2024 Travel from Alaska to Yukon Territory to BC Canada

7/22/2024 to 7/29/2024

There are several opportunities to do overnight stays in roadside pullouts along the roads in Alaska and Canada. I was leery of doing that because there were so many unknowns! We made reservations along the way to Alaska until one evening when we weren’t able to find a place. We were in the middle of nowhere on the Cassiar Highway in BC Canada, it was late, and we were tired. Shortly after we stopped, it started to snow (see post https://www.jeffreyheiser.com/alaska-bound-part-2/). Throughout our trip, I paid closer attention to the many RVs and motorhomes parked in the roadside pullouts for the night and realized it was a safe thing to do. I told Jeff that I was willing to do more of those stays on our way back to the lower 48, and that’s what we did. We picked a couple of spots overlooking beautiful scenery. The weather was perfect, and traffic noise was minimal. Our stays included stops in the wilderness, in the mountains and along beautiful lakes. All of the stops added up to make our journey very special!

Here is our story of the 1796 miles as we started to make our way back to the lower 48 from Homer in the Alaska Kenai Peninsula to just south of Fort Nelson in BC Canada.

7/22 - We traveled from Homer to Soldotna and Kenai to Palmer. The purpose of this stop was for a Walmart grocery stop to get enough produce to last until we cross the border into Montana.

7/23 – Our ride started with a little bit of cloudy skies. By the time we stopped at a roadside pullout along Glenn Highway just past Glacier View, the skies cleared. From our front window we could see the snowcapped Wrangler Mountains.

7/24 – The road from Glacier View to Tok was a little nerve wracking with the many frost heaves. Jeff had to maneuver around them along with avoiding the many potholes. Little did we know the road on the next day would be even worse. Before travelling these roads, we heard they were bad from people who had travelled them in previous years. When we rode them on the way to Alaska, they didn’t seem as bad as they are now that the weather is warming up, and the permafrost is melting which seems to create more damage.

Once we got to Tok, we stopped at this town’s most popular restaurant Fast Eddies for lunch. We had our last halibut fish and chips meal in Alaska which again did not disappoint.

We then ventured out of town and saw a black fox and wild horses. Unfortunately, we came upon them so quickly, I couldn’t get a picture.  We continued on until we found a pullout on a serene lake.

7/25 – This travel day proved to be another exhausting and tedious ride due to the frost heaves. The picture doesn't do it justice!

We found another pullout past Destruction Bay next to Kluane Lake. The sun shining over the mountains was majestic. I captured the sunset then sunrise the next morning.

7/26 – Another long travel day with beautiful scenery.

At the end of the day, we found a roadside pullout just past Watson Lake. This was an uneventful spot, but it served its purpose for the night. Shortly after we pulled out the next morning, we saw a lone wolf, but again we came up on it so quickly I couldn’t get a picture. However, we did spot several bison! They were just chilling in the tree line as I took several pictures.

7/27 – On this day we headed to Liard Hot Springs. We had a reservation because this was on our bucket list, and we didn’t want to miss this experience because we had no place to park the motorhome. There's an electric fence surrounding the area to keep the moose and bear away from the springs. The hot springs were better than we thought they would be! So much so that we stayed relaxing in the springs for 2 hours!

7/28 – As we headed out of Liard Hot Springs, we came across many more miles of the long and winding road.

Those long miles eventually led us to the beautiful turquoise blue Muncho Lake.

Shortly after we found a caribou. He was just standing on the side of the road. He didn’t seem to mind at first that we stopped, and I opened my window. After a few pictures, he snorted at me. We figured we pushed our luck and decided to move on down the road. We were thrilled to have another opportunity to photograph another wild animal.

This night we found a roadside pullout south of Fort Nelson. It was nothing exciting except for the fact it was free!

We're making progress on the trip back to the lower 48!

7/29 – On this day we headed to Dawson Creek Alcan mile 0 campground. After 1796 miles in 8 days from Homer Alaska that included 6 out of 7 nights in roadside pullouts, it was time to stay in a campground. The next post will highlight our Dawson Creek adventures.