June is Camping Time in Alaska

Alaska Vacations in June

One of the best months to visit Alaska, if you like both warmer and sunnier days, is the entire month of June. Across the state and all the way from Ketchikan to Barrow the joy that June brings is a time of celebration as the long cold Alaskan winter is finally being erased from out recent memories. 

Camping season is in full swing and this is very evident on Fridays and Sundays when you have to be on the roads in the Matsu Valley or on the Kenai Peninsula. The population of Anchorage rapidly begins to disperse to both of these locations as the close to the work week spells long distance drives in the search for fish or fun. It always amazes me just how far people will drive for a weekends camping trip here in Alaska. Stateside the idea of driving 500 to 600 miles just for a weekend would be considered ludicrous; foolish, unreasonable, or just totally ridiculous. But here in Alaska it's considered the normal by all too many Anchorites. While the mass exodus is ensuing, we tend to steer clear of the main highways and avoid all the overly anxious drivers speeding and passing like they still have nine lives left to live. 

Optional Ways To Visit Alaska

While a lot of folks drive their RV's up the Alaska Highway many others will fly into Anchorage and rent an RV for their Alaska vacations. When time is limited this option is always an excellent one as you can maximize your time in Alaska and renting an RV in Alaska is a great money saver too. Not only do those flying into Alaska benefit from the Alaska RV rentals but a growing number of those arriving on the one-way Alaska cruises between Vancouver Canada and Seward or Whittier AK are also turning to RV rentals for their adventures in the Last Frontier. Renting that RV allows you to plan your vacation as you see it rather than seeing the Alaska that someone else has decided is for you. We personally like the on your own versions of Alaska vacations just to slow the pace down and allow us to just wing it once in awhile when the time warrants a little deviation from the original plan. 

Families touring Alaska can save lots of money by renting an RV while in Alaska. Many of today's RV's sleep 6 comfortably and when adding the slide-outs on the RV you have loads of room when camping for the night too. Factoring in the onboard TV and VCR also is a plus when traveling with young kids too. While not all rentals offer an on-board satellite TV, most all of the RV parks offer either cable or satellite hook-ups for their patrons. 

Just a Snow Storm Away

Holding back as the next round of white flakes completes it's journey to the roads between us and Alaska, we are holding for a break in the weather when we will roll through British Columbia in route to the colder and dryer weather in the Yukon and Alaska. Weather predictions are for snow in northern B.C. for the weekend and into the first few days of the week. These snows can be supper slippery in the mountain passes when the temperatures are at or just below freezing.
Our Chevy Silverado is equipped with a set of 285/70/17 Cooper ST Maxx tires that have proven themselves quite capable in winter driving conditions. We tried both the ST Maxx and the Cooper AT3 but have preferred the ST Maxx when the going gets severe or the snow gets deep. The choice of snow tires is limited by vehicle but these have been pretty good in past experiences on the full sized Silverado.
Once again we will keep you apprised on our journey to Drive to Alaska during the dead winter month of December and on the wrath of darkness as the winter solstice approaches at the end of the month.

Driving North To Alaska for Christmas 2012

Holly Cow we're doing it again. Thought we were free of the cold temperatures for awhile but it wasn't meant to be. Uncle Sam can't seem to find the amended copy of our tax returns so we're headed back up to send them a new copy and will spend Christmas with family while there.

Driving the Alaska Highway in the winter typically isn't as bad as it sounds. The road crews have the potholes filled in and they are absolutely incredible at keeping the roads clear and safe for drivers. We will be driving the new Chevy Silverado so even if the weather does go sour it would be no problem for such a capable truck. It will be the trucks fourth trip over the Alcan in just over a year. Two in the winters and two in the summer.

Really had planned on heading to the Caribbean for the winter but somethings are just not meant to be. Had set up a trip with Carnival to visit the Southern Caribbean and then an Eastern Caribbean shot two weeks later but later changed our plans and booked with Disney Cruises. Tomorrow when we have the dates set for the Alaska trip I am going to have to reschedule these trips to a date in most likely mid February. We'll keep you up on the when and where as the days pass.

