I've been trying to beat the Alaska photos and videos into a coherent whole. It's taking too long, so I'm just gonna dive in and blow past the first few days in this one post:
It took me 4 days to reach the start of the Alaskan Highway, in Dawson's Creek, BC:
The Alaska Highway --- a 2,237 km (1,390 mi long) road --- was built in a hurry during WWII. There were no roads into Alaska then, and after Peal Harbor, with the Japanese moving to attack and eventually even occupy part of the Aleutian Islands, the US figured it needed overland access to Alaska right away.
"Right away" meant something then. Work started on the highway in March 1942 and was finished in November of the same year! One summer season for the whole thing, through literally trackless wilds!
It was just a rough-graded dirt road to start, but was rapidly improved. Eventually, after the war, sections started getting paved and upgraded.
Today, it's more or less paved from end to end, and is a gorgeous, easy (but long) drive. No special equipment is needed to run the length of the "Alcan;" any car should be able to make it. Gas and food are available at wide but regular intervals (Alcan rule of thumb: if your gas tank shows less than half full, top off at the next station you see).
There are many places to camp along the way, ranging from organized campgrounds and rest-stops designed to accommodate overnight parking, to "let's just pull off the road here." (The latter works fine in the remoter section of the road.)
If camping's not your thing, there are motels and cabins along the way, although they tend to be pricey and somewhat, shall we say, less than fully modern. Long stretches of the Alcan have no phone service, and wifi is mostly just a rumor.
I'm telling you all this because I didn't pay enough attention to the Alcan at first. I was so focused on getting to my goal (the Arctic Ocean) that running the Alcan was just a way to get further north. Big mistake, to think that way.
It turned out to be worth the trip just in itself. Spectacular drive!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Highway
So, today, let's fast-forward through the first four days of my trip that brought me to "Mile 0" of the Alcan.
I got a late-ish start the first day, and didn't get as far as I'd hoped. I slept in a rainy roadside rest area somewhere in Indiana my first night.
This wasn't masochism: My car was set up as a kind of mini-camper; with the rear seats folded down and a 4"-thick (10cm) memory-foam mattress to cushion the floor, the cargo area of the car made for a comfortable, waterproof (and, later on the trip, animal-proof) place to sleep.
Below: Things didn't stay this neatly organized for long, but you get the idea. (The heavy water jug is tied to a car hardpoint to prevent the jug from going ballistic in a panic stop.)
At night, I'd transfer the stuff piled the back of the car to the front seats. This would leave the rear area free and clear: an almost-full-size-wide bed with a memory foam mattress. Not too bad at all.
But rolling the mattress proved to be unnecessary. After the first night, I left the mattress unrolled all the time, and simply placed everything else on top. Simpler.
Day 2 was uneventful and I spent the second night somewhere in Minnestoa, near the North Dakota Border.
That's when the glitches started showing up. No month-long trip could possibly be without glitches, so this wasn't disheartening at all. (Someone once said: "It's not an adventure until your plans fall apart.")
These initial glitches were minor. I discovered that I took the wrong cable for my main camera, (there's nothing "universal" about USB, now that there are about 12 different plug variants....); I also had a power-supply problem for my PC. Those minor glitches were relatively easy to resolve.
A glitch that didn't seem minor at the time occurred in the form of car trouble somewhere near Regina, Canada, where I stopped on night 3.
I'd been enjoying some strong prairie storms through the day, such as these mammatus clouds (often associated with violent, even tornadic, storms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus_cloud ):
I love violent weather (see my tornado chase in http://fredlanga.blogspot.com/2008/05/heading-to-tornado-alley.html and subsequent posts). So that was no problem.
But the car trouble scared the crap out of me.
I'd been planning my trip to the Arctic Ocean for a long time. A year ago, I even bought my current car, a Nissan Rogue, specifically with the trip in mind. (The Rogue is a relatively lightweight unibody car --- really, an Altima --- equipped with all-wheel drive, a beefier suspension, and other accoutrements that make it suitable for gravel and dirt roads.)
Where I was going, gas stations would be few and widely-spaced. For example, along the 500-mile (800km) Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay, there are exactly two operating gas stations and they're in the first (lower) half. To drive the Dalton, you have to be able to cover at least 250 miles (400km) without refilling; or you have to carry extra gas.
