Into Alaska
July 2 - 5, 2015
We stayed in Dawson an extra day waiting for the rain and fog to go away. We figured it wasn't good to drive the Top of the World Highway on a rainy, foggy day. Later we met someone who said they tried it; they turned around after 18 miles and went back to Dawson. It is 65 miles of mostly dirt and gravel road, with some pavement, from Dawson to the Alaska border, with much of it above timberline. Then it is another 14 miles of new pavement (done in 2014) followed by 30 miles of gravel and potholes to Chicken, where the pavement starts again







Want to know what the top of the world looks like?  This is it - at least if you believe the name, "Top of the World Highway".  The weather wasn't all that good, considering that we waited a day for it to improve. But at least it wasn't foggy, which is good considering that there are several hundred foot drop-offs alongside the road and there are no guard rails.  It would not be good to miss the road and go over the edge; it is a long way down!







Finally we came to the U.S. border. The U.S. customs person confiscated our one orange even though it had a sticker saying it was grown in the U.S. Rules are rules - I guess. I suggested he eat it for lunch, but he said that would not be ethical; it had to be thrown away.I didn't know that Alaska had such an important orange growing agriculture that it had to be protected from imported oranges.


Downtown Chicken, AK. It has a winter population of about 20, and a summer population of about 40. Chicken is an old gold mining town. The people starting the town wanted to name it "Ptarmigan", but didn't know how to spell that, so they settled on "Chicken", which was a slang term for ptarmigan in this area. Chicken consists of four stores and a couple of RV parks. The Chicken Creek Cafe offers free camping; I wonder what the owners of the RV parks think of that.











After Chicken we went to Tok to stay a night in a private campground, take showers, do laundry, and catch up on e-mail. Then it was on to Moon Lake to lay low during the July 4 weekend.










We found a beautiful campsite right on a lake where we could do some kayaking.









We were camped next to a couple from British Columbia. He took this picture of us paddling.








The lake even had its own resident cow moose.

Next we head south towards Valdez.