Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:08:36 -0500
Reply-To: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Subject: Re: Trip Report ( Long!) Eagle, AK
In-Reply-To: <b34812450909251327le69a419jfcca613518f6e9ee@mail.gmail.com>
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Mark - you make me SICK!!!!
Homesick!!! for the country that was my home for 30 years. Such memories!!
I felt I was there with you for every bump in the road, the rain, the
that air, the camaraderie of the project. I can almost smell the camp
fires and the food.
Great trip report!
John Rodgers
88 GL Driver
Mark Tuovinen wrote:
> Trip Report
>
>
>
> In early August my wife, her 16yr old daughter Julia (celebrated b-day in
> Eagle), our 6yr old son Colin, Maggie our Great Dane and I took a 7 day trip
> from Anchorage to Eagle, AK and back in our `87 Westy Syncro. A late start
> out of Anchorage saw us departing about 5PM Saturday the 8th. We stopped in
> Palmer to visit my wife’s parents whom were participating in Palmers version
> of Hot August Nights car show on the main street. After viewing the cars,
> eating dinner and visiting with friends and family we headed North on the
> Glenn Highway to get as far up the road as we could for the day. Eagle is
> approx. 510 road miles from Anchorage with several mountain passes (5-9%
> grades) and 100 miles of two lane dirt “highway” along the way.
>
>
>
> The van ran well though is now a bit slower on the uphill grades due to
> the recent installation of 215/75R15 BFG’s on S A alloys. The tires had
> been on the van for a week prior to the trip and it was only the day before
> we departed that the clamshell modifications were finished allowing a fully
> inflated spare to be carried. So far we are very pleased with the tires and
> they are a lot quieter than I expected them to be.
>
>
>
> Saturday night we camped at a roadside pullout next to the Chistochina River
> after stopping for gas in Glennallen. Shortly before we stopped for the
> night one of several moose we saw ran out into the highway turned away from
> us and zigzagged up the road while I did my best to stop the van without
> hitting it. This reinforced my resolve to get the E-code headlights
> installed. They are ready except for finding a decent quality pigtail to
> replace the stock 9004 bulb connectors. A big brake kit may be in order.
>
>
>
> Sunday morning we awoke to cloudy skies and a light sprinkle that grew
> steadily harder as we drove toward Tok, our next refueling stop and where we
> ate breakfast. Tok was uneventful except for the dog eating a package of
> hotdog buns when left alone in the van. She is a new addition to the family
> and evidently has a couple of bad habits that our other Dane does not. After
> a quick stop at the store to replace the buns we headed East toward Tetlin
> Junction where we would turn North onto the Taylor Highway.
>
>
>
> The Taylor Highway climbs up and down the mountain sides offering
> panoramic views in every direction. Large swaths of the countryside along
> it have experienced forest fires in the last 5-10 years and burnt trees, ok
> we call them trees but they are more like giant toothpicks, cover the hills
> and valleys as far as you can see. About seventy to eighty miles in we came
> to the town using the term loosely, of Chicken. The gold miners that first
> settled there wanted to call it Ptarmigan (silent “P”) but could not spell
> it so they chose Chicken. Ptarmigan are prevalent throughout Alaska and are
> our official State bird. Chicken consists of a combination fuel stop, gift
> shop, RV park and camping area. There is also a café, gift shop, and of
> course bar. There is also an airport and the main attraction, an old
> floating gold dredge now on dry land and open for tours. We did not take
> the tour this time but might next time we are in the area. Twenty or so
> miles out of Chicken we came to a fork in the road, straight would put us on
> The Top of The World Highway and in a few miles would cross the Border into
> Canada but we turned left staying on the Taylor Hwy and headed for Eagle. Here
> the road winds along the ridges and drops into a few canyons where it
> narrows to one lane in places, and yes we call it a highway. It had been
> raining since we broke camp that morning and as only the first 60 or so
> miles of the Taylor are paved both road and van were quite muddy by now. As
> it was the day before caribou season was opening every possible place to
> pull off of the road and a few places on the road were filled with trucks,
> SUV’s, RV’s, trailers, four wheelers, and even a few horse trailers. Makes
> you wonder how much that caribou costs per pound when you add in the $40,000
> truck, a trailer, four wheelers, rifles, and assorted other gear. The rains
> let up as we covered the last few miles and dropped down the hillside into
> Eagle on the shore of the Yukon River.
>
>
>
> After a short drive around Eagle to familiarize ourselves with the area we
> headed out to the BLM campground north of town. The campground has 16
> spaces of which only a couple would be suitable for larger RV’s, most are
> for car or tent camping. There is good separation between the sites and all
> have fire rings and picnic tables. The area is quiet with only the sounds
> of wind in the tree tops, a few birds, and a stream below the hill upon
> which the campground sits. The closest neighbors to the campground are
> exceptionally quiet and well behaved as they reside in a small cemetery
> dating back to the early 1900’s when nearby Fort Egbert was active.
>
>
>
> Eagle, AK consists of two separate parts, the native village to the South
> and the “White” settlement to the North. As is common with riverside
> communities the centers of both are/were located along the waterfront. I
> say were because in early May of this year ice jams on the Yukon River
> caused extensive damage to both as ice and water spilled over the banks of
> the river. The native area was wiped out completely and the white
> settlement suffered extensive damage. Flooding here is extremely rare as
> Eagle is so far up the Yukon River it is almost at the Canadian border. This
> year early thawing on the upper river created a lot of water and ice with no
> place to go but over the banks.
