From time to time friends send me travelogues of their trips around the world. Here's one of a month long trip from central California up to Alaska and back. It's full of advice and adventure along the Alcan. Don't hesitate to email the author; let her know how much you enjoyed her trip too.

1993 Alaska Trip
Dick & Lynette Tibbetts

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Recommended Reading
  3. Week 1 Travelogue
  4. Week 2 Travelogue
  5. Week 3 Travelogue
  6. Week 4 Travelogue
  7. Week 5 Travelogue

 

INTRODUCTION AUGUST - 1997

The concept of actually visiting Alaska hit me when National Geographic put a map of Alaska in an issue some time in the early 1990s. I am a map freak - I can spend hours with a map - nearly any map. Alaska wasn't so far away - from the looks of things on the map, it was just a little way north from the north end of Vancouver Island. In the early spring of 1992, I took my vacation accrual spread sheet and figured out how soon I could take five weeks off in a row if I stopped using a day here and a day there, and we decided to visit Alaska in the summer of 1993. I bought the book ALASKA-YUKON HANDBOOK at the Cal Poly bookstore, and took it on a short vacation trip to Death Valley in early April. I read it from cover to cover and started developing itineraries. The more we planned and talked about what we wanted to see, the more excited I got - I started ordering books and guides and tourist materials, and making everyone around me crazy because I talked of little else. I started counting backwards from the departure date almost a year in advance (! only 333 days to go!). LL Bean loved us that year - we bought new sleeping bags, a new tent, a new roof-top carrier for our new Jeep, new this and new that - they even sent us a Christmas card!

The whole trip seemed and still seems surreal - I know I was there, but I still can't believe it. After the pictures came back I thought many times about sitting down and writing a travelogue, but the inspiration never came until I discovered the travel writings of my web/e-mail pal Jim Schrempp (http://www.wenet.net/~jschremp/index.html). He has a list of places he wants to visit on his web-site - Alaska was way down around number 10. I wrote him and encouraged him to move that trip way up the list! His brother Mike had traveled to Alaska and Jim has Mike's trip notes posted on his web site as a visiting author. I sent Jim a note briefly (real brief - 1-2 sentences) describing our trip. Jim asked if he could post MY note in his visiting authors section. Well, that got me thinking - I have a LOT more to say about Alaska than just a sentence noting that we did a five week road trip in our Jeep Grand Cherokee, staying most nights in our tent! I brought my diaries, maps, books and reference materials to work and for the past month and a half, I've been doing what I should have done a long time ago, using my lunch hour to set our trip in writing.

-
If
Mississippi
lent
Missouri
her
New Jersey
what
will
Delaware?
Idaho,
ALASKA!
-

"I'm a thousand miles from nowhere
Time don't matter to me
Cause I'm a thousand miles
from nowhere
and there's no place I'd rather be"

(slight paraphrase of Dwight Yokum's "Thousand Miles from Nowhere" - "THIS TIME" CD)

 

ITINERARY:

1993           7/31
Atascadero CA to
Dunsmuir CA
8/1
Dunsmuir CA to
Kelso Washington		 8/2
Kelso WA to
Hope British Columbia		 8/3
Hope BC to
Clinton BC		 8/4
Clinton BC to
Bear Lake BC (Crooked River Provincial Park)		 8/5
Bear Lake to
Dawson Creek BC		 8/6
Dawson Creek BC to
Fort Nelson BC		 8/7
Fort Nelson BC to
Watson Lake, Yukon Territory
8/8
Watson Lake YT to
White Horse YT		 8/9
White Horse YT to
Dawson City YT		 8/10
Dawson City YT to
Eagle Alaska		 8/11
Eagle AK		 8/12
Eagle AK to
Tok AK		 8/13
Tok AK		 8/14
Tok AK to
Yukon River Crossing AK
8/15
Yukon River Crossing to
Arctic Circle to Fairbanks AK		 8/16
Fairbanks AK to
Healy AK		 8/17
Denali National Park		 8/18
Healy AK to
Gakona AK		 8/19
Gakona AK to
Silver Lake AK		 8/20
Silver Lake AK		 8/21
Silver Lake AK to
Tok AK
8/22
Tok AK to
Haines Junction YT		 8/23
Haines Jct. YT to
Skagway AK		 8/24
Skagway AK to
Haines AK and back to Skagway AK		 8/25
Skagway AK		 8/26
Skagway AK to
Watson Lake YT		 8/27
Watson Lake YT to
Hyder AK		 8/28
Hyder AK to
Burns Lake BC
8/29
Burns Lake BC to
Clinton BC		 8/30
Clinton BC to
Hope BC		 8/31
Hope BC to
Cottage Grove Oregon		 9/1
Cottage Grove OR to
Williams CA		 9/2
Williams CA to
Atascadero CA		    

SYNOPSIS:

The Short Version: The trip was fabulous. We would leave again today and do the exact same trip at the drop of a hat (well, mostly). We drove our Jeep Grand Cherokee a little over 8000 miles in 5 weeks, spending most nights in our tent. 1000 of the miles were on non-paved roads.

Regrets: Mostly places we missed or didn't stay long enough

Destinations for next time:

Major League Recommendations:

Disappointments:

Stand-out Memories:

Lessons:

On To Recommended Alaska Readings

On To Week 1 Travelogue

 

If you'd like to see other travelogues from Jim and his friends...