HOMEWARD BOUND ~ THE FINAL 740 MILES
The first thing I did when I awoke this morning was look out the window. Hey! No rain! In fact, there were even a couple of big patches of blue sky. I quickly got dressed, brewed up a cup of coffee, bid adieu to my hosts Frank and Nancy and hit the road. Jeez, if this weather holds, I might even make it out to the Canadian border at Beaver Creek by nightfall.
Imagine then my shock and dismay to come upon a big ROAD CLOSED barrier still in place across the northbound lane about five miles out of Skagway. To look at the road and the mountains in the immediate area, you’d never imagine the road being closed.
Sigh… I turned around and headed back into town. Breakfast at the Sweet Tooth Café mollified my spirits somewhat but I was anxious to get home and didn’t feel like hanging out and drinking coffee all morning. Apparently there’d been a couple of avalanches overnight and all we could do was wait until the Canadian highway crews got them cleaned up. Meanwhile, more clouds had gathered and soon after that a light rain began to fall.
At this point, my chances of getting back to Colorado for Thanksgiving were beginning to look pretty bleak. I had once given consideration to ferrying back to Juneau, parking my truck and rerouting my award ticket so that I could depart from Juneau rather than Fairbanks. Unfortunately, that possibility was scuttled by the cancellation of the ferry “LeConte” on the 20th. The next available ferry wouldn’t get into Juneau in time to fly down to Colorado in time. No, it was pretty much a situation now where I either managed to escape over the Chilkat Mountains today, or I’d probably be spending Thanksgiving in Alaska. Maybe even Skagway.
The road did eventually open at noon, though the official word was that travel on it was not recommended. Hey, if it’s open, I’m goin’! I was the second car of town. The road conditions down in Skagway were fine – just wet with rain. As the road began to climb from sea level to the 2,800 foot summit of White Pass, the conditions gradually deteriorated.
Rather than describe the variety of poor road conditions I encountered, I’ll sum up my passage from Skagway up over the White Pass in just one word: Intense!
Basically I encountered lots of slush, then snow and ice amidst blowing snow and fog. Or was it clouds? Either way, visibility was very poor and the road seemed slick enough that I didn’t dare stop during the drive up or I might never regain my momentum! Check out the pictures!
Eventually, I crested the summit and began the long, 70-mile descent down to the junction with the Alaska Highway, ten miles east of Whitehorse. I never did see where the avalanches were, but then I was watching the road and nothing else.
After what I’d been through on the Klondike Highway, you’d think I was home free once I hit the Alaska Highway. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I got the first of three flat tires in Haines Junction, about 100 miles west of Whitehorse. I’d driven 10,000 miles on this trip without a flat, so I guess I was due. Thankfully, it happened just as I arrived at this small Yukon community where the Alaska Highway meets the Haines Road. Thankfully I had a good spare tire though now, having employed it, I had no more. It was Saturday night and there was nobody available to repair my flat. In fact, there wouldn’t be anybody available in Haines Junction until Monday morning. Also, it was dark and about 20 degrees with temperatures forecast to drop into the single digits later tonight. Driving out here along the remote roads of the Yukon and Alaska without a spare tire is never a good idea. To do so at night with hardly any traffic on the road would be downright foolhardy.
I booked a room for the night at a local motel and got an early start the next morning, hoping that somewhere along the 500 remaining miles between Haines Junction and Fairbanks would be someone willing and able to repair a tire on Sunday. In the meantime, pray I don’t get another flat.
Sixty-five miles up the road at Destruction Bay, I pulled into the Talbot Arms Hotel for breakfast. Destruction Bay is a tiny settlement on Kluane Lake, the largest lake in the Yukon, Aside from the Talbot Arms and a sprinkling of cabins, there isn’t much else there. There was however a gentleman named Charlie who ran a tire and welding service out of his garage. Now – would he be willing to fix a tire at 8:00am on Sunday morning? The lady working as waitress/cashier/hotel receptionist at the Talbot Arms was happy to call him and find out.
Charlie had just woken up, but give him a half-hour or so to get himself out of bed and sure, it wouldn’t be a problem. Awright! I ordered a plate of blueberry pancakes and perused a five day old Yukon Times before heading down a couple of driveways to Charlie’s place. It was easy to find. A plain white hand painted sign indicated “Tires & Welding” at his driveway.
While getting my tire repaired, I decided to check the air on the rest of my tires. One of them was 10 psi low. Another flat caught in the perfect place. Charlie fixed that, too. An hour later, I was on the road again, only 430 more miles to go but at least I had a good spare tire. The problem with getting flats this time of year is due to the gravel or rock used to “sand” the highways. It’s very sharp. The rock that pierced my tire was less than ½ inch long and ¼ inch wide.
The rest of the trip proceeded apace until I pulled into Beaver Creek to purchase enough gas to get me to Tok, Alaska where prices would be much more affordable. I’d fill up there. At Beaver Creek I met Henry, the driver of the Alaska Direct van that I’d passed a few miles before pulling into Beaver Creek. Alaska Direct provides van service between Whitehorse and Fairbanks. Now that Air North no longer serves Fairbanks out of Whitehorse in the winter, Alaska Direct provides the only transportation link between these two northern communities.
On travel days, Alaska Direct will have a van leave Whitehorse and a van leave Fairbanks. They’ll meet in Tok or Beaver Creek depending upon road conditions and switch vans so that each driver can return to his home community that night. Unfortunately, on this day the Fairbanks driver had injured his back and wouldn’t be able to get on the road until tomorrow. Perhaps he and Henry could meet up in Tok… At least that’s the way it was explained to me. In any event, Henry had a single passenger who’d like to get to Fairbanks tonight, and since I was going, might I be willing to take him the rest of the way into Fairbanks? Ya, sure, no problem. How bout we meet at Fast Eddy’s Restaurant. Seeya there. Henry even volunteered to pay for my gas out of Tok.
So it was that in Tok I picked up Jeff, a PHd Tlinkit Language Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He’d been in Whitehorse at a conference on Native Languages. As we were loading his bags, we noticed that I had another tire just about flat. Of all the luck! Good luck, though, because we were right in “downtown” Tok and just down the street at the Texaco station they were willing and able to repair my tire. Since the temperature by now was –4° degrees, having them repair and mount it was far preferable to wrenching and jacking about on the side of the highway. Plus, I’d still have a good spare and at the rate I was going, I might well get another flat between Tok and Fairbanks.
Thankfully I didn’t. Jeff proved to be an engaging travel companion, as might be expected of one of the very few white men fluent in the Tlinkit language. Actually, Jeff was extremely knowledgeable about Native Americans in general and I quite enjoyed his company for the remaining four hour drive into Fairbanks.
As I drove past the big electronic billboard at the Fred Meyer store on Airport Way, the thermometer read –16° degrees. Welcome home!
All told, this journey covered 12,370 miles via the following conveyances:
6,140 miles of air travel
3,520 miles of driving
2,140 miles of train travel
570 miles of ferry travel
Finally, if you managed to stick around for this entire journey, you’re a much better reader than I’m a writer. Thanks for tagging along!
Last edited by Seat 2A; Nov 23, 2005 at 4:02 pm