>
>
>
> Sunday evening we made camp and settled down for the night. Monday morning
> after a late breakfast we went and found Rob the volunteer coordinator and
> signed up to help with the cleanup and reconstruction. We spent the rest of
> the week working on cleanup, salvage, materials distribution, and
> construction. Salvage mainly consisted of roof trusses, windows, and
> anything that was sturdy enough to stand up to being flooded and pushed
> around by the river ice. Good building materials are hard to come by and
> expensive to ship into remote areas like Eagle so if it could be saved it
> was. The work force consisted of two organized groups Samaritans Purse, and
> Mennonite Disaster Services, and a loose bunch of volunteers that like my
> family showed up to help. Some were from Alaska others came from Oregon,
> Michigan, and the rest of the US. One hard working young lady “Sina” was
> from Switzerland. She is traveling the world and decided she would stop in
> and help out while in Alaska. The days were long with breakfast served from
> 6:30 – 8:00AM then off to work until lunch at noon, back to work at 1:00PM
> and dinner at 6:00PM. The crews building cabins would continue to work
> after dinner stopping a couple hours later as light ran out. Long days but
> necessary when you consider the short construction season in Alaska. The
> goal was to have all the new cabins built by mid September so their owners
> would have time to get settled in before the snows came and road closes for
> winter. Tuesday August 11th was Julia’s 16th birthday and it was one she
> will never forget. She helped pull sheets of salvaged plywood out of the
> woods and load a large pile of trash and flood debris into the scoop of a
> loader for removal to the dump. The locals and volunteers working the mess
> hall found out about her birthday and surprised her with a cake complete
> with candles presented to her after dinner while everyone in the hall sang.
> I have never seen her blush as much as she did when the cake came out to the
> tune of Happy Birthday.
>
>
>
> All too quickly the week came to an end and Friday evening after one last
> dinner in the mess hall we said our good byes and hit the road headed for
> Chicken and fuel. Had we been more on top of it we would have refueled in
> Eagle but as I was working all day we never thought about it until it was
> time to go and the gas station was closed for the night. Had we done so we
> would not have made the stop in Chicken, nor met Juan and Sara on the way
> home so it all worked out for the better this way. We drove out of Eagle
> into the setting sun across the ridge tops until dark fell and with it a
> light rain. About 30 miles from Chicken a trail off the road took us to a
> clearing atop a small bluff where we camped for the night. Up early
> Saturday morning we broke camp and drove into Chicken for fuel and breakfast
> at the Chicken Café. To anyone traveling the Taylor Highway we highly
> recommend stopping at the Café. On the counter there were at least eight
> fresh made pies, two huge sheets of brownies, another of cookies, and
> cinnamon rolls. All made from scratch and very tasty. We ate what we could
> of the generous servings of eggs and bacon putting the leftovers in our
> fridge for later. While there we chatted with the owner who told us of her
> 18yr old son whom she had just gotten off the phone with. He was calling to
> tell her of the apartment he had just rented in Paris where he will be
> attending a prestigious school on a full scholarship. I would love to be
> there when his new friends and classmates hear of his life growing up in
> Chicken, AK. The clientele of one Café in Paris during lunch would out
> number the population of Chicken, AK.
>
>
>
> The journey from Chicken to Anchorage was for the most part uneventful. The
> weather improved from a light sprinkle to overcast though there were strong
> cross winds from Chistochina through Tolsona Lake. Cruising south on the
> Glenn Highway near the Matanuska Glacier we came up behind a short line of
> slower moving traffic. When we could see the front vehicle it was a Vanagon
> Syncro. As we followed along behind it we scoped out the full length roof
> rack loaded with gear, two bikes were on a hitch mounted carrier. It was
> sporting Nevada plates, LT style mirrors and was obviously lifted and
> running large tires(225/80R16). Up front was a bumper with winch and the
> rear had a tube bumper. After following them for a number of miles we
> passed them waving to each other as we went by. Just outside of Palmer we
> pulled over and flagged them down. Inside were Juan and Sara two wandering
> souls that departed Nevada in July on a journey that will take them to
> Alaska then down through Canada and the US heading for Florida in December.
> >From there they will cut across the southern States turning south into
> Mexico and make their way to Juan’s homeland of Argentina.
>
>
>
> We invited them to stay with us while in Anchorage and they spent the week
> at our house exploring the area and doing a little maintenance and repair
> work on the van. The following Saturday we loaded the kayaks on top of our
> van and caravanned with them to Seward for an overnight kayak camping trip
> to Caines Head at the mouth of Resurrection Bay. Sunday evening after
> paddling back over calm water with dolphins swimming nearby to our launch
> site we ate dinner at Ray’s our favorite dining establishment in Seward and
> parted company with Juan and Sara. They stayed to explore the Kenai
> Peninsula and do some fishing and we headed home to chores and work the next
> morning. This was not the last we saw of them but that is for another
> story. For more on the adventures of Juan and Sara go to their blogsite
> mixingamerica.com.ar. I will post a link to photos of this and other trips
> on picasaweb soon.
>
>
>
> Mark in AK
>
>
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