2005 39' Land Yacht 390 XL 396
Common Sense
, Texas
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 5,319
Gene,
Your pictures are great...keep them coming. I believe I've seen the same angle shot of the church in Telegraph Creek in maybe the Milepost, or somewhere. Looks like you've had some good weather, also. It's really good to have a report on the roads before having to do them on our own.
We are due to leave early next week, but will probably be at least two more weeks till we get on the Cassiar because we want to see the coast of California and some other things on the way up.
I have one question for you, (OK, maybe two) what prcautions have you taken to prevent rock/gravel damage to your trailer, and how satisfied are you with the results?
If you want to go to remote places, the roads aren't going to be great. On the other hand, there's little traffic. And the roads in NYC or many other major cities are worse, even though they are paved, they have giant potholes. The distances in the north country are very long, so you run into everything. Considering the cost of maintaining and building roads here, they do a pretty good job. Seven or eight miles of horrible washboard on a highway that's 450 miles long is no fun, but look at how little that is compared to the entire road. A year ago in Colorado there was a section of I-70 with large strips of pavement missing. The result was several miles of 1 or 2 inch deep grooves a few inches wide in the right lane where the left tire goes. Try driving on that and having it happen with no warning. Last year we traveled the W. Va. Turnpike and the pavement was terrible.
I haven't seen any gravel or rock damage so far. Mainly the shaking on some roads can be bad for driver, passenger and trailer. Things coming loose in our trailer happen anyway, so while I don't like it, I expect it. We could drive slower, but we'd never get anywhere. Bring lots of tools (I do that anyway) and keep an eye on things. Pack things well and open cabinets carefully because things may fall out on your head. A good road service contract seems worth the money and they run from $80 to $120 dollars for a year. And don't forget the roll of duct tape. Seeing 2 trailers in one place with broken leaf springs was strange, but we don't have leaf springs and who knows what they did to break one?
The best thing to do to avoid rock damage is to be alert. Watch the road carefully, hard to do when there is so much to look at, and slow down when necessary. Accept the damage as the price to pay to be here. I took no extraordinary precautions and haven't in the past. I expect a cracked windshield from time to time. This trip will approximate 10,000 miles and no matter where you go, in 10,000 miles something will happen. To me a reliable tow vehicle, the best tires you can get, preferably fairly new, and preventative maintenance are the way to go. Something has to hit rock guards—that's what they are for.
Different people will give you different stories about the roads. Some are talking about 20 or 30 years ago. Everyone has a different tolerance level. This is not supposed to be easy, but I don't think it's so bad.
Yesterday, Wednesday, tired as we were, we went looking for fine dining in Watson Lake. After spending a lot of time on the internet trying to find fine dining, the only place I could find with a recommendation was BeeJay’s Tire Shop and Cafe. As you might expect, we were skeptical. I’d like to tell you we went there and the food was marvelous, but they were closed. It was about 9 pm after all. There used to be a pizza joint here, but it had disappeared. We ended up at the Belvedere Hotel, garishly painted bright yellow and with murals. I’d like to report the food was marvelous, but it was not.
Today we slept really late and had a great breakfast at noon. It was served at Barb’s Trailer Kitchen. We feel well rested for the first time; there’s nothing like 10 hours of sleep after driving about 2,500 miles or more in 10 days.
Watson Lake is spread along the Alaska Hwy for a mile for so. It has about 1,600 people, 4 gas stations, a bunch of motels, hotels, RV parks, a bank, repair shops, but seems deprived of fine dining. The tourist attractions are the Signpost Forest and the Northern Lights Centre.
The Centre has a planetarium dome and features a 1 hour show. The first part is a movie about the Aurora Borealis. It is not done in planetarium style, but is projected in movie style. If you’ve never seen the aurora, it would be impressive, though I thought it blurry. Having seen the aurora, I thought it boring and dozed off a few times. The 2nd part was about how big the universe is and was done in planetarium style. This type of information is frequently shown on Discovery and PBS, so I got another nap. I was not the only one as the guy behind me said “I was watching the lights and then it got dark” as he yawned.
