Greetings from Yukon Territory,
Well, it had to happen eventually. "I don't think we're in Alaska any
more, Toto". But we were. And we just couldn't resist staying for one
more day.
July 5th: We blew out of Fairbanks heading south and west on route 2,
passed Tok and hung a left at Tetlin Junction, turning up the Taylor
Highway, soon back on gravel again. About 85 miles up we took a short
break at Chicken, famous by way of the World Wide Web, but not much to
look at when you get there. Give it an A for character though, with a
Salmon bake, a liqueur store, a bar, and a cafe, all within a 100 foot
strip mall layout, and the horse and mule in the parking lot were
functional. The two-day-a-week post office was around the corner, and
the mountains especially cozy.
Another fifteen miles up the road we couldn't resist one more diversion,
so we took another left to continue up the Taylor highway to Eagle. This
was definitely a side trip worth taking. The road was likely the most
interesting 65 miles of the trip, continuously winding its' way through
the mountains and valleys with lots of hills and switchbacks, definitely
a driver's road, putting the MGA through its' paces. Here we can really
appreciate the new tie rod ends and the fresh top off of oil in the
shocks. The road is just a bit rougher and dustier than your average
gravel road, but such a hoot to drive. Running this way between 10 pm
and midnight, we do the entire distance without seeing another vehicle.
The midnight sun here is a bit dimmer than we've become accustomed to,
being more than 100 miles from the arctic circle.
Eagle has a reported population of 140, could be right, didn't bother to
count. At least it's several square blocks in size, and with three gas
stations there seemed to be a gas war going on, not that it did much for
the prices. We spent a half hour cruising the water front on the Yukon
River, partly to visit "the village", the older part of town consisting
of several cabins, some occupied, some abandoned. Then we had to drive
past (or through) the airport to get to the campground. Nice tent
camping here, some grass and lots of trees, the motor homes being
somewhat discouraged by the general lack of modern facilities and no pull
through sites.
July 6th: Packed, gassed up, and ready to roll, we spent a little time
at the cafe chatting with the locals before hitting the road. The dusty
drive out from Eagle was every bit as enjoyable as the trip in. Less
than two hours later, back at Jack Wade Junction, we hung another left to
continue on through the long awaited and much anticipated Top Of The
World Highway. It lives up to its name in that it runs generally along
the tops of mountain ridges for much of the distance. Other than that,
it was a slight disappointment in that it was not nearly as bad a road as
many people had been making it out to be. We couldn't tell where it was
washed out a few weeks ago, and all in all it was slightly better than
the average of the unpaved roads up here. Just 14 miles from Jack Wade
Junction we waved goodbye to Alaska and passed through the Canadian
border check station. It was immediately obvious that we were back in
Canada again, as the road surface was so much better than in Alaska.
About ten miles into Yukon Territory we found an interesting side road
heading dramatically up hill into the mountains, solid gravel, fairly
wide and passable, couldn't resist. One mile up hill, mostly in first
gear, stepping gingerly over a few minor washouts, we found ourselves
high up overlooking the main highway. Then after another mile down hill
the road turned into a pair of dirt tracks in tall grass running along
side of the highway with no way to get across the ditch. Being finally
stopped by a substantial drop off into oblivion, we had to reverse course
and backtrack. This was obviously an older part of the highway that had
been abandoned. Farther along the way we found several other such road
diversions, none of which constitute a suitable shortcut, but many would
make for good four wheeling.
With the nice Canadian road surface (still dusty) we zipped right through
to Dawson city where we caught the free ferry across the Yukon river.
After a short lunch break in Dawson we started making some serious miles
down route 2. A little south of Stewart Crossing we finally had a close
encounter of the third kind (almost) with a nice plump black bear. Some
pickup truck went flying by in the opposite direction doing about 80 mph,
and just over the next hill we found the bear in the road -- go figure.
I think we got a few nice pictures this time, won't mention what kind of
"stupid" things I did to get the pic's, can't wait for one hour photo.
Evening of July 6th, we camped in Minto, about 30 miles shy of Carmacks.
Nice commercial campground, again on the Yukon river, grass and trees,
free firewood, everything going good, until ........ In the morning we
did the laundry. I don't care how you cut it, two washing machines,
power shut down from 10 pm until 7 am, does not constitute laundry
facilities for the entire campground. And the dryers took $1.75 CN for
1/2 hour (twice) and took forever to dry the clothes. What a rip, and a
nasty waste of time.
Today (July 7) we are going to run the Robert Campbell Highway from
Carmacks through Faro, Ross River and Tuchitua, and on to Watson Lake,
something like 360 miles total, about 100 miles paved, the rest gravel.
We are bound and determined to make at least this distance and to get
onto the Cassiar Highway and into British Columbia before stopping for
the day. It's beginning to look like quite a haul to get us to Denver in
four or five more days.
We're outta here,
Barney and Carol
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