The Pipeline, Moose, Arctic Grayling & the Denali Highway - Alaska

Gakona, Alaska
Sourdough Creek Campground

We arrived at Sourdough Creek Campground which is run by BLM after a 3 hour drive back north on the Glenn Hwy (AK1) turning west onto the Richardson Hwy (AK4).  It was mostly flat bogland.  We were hopeful to see some moose along the way but we didn't see any on this route.  The campground was nice and made up of back ins and pull throughs.  There was moose poop everywhere but not a one to be seen.  It's still early in the season and there were only a couple other people scattered about in the large campground.  BLM is half off for us so it only cost $7.50 a night.  We stayed in site #20, but I didn't get a picture.  Above is Rick and Angie's site.  The campground is between the large Matanuska River and the small Sourdough Creek.  It's supposed to be a great Arctic Grayling fishing area, but it's still too early for them as well.

We stayed 3 nights to relax and do a little fishing and hiking then continued north on the Richardson Hwy.  The scenery was gorgeous.  We stopped in at the Meiers Lake Roadhouse for a pitstop.

These little roadhouses are scattered all over Alaska.  They were originally places to stop to resupply, freshen horses, get mail, a hot meal and a room for the miners and travelers back in the day.  While many of them are closed and in disrepair, there are a several still open.  This one has gas and cabins too.  We stopped in to look around, use the bathroom and buy some homemade sourdough bread and snacks.

The roadhouse sits in front of the beautiful Meier's Lake.  Again, Arctic Grayling are supposed to be plentiful here.  We'd have loved to kayak here but we still had about 3 hours to go to get to our next stop.

The inside was full of old items from around the area.  We've always heard the roadhouses have great food.  We only had some baked goods but they were delicious.

The drive follows along many lakes and waterways like the Gulkana River and Phelan Creek.  Each summer the salmon travel as far as 300 miles up the Copper River watershed to spawn.

Trumpeter Swans use the area as they migrate.  We've only seen a few here and there.  Too early still I guess.  The ice was just melting off many of the higher elevation lakes and rivers.

Above is a pingo.  These are icecored hills of intrapermafrost.  They only grow in areas of permafrost such as the Arctic and subarctic.  It is a non-glacial landform.

We decided to try a dirt road off the highway to see if we could get closer to one of the many glaciers here.  The road was so awful and full of potholes, every couple of feet in all directions, we gave up.  But we did get pretty close.

A bit further up the road was Rainbow Mountain which has an elevation of 6,841 feet and is in the Delta Mountains.  It is made up of multi-colored talus which slides down its face. Yellow, pink and green colors are from volcanic eruptions whereas the brown and gray colors are from sandstone, siltstone and limestone layers.

(Later in the trip we actually travel by Pump Station 4)

We got to get out between Pump Station 10 and 11 and see the pipeline up close and learn a few things.

                    - The trans-Alaska pipeline is 800 miles long

                    - The diameter is 48 inches

                    - It crosses three mountain ranges and over 500 rivers and streams

                    - It cost $8 billion to build in 1977.  It was the largest privately funded, construction

                          project at that time.

                    - Construction began on March 27, 1975 and was complete on May 31, 1977.

                    - The first oil moved through the pipeline on June 20, 1977.

                    - The first tanker to carry crude oil from Valdez was the ARCO Juneau on August 1, 1977.

The pipeline is specially designed to prevent oil spill during an earthquake.  Wherever the pipeline is elevated (as it is in segments totaling 420 miles) the pipe is supported on horizontal cross-members suspended between two vertical members.  At the Denali Fault, since the span is further, the pipeline is directly on the ground placed in steel shoes which have Teflon pads to allow them to move freely.  The pipeline is made of a high-quality alloy, one half inch thick.  There was a 7.9 earthquake in November 2002.  The ground along the fault moved about 18 feet.  The pipeline performed exactly as designed without spilling a drop of oil.

It was really cool to see the pipeline, touch it and learn all about it.  We drove passed it for hundreds of miles during our time here.

In 1988 during peak production, it took 4-5 days for 2,000,000 barrels of oil to travel from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.  As production has slowed, they are implementing measures to help the declining output as it travels through the pipeline since the oil thickens as it travels at slower amounts.

Most parts of the pipeline are raised up.  This allows for wildlife to walk around and not even notice.  I was impressed how little the pipeline disrupted nature.  The trees and bushes grow naturally along the pipeline corridor.  The pipeline runs under some of the mountains, lakes and rivers.  Truly amazing!  This area is home to Caribou and Moose.  The Caribou like the treeless tundra as well as the mountains.  They must keep moving to find adequate food and will migrate long distances between summer and winter ranges.  Both male and female Caribou have antlers.  Domesticated Caribou are called Reindeer.

Moose are the largest of the deer family.  Adult moose can range in size from 800 pounds (a small female) to 1,600 pounds (a large male).  They can be almost six feet tall and can grow an 80 pound rack in one summer.  That's one inch of bone formation in a day.

The drive was gorgeous and much of our views looked like the one above.