The signpost forest was started when a soldier who was here to help build the Alaska Hwy got homesick and put up a sign with his hometown and how many miles it was to there. The sign fell apart, but a replica done by the same man in 1992 is in the visitor center (“centre” here). This is the world’s largest collection of stolen road signs. It also features a lot of homemade signs and license plates. There are a lot of large German road signs and I have to wonder how they packed them on a plane. The visitor center has a short film on building the Alaska Hwy. It's entertaining to see all the signs—more than 60,000 of them—and see how people express themselves and well as show their larcenous intent.
A caravan of bus sized RV’s came here today. I was told there are about 25 of them and they came in 4 or 5 at a time. All are towing cars and small SUV’s. They are lined up across the space we’re in. It is quite of display and a fellow I was talking to estimated the value of all these RV's could easily buy this town. This campground is two large gravel parking areas, but has reasonably good wifi and full hookups.
It rained this morning, stopping midday. The temp stayed in the 50’s and it’s mostly cloudy now. Tomorrow we go to Dawson Peaks Resort where they have an RV campground, motel rooms and cabin plus a good restaurant. We stayed there in 2002 in a cabin. The word "resort" is used rather loosely up here, but this is a nice place. I bought a fleece jacket there that has held up well for 8 years. It is 6 miles east of Teslin. There’s a small museum at the gas station in Teslin with stuffed animals (not the plushy kind; large ones). It is well done and was free in ‘02. There’s also a Tlingkit museum that we toured in ‘02 and enjoyed. After Dawson Peaks, we go to Skagway.
You may notice that the name “Dawson” appears a lot here. Dawson Creek, BC, is where the Alaska Hwy begins. Dawson City is where the Klondike gold rush was and was capital of the Territory for many years. If I remember correctly, Dawson was a surveyor who came to NW Canada and surveyed.
Gene
Photos:
#1: Replica of original sign at the Signpost Forest
#2: Signpost Forest
#3: Old city limits sign from a town 35 away from home
Muncho Lake gas price warning: I've heard this twice today, so it might be true. You here a lot of stories up here and some are true, some are not; it's sort of like the Forum.
At the north end of the Lake is a lodge. It's a nice place and we stayed there in '06. The gas price is $1.80 something/liter. They claim that's what they have to pay for it and make no profit. Muncho Lake is in NE BC.
Friday: Another short day traveling 158 miles to Dawson Peaks, about 6 miles east of Teslin and on very long and narrow Teslin Lake. The place looks the same but the motel units have been rebuilt. Carolyn and Dave look the same too, but like us, 8 years older.
They have had this place 19 years and have made it a must stop for people who travel this highway. We are camped in a wooded site with water and electric. The restaurant is well known for good food. I don’t recommend many places, but this is a good one. I am close enough to the main building to get wifi and the upload is faster than at Watson Lake.
Gene
Photos:
#1 Along the Alaska Highway. It's a wide 2 lane road with good shoulders. Cassiar Mountains in the background.
#2 This is an older place along the Highway, Continental Divide RV park, motel, restaurant, gas and bakery. Places like these are closing down as newer ones open and take the business.
#3 The thoroughly unappealing motel at Continental Divide.
#1 Dawson Peaks restaurant, office, store.
#2 Our campsite
#3 A look down toward the lake. Dawson Peaks are across the lake, still snowcapped. Maybe later I'll take a walk down there and get a photo.
Saturday. We had an excellent dinner and a good breakfast at Dawson Peaks. While the food is usually best in the Trailer Kitchen, it’s good to eat out from time to time when we find a quality place.
