Alaska trip........ - Diesel Forum

Ggg6 · 08-19-2005, 12:41 AM

A little over a year ago there was talk on here about getting a big group together to go to AK in the summer of 2006. There was quite a bit of talk about it for a while and for the last year not even one word. So I am trying to see if there is any interest in this or did it just die. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.gif[/img] Due to my job I need to know an exact date(s) this would happen on by November this year to get the time off from work next summer.

Dansvan · 08-19-2005, 03:16 AM

If you like Off roading, check out the 5th Annual 4x4 Meet and Greet. It will be held at the Alaska State Fairgrounds on June 10,11,12. We had about 225 people and 115 rigs last year. Seminars on Sat, trail rides on Sunday. I'm the coordinator for the event, so if you would like more info let me know. Dan

72Pstroke · 08-20-2005, 01:35 AM

I might be interested in going. We just bought property and are getting ready to build a house, so there are lots of unknowns between now and then. If I go, I could go about anytime. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.gif[/img]
Tim

RickHredf250 · 08-22-2005, 11:16 PM

This is a dream of ours to go the Alaska, but getting two weeks off in a row I just dont know.
Not to mention the cost fuel, just crazy. now if we could get some people to brew some bio at the right places along the route, might could make it affordable!
Rick H...

MarkEkberg · 08-23-2005, 12:34 PM

[ QUOTE ]
now if we could get some people to brew some bio at the right places along the route, might could make it affordable!
Rick H...

[/ QUOTE ]

Now that would be something!

shamuex2000 · 08-23-2005, 02:52 PM

I looked up here for the same reason Greg.

Ggg6 · 08-24-2005, 03:40 PM

I tried to look in the archives but the "Events threads are not archived. Only technical topics. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

clamgulch · 08-24-2005, 04:55 PM

What the heck do you need? An invitation? Ok, after you read this, you are going to have to come up with a new excuse...

Two years ago, we bought 4 acres on the Kenai Peninsula at Clam Gulch...right across the gulch from the state campground. It's located 20 miles towards Homer from the town of Soldotna...That's about 3 hours drive from Anchorage. Last year we built a 24 x 32 "shop" (just one door and no windows) that we will be converting into a cabin what will have an 8x12 bathroom and a 12 x 15 kitchen. The rest of the space is overflow from my garage and house, which happens to be in the Seattle /Tacoma area. It's a long ways to drive to a storage locker- 2,700 miles each way, but the trip is beautiful. We also happen to be located right in the middle of the best sport fishing on the planet. Soldotna has plenty of modern conveniences from laundrymats with hot showers to highschool parking lots full of RV's, to a Fred Meyer superstore with diesel that was $2.37/gallon a month ago. 10 miles away in Kenai there is a Home Depot.

The entire road from Seattle to within 1/4 mile of my property is paved highway...nothing like the horror stories that it was even 20 years ago. In fact, you have to get off the highway to even see any of the remaining stretches of the original highway. Most of it has been plowed under and has gone back to the wild. There are stretches of the new highway that you can bury your speedometer...mile after mile. Of course there is always road construction because of "frost heave" where it gets slow. The last 100 miles in Canada totally suck for road condition and you may have to keep speed down to 40 or risk stuffing your shocks inside out like I did on my mercedes a month ago.

My plan for 2006 is to drive up towing my 30 toy hauler, leaving the seattle area memorial day weekend. You won't want to caravan with me because I've done the trip enough times that I now drive it at night to avoid caravans...and I tend to drive it in 2 segments without stopping, except for pee-n-diesel, and I can get there in 3 1/2 days that way. I will be on my property for the whole month of June, and y'all are invited- If there isn't room on the property, you can camp at the campgound. It has pit toilets and one water spiggot with decent water in it (most Peninsula water is so full of sulfer that it makes following a new catalytic converter a pleasure by comparison)

If it's your first trip to Alaska, you will want to take your time because there is so much beautiful scenery and wildlife along the way. Horses, buffalo, carribou, elk, deer, moose, sheep, goats, fox, wolves, black and brown bear...I have seen all of those at one time or another, right along the highway, and many times I've had to stop to let them get off the highway for me to pass through!

There is also an alternative route called the Cassiar highway that is stunningly beautiful, but if you are comming up from the midwest, it's going to be probably an extra hundred miles or so out of the way. It's got some sections that aren't paved (near Dease Lake).

Did you know that near Pink Mountain the landscape will convince you that nobody has ever even walked through most of the area, yet the earliest known evidence of human activity in the western hemisphere was found there. And it is still currently one of the most wild and untamed places on the continent...except for the fact that it is now criss crossed with thousands of buried gas and oil pipelines that feed most of the midwest states. Quite and interesting contrast.

By September, the northern lights are so bright that they can outshine the moon and light the ground up so well that you are no longer "in the dark." At my place towards the end of June, the sun doesn't go down until around midnight...only to be back up again around 3:30 am. That alone will change your life. Weather in June is best and can easily hit the 80's. In Fairbanks it has gotten to 100...and in the winter, -60...the highest documented temp spread of any city anywhere.