Back to the Alaska Trip. We will be leaving Spokane Washington some time after the Eastern Washington Eagles next home playoff game. The Eagles have really been playing good football so it would be a shame not to make it to this home field playoff game. Shortly after that we will head for the Canadian Border and British Columbia. We will pick up the Trans Canada Highway 1 and shoot over to 97 than head north for Prince George. At that point the weather will dictate if it will be on to Dawson Creek or west for the Cassiar. Both have their advantages but hopefully the weather will be good and we can utilize the Cassiar and bypass all the oil fields and construction traffic of the first part of the Alaska Highway.

Got caught in the muck of the construction and commercial traffic once already and it wasn't fun. Semi tractor-trailer rigs doing over 100 miles per hour and passing in precarious situations. It was about a thousand miles of white knuckle driving every time we approached an oncoming rig. We were not along as other drivers, mainly tourists in RV's, were complaining at every stop. So if we can go around most of this shale oil and natural gas construction were game for the challenge; Cassiar Highway it will be.

Well back to packing and getting the motor home ready for the storage yard. Still need to schedule the winterizing so it will be ready to go when I return in the spring. That's about it for now. Stop back over Christmas break and see how the trip goes.

Cooper AT3 Tires

Well, our time in Alaska is about to come to an end. Already the days are getting noticeably shorter and the temperatures are cooler then we care for these days. Tomorrow we plan to pull out and begin our southerly migration to the warmer climates of Miami and then it's off to Saint Thomas and Saint Maarten with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. But before this can happen we still need to drive 3300 miles to Eastern Washington University to drop our eldest son off at college and then a round about trip through the southwest and across Route 66 before arriving in Miami sometime around January 2012.

Our ride will once again be the 2011 Chevy Silverado running the 285/70/17 Cooper AT3 tires and the test will be the grueling Alaska Highway and the Cassiar Highway through Alaska, the Yukon and Northern British Columbia. We will be pulling our new just completed polished aluminum diamond plate trailer so maintaining a steady speed and obeying the posted speed limits should be no problem.

We built a custom trailer to haul the Honda CRF450 back to College.

So far we are extremely happy with the new Cooper Discoverer AT3 Tires mounted on our new Chevy Silverado 1500. Be sure to check back as we update our trip and recount the Drive to Alaska and back in 2011. Well, back to packing as we hope to leave sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Driving to Alaska in 2011

We just completed another journey up the famous Alaska Highway after picking up our new Chevy Silverado 1500 in Kellogg Idaho. Again I wonder, where are all the people? Beginning in Dawson Creek, BC, the lack of motorhome traffic heading to Alaska was very evident.

In Dawson Creek, the RV parks were very busy but the folks staying there were mainly gas field workers along with some travelers in rental motorhomes driving the scenic loop that exits the Alaska Highway outside of Watson Lake and heads south on the Cassiar Highway and back to the beautiful Yellowhead Highway.

But as for all those travelers heading to Alaska for the summer, well, their just wasn't any. We met a total of two other vehicles headed to Alaska for vacatiion during our 3200 mile drive this spring. We started our journey in Northern Idaho on June 15, 2011 and landed in Kenai on June 18, 2011. This should have been the peak of the Northern Trek when the highways were crawling with RV's polking there way along as travelers were in awe with the beauty of this drive.

Roadside Rest Area with tables along Upper Arrow Lake in British Columbia.

Helmcken Falls in Wells Gray Park is a must stop if you find yourself northbound on Canadian Highway 5, The Southern Yellowhead Highway.

Additional Photos from the drive can be view on Twitpic.

Where Are All The People?

If solitude is what you were hoping to find, this is the summer to be in Alaska. We just returned from an Alaskan Cruise via Holland America and expected to see the bumper to bumper traffic that is the normal on a Sunday afternoon drive along the Seward Highway. Well it was more like a quiet drive through the back country some 30 years ago as there were no and I do repeat no motorhomes on the roads and traffic was so sparse you had to wonder if the Peninsula was under quarantine  Where are all the people? Locals, visitors, business people... Where have they all gone?
Moose Pass and Cooper Landing were vacant of people, Sterling was all asleep and the sidewalks had been rolled up at 6 pm, Soldotna was more like a ghost town then the major destination of sportsmen from around the globe.. Where are all the people?

