On the road.....: Alaska

Thursday, September 18, 2014

My Final Alaska Post- Numbers, Thoughts, and Highlights (09-14-14)

From the time we entered Canada in June, till we arrived back in the lower 48 in September, we traveled over 8000 miles- almost as much as driving from Boston to L.A., back to Boston, and then back to L.A. again. Wow, that’s a lot of driving.

We didn't try to conserve mileage so if we wanted to drive someplace, we did. In fact, we drove down Denali Highway twice. We spent an average of $1162 a month for fuel-almost double our $672 monthly average over the last 3 years. I didn't track how much we paid per gallon, but I know that it ranged from $4.17 to $6.52 a gallon.

We spent a total of 95 nights on our “Alaska Trip”, staying in 63 different campsites. 22 of those nights cost us nothing, and 44 nights were without hook up of any type. Many of the nights that we did pay for were inexpensive, unless we were in a major town, with fewer options. Our average nightly campground cost was $20.09, which is $8 a night less than our average over the last 3 years.

Enough numbers.

Here’s what we thought were our best investments for this trip:

The truck camper itself, as discussed in my previous post was the key to this trip. The sway bar for the truck was a crucial part of making the ride safe and comfortable.

The Milepost Book was invaluable, literally listing mile by mile what we would find along all the major roads, including scenic pull outs where we could spend the night.

Our waterproof low profile hiking boots were our “go-to” foot wear. They were comfortable and we didn’t have to worry about the inevitable rain. The rain suits we bought were key as well.

Inexpensive, but this covered ice cube tray worked out great- with our small freezer, it would have been impossible to buy bags of ice, and it was easy to just make a tray every day or so. Since it was covered, I could stack other things on top of it.

The new, good quality binoculars we bought along the way made a huge difference, not just when wildlife viewing, but the quality stood out every time we used them.

Here’s what was different from what we expected:

The bugs were no where near as bad as we expected them to be. Other than the “night from hell” when we had dozens of mosquitoes in the camper, there were only a handful of times that they bothered us.

We expected to get better fuel economy with the camper. We did slightly better than when we are towing, but not as good as we would have liked.

23 hours of daylight didn't bother us at all. We had no problems sleeping and enjoyed being able to do things after dinner and still have daylight. There were several times when we ate dinner at 10 pm though, because we had no idea how late it was!

Inevitably there will be disappointments. Here’s what disappointed us:

The weather. I know I have been whining about the rain all summer, but seriously people, we had record rainfall everywhere we went.

There were times when we hiked for hours in full raingear.

Hiking was another thing. We thought we would be overwhelmed with hiking choices and that wasn't the case at all.

The wildlife was somewhat of a disappointment. Not the quality of what we saw, but the quantity. We thought there would be more wildlife in Alaska. We saw few bears and were just expecting more. That being said, wildlife was also one of the Highlights of our trip:

Eagles, flying through the air….

…and swimming through the water!

Both grizzly bears and black bears…

the ever the reclusive moose…..

the unusual Musk Ox, and the caribou….

fox, and the incredible sight of humpback whales using the cooperative method of bubble net feeding.

and even though technically we didn’t see the Orcas on our “Alaska Trip”, I am counting them.

Our favorite outings:

Sawyer Glacier at Tracy Arm Fjord and The Arctic Ocean at Deadhorse, the northern most town accessible by road in Alaska both had “wow” factors, for very different reasons.