), he would give the weather for all of Alaska. There would be reports of snow in the north to 70s in the south with everything in between. For us, we had to plan for it all. I can only talk about the one summer we spent there. We were told it was a dry hot summer and we didn’t mind at all. Usually, summer is the rainy season for most of Alaska, but we only experienced a handful of rainy days. We heard other travelers complain about being trapped inside for a week in Valdez because of the rain, but when we were there it was sunny and beautiful. Just the luck of the draw? Maybe. While we were in Alaska, we experienced everything from mid 70s during the day to low 40s at night. The best solution to this is layering. When you’re planning your Alaskan trip make sure there are some things you can do indoors on days that it’s rainy. We would save things like museums for those days.

Alaska is also known as “the land of the midnight sun”. We were in Alaska for two months and in that time, we never once had a completely dark night. It would get to about dusk and then the sun would rise again. The photo above was taken about at 10:30 pm. There are easy, cheap things you can do to make sure that you have a dark interior so you can sleep. We bought some blackout material at a fabric store, cut it to the size we needed and then using the 3M adhesive we were able to cover what we needed.

One of my biggest worries was being stuck in Alaska because of snow. If you’ve followed our blog along at all, you’ve seen the umpteen different photos of fireweed that I’ve posted. I might be a tad bit obsessed with it. Well, not only is fireweed pretty, the locals use it to let them know when winter is coming. No lie! And you know what? It totally works! In the photo above you can see fireweed. Notice it blooms from the bottom up.

Here’s a better picture. You can see that there are blooms on the bottom and still buds at the top.

As the season goes along, the fireweed blooms move up. When the last blooms fall off of the stem, you have about six weeks left of summer.

When the fireweed goes to seed…it’s time to get the heck out of Dodge! We had planned on staying two weeks in Fairbanks. It was our last stop before heading back down to the lower 48, but almost overnight the weather turned cold and we noticed that all of the fireweed had gone to seed.

Winter was coming.

We ended up leaving a week early and you know what? The week we would have been leaving…it snowed! Alaska had snow that whole week and it was even down into parts of Canada. No. Thank. You. Driving those mountains and roads on snow and ice…that’ll be a great big nope.

We get asked a lot what our favorites are so we made a few summary lists for you. I’m a lister…it’s what I do.

Animals Seen In The Wild:
Puffin, jelly fish, Dall porpoise, harbor seals, humpback whale.
Orca whale, fin whale, Dall sheep, caribou, grizzly bear, black bear, wolf.
Chipmunk, salmon, sea lion, Bald Eagle, moose, elk, ptarmigan.

Top Five Experiences:
Denali National Park bus ride
Kenai Fjords day cruise
Worthington Glacier
Gold Dredge No.8
Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center

Damage Report:
A flat on the trailer
A chip in the front window
Our smoker was totally destroyed

Places We Want To Go Back To:
Valdez
Denali
Palmer

Expenses. Alaska is not cheap. Everything there, and I do mean everything, is at least triple the cost you’re used to paying down here in the lower 48. Produce in most places is pretty horrible, which is weird considering the fact that Alaska grows some monster veggies. One of the biggest expenses for us during our visit was the price of the RV parks. They were extremely high compared to what we pay in the lower 48. In some cases, it was as much as two to three hundred dollars more for one week. But when you want to stay in that city…

Let’s talk about border crossings. We crossed the US/Canadian border six times on this trip. We were so nervous that they were going to have to search us (even though we had nothing to hide) or take our stockpiled food, but that just wasn’t our experience. We had no troubles at all. We found the Border Guards to be efficient and very professional. My advice…don’t try to take something across that you’re not supposed to. Don’t hide something…these guys have seen it all and know all of the hiding spots. On two crossings we had to drive through some kind of sensor. We could never get them to tell us what it was, but I’m guessing they were looking for hidden passengers.

We had the best summer. There are places we would go back to and places we wouldn’t. Now, having said that, I would do the entire trip again if it was my first time. There are just some places you only need to see once. Yes, Alaska is gorgeous. It is, for us, the Postcard State because we couldn’t find a bad view. We were surprised by how Hawaiian it felt in parts of Alaska…huge mountains with waterfalls all over the place…lush and green. Would we do anything differently? Maybe. I’d try to stay longer so we could have taken our time and enjoyed some of the other cities that we could only drive through. I would definitely have taken into consideration how long it takes to drive anywhere…maybe broken up the distances a little. If y’all decide to make the Ultimate Roadtrip and head up to “the final frontier” make sure you have a plan A and a plan B and then make a plan C. But most of all, slow down and be in the moment.

See y’all down the road!