Campgrounds completely empty, lodges without clients, gas stations without lines, this is far worse then anything the tourism folks from the borough were telling us to prepare for. If this is a sample of the summer to come, the woes of the lower 48 recession are about to find the Kenai in a big way.

Alaska Highway

The Alaska Highway may be the ticket to visiting Alaska in 2009. Gas prices have fallen to acceptable prices, the US Canadian Dollar exchange rate is back to to a favorable pre-recession level and there is an expected low number of Americans traveling the Alaska Highway in their motorhomes this summer.

What should this mean to you, well, if you're one of the ones that decides to drive to Alaska in 2009 you should find plenty of the best campgrounds and many of the top attractions available on a drive up and check in basis this summer. When the RV traffic is high, there is often a need to make reservation if there accepted or to stop early if you hope to find many campsites open. Reservations at many of the Good Sam Club member sites can be made through their website and should be done at least one day in advance. We always carry a laptop as most private campgrounds have wifi available as do many of the public libraries along the way.

Driving the 2,300 miles of the Alaska Highway is always an adventure but don't let the stories of the past scare you from experiencing this fantastic journey. The highway is kept in excellent shape compared to any far northern highway. Yes, there is still the occational whoopty-doo, pot hole and in some areas of construction, a short patch of gravel road but it's a far cry from the old military road it once was. On any stretch of the highway you are likely to see sports cars, RV's, trailers, motorcycles and bicycles all experiencing the same adventure, The Alaska Highway.

2009 Alaska Tourist Season Looking Bleak

What's happening with the summer 2009 tourist season? If the news about the poor Alaska salmon fishing season forecast coupled with the rash of canceled reservations from visitors wasn't enough, now we have the cruise industry pulling some of their cruise ships from the Alaskan market this summer and many other Alaska cruises that would have visited Seward from Holland America are being rerouted through Kodiak, Homer, and Anchorage in 2010. The disturbing side of this comes in the fact that these Seward cruise ship visits either begin or terminate at this port bringing tens of thousands of tourists to Alaska each year that go on to visit other areas of the state. The new routes have round trip schedules returning to Seattle with their passengers and eliminating the massive shore based tourism markets in favor of short dockings of mere hours in these new ports. The changes in the Alaska cruise industry are a direct result of the "challenging" economic climate put forth to the cruise industry by the Alaskan government. Citing an increase to the already high port fees, the new Alaskan cruise tax of $50 per passenger and tax on corporate earnings and gambling revenues as factors for effecting 73 sailings by five cruise lines starting in 2009 and 2010 with the possibility that even deeper cuts could come in 2011, OUCH.

Possibility the hardest part of this dilemma with the cruise industry is the fact it was self inflicted. Yes, a direct result of the the 2007 Alaska Cruise Ship Initiative, Ballot Measure 2, voted on by, yes you got it, Alaskans, the cruise industry can no longer fill all the vessels with the new pricing that reflects the additional taxes.

And now, if this above combined with a very week economy wasn't enough, Mount Redoubt is again rumbling, spitting and spewing it's threats of even more spectacular eruptions in the next few days. Alaskans are preparing for another round of flight delays at the Anchorage Airport as well as our small municipal airports here on the Kenai. We were caught and stranded for days in the turmoil of the last group of canceled flights, rebookings, and more canceled flights while trying to get our son back to college in Seattle in January. He finally arrived three days late, and missing the first two days of his spring semester.

For travelers arriving or departing Alaska on the airlines this summer, this translates into some great uncertainty about itineraries, schedule dates, deposits and just getting back home in time for work. Not a good scenario to plan a relaxing vacation around by anyone's standards. We feel sorry for those calling to cancel their vacations after loosing their jobs. And we also feel for those effected by this corrupted society of business CEO's and government officials looking to profit at the expenses of a country in peril. But our thoughts and prayers also are extended to the small business owners like ourselves that are becoming worried about what the future holds and how we are going to keep the lights burning in the near future.