Alaska & Yukon, Summer 1992
In the summer of ’92 we loaded up the little Suzuki Samurai jeep we owned and headed north, the excuse being the 50th anniversary of the building of the Alaskan highway during WWII. From Portland roughly a 2500 mile-drive to Anchorage.
We headed north up through Washington state, into Canada and then northeast towards the Rockies, with a first stop at Jasper National Park.
Emperor Falls in Jasper National Park – an immense amount of water pouring down.
The source of it all! We camped on the lake shore and listened to the glacier groaning and cracking all night!
From there to Dawson Creek and the official start of the Alaskan Highway.
Up the highway, we stopped at various parks, crossing into Yukon, visiting Whitehorse, and then on to Kluane National Park.
Plenty of black bears – we’d already met a few down in Oregon/Washington, but the size of the ones up here was humungous. We saw one, further north, that was the size of a baby elephant – didn’t stop for a picture of that one! 🙂
Sophisticated anti-bear technology: gravel and coins in plastic travel mug, accompanied by British school hymns sung at full volume!
End of the highway in Alaska – and some not so law abiding Germans had brought a sign from Doris’ home town.
From there we headed further into Alaska, revisited the Alaskan side of Kluane (Wrangell-St.Elias)Park, and then via Anchorage up to Denali National Park where we spent a week avoiding grizzlies.
Cooking was a hoot! We had strict instructions to store food in the bear container 100m from the tent, then cook another 100m away. If a bear arrives while you are cooking, you’re suppoed to sprint from the stove to the container, get the scalding hot food in and reseal it – while acting calm – yeah right:-)
If you look closely, there is a humungous grizzlie (chasing, and eventually bringing down a super-sized moose)about 200m away in the center of the picture. One speciman followed us for about 2 days, tracking our progress up a valley from the ridgeline – scary biscuits!