This wasn't a problem for my car. On good roads and with just me in the car, I've gone over 400 miles (640km) on a single tankful. Even with bad roads and a heavily-laden car, I was sure my car could easily span the 250 mile minimum required to make the trip to the Arctic Ocean.
But then, near Regina, my rate of fuel use literally doubled over the course of a couple hours. The engine's computer worked great, doing its best to adjust things so I heard no pinging or missing, but my miles-per-gallon went to hell. It went so low, in fact, that I'd no longer be able to make the last stretch of the Dalton; I would have to carry a extra gas in cans --- not practical, safe, or smart in a car.
It took a while --- many miles of mild panic --- until I mentally narrowed down the possibilities to bad gas as the likely problem. I ran the tank nearly dry, put in a can of fuel-system cleaner, and did the next few fillups with premium gas (not for the octane, which my engine doesn't need; but for the added detergents); and the mileage slowly recovered to normal. Whew.
Blessed be the gods of Nissan for their excellent engine control systems, which not only prevented pinging (which can seriously damage an engine) but which also alerted me to the problem right away, via the mileage readout.
In retrospect, I think I may have gotten a tank of mis-labeled E85 gas (85% ethanol) instead of regular (10% ethanol) somewhere in southern Saskatchewan. Ethanol has a much lower energy content than gasoline; hence the drop in fuel economy.
I made some farmer happy by burning his corn likker, but it scared the crap out of me.
But the problem passed, and all was fine after that.
I made it almost all the way across Alberta on the next day, passing through heavily-industrial Edmonton (and stopping for lunch at a restaurant on --- where else? --- Wayne Gretzky Drive), and sleeping in a rest area outside Grande Prarie ("Home of the World Chuck Wagon Champion"), just shy of the BC border, and the start of the Alcan.
I was still focused too much on reaching the Arctic, and had no idea of the visual pleasures that awaited.
That would change the next day.
Stay tuned.
It took me 4 days to reach the start of the Alaskan Highway, in Dawson's Creek, BC:
The Alaska Highway --- a 2,237 km (1,390 mi long) road --- was built in a hurry during WWII. There were no roads into Alaska then, and after Peal Harbor, with the Japanese moving to attack and eventually even occupy part of the Aleutian Islands, the US figured it needed overland access to Alaska right away.
"Right away" meant something then. Work started on the highway in March 1942 and was finished in November of the same year! One summer season for the whole thing, through literally trackless wilds!
It was just a rough-graded dirt road to start, but was rapidly improved. Eventually, after the war, sections started getting paved and upgraded.
Today, it's more or less paved from end to end, and is a gorgeous, easy (but long) drive. No special equipment is needed to run the length of the "Alcan;" any car should be able to make it. Gas and food are available at wide but regular intervals (Alcan rule of thumb: if your gas tank shows less than half full, top off at the next station you see).
There are many places to camp along the way, ranging from organized campgrounds and rest-stops designed to accommodate overnight parking, to "let's just pull off the road here." (The latter works fine in the remoter section of the road.)
If camping's not your thing, there are motels and cabins along the way, although they tend to be pricey and somewhat, shall we say, less than fully modern. Long stretches of the Alcan have no phone service, and wifi is mostly just a rumor.
I'm telling you all this because I didn't pay enough attention to the Alcan at first. I was so focused on getting to my goal (the Arctic Ocean) that running the Alcan was just a way to get further north. Big mistake, to think that way.
It turned out to be worth the trip just in itself. Spectacular drive!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Highway
So, today, let's fast-forward through the first four days of my trip that brought me to "Mile 0" of the Alcan.
I got a late-ish start the first day, and didn't get as far as I'd hoped. I slept in a rainy roadside rest area somewhere in Indiana my first night.
This wasn't masochism: My car was set up as a kind of mini-camper; with the rear seats folded down and a 4"-thick (10cm) memory-foam mattress to cushion the floor, the cargo area of the car made for a comfortable, waterproof (and, later on the trip, animal-proof) place to sleep.
Below: Things didn't stay this neatly organized for long, but you get the idea. (The heavy water jug is tied to a car hardpoint to prevent the jug from going ballistic in a panic stop.)
