With the joy of our stay in Bonavista fresh in our hearts, the realization that our ferry reservations would take us away from Newfoundland in just a few days meant we needed to head toward the ferry dock in Argentia. We wanted to arrive there a few days early to take care of a few road necessities like long hot showers, laundry, cleaning the waste tanks, washing the rig, paying bills, updating the blog, why not another round of long hot showers, yadayada. We’d just head on over and maybe see a few sights along the way. We even agreed to a no photo rule, so we wouldn’t have to spend time sorting and processing – just do the drive and take it all in as it came. Yeah right…
Our good friends Patti and Milo, whom we first met years ago out on the ski hill, are also RVer’s with a sense of adventure and a penchant for hiking and biking. Over dinner one night at the end of the ski season, we mentioned that we were thinking of exploring places closer to home in our RV this summer, and that, ironically, we’d never spent a night in our RV in Vermont except in our own driveway. That conversation evolved into a plan for a meet up for the four of us at Elmore State Park, just a bit north of where we all live in the Mad River Valley.
Well it’s been about a week and a half since I dropped Sue off at the airport in Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, there is much to keep her busy down in Florida and it doesn’t look like she’ll be able to rejoin me on the road. The upshot is that I’m gaining a fuller appreciation for the things she takes care of while we’re traveling, which include route planning and navigation as well as all or most of the food planning and preparation, among many other things. The astute reader may well ask, “Wait, then what’s left for you to do?”, to which I simply walk away in a huff.
With a week or two left for exploring before we need to start heading toward Vermont, we decided to spend some of it on Vancouver Island. We got passage on the MV Coastal Renaissance, one of the largest double-ended ferries in the world and radically different from the 6- to 10-vehicle river ferries we boarded while in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The height of our camper required that we board the truck deck – 6 lanes wide and seemingly a mile long, filled with trucks and other RVs. On an absolutely gorgeous day, we spent the 2-hour trip on the immense upper deck, trekking back and forth and all around as we took in the sights. From the departure dock at Horseshoe Bay, we could look back on the Sea to Sky Highway hanging off the mountain, splotchy with low clouds. Islands in all directions looked like mountains popping out of the ocean, many dotted with small communities along the shores. We looked back on the city of Vancouver, beautifully situated on the ocean, as more mountains came into sight on the horizon – Vancouver Island.
We debarked in Nanaimo, a pretty city on the east shore of the island. Without a plan, we headed north toward the most remote part of the island. Little did we know, the moon was soon to enter the seventh house, and Jupiter would align with Mars, and we were about to get a unique Vancouver Island experience…
D’oh! No, not that Homer – Homer, AK. It’s a small town in a stunning location at the road’s end on the west side of the Kenai Peninsula. It’s situated where the Kachemak Bay empties into Cook Inlet, feeling cozy and protected by the Kenai Mountains interspersed with glaciers to the south and east, and the Alaska Range with its four towering volcanoes to the west. A key geological feature of the town is the Homer Spit, a terminal moraine left by the glacier that filled and carved out the Kachemak Bay 15,000 years ago. The Spit is a long, narrow, natural gravel bar that sticks out 4.5 miles into bay, now dotted with campsites and shops and people fishing.
Welcome to Anchor Point – looking at Mount Redoubt across the water (and look at the tide…)
Après Salmonfest, we needed a chill day. Nonstop music and activity, rock-star hours – we were tired! After the last day of the festival, we decided to drive a whole 20 minutes south from Ninilchik to Anchor Point. This town boasts a campground at the beach and, significantly, the beach is the westernmost point in North America that you can drive to via highway. Cool!
Chugach State Park is the third largest State Park in the country. It features 6000-foot peaks within sight of sea level. And it’s right outside Anchorage, where the population is 300,000 fortunate souls. Although there are access points to hiking trails and other recreation opportunities all around the park perimeter, including within the Anchorage city limits, there are three main access areas to explore – Eklutna Lake, Eagle River and Girdwood and we’d been given suggestions for great hikes in all three.
We made some good decisions, and we were lucky. What remained for us to explore in Alaska was the the Kenai Peninsula and Chugach Mountains south and east of Anchorage and a small area north of there that includes Denali State Park. The forecast for north of Anchorage was slightly better, so we headed that way.
Denali National Park protects the wilderness area around Denali, at 20,308 feet, the tallest mountain in North America. The smaller Denali State Park is just south of the National Park. There are three major attractions within the State Park – the Parks Highway with strategically situated view points, campgrounds and trailheads, the wide, braided, glacial Chulitna River, and the 37-mile long, open K’esugi Ridge – boasting views of Denali* from all three.
*But only on rare, clear days. We had two of them!
The Bald Mountain Ridge, Government Peak, Matanuska Glacier in the distance from Hatcher Peak
Have you ever heard of Hatcher Pass? Neither had we. It’s the old (and only) mining road in the Talkeetna Mountains which are between the bigger and more well-known Alaska Range to the north and the Chugach Range to the south. It’s become a secret backcountry recreation area for outdoor enthusiasts of all kinds. Helen and Mike and Nick and JS thought we’d love it. Reason enough to head that way.
Driving north from Dawson Creek, the scenery quickly transforms from agricultural to boreal forest. The Highway ribbons through the forest in what appears to be the path of least resistance (as it likely is – they built it in a hurry…) until reaching Fort Nelson. Except for Fort St John (pop 21,500) and Fort Nelson (pop 3,500), there are few stops. Most are service stops (fuel, food, post office, maybe a motel and/or RV park) like Pink Mountain (pop 8), pull-outs with historical info, or dirt side roads heading to gas and oil camps. Oh, and lots and lots of animals – bears, moose, caribou, stone sheep (like big horn sheep only smaller and darker), and elk – everywhere.
