Finally, ALASKA!

[Derek44]

Finally off the river!! It’s bittersweet, especially after the final day. 29.0 miles in 7 hours and 59 minutes according to OnX. Felt great to be on dry land, but felt sad to know that it was over. We took a couple fun photos of our only trophies from the trip to send out to some friends with no words to see what kind of reactions we’d get. A very close, old time friend of mine was the only one to respond with “I don’t see any paddles on those antlers.” Well yep… she was correct haha.


Left the takeout and continued on in a direction away from our actual destination. Not enough fuel to make the round trip so just had to continue on to the next town to fill up and head back. Those that know me, know I’m in the trucking industry so fuel prices are always on my radar and one of my biggest complaints but nothing could prepare me for what I was about to witness. “$7.50” per gallon for regular low grade unleaded. Couldn’t believe my eyes. Oh well, this place appears to have a cafe and even though it’s pushing 11pm, it looks to be open. Card reader on the pump is broken, so we have to go in anyway, and we are kind of tired and hungry and ready for anything besides Mtn. House and PEAK. Walk in and there is about a half dozen workers sitting down to eat, look around trying to find someone to accept money for fuel, and realize just how socially awkward we are, which is amplified by being away from any form of society for the last 10 days. We opt out of dinner and decide to head back towards Fairbanks.
Got to spend our fair share of time in construction as we seemed to hit each stop at the worst time. Well I guess at least we were always first in line


Made it back, checked into a room, and I’m pretty sure took the best shower I’ve had in my life. Did some research, and found a highly recommended restaurant in town and we were craving some real food and some good whiskey. Pump house it is!! A touch spendy, but well well worth it. Great service and exceptional food.


Booked my flight home. Went straight to the first class tickets. Once you fly that way once, you’ll never not go first class. So much more comfortable. As seems to be the normal up north, weather had my flight delayed about an hour and a half. No PF Changs in this airport, but Locals it is. It was a pretty busy place with the delayed flights too


Enjoyed a great Tillamook burger on the flight, landed, and had to seek out my cookie bus. This is where the social awkwardness really set in. This place is a zoo and I’m definitely ready to crawl back in my hermit hole and return to the remoteness of AK. Haha


Definitely an amazing trip for the books. Good times with my best friend. Can’t thank Erik enough for having faith and patience in me in the planning portions of this adventure. Thanks for keeping on giving me the push to go. We are already making plans to do this again, along with our home state and Rocky Mountain hunting.

Till next time Alaska. Cheers

 

[Don Fischer]

you drove the alcan, crossed at beaver creek? also did you drive through the cassiare highway beautiful ( Two years ago when i drove it in december. and never saw a highway painted line from smithers until the end of april in fairbanks and it was 35 below on the trip.
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Have made the trip several times. Up on the Alcan and back down the Cassiar. cassiar is or at least was more remote at one time. First time down on it, kt was a dirt road. When you get north of the Yukon a way's you should see a place on the left sheep Mountain! Building has, or had, mounts for telescopes on the deck. Saw a lot of sheep there back up on the mountain. Saw a lot of them down near the road also. If I was rich I'd spend summers in Alaska and winters in Montana!

 

[Don Fischer]

Forgot to ask, Is Toad creek store still open in the Yukon? They used to have a bunch of wolf hides for sale there. It got it's name by the first people to cross it. They had to tow their vehicles so named it Toad Creek!

 

[BrowningCitori]

Thanks for sharing, and all the great photos.

 

[chrisenglish01]

Been hunting with @Derek44 since we were kids, but started hunting with him again in 2019 and since 2020 we decided to get serious about expanding our efforts beyond Washington to explore the Rocky Mountain states. We also set our sights on Alaska, and this year it finally came together with a moose float hunt.

Of course we both ended up on fire assignments through the end of summer leading up to our trip, which made prepping a little more complicated, including deciding that I would drive the Alcan alone and he would fly and meet me up there.

He spent a couple years in logging camps around Afognak Island, but this would be my first and long anticipated trip to AK. I replaced my tires, gave my truck some TLC and packed up to head out on the long journey.

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I was surprised at how many towns and services there were in the southern BC portion of the drive the first day, until I got to Hwy 37 the second day, that's when the drive gets truly remote.

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Fuel is far and few between, and there's no shoulder and few pull outs so broken down vehicles get parked in the lane, and wrecked vehicles lay in the ditch for days. Saw at least 4 totaled vehicles in the ditch, some wheels still in the air, and several parked in the road.

As I got to the worst of it and my navigation told me only 18 more hours, a sense of anxiety set in, realizing how far out I was and not knowing the road to come. The first rule I developed was fill up at half tank, which quickly evolved into if there's gas fill up. Wished I'd have remembered a spare can.

As I pulled in to fill up around the middle of Hwy 37, I heard a clacking noise coming from the rear of the truck. Looked underneath hoping for something obvious, but didn't notice anything unusual. Pulling out didn't hear it, but once rolling it started coming back. It would stop if I accelerated or breaked but otherwise seemed to be getting worse.

Now I started to get really worried, could be days to get anything fixed out here. I pressed on hoping i could at least make the next town and try again to diagnose. Then it started to feel like it was dog tracking, something very wrong, feels like a wheel is coming off! Could they have forgotten to torque it down? Luckily there was a pull out right there, hopped out and sure enough the rear driver wheel was damn near off the hub, 1 lug nut already gone and broke the stud, the other nuts about to fly.

Adrenaline and a sense of relief rushed through me, another 100 yards probably would have been utter disaster. Jacked it up and got it torqued down with 5 of 6 lugs, holy shit that was close!

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Pressed on and made it to the Yukon, favorite part of the drive. Hit the Alcan border around midnight the second day. Alaska greeted me with some northern lights for the drive.

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Had to sleep a couple hours when I hit 25 hours driving, then made it to the motel to meet Derek. He got upgraded to first class for his flight and was lounging around waiting for me. I'll let @Derek44 update with his travel pics/story.

incredible!!