Walker Fork BLM Campground Chicken, Alaska
Mileage: 46,693
It wasn’t raining when we got up this morning!! It was a short ride today to the BLM Campground. We started out riding on a ledge along the mountainside with sheer vertical drops on the passenger side. Initially the road was fairly dry and not as slippery as it was when we went to scope it out yesterday.
This is a dirt and gravel road with an 8% grade, blind corners, hairpin turns, 100-foot drop-offs, with no guardrails, and an unusable soft shoulder. Tim is driving a 22,000-pound RV pulling a Jeep…this required his full attention. Whee!!!
We got to a really muddy and slick part.
There were lots of active gold camps on the way as well as public recreational gold panning areas.
It was a relief to leave the RV at the campground and continue this day’s adventure in the Jeep.
We took the Taylor Highway all the way to Eagle. We were on the north most road that links the US and Canada. This is a scenic wilderness road in a very remote part of Alaska. We passed maybe 10 cars as we traveled today.
The views were jaw dropping and breathtaking! I took lots and lots of pictures even though the whole while I knew that no pictures would be adequate. The road meandered beside rivers and across creeks hugging the steep slopes.
This is caribou country. We saw fresh caribou tracks in the mud every time we got out of the Jeep to take pictures. Even itty-bitty baby caribou tracks! This is a hillside covered in lichen…caribou food.
We also saw moose tracks mixed in. I caught a glimpse of moose cow and calf traipsing through the thick brush.
In 64 miles, we reached the town of Eagle. We went first to get fuel. The gas station owner was at the pumps and he pumped our gas, chatting the whole time. He was from northern Pennsylvania and came to live here 44 years ago. Back then, he finished putting the roof on his garage on Christmas Eve when it was -30 degrees. He shared his political views and the woes of being a small business owner, which we fully understood. He told us that all the caribou have left the area. Last week there were thousands on the slopes but they have all moved on. This is today’s old truck. The gas station guy owns it now and he told us that this truck has a story. The last owner thought he was a woodsman. He kept taking chances and risks and one day he froze to death. This place is seriously harsh.
Eagle sits on the Yukon River. Most of the visitors to this town come from the river and not the road. This is a popular stop for paddlers or floaters on their way to Circle.
Fish wheel.
Our next stop was the general store for a cold drink. The woman there wanted to know if we saw any caribou. She told us that the caribou come and go and we still might see something out there.
We went to the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve Visitor Center. The ranger there wanted to know what critters we had seen. Just the evening before she had seen a black bear, a group of 7 caribou and a bull moose.
The ranger set us up to watch a video of the spring breakup. The Yukon River freezes solid in the winter here. The townspeople actually use the river as a highway. They use dog sleds and snow machines to get from one town to the next. The road is actually closed from sometime in September or October until May. When the river ice finally starts to melt and break apart, it is cause for celebration. It means that spring is on the way. In May of 2009 a group of people from Eagle were at the riverside watching as the ice started to move. One guy filmed it. The ice begins to crack and move downriver. Everyone is laughing and cheering. As time passes, great chunks of ice start to lift up and stack up on one another. You can hear people saying that they have never seen the river ice pile up that way. That winter had been extremely cold with several weeks in a row of -60 temperatures. There was almost no snow to insulate things. The river ice was very thick. The spring came quickly with higher than usual temperatures and the ice thawed more quickly than normal. This caused enormous sections of ice to heave up and dam the river. Eagle sits on a bend in the river exacerbating the problem. The ice jam caused first flooding in the town and then then ice rammed into houses and businesses knocking several buildings off their foundations. The old native village was completely destroyed. The village was relocated that spring out of the floodplain. Watching the video, you could tell that the people felt completely helpless. They could only watch and wait and begin again. No one was hurt, though several people had to be rescued from their rooftops. In this isolated and remote place these are very resilient people.
As we headed back to the campground, we had a renewed hope that we might see caribou out there…and we did!! There was a group of 4 running parallel to the road. They heard us coming and hightailed it out of there. Here is a very lame attempt at a picture…but no matter…I got to see them!
Dinner tonight was grilled Polish elk sausage from Delta Meats.
Today was our last day of exploring in Alaska. We are sad to leave this remarkable place. We did not take the flightseeing tours to see bears. We never got to see the salmon spawning. We didn’t paddle the mighty Yukon. We didn’t ride with a sled dog team or soak in hot springs. What we DID do was try to see the raw, remote wilderness that is the “real” Alaska. We have taken most every side trip in an effort to experience all the different facets of this beautiful frontier. From fishing villages to copper mines to glaciers and all that is in between…we have loved being here. We are already worried that all future trips might pale in comparison. We need to remember that every place has its own beauty and we need to look for and appreciate where we are each and every day. Our desire is not to be tourists but travelers. We also want to learn as much as we can about where we are and how people live. Call us gypsies or vagabonds…we are having fun doing this!!!
We are leaving Alaska tomorrow but we are far from the end of our journey. Canada here we come!