Jul 8, 2009 - Chicken, AK and Top of the World Highway, AK & Yukon

Upon leaving Valdez we made a B-line North on the Richardson Hwy, back to the Alaskan Hwy at Delta Junction, then headed West toward Tok, AK. We stopping 40 miles short and camped at Bear Creek roadside, traveling 350 miles. The few pictures that we took coming out of Valdez are in that folder. The haze you see in the pictures (past and present) is mainly smoke from forest fires. The next day we got into Tok (the only town in AK the you must go through coming and going) we fueled up, got provisions, dumped, ate some great pancakes at Fast...

Jul 1, 2009 - Conquering Top of the World Highway and Gold Mining in Chicken, Alaska

Day 50 108.0 miles today (Top of the World Highway); 5516.8 total this trip. July 1, 2009 I feel vindicated and relieved. Susan and I have been having a running discussion on whether it was wise to take our 45 foot motorcoach on this Alaska trip. The main bugaboo was concern over whether our coach was too unwieldy to take to the varied & older parks we would be required to park it. Also concerns about the amount of damage & abuse this large very expensive coach would be subjected to on the Top of the World Highway, the Alcan and other dirt...

Jun 29, 2009 - Chicken, Alaska

Chicken, Alaska – June 29-30, 2009 We left the RV Park in Dawson City around 9:30 to get in line for the ferry crossing the Yukon River. This ferry is operated by the Yukon government free of charge. Most of our group was going to leave between 6:00 and 8:00 so we thought it would be better to leave later to avoid the rush. Big mistake. We were 14th in line at 9:45 and didn’t get our turn until 1:30. The ferry could only carry between one and two RV’s depending on the size and two or three cars so it took a long time. After finally getting...

Jun 23, 2009 - Chicken, Alaska!

It was a fantastic drive along Top of the World Highway today after ferrying across the river from Dawson. The road goes along the top of a mountain range and you feel as if you're on the top of the world looking out on mountains all around you. There is no way to take pictures to see this, but we tried. The road is dirt, but not bad. Then we hit the border (any firearms? any produce? have a good trip - the friendliest agent yet) and, oh my gosh, the road was the pits!!! I was going between 10 and 20 just about all the way to Chicken....

Jun 21, 2009 - Top of the World

It rained softly all night and our forecast for the next few days is chance of showers, so we knew that we might have some issues with today’s travels, a chance that road to Alaska would be slick with mud, and our vistas would be clouded over. Susan wanted to hold back for a while for the skies to clear for better photography. We headed over to the Ferry to line up. They were just shoving off with a couple of small RV's on them. When it came back with passengers from the other side, the man flagged the pick up truck next to us to come on...

Jun 16, 2009 - Alaska!!!!!!! We Made It!!!!!!!

Miles Today: 105 Day: 47 Total Miles: 4813 cost was about $4.13/gal. Expensive, but the cheapest in town. Dawson City sits on the banks of the Yukon River. The only way to get to Alaska from here is to cross the Yukon River on the Ferry. This ferry runs 24/7 and is free. We lined all 4 motorhomes up and waited our turn to get on. They could only take one of us at a time, plus a couple of cars, so it took them 4 trips to get all 4 of us. We all finally got to the other side at about 10:15 am. Really faster than we had expected. Of the 105...

Jun 13, 2009 - Chicken, Alaska

Chicken Alaska is a little mining town, it has three buildings, a bar, a café and a small store. There are also two campgrounds and not much else. The population in the summer is around 50 people and during the winter it drops to 15. In the winter the roads leading to the town are not plowed so the town closes down from September to April. Total isolation for the few people who stay. Chicken got its name during the gold rush, the miners wanted to name the town Ptarmigan which is the name of a local bird that they survived on, but they...

Jun 11, 2009 - Beaver Creek, Yukon to Chicken, Alaska

Today we made it to Chicken, Alaska a tiny gold mining community. Beautiful downtown Chicken, Population 21 in Summer, 6 in Winter, daylight hours in Summer is 20, in Winter there are about 5 or 6. Elevation 1640. Chicken is remote, 67 miles out in the boondocks with no electricity except what they generate themselves , water is hauled in from Tok 80 miles away, sewer is an outhouse out back, no phones and no cell phone coverage. They advertise WIFI, we were able to receive 1 email while there, the Mail is picked up and delivered twice a...

Jun 2, 2009 - S.S. Keno Tour & Top of the World Highway Drive

Tuesday, June 2, 2009. Chicken Gold Camp and Outpost S.S. Keno & Top of the World Highway Jonathan and I did our best to help Tom get things around the RV packed up this morning then headed out on a bike ride into town. He had been wanting to do that and there's a bike trail that leads from the entrance of the campground right to the walking path along the river so we headed out around 11:30. We had bought a ticket for Jonathan for all the things we wanted to see but there must have been a misunderstanding because not one person asked...

Sep 4, 2008 - Northern Lights in Tok!

. Good morning everyone, We will be on our way to CHICKEN, AK, after a breakfast at the Grumpy Grizz here in Tok. I'm not sure we will have WiFi there, so please check back often for our next update...probably from Dawson City in the Yukon Territory. I was up early this morning and briefly saw a spectacular sight, the northern lights. They looked like a waving sheet of bright green rainfall in the forest. AWESOME! Have a great day! Update: As of 12:30 PM Alaska Time we arrived in Chicken and have minimal WiFi until the camp shuts down the...

Aug 24, 2008 - Chicken

Saturday morning, August 23rd, we went sight seeing along the Taylor Highway to Chicken and then about 30 miles further toward Eagle, to the point where the road to Dawson City on the Yukon branches off to the East. It was cloudy when we left Tok but became partly cloudy as we traveled north. The junction of the Taylor Highway with the Alaska Highway is 12 miles east of Tok. This area was blanketed with smoke from a nearby forest fire when we entered Alaska in June of 2004. The fire was located about 3 miles north of the junction. The fire...

Aug 8, 2008 - Chicken, Alaska

August 8, 2008, Friday Chicken is very remote and completely closes down in the winter. The Taylor Highway that takes you to Chicken is not maintained during the winter, but is used by people who like snowmobiling. The hwy is first plowed in April. Like lots of little towns in Alaska, Chicken was created because of the gold rush. People still do gold mining and panning there. The original settlers, gold-miners, couldn’t spell Ptarmigan (now the State Bird). They wanted to call the town Ptarmigan, because the plentiful local birds filled...