We left for Skagway and the trip was uneventful. The trip down the South Klondike Hwy from Carcross, Yukon, through a little bit of BC, and over White Pass to Skagway becomes ever more beautiful. I’m running out of superlatives. Although only at several thousand feet, we were above tree line as we approached White Pass. In Colorado tree line is usually around 12,000’. We went by the Tormented Valley where jumbled rocks, stunted trees, no more than 5’ tall, and many small lakes dominated. As we passed the Canadian border station at Fraser, BC, we read they get 24’ of snow each winter, 7 or 8 miles from the Pass summit. It’s 14 miles to the US border station. No one wants to work at the summit. The road down to Skagway is steep, narrow and winding. It’s a good brake test and our rig did fine. While I was attached hoses at the campground, someone came over to ask if my brakes had cooled yet. The grade is around 11% and I guess it freaked him out.
Skagway became a boom town during the Klondike gold rush. Tens of thousands of hopeful prospectors came by ship and landed at Skagway. It was a lawless town for a short time. They would then walk to Dyea, several miles away, and start the trek up very steep Chilcoot Pass. The Canadian Northwest Mounted Police decreed they had to bring a year’s worth of supplies, about a ton, to Dawson City. That meant taking a heavy load up the Pass, going back, bringing more, over and over, to the Pass. Then they had to hike to Bennett Lake, build a boat, and start over the rivers to Dawson, many hundreds of miles north. The ones that made it found all the good claims were taken. Some took White Pass, not as high, but it became a bog and thousands of pack animals died. By 1900 the White Pass & Yukon Railway was built, but most of the the rush was over.
Realizing the future was in tourism, Skagway’s citizenry started promoting the town as a tourist destination. They moved buildings to Broadway to make it look like people would expect, a frontier boom town.
Today cruise ships come to Skagway, mostly during the middle of the week, unloading thousands of tourists to shop and shop some more. Skagway continues to remove visitors' money, though legally this time. We are here just before the beginning of the season, so it's relatively quiet. The Park Service has some interpretive displays down by the dock. Besides shopping, the railroad trips up to White Pass and beyond (if you want) are the big attraction. There are no discounts and complaints about the prices are common. $110 for the 3.5 hour round trip to White Pass; $115 the day of the trip. We go tomorrow and the views are supposed to be great. Apparently the way to go is to sit on the left side going up to see the most.
We went downtown to buy tickets, look around, buy some food and find a fellow Airstreamer (deuxrite) who spends the summer here. We found him working in the one of the shoppes and will get together when he’s not working. We passed a sick looking Airstream in someone's yard (leaning a little and needing axles) driving into town and we understand there are several other local ones. There’s one at the other end of this campground too. We are at Garden City CG with full hookups and wifi. The cable TV isn’t working, but there’s one channel here. We have heard the owner will switch programs in the middle if he feels like it.
Gene
Photos:
#1 Dawson Peaks across Teslin Lake from Dawson Peaks Resort. The Lake is about 80 miles long by 2.
#2 & 3 Along the South Klondike Highway
#4 Looking down Broadway in Skagway toward the docks.
Glad to see that things are progressing well for you guys. Thanks for letting us travel vicariously. The left side of the White Pass Train is the best.....try to sit a one end of the car so that you can go out on the platform between the cars for pictures. I suppose you are taking the train over, and a bus back.....it is a nice trip.
Don't waste your time at the brewery in Skagway.....beer is horrible! The restaurant close to the train boarding station is good.....the King Crab legs are fantastic, but very pricey.
Tell Ms. Barb that we said "Hello." Just under two weeks before we blast off for our Northeastern 30-day adventure.
Ron
__________________
Dream like you're going to live forever, live like you're going to die tomorrow, and dance like nobody is watching!
Thanks Ron. I'll be looking forward to traveling vicariously with you and Jenn while we travel realistically. Ms. Barb says hello. We'll be watching out for the brewery, possibly easy to do because one thing we are here for is laundry. Everything is expensive here and we are unsure how people can afford to eat and buy gas, although we understand at least some people find money for drinking, bad beer or not.
