Aug 4, 2012 - To Grizzly Lake, Near Slana

8-4 To Grizzly Lake, Near Slana 48 Degrees, Cloudy, But No Rain Staying At Grizzly Lake Campground We had a nice drive this morning, moving north to drive the northern road of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park later this afternoon. The mountains to our right were out of the clouds, and we had good views of what we didn’t see yesterday in the park. Mt Sanford is the largest peak, and it was majestic and snow-covered. Many of the mountains were covered with a fresh dusting of white powder. We usually pick our campgrounds the night before,...

Aug 3, 2012 - Into Wrangell-St. Elias

8-3 Into Wrangell-St. Elias 9 AM- 10:30 PM Gloomy, Drizzly, 49 Degrees, Later, Sunny! Today we spent the day driving into the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and it was a full day! From our campground we drove 25 miles on the paved Edgerton Highway until it met the McCarthy Road, and drove the entire 62 mile length of the gravel road. The first thing we saw was what looked like funny bison. They were actually Yak from Tibet, and were being raised on a farm there as an alternative for beef. They are suited for a cold climate and do well...

Aug 2, 2012 - Valdez To Kenny Lake

8-2 Valdez To Kenny Lake 49 Degrees and Raining, 88 miles Stayed At Kenny Lake Mercantile We had a short trip up the Richardson Highway this morning to our next stop at Kenny Lake. It is just a place to stay for our visit to Wrangle-St. Elias National Park. The park is our largest national park, larger than Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island combined. It is a wilderness area with little road access, only one road each in 2 different areas of the park. There are four major mountain ranges in the park, 75 named and even more unnamed...

Jul 8, 2012 - Kenny Lake RV Park-McCarthy Rd

Kenny Lake RV Park. Awoke to bright sunshine – don’t know how long it had been up. Started off on our adventure to town of McCarthy. Along the way we saw a Tibetan Yak Farm. Got some good pictures. We were going to stop on the way back for a tour but it was about 8:00 whnet we went back by. Saw a mama moose and her 2 babies crossing the road. Had to slow down to let them go by. Then we hit the “the road”. What a drive!! It was 60 miles of potholes – some of them as big as craters. Much rougher than the Dempster Highway. It was built over an...

Jul 7, 2012 - Kenny Lake (Wrangell-St.Elias Natl Park)

Kenny Lake Mercantile and RV Park. Small campground with 10 electric only sites. Quite level. The usual gravel site. Drove back over Thompson Pass. Good thing I got a couple pictures the other day. Today it was totally fogged in - really bad visibility. Rained from the time we packed up until we gain up again here. Then it quit. We did get to see some of the waterfalls before and after the pass. There are tons of waterfalls cascading down the mountains. Drove out to the town of Chitina where the McCarthy Road starts and talked to the...

Jun 26, 2012 - draw a yellow line & call it a road

You read a lot of scary things about driving in Alaska and for the most part they are exaggerations and/or ancient history. But today we ran into a stretch of road repairs that left us coated in mud and shaken and stirred. It was so long we had to wait twenty minutes for the pilot car to lead us through the goo. But goo can be washed off and if you take these stretches slowly, the equipment comes through just fine - so far. We stopped at the visitor center for Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the largest national park in North America and...

Aug 10, 2011 - Kenny Lake, AK - Heading Back North

(Ron Writing) We awoke to the sound of fog horns this morning; it was so foggy we couldn’t see the bay right behind our campsite. We decided we’d had enough of this cold damp cloudy weather so after breakfast we packed up and left the Allison Point Campground. We drove around the bay to the town of Valdez to get gas, propane, water, and groceries and also to do our laundry. By the time we finished our chores, the fog was gone and the there was some blue sky overhead. This was turning out to be the best weather we’ve seen in our 8 days in...

Jul 25, 2011 - Visit to Kennecott Copper Mill

Monday: A shuttle van picked us up at the RV park for a tour to the Kennecott Copper Mill and town located in the Wrangle - St. Elias National Park. Wrangle - St. Elias is the U.S.' largest National Park, 13 million acres. We went back to Chitina on good roads, then on about 60 miles on dirt and graveled roads with lots of ruts and bumps! It took us about 3 hours to get to the footbridge below the little town of McCarthy. After we walked the footbridge, another shuttle picked us up and drove us through McCarthy and then on for 5 miles more...

Jul 24, 2011 - Leaving Valdez

Sunday: Today when we left Valdez, it was quite cloudy which turned into light sprinkles on the road. We drove to Kenny Lake RV "Resort". After setting up we went into Chitina which is next to the Copper River. Copper River is where the best salmon comes from. It is the only truely wild salmon. We drove over the bridge of the river and saw where the locals have their fish wheels to catch the salmon. There were about 25 fish wheels. Only locals can use the wheels and only for their own personal use…they cannot sell the fish. We came back to...

Jul 22, 2011 - Kenny Lake and Valdez AK

July 20, 21, 22, 2011 – Kenny Lake, AK Kenny Lake Lodge and RV Park 7/20 – Our trip today from Tok to Kenny Lake started with another beautiful drive viewing the snow on the distant peaks. The two major mountain peaks in this range of mountains are Mt. Sanford with the rounded dome and Mt. Drum which has a more pointed top. Mt. Sanford and Mt. Drum are located in the Wrangell-St Elias NP. On our way to Kenny Lake we stopped at the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park visitor’s center. Wrangell-St. Elias NP is our largest National Park. It...

Jul 21, 2011 - Kenny Lake, AK

Before leaving Tok, there are two items of interest that I wanted to pass on. When we were coming into Tok, we passed a sign for a US Coast Guard Loran C installation. Long Range Aid to Navigation (Loran C) was a system for determining your position at sea by coded radio waves. We used it on missile submarines in the 60’s and 70’s but it has been replaced by GPS and other means of navigation. I went to Loran C receiver school at Sperry Corp in Long Island in 1961. I asked about it and was told that the USCG had wanted to deactivate it long...

Jun 28, 2011 - Kenny Lake

After visiting all (3) the Fabulous Gift shops in Tok we headed south towards Copper Center the heart of the copper mining area of Alaska. We found a camp ground at Kenny Lake and will use this as our base for travel to McCarthy and the Historic Kennecott Copper Mines. We did see our first Alaska Moose feeding in a pond.