Sunday, July 25, 2010.

We left Anchorage this morning headed on the Alaska Highway towards Tok, Alaska and then on to Dawson Creek, British Columbia where the Alaska Highway ends. It was raining as we drove out. But by the time we were an hour away on the Glenn Highway the rain stopped and 2 hours out of Anchorage there was some blue sky.
We are driving to Tok from a different direction than we did when we came here; so it's going to be new territory to see from the Matanuska Glacier on to Tok. And this time there won't be any forest fires because they have had plenty of rain. Apparently, the summers in Alaska are their rainy seasons. Most of the towns after Matanuska Glacier all have native Alaskan names: Eklutna, Chickaloon, Little Nelchina, Talsona, Lake Mendeltna, Gakona. Then there are some towns with English names: Palmer, Copper River, Glenallen, Lake Louise. The road has gotten really rough with frost heaves and everything shakes when you drive over it. Of course you can't do the regular speed limit because you can't control the coach. We passed Sheep Mountain with Dall Sheep and many Caribou Crossing signs. We've seen deer and caribou and sheep. At Gunsight Mountain the elevation is 6441 feet and the mountain has an actual notch in it to place a gigantic rifle! Therefore the name.
We can see the Wrangell Mountains and the Mount St. Elias off to our right. On 11/3/2002 at 1:12 PM they had a 7.9 earthquake, which was the strongest ever on the Denali Fault. The Denali Fault runs from southeast Alaska through Canada, then back into Alaska into Denali State Park. It actually cuts Denali State Park in half. The Wrangell Mountains have Mount Sanford which is snow covered and has an elevation of 16,237 feet. It is a dormant volcano. Mount Jarvis has an elevation of 13,421 feet, Tanada Peak has an elevation of 9,240 and Noyes Mount has an elevation of 8,147 feet. Mount ST. Elias has an elevation of 18,029 feet which is the second tallest mountain in the US. Mount Blackburn has an elevation of 16,390 feet, Mount Wrangell has an elevation of14,163 feet, Mount Drum has an elevation of 12,010 feet and Mount Kimball has an elevation of 10,300 feet. These are all extremely high mountains and they basically have no roads going through them. That's why it is impossible to reach Juneau and the Inside Passage by road.
The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is the largest in the US at 13.2 million acres with 9.7 million acres of it being wilderness formed by the Wrangell and Chugach Mountains. This state park has the largest collection of glaciers, including Malaspina Glacier, which is the largest Piedmont glacier formed by 2 or more glaciers flowing from confined valleys. The park is 1500 square miles- larger than the state of Rhode Island. Hubbard Glacier is from the St. Elias Mountains and is the most active glacier in the US. It advances forward at the speed of growing fingernails. There is a 300 foot waterfall in the upper Chitistone Canyon and the Lower Canyon has walls that rise 4000 feet above the river. Also 80% of the world's Trumpeter Swans nest here. The Trumpeter Swan is the largest of the 7 swan groups in the world. They have all black bills.The Tundra Swan nests here also, but they are much smaller and do not have an all black bill.
By 4:30 PM we were at the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge where winter comes in early October and stays until late April. It has the coldest temperatures in the state: -40 degrees to -72 degrees with 165 days a year below freezing. The Caribou leave here to go north to find lichens, which are a ancient fusion of algae and fungi.They will travel 200 miles to find lichens because lichens are loaded with carbs. If they can find plenty of lichens, then they can maintain their weight. But the wildfires in 2004 have burned 1 million acres north of the Alaska Highway and it takes 60 years for the lichens to build back up. So they don't think there will be many caribou around here this winter.
The Mentasta Mountians and the Nutzotin Mountains form the eastern end of the Alaskan Range. The roads are dirt here. Time is 5:15 PM and for 14 miles now we have been going over all dirt roads with lots of loose gravel.
They say there are 30 kinds of mosquitoes here. I believe it!!! The females bite just before they lay their eggs. They need a blood meal to get up the strength. The first mosquitoes in the spring and adult mosquitoes that spent the winter dormant. Then the other mosquitoes hatch from eggs for the rest of the summer. Until it freezes the mosquitoes will hunt for blood. Moose can lose a pint of blood in a day to mosquitoes. The black flies are bad too. They cut a plug of skin and then lick the blood. The deer flies are a bee-sized insect with a bite that hurts so bad even the caribou run from them!!! Talk about wild animals; these are really wild insects!!
At 5:56 we entered Canada! The road's been very, very rough with dirt, gravel, bumps, dips and chuckholes!!! This area is called "taiga" which is Russian for "land of little sticks". The land is boggy with bottle brush trees and the black spruce trees only grow slowly. A black spruce tree with a trunk 2 inches in diameter can be 100 years old. Whenever there are black spruce trees growing, no other trees will grow because the black spruce spreads out its roots above the permafrost and won't let anything else grow. The permafrost blocks the water drainage and limits root growth and soil fertility. We weren't into Canada 10 minutes when we saw a red fox strolling down the road. We hadn't seen any foxes in Alaska except in Denali.
The permafrost is a major challenge here because it freezes and melts on and off all year. That wreaks havoc with the roads and their driveability. They have run some scientific tests and programs to see if they can slow the melting down under the roadbed. The tests are still in the process now. Between the Donjek River and the Alaska border the soil is of glacial origin and very unsuitable for road embankments. This ice rich soil has very little strength and will always settle and then the road will drop. If we want to drive this way, we just have to deal with the wildness of the road too!
We found a campsite because we were tired of fighting the road. It's called Snag Harbor and has a tiny lake at the back of the beautiful woods. Snag Harbor's claim to fame is it has the lowest recorded temperature in Canada: -81.4 degrees F on 2/3/1947. Alaska's lowest recorded temperature was -80 degrees F on 1/23/1971 at Prospect Creek. The campground is absolutely gorgeous; but the mosquitoes are horrendous! The campfire won't even keep them away. They are out for blood!!!!