Our campground is about 15 blocks from the docks and a steady breeze has been blowing from the water all day. It's 58˚ and partly cloudy or sunny depending on your point of view. Skagway is located in a fairly narrow canyon, you there are mountains on both sides with snow caps. The sun doesn't shine directly in lots of places, but the light, now at 8:45 pm, is like a cloudy day. Sunset is at 10:08 pm and twilight 'til 11:31; sunrise tomorrow is at 3:49 am, twilight starts at 2:25. That's about 21 hours of light. The Reflectix on the bedroom windows and the Fantasic Fan has cut out most of the light and made sleeping much easier. But the evening light has made me feel like staying up very late because it seems like a cloudy afternoon. Not everyone seems to feel that way because the campgrounds get very quiet and no one is to be seen.
Thanks Ron. I'll be looking forward to traveling vicariously with you and Jenn while we travel realistically. Ms. Barb says hello. We'll be watching out for the brewery, possibly easy to do because one thing we are here for is laundry. Everything is expensive here and we are unsure how people can afford to eat and buy gas, although we understand at least some people find money for drinking, bad beer or not.
Our campground is about 15 blocks from the docks and a steady breeze has been blowing from the water all day. It's 58˚ and partly cloudy or sunny depending on your point of view. Skagway is located in a fairly narrow canyon, you there are mountains on both sides with snow caps. The sun doesn't shine directly in lots of places, but the light, now at 8:45 pm, is like a cloudy day. Sunset is at 10:08 pm and twilight 'til 11:31; sunrise tomorrow is at 3:49 am, twilight starts at 2:25. That's about 21 hours of light. The Reflectix on the bedroom windows and the Fantasic Fan has cut out most of the light and made sleeping much easier. But the evening light has made me feel like staying up very late because it seems like a cloudy afternoon. Not everyone seems to feel that way because the campgrounds get very quiet and no one is to be seen.
Gene
Hi Gene,
Thanks for the very entertaining travelogue.
We were in Skagway 3 years ago by Cruise ship. I remember walking by that campground & thinking Id rather be there camping. I also remember wondering how difficult it would be to drive there. Now, thanks to you, I have a better idea.
Enjoy the rail trip. The day we did it it was quite cloudy & not so scenic. It was still memorable. I too would echo the thought that you be close to one end of the car so that you can get out on the platform easily.
We will follow your progress with interest & the thought that maybe when we grow up a little more ( & get 5-6 weeks off) we can follow in your footsteps...
It's become a warm and sunny day in Skagway. A couple of days ago it was supposed to be cloudy with possibility of showers, so the weather gods have been appeased. Sacrificing a cruise ship passenger is always effective.
I have noticed in past trips that many locals don't respect cruise ship passengers. They come and provide money to keep the town going all year. But the people who live here or come for the summer, drive here and stay. Many locals go south for the winter, hoping to get out before the snows come. Those who come on their own and don't do tours are called "independent travelers". We are more like the locals. We are willing to take chances and suffer the long drives and sometimes bad roads. We learn about the places and create our fun. We are more interested in where we go and engage locals in conversations.
The cruise ships are floating restaurants. The ships travel at night so you don't see the sights along shipping chennls (except at this time of year when it stays light late), dock in the morning and discharge the shoppers. They leave in late afternoon and endless food is served. They direct people to certain shops and sometimes get kickbacks, or own the shops. I have read, for example, they sell White Pass RR tickets to passengers at $10 more than we paid. They will sell tours, but you can come into town and get similar tours for less money.
Thus, cruise ship passengers are viewed as marks by the shipping lines and locals. This is probably inevitable. In every destination (Colorado for example) no local like the tourists who create traffic and ask strange questions, but we love their money. At one time or another we are all tourists and we are all locals. I don't know the economics of the business, but I expect the frequent deals for passage are not where the profit is—selling stuff is the moneymaker. When we were in Juneau, prices in stores were double what they were several blocks away, or, because it was the end of the season, they posted prices and then slashed them in half, or dump old goods—I got a T-shirt for $5; they sell them for $15-25 normally. It was a well made one too.