As we pulled into Delta Junction, the end of the AlCan (Alaska Highway), we stopped to get some groceries, gas and dump/fill our tanks.

The Tesoro station here was huge and easy to navigate.  There was a place to dump our tanks, fill our fresh water and they even had an RV wash station.  No charge.  

What a great RV Wash Station!

Delta Junction, Alaska

Clearwater State Rec Area

This SRA campground was small but on the shores of Clearwater Creek.  It was $15 to camp, no hookups or dump, central water.  We were lucky to get 2 of the very few spots open since it is right out of town and it was Friday.  It's a very popular Arctic Grayling river.

It lived up to its name as the water was crystal clear.  Since the snow is still melting into the rivers, the current was pretty strong. We drifted downstream a bit and paddled back.  Not knowing what the current would be like further, we stayed closer to the wider part of the river which was like a small lake.  We took turns paddling while the other fished or else the current would take you away.

We all caught some our first Arctic Graylings!  Typically a smaller fish (3 lbs is considered trophy size), but very interesting with the sail fin on top.  We had to release anything over 18 inches. We kept the biggest that we caught later in the day so we could grill and taste one.  We heard they were very good but needed to be cooked the same day.  It was yummy!

What a great few days fishing and enjoying the weather.  

These mountain views were always so unbelievable.  Never got tired of seeing them.

This moose couldn't make up it's mind which side of the road she wanted to be on.  We stopped while she walked back and forth.

Why did the moose cross the road?  Who knows!

These guys couldn't wait to get onto the water and fish.  There was a small area along the shore where the ice had melted exposing the beautiful turquoise water. What a beautiful day to be out.

Time to head for a drive on the Denali Hwy (AK8).  It connects AK4 at Paxton to AK1 at Cantwell.  This drive of 135 miles is considered to be some one of the most spectacular drives in the world.  The road is above the timberline with the Alaska Mountain Range as your backdrop.   Many of the lakes and kettle ponds were still frozen. Most of the road is gravel and its usually closed from October - May.

Our first up close Alaska snow.  We had to play in it a bit.

Portions of the road are built on eskars.  Melting glaciers create eskars when they leave behind ridges of gravel and sand in a perfect form that can go on for miles.  They look manmade but is made by nature.

Each end of the highway is paved a bit.  We were surprised that the pavement lasted as long as it did.  Granted it was the usual wavy/bumpy road.  We heard it was recently graded for the season and we found that for the most part, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been.  I don't think we'll ever get used to these crazy roads.  Almost every day we say how glad we are that we have the camper instead of pulling a trailer.  We would have missed so much by not bringing our trailer on these types of roads.

It was far away, but so amazing to see this momma moose with twins.

Here is a short video where you can see the twin baby moose with Momma.

A beaver lodge.

The Susitna River way below.

We stopped at a lodge for lunch then closer to the 1/2 way point we stopped at the Susitna Lodge to visit and have a drink.  Most of these roadhouses and lodges are family owned.  They actually do more business in the winter with fly-ins by plane and helicopter and snowmobiles than they do in the summer.  We talked to the son for some time and he gave us a great spot to check out for boondocking.

I forget what he called these but they were delicious with chunks of very fresh pineapple in them.  We sat outside enjoying the view in the warm sun and playing with the resident dogs.

There was a long, meandering waterfall next to it that we visited.  It was impossible to get a picture of the entire length of it.

This is the Susitna Bridge.  We drove to it and then turned around to go to our camping spot for the next few days.  We had to break this drive in 1/2 because there are few main roads in Alaska and you will do a lot of backtracking if you want to visit most places.  We will do the other 1/2 from the other end later when we will be on that side visiting Denali National Park.

Matanuska-Susitna, Alaska

Swampbuggy Lake Boondocking

We were given some directions as you can't see it from the road.  Just take this small dirt road down about 1/4 mile and there is a small turnout that can fit 2 or 3 rigs.  Luckily we found it on the first try.  The approximate coordinates, 63.05518N, 147.42148W.  We sure love winging it with almost no plan where we'll be or where we'll camp!

It turned out to be a great spot that we had all to ourselves.

It was sunny and very warm.  Warm enough for shorts and sitting outside just enjoying more of the beautiful Alaska backcountry.

While we had a nice view of the lake, you couldn't get to the shore easily so we did not take out the kayaks.  We did try fishing, but didn't expect anything and didn't catch anything.

Relaxing, reading and taking walks is how we spent our time.  The sun stays out well past midnight.  We have blackout material that velcros on/off easily to cover the main windows and skylights.  We also have blackout curtains in the bedroom, so no problems getting a good night sleep.

Enjoying our "almost sunset" at midnight.  Some folks we talked with at a pull-out showed us a spectacular sunset picture around 2am with crazy red skies taken the night before.  We tried our best to get up at 2am but we didn't get the same colors.  We love that we are taking all these less traveled roads.  There are almost no other cars and people so it's nice when you're at a pull-out or lodge and everyone shares info about their adventure.

Absolutely!