North...to Alaska! Part 1.

On the AlCan Hwy in northern B.C.

For the summer of 2025 we set out for an extended camping trip with our Casita to Alaska. The first part of our ride would follow the path of my motorcycle trip in 2019, (see: My bike ride to Alaska ). That trip covered 7,100 miles in 19 days, but only went to Fairbanks with a side trip to the Arctic Circle, this time we planned on staying at Denali National Park and then go to the Kenai Peninsula. I figured even with the extended mileage we would be done in about 6 weeks. As it turned out, I really underestimated the time it would take, but that's all part of the fun, right?

 

In preparing for the trip, I had the truck and trailer thoroughly prepared. We even carried an extra battery for the trailer which turned out to be a good idea! We had our mail transferred to our Angelo address since we would be gone longer than the USPS would hold mail. This turned into a bit of a fiasco; we were expecting our new tags for the Tacoma the week before we departed but the 

post Office stopped delivery to our current address a week earlier than we requested so our tags were held up and we could not get to them! I was able to go to the DMV and get a replacement set of tags. After the trip we found the original tags in our mail, so now I have a spare set!

Our first days drive took us to a remote BLM campground in Northeast California, (Ramhorn Springs). Not a bad site and the fee is voluntary! While hiking around, Shelly almost stepped on a rattlesnake, so we had our first exciting encounter with wildlife!

At Ramshorne Springs CG.

We continued north, stopping for lunch at Goose Lake where there is a nice CG and day use area. Then we entered eastern Oregon, following my motorbike trip's course, through Burns and ending up at Idlewild CG in the Malheur National Forest. Then next day we went through Pendleton to get to a very remote USFS campsite. We noticed we were having low voltages in our trailer's battery, we were a little concerned...

The next day we decided to find an RV repair shop in Pendleton and we fortunately found a good one! The guys at Drake's RV service found our problem: the towing vehicles plug had corroded terminals. They quickly replaced that and we were on our way! Thanks to the guys at Drakes!

On northward we continued, still following my bike's trail up to Scooteney Reservoir and campground where we decided to stay for the weekend.

Sunset at Scooteney Reservoir, WA.

From Scooteney we headed to Bridge port, with a side trip to view the Grand Coulee dam. The drive up to the Dam was beautiful. 

On the road to Grand Coulee Dam.

At the dam itself.

After Grand Coulee, we pulled into Bridgeport State Campground. It's pretty nice, not cheap but there were free showers!

The next day was a long one but brought us into Canada! We crossed the border at Osoyoos with no trouble at all, drove through Penticton and finished a long day at the campground at Lac le Juene Provincial Park.

Made it to BC!

First campsite in Canada, Lac le Juene!

From Lac le Juene we drove up to Kamloops and did some shopping there. After that we proceeded up to close to 70 Mile House and camped at Sunset Lake Provincial Park. Nice CG, and we were able to enjoy a swim in the lake as it had been pretty warm.

The next day we drove up to Prince George and stayed at a private campground, "Northern Experience". We encountered the rain of our trip this day between Quesnel and Prince George.

We then drove to Moberly Lake Provincial Park. Shelly found a huge earthworm at the site!

Yep, that's a big one!

We then reached Dawson Creek and the start of the AlCan Highway! We stayed at a private CG and loaded up with water as we had encountered several parks that had boiled water orders in place. 

At mile 0 of the Alcan at Dawson Creek.

The next few days were spent driving into the Canadian Rockies. We were a little disappointed by the lack of wildlife on this stretch, but the scenery was pretty amazing! We stopped at MacDonald CG near Muncho Lake. Cloudy and cool so we didn't swim, but we took some nice photos.

Muncho Lake in the Rockies.

We had a very short day following Muncho Lake deciding to stop at Laird River Hot Springs Provincial Park which was less than 40 miles down the road. It was a wise choice since this is a very popular campground thanks to the lovely hot springs. We were able to snag a nice campsite and then enjoyed a dip in the hot springs.

At Laird Hot Springs.

The Canadian Rockies.

 The weather at this point turned rainy and cool but we did finally encounter wildlife! We came upon a small herd of Woodland Bison along side the road. 

On the way to Watson Lake.