If you don't have a lot of time, the cruise is a good way to see some of Alaska. There are the giant cruise ships (they are so tall, they look ready to topple over) and there are "soft adventure cruises". They cost a lot more (double or more), are much smallere, but feature opportunities to experience the land and water and are more for people who aren't so hungry for food. No requirements to wear a suit for dinner, a practice that seems to be disappearing, but may persist on some cruise lines.
A few thoughts about the long downhill grade into Skagway. It's a fairly narrow winding road with steep grades. To use, used to mountains, it seemed ordinary, but to people who live in flatlands, it could be daunting. I wasn't driving and as someone who isn't the best passenger, I felt no fear. I was looking for photo opportunities, reading the Milepost ("double ended turnout with trash bin, 1.3 miles") and looking at the scenery. Barb kept it in 2nd gear most of the way and had only to tap the brakes from time to time. There seems to be several things to make driving down steep, long grades easy:
1. A tow vehicle with good, maybe great, brakes. The Tundra has massive disks all around.
2. A good transmission providing some engine braking.
3. Well adjusted trailer brakes.
4. A properly adjusted weight distributing hitch.
5. Experience which means mountain driving experience, driving slow and paying attention. It's easy to become enthralled with the scenery. Remember your partner can drive back and then you can look at the waterfalls, mountains and the rest. The only way to get such experience is to do it and you'll get plenty before to reach Skagway.
Barb is in laundry mode and doesn't want me to help. I'd just take a bunch of clothes and dump them in a washer, take them out when done and dry them at maximum heat (saves quarters). She seems to want to separate clothes into whites, colored and dark, use those dryer sheets, and dry at medium. I don't understand it.
Now to go fix the shower head. The recurring droop means frequently tightening the screw (locktite hasn't worked) and now one of the connections is leaking. They have replaced this twice, but it's poor quality and the time is coming to replace it with something better.
We took the 12:45 White Pass summit tour. They had 10 passenger cars, eight of which were filled with cruise ship passengers (600 or more people) when the train arrived to pick up independent travelers. We only filled about half of the car we were in. There are platforms at the end of each car where you can go out and take pictures. I took almost all of them through the window, but a flash can cause reflections in the picture. The left side is the way to go (becomes the right side going back).
Three diesel engines pull the 10 cars very slowly. This is a narrow gauge (3' wide track) railroad. The car interior appears to be about 10 feet wide, so 3 1/2' on each side is over the air. When you look down, sometimes 1,000', it feels like you are floating in air, especially over the trestles. This can be scary.
For the most part, the track follows a branch of the Skagway River, a glacial creek, on the south side of the canyon. At times you can see the S. Klondike Hwy on the other side of the canyon. As expected, the scenery is spectacular and at times you can see all the way back to Skagway and the Lynn Canal, a very long natural passage from the ocean. We almost always travel to an ocean each of the past 10 years; this is the Pacific year. This is a natural need of people who live in a desert.
It's a 20 mile trip each way and the train stops at the Pass summit, slightly inside Canada. No passports required. Towards the summit we could see the remains of the White Pass trail, about 3' wide, and lower down, the toll road, a rocky road about one wagon width wide. They unhook the engines from the front and move them back on a siding and the back becomes the front. The seats flip over and we once again face forward.
The round trip takes 3 1/2 hours (53.4¢ per minute). You can also book a trip to Fraser where the Canadian customs station is in the Tormented Valley, or Bennett Lake. A bus will bring you back. Apparently little or no freight moves on this line anymore. At the yards there are scores of passenger cars and quite a few locomotives including some steam ones not in service and one that is on a limited basis.
It is a worthwhile trip and an integral part of the Skagway experience. During the high season (July and August) it may be hard to get tickets for the trip you want. Perhaps they are available on the internet. There was one cruise ship in port today and one yesterday. Midweek, there can be five—that's 10,000+ people wandering around in a town of about 850 people. Weekends are best.
Gene
Photos:
#1 The 3 locomotives of the Fraser train; ours came afterward.
#2 Our train approaches.
#3 An Excella at a campground along the train tracks before we leave Skagway.
#4 An old and rusty steam engine in the yard.