At night, I'd transfer the stuff piled the back of the car to the front seats. This would leave the rear area free and clear: an almost-full-size-wide bed with a memory foam mattress. Not too bad at all.
But rolling the mattress proved to be unnecessary. After the first night, I left the mattress unrolled all the time, and simply placed everything else on top. Simpler.
Day 2 was uneventful and I spent the second night somewhere in Minnestoa, near the North Dakota Border.
That's when the glitches started showing up. No month-long trip could possibly be without glitches, so this wasn't disheartening at all. (Someone once said: "It's not an adventure until your plans fall apart.")
These initial glitches were minor. I discovered that I took the wrong cable for my main camera, (there's nothing "universal" about USB, now that there are about 12 different plug variants....); I also had a power-supply problem for my PC. Those minor glitches were relatively easy to resolve.
A glitch that didn't seem minor at the time occurred in the form of car trouble somewhere near Regina, Canada, where I stopped on night 3.
I'd been enjoying some strong prairie storms through the day, such as these mammatus clouds (often associated with violent, even tornadic, storms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus_cloud ):
I love violent weather (see my tornado chase in http://fredlanga.blogspot.com/2008/05/heading-to-tornado-alley.html and subsequent posts). So that was no problem.
But the car trouble scared the crap out of me.
I'd been planning my trip to the Arctic Ocean for a long time. A year ago, I even bought my current car, a Nissan Rogue, specifically with the trip in mind. (The Rogue is a relatively lightweight unibody car --- really, an Altima --- equipped with all-wheel drive, a beefier suspension, and other accoutrements that make it suitable for gravel and dirt roads.)
Where I was going, gas stations would be few and widely-spaced. For example, along the 500-mile (800km) Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay, there are exactly two operating gas stations and they're in the first (lower) half. To drive the Dalton, you have to be able to cover at least 250 miles (400km) without refilling; or you have to carry extra gas.
This wasn't a problem for my car. On good roads and with just me in the car, I've gone over 400 miles (640km) on a single tankful. Even with bad roads and a heavily-laden car, I was sure my car could easily span the 250 mile minimum required to make the trip to the Arctic Ocean.
But then, near Regina, my rate of fuel use literally doubled over the course of a couple hours. The engine's computer worked great, doing its best to adjust things so I heard no pinging or missing, but my miles-per-gallon went to hell. It went so low, in fact, that I'd no longer be able to make the last stretch of the Dalton; I would have to carry a extra gas in cans --- not practical, safe, or smart in a car.
But worse: Something very bad was going on. I couldn't head off into the wilds with an obvious mechanical problem. That would be majorly stupid. (Ever try to find a Nissan mechanic in, say, Watson Lake, Yukon? Don't bother.)
For a while, I wondered if the whole trip was in jeopardy.
For a while, I wondered if the whole trip was in jeopardy.
It took a while --- many miles of mild panic --- until I mentally narrowed down the possibilities to bad gas as the likely problem. I ran the tank nearly dry, put in a can of fuel-system cleaner, and did the next few fillups with premium gas (not for the octane, which my engine doesn't need; but for the added detergents); and the mileage slowly recovered to normal. Whew.
Blessed be the gods of Nissan for their excellent engine control systems, which not only prevented pinging (which can seriously damage an engine) but which also alerted me to the problem right away, via the mileage readout.
In retrospect, I think I may have gotten a tank of mis-labeled E85 gas (85% ethanol) instead of regular (10% ethanol) somewhere in southern Saskatchewan. Ethanol has a much lower energy content than gasoline; hence the drop in fuel economy.
I made some farmer happy by burning his corn likker, but it scared the crap out of me.
But the problem passed, and all was fine after that.
I made it almost all the way across Alberta on the next day, passing through heavily-industrial Edmonton (and stopping for lunch at a restaurant on --- where else? --- Wayne Gretzky Drive), and sleeping in a rest area outside Grande Prarie ("Home of the World Chuck Wagon Champion"), just shy of the BC border, and the start of the Alcan.
I was still focused too much on reaching the Arctic, and had no idea of the visual pleasures that awaited.
That would change the next day.
Stay tuned.
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