We arrived at Watson Lake fairly quickly. It was rainy and wet. We viewed the "Signpost Forest" and got gas. I had to slog through mud puddles to fill up. Watson Lake is not a great place to stay, and it was early so we moved on, eventually stopping a Tilsen Lake after a long 300 mile day.

Signpost Forest at Watson Lake.

The next day we drove to a Yukon Provincial Park just outside of Haines Junction, (Pine Lake). The weather had cleared and it was good to see blue skies again. There was a very nice bike path leading from the campground to the town which we walked along. However, the warning signs for bears was a little disconcerting!

We were now getting close to Alaska! Past Haines Junction, the road condition deteriorated quite a bit! We had planned on one more night in Yukon, but the site we planned to stop at was pretty dismal, so we opted for a place just about 12 miles inside Alaska, a free USFWS campground at Deadmans Lake.

Welcome to Alaska!

The border crossing was easy and we were soon at Deadman Lake, which is operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Deadman Lake, Alaska. (BTW, the canoes are available for free for the campers' use!)

We enjoyed a relatively short drive today, driving from Deadman Lake to Tok. We stayed at the Tundra RV Park which was reasonably priced. The park had an RV washing station which our trailer badly needed. There were also showers which we also needed! After dealing with limited water supplies across BC and Yukon, it was nice to have access to potable water, and we filled our tank and a couple of  water bottles. Tok is a fairly large town with most of the amenities you need. It gets a lot of RV traffic so there are a lot of facilities. 

We had dinner at Fast Eddies and they happened to have a prime rib special that night that was great. They also have an old fashioned salad bar, something I haven't seen since COVID!  

From Tok we proceeded to Fairbanks and spent a couple of days there. We stayed at Riverside CG. It was a nice enough place with showers and near most facilities, but it is also near the freeway so we got a bit of traffic noise. 

While in Fairbanks I found a place that stocked Curt sway bars at online prices! Our old sway bar had lost a brake pad so I needed a replacement. I swung buy and picked the new one up. 

When we arrived at Fairbanks, we noticed there was a bit of smoke in the air. This was disconcerting because there had been a lot of wild fire activity and that could impact our trip to Denali.

Smokey skies in Fairbanks.

Fortunately, some rain moved through the region during our stay in Fairbanks, and that knocked back a lot of the wildfire activity! We left Fairbanks, heading south with cloudy skies and light showers and arrived at Nenana for a very short day. There was no sign of wildfires at all.

This huge bridge is just outside Nenana.

The next day we left Nenana and drove a short distance to Tatlanika. We arrived early and since there wasn't much going on at Tatlinka we decided to drive down to 49th State Brewery. We had tried their beer already and enjoyed it so we thought we'd check it out. Pretty nice place and actually not far from Denali.

At last, we headed for Denali National Park! For much of the trip we had been concerned about actually arriving in time for our reservations but here were were! After Denali, we wouldn't be concerned about hitting any particular dates.

We made it!

Denali covers a vast area, there would be no way to see all of it, so we had to pick a few things to do. First of all, we hit the Visitors' Center and gathered some useful information.

We wanted to hike a bit, so the next day we took a the trail to the Mt. Healy Overlook. It was a tough little hike after spending so much time driving, but the view from the overlook was worth it! 

Mt. Healy Overlook.

After the hike we went for a drive up to the Savage River trailhead. While heading out there we were able to spot the snow capped peak of Denali itself! We were lucky to spot it on a relatively clear day.

That's Denali in the center!

We decided to take a tour bus to the "end of the road". This is where a washout has cut off the old Park Road. We hoped to spot some wildlife. While we did see some Mountain goats and a couple of Caribou at great distances. we were again a bit disappointed by the lack of animals! The scenery though, was still gorgeous! 

On our last morning, I looked out of our trailer's window and saw a moose roaming through our campground! So, at least we had one close encounter with wildlife here!

The moose at our campsite!

We left Denali and headed for Talkeetna to meet up with our friend Frank who was on his way up to Fairbanks with his sister! We camped there at met up with them the next day. It was fun to run into a familiar face!

Frank and his sister! So neat to meet up with them!

Now that we were through Denali, we were pretty much free to schedule anything for the rest of our trip. This second half of our adventure will be continued in Part 2!

In the meantime, here are the pictures!:  Alaska photo album