#1 Skagway River just before we leave the town limits. The River is cloudy because it is filled with rock dust from glaciers.
#2 Interior of passenger car.
#3 Getting closer to summit, a glacier is visible on this mountain.
#4 Looking back toward Skagway and the Lynn Canal from almost 20 miles.
More later, time to go to dinner at a Thai restaurant (yes, a Thai restaurant is in Skagway).
The Thai restaurant is the Starlite on 4th Ave just off Broadway. We had Pad Thai which was excellent and a curry dish with a name with purple in it. We don't care for Indian curry, but Thai curry is good. This came in a soup bowl and with rice to mix with it. I guess you mix it with it, that's what we did. That restaurant was a find. On the internet, people have posted that the food is superhot, but they must not be used to hot food, because it wasn't any more hot than good Mexican food.
Gene
More photos:
#1 This trestle, when it was built was the highest cantilevered RR bridge in the world, but it has not be used for many years and is deteriorating. It's still in pretty good shape considering the climate.
#2 Summit Lake at the Pass summit, still partly frozen. This beautiful woman was glad to have her picture taken as we waited for the locomotives to be moved to other end of the train.
#3 Same old trestle from other direction as we return.
#4 Getting closer to Skagway.
We took kids & grandkids on the cog wheel train up Pike's Peak several years ago. They are a wonderful way to get otherwise inaccessible views---but the Pike's Peak one not for the faint of heart.
Maggie
__________________
🏡 🚐 Cherish and appreciate those you love. This moment could be your last.🌹🐚
Monday. We went to Dyea (pron.: Die-ee). It’s about 8 miles from Skagway and during the height of the gold rush this was where people started up the Chilkoot Trail (Chilkoot Lake means “the lake that pukes”; I'm not making that up). You may have seen pictures of people trudging up the snow covered Golden Stairs to the Pass summit. A representation of it was on Alaska license plates a couple of years ago. The Golden Stairs is about 15 miles from the former town of Dyea. People still hike the trail but we didn’t.
Instead we looked around the townsite. Very little remains, the forest having reclaimed the land. There was no forest there at the end of the 19th century. The town was partly settled on tidal flats and may have been flooded from time to time. Since then the land has risen above the tides and a thick forest has grown. All through southeast Alaska the land is rising because the weight of the glaciers had depressed it long ago. The buildings were removed after the railroad opened and the rush was over. We saw the ruins of a warehouse, only surviving because it was used as a barn in the 1920’s. There was also a false front from a real estate office. Aside from some small items scattered around, that's what is left of Dyea.
Gas in Skagway was $3.899 yesterday.
We met Jerry and Jeannie at the Gold Rush Bar this evening. They have a 27' Airstream much like ours, but a little bigger. They have come up here for the last 3 years to work in the stores and take several weeks in the summer to drive around Alaska. They are fulltimers. We had a nice time getting to know them while we drank some good beer and ale and had some equally good bar food.
Tomorrow we leave for Fairbanks, or near it. It will probably take 2 1/2 days with overnight stops in Desolation Bay, Yukon; Tok, Alaska, and maybe North Pole, Alaska. The RV campground in North Pole (Santaland) looks to be a lot nicer than the ones in Fairbanks. It’s 20 miles from there to Fairbanks, a town to get supplies and little else. There is a very good museum at the U. of Alaska, but we saw it in 2002.
Gene
#1 Remains of the warehouse at Dyea.
#2 False front of a former real estate business in Dyea.
#3 The end of the Lynn Canal at Dyea.
#4 A photo of the hopeful prospectors going up the Golden Stairs (no, I didn't take it).
#1 Three cruise ships with about 6,000 people came in today. Time to leave town.
#2 Jerry and Jeannie at the Gold Rush Brewery. Note the reflection of the mountain in the window.
This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Airstream, Inc. or any of its affiliates. Airstream is a registered trademark of Airstream Inc. All rights reserved. Airstream trademark used under license to Social Knowledge LLC.
We have heard those before, then from others that the roads are fine and one would have no problem. 
Linear Mode