Now you've made me homesick- That trip will change your life. It did mine, and I'm not one bit sorry.

If anyone wants greater details, please PM me. I'd be delighted to answer questions and help you make plans for a safe and the most memorable and enjoyable trip of you life!

Best and kindest regards to my Dieselstop bretheren -
Clamgulch
AKA, Steve Holmes

RickHredf250 · 08-24-2005, 10:53 PM

Dang, had put the thought in the back of my mind until I read your post!
After just coming off a trip to Colorado and being aw struck, I guess I just can not phathom what it must "feel" like up in the "Great'r" white north. (Great'r because it is still in the USA!)
Rick H...

Ggg6 · 08-25-2005, 10:58 AM

[ QUOTE ]
What the heck do you need? An invitation? Ok, after you read this, you are going to have to come up with a new excuse...

[/ QUOTE ]
What are your talking about, invitation,excuse... [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.gif[/img] I don't need no stinking invitation. LOL

Larry M · 08-25-2005, 06:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I tried to look in the archives but the "Events threads are not archived. Only technical topics. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

The LM (Link Master) comes to the rescue ... [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

<font color="red"> ORIGINAL THREAD</font>.

After our giant 60dy trip out west last year it will be a couple more before we're ready to do something like that again.

This year it's 30days at WDW over Xmas and both are sons and their families are planning on joining us.

Larry

72Pstroke · 08-25-2005, 08:24 PM

I guess one of the big reasons I want to go to Alaska is to see the Northern lights. Maybe we could get a group together for September? How would the weather be this time of year? Sounds like a blast! This is a trip I have been wanting to make, I'm just hesitant to go alone. How many miles from Seattle?
Tim

clamgulch · 08-25-2005, 11:24 PM

Tim, you are in for disappointment for weather... Fall sometimes starts right around the first of August. Tree leaves turn yellow mid august. Last year on the way home in Washington going through the south end of the Yukon Territories on labor day weekend, we drove for 6 hours in the middle of the night through 6" of snow and temps as low as 23*. I think we saw 3 cars in that 300 miles. However, 2 hours before we hit the snow was when we saw the northern lights brighter than the moon. Northern lights are best around thanksgiving from what I've been told by my neighbors.
Best (driest) weather is June and July, along with the best sport fishing. September offers exceptional trout fishing if you are a "crazy fly flipper" as one guy called me.

Last year in mid august, I got up in the middle of the night to...and I saw the lights, so I woke up everyone to see them except my sister, who had lived in alaska on a fish processor. I figured she had seen them a million times. I thought she was going to kill me the next day when she found out that eveyone had seen them but her. She still has never seen them.

Last year was an exceptional year for seeing the Aurora Borealis because of the huge solar flares. People were seeing them clear down in Texas. Imagine that- Texas was the last on the list. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] Incidently, did you know that if you sawed Alaska in half that Texas would be number 3? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Anchorage is about 2,500 miles from Seattle by road- 5 days or so. Like I said, I'm a maniac and drive at night and I'm nearly insane by the time I get there 3 1/2 days later.

Forgot to mention...right in front of my place is a sand beach that is about 23 miles long and full of razor clams. Our property overlooks cook inlet and Mount Redoubt, Mount Iliamna and Mount Spurr. Do a search of those mountains and one of clam gulch on Alta Vista images to get an idea of what things look like.

Alaska has WAY more mountains and glaciers than Texas...and I think the Kenai Peninsula alone has more lakes than Minnesota's 10,000. Mosquitos aren't a problem until 1 hour before dark, then you better be indoors...

Lastly, if you have a habit of drinking and driving, I would highly recommend abstaining. In Alaska, it's a felony, and if you are convicted of a felony anywhere, you CANNOT enter Canada...which means you will be spending a long time away from home.

**klhansen** · 08-26-2005, 02:01 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I guess one of the big reasons I want to go to Alaska is to see the Northern lights. Maybe we could get a group together for September? How would the weather be this time of year? Sounds like a blast! This is a trip I have been wanting to make, I'm just hesitant to go alone. How many miles from Seattle?
Tim

[/ QUOTE ]

September weather can be nice, and the colors are very nice along the Glenn Highway between Glenallen and Palmer.

I made a trip to Seattle and back in 2002 over the Cassiar Highway, 7 days total travel time arriving back home Oct 3, and had pretty nice weather the whole way except a little snow between Whitehorse and the border. Saw lots of wildlife. Unfortunately it wasn't a trip where I could dawdle along and enjoy the sights.

Total Mileage from my house in Eagle River to my daughter's apartment in Seattle and back was about 4350 miles. Trip back was loaded with 1900 lb of household goods. Truck ran like a top. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Although I had nice weather, it can be bad as well that time of year. As they say "You pay your nickel and you take your chances". But don't let that stop you.

Ggg6 · 08-26-2005, 08:10 AM

THANKS Larry M, thats is the article I was talking about.