Day 15 of Ak trip
Miles: Tok, Ak to Anchorage, Ak 338
Hours 7
hours (plus 45 minutes lunch)
We awake 6:30 AM in our small cabin. It rained all night with twilight. Opened the door and it is snowing, heavy wet snow 36 degrees. Thankfully no wind. The cabin was freezing when we first arrived. The portable heating unit they provide did warm us up after a few hours.
We decide to get on the road with morning coffee and skip breakfast. The snow turns into sleet and the road gets slushy. We watch the car thermometer to sense if black ice is likely to form. Glad we are not pulling a trailer or driving a big RV. No one is on the road but we finally catch up with a large RV and let them make tracks in the slush. Tok is a big area for hunting. We pass 6 moose along the way. They are coming to the road for the new leaves on the alder bushes. They are starving by this time and have been eating tree bark and small twigs. Their coats are winter gray colored and will soon turn to rusty brown. The bull moose antlers are getting large with velvet intact. Thankfully state has cut back the bushes along the road so we can see moose approaching.
We are entering where the
Alaska Range meets the Wrangell Range so the peaks are 10+k feet. Besides the slush there is a lot of heave and
potholes to navigate. Alaska only plows
state roads. Anchorage plows and uses
sand. They do not use salt. It requires all our concentration to make
sure we can keep the car on the road. It
is snowing so hard in higher elevations the mountains are whited out. We are
missing the impressive Wrangell dormant volcanoes, but luckily we have seen
them fully open in the past. Conditions
improve as we pull into Glenallen. They
flooded here in the last couple weeks.
Three creeks converge and the exceptional snow accumulation and melt
caused flooding. We were able to pass
over without a problem, but water was at the bridge level. Stopping at the Visitor’s Center a couple
from Connecticut tell us they had to turn around on their way to Anchorage due
to snow. But a woman from Buffalo drove
up from Anchorage and said it was passable.
We decide to go. The first part
of the trip was heavy snow with temps falling.
Surrounding water is frozen. The temp keeps falling. We follow another car and they pass through
the slush and we can see where the heaves.
It’s a nail biter.
Abruptly, around Chistochina the temp rises and it’s raining, no snow on the ground. We pass Uni of Fairbanks HAARP, High
Frequency Active Auroral Research Program.
Temps keep rising into 40’s. Depending
on elevations we can go through late winter, early spring and spring. We see brief sun and break in the dense
clouds. Unfortunately. we can’t see area’s large glaciers but we see their
rivers. We stop off at Matanuska Glacier
for quick pics. We have been here many
times and it never fails to impress. We
are in between Chugach Range and Talkeetna Range. Both very different mountains. The Chugach ring Anchorage and they have new
snow on them.
We stop off at small farming town of Palmer, home of Alaska State Fair and giant vegetables. We have lunch at Palmer Alehouse. Always good food. It’s 51 degrees and bloomed. Travel the last 40 miles to Anchorage. Low gray clouds and some rain spits, 51 degrees. Haul our full load up to apartment, everything in order. Dean has left us personal drawings and invite to his birthday party. Quinn has left us a beautiful hanging flower pot for our deck. Chuck goes to their house for dinner, but Pat is worn out. Tomorrow Brenna and kids will be home and we will spend the day with them. Rested.
We will blog one more day, ending June 1. And then move on with summer T-ball, parks, picnics etc. We haven’t decided how we will go home in July. If we decide to blog the trip we’ll let family and friends know so they can join us.
Grateful for safe travel
today. We had winter in Ohio. Then we were in Anchorage in Feb and early
March. Single digits and record
ridiculous snow. And now blizzards in
May. We are so done with winter!
Morning in Tok
