At the King Mountain campground we’ve met Dominique and Clovis, both living in Switzerland, but Dominique is originally from Arlon. They come regularly to Alaska. Real nature lovers.
After we packed our tent, we continued driving on the Glenn Highway via the Chugach Mountains direction Anchorage. We went to the Alaska Motorcycle shop, because David’s motorbike had a small oil leak at the seal of the rear bearing. We were very fortunate that they had a spare seal available and they were even able to replace it on the same day. It would just take a few hours, but we took the opportunity to walk a bit around and to have a beauty treatment at the barber shop (at least David 😊). We got in touch with fellow Belgian travelers, Nils and William, we know from facebook, whom were also in the city and we planned to meet them the same night.
Back to the shop, the motorbike was neatly repaired and Chris, the service manager, invited us to stay at his place for the night. After a good shower and a warm welcome at Chris & Jamie’s place, William and Nils picked us up for a drink. As good Belgian’s, we ended up closing 2 bars 😊. It was just a great evening, talking in our own language with fellow travelers, exchanging experiences, Nils and William were just 2 great guys with whom we’ll stay in touch.
We will remember the 4th of July as a short driving day. After the short night and a hot day (25-30°C), we stopped earlier at a campsite to relax and enjoy the nice weather. Despite the short ride, we had a chance to see the Mt Mc Kinley. We stayed at the Sustina Landing Campground. It was a nice and quiet campground – perfect to spend the rest of the afternoon. On Thursday we only woke up at 8u45 (lazy morning…) but we had a perfect day ahead of us. We first drove along the George Parks Highway with a good view on Mt McKinley, however the weather started changing and turned into rain which made the scenery blurry and cloudy. In Cantwell we fueled up before the start at the Denali highway. It was a magnificent highway, muddy at the beginning in the rain, but the further we drove, the better the weather got and the dustier the highway became. The scenery was beautiful, again something different from the views we’ve already seen: meadows, lakes, mountains, snow, glaciers. It’s hard to describe the beauty of the nature. We stopped at the Maclaren Summit ( 4084ft) and noticed that David’s rear fender was broken. Poor Jaak! We took it off and drove until the Tangle Lakes campground.
The environment of the campground was so beautiful that we did and evening hike on the ridge of the surrounding mountain. On Friday we did the last part of the Denali highway (view on Mt Hayes and Robertson Glacier) and drove up on the Richardson Hwy direction Glennallen. We spotted a moose at the side of the road drinking water out of one of the many lakes we’ve passed. The plan was to go to the carwash with Jaak and Mieke, but the only carwash in town was out of order, the beauty treatment will be for another opportunity. We drove for a 3rd time (!) on the Glenn Hwy, but this time to go to the old mining town of McCarthy. The road to Chitina was brilliant; nice views on the Mt Sanford (16237ft) and Mt Wrangell (14160ft). We drove continuously through the Wrangell Saint Elias National Park and Preserve. We even spotted a moose with her calf crossing a lake… fantastic to see. Thanks to the beautiful weather we had again a lot of dust on the dirt road, but it was worth eating it 😊. Arriving in McCarthy with stayed at the Base Camp campground. McCarthy can only be visited by feet or by shuttle bus. We went to the town by feet and ate something in a local saloon. On Saturday we left McCarthy (same dirt road to return) and we had an espresso stop somewhere around Lower Tonsina. We discovered we had internet connectivity and read a nice invite from Barbara and Paul to come over to Girdwood and to take the opportunity to participate at the Forest Fair. Since we didn’t had any concrete plans, we called Barbara and drove over to their place. It was nice meeting them again since our first meeting in Utah (see blog day 79!). We feel so spoiled because they had not only prepared a dinner, but also offered us to stay a few days at their home. Girdwood is a small town in the forest nearby a ski resort and just the perfect place to relax. Yesterday, it was the opportunity for Jaak and Mieke to have their beauty treatment and afterwards we went to the Forest Fair. We didn’t know what to expect, but we discovered a really cozy festival in the woods, a mix of a folk festival, art fair and the spirit of Tomorrowland spiced with the extravert attitude of the nice Alaskans. We enjoyed several chats with local people and thanks to the worldcup soccer, everybody knows Belgium and it is clear that we need to beat France! They are all supporting the Red Devils 😊. We enjoyed again a very nice dinner together with Paul and Barbara and discovered that Paul is a celebrity on National Geographic. We watched the movie made by National Geographic on their special journey. In the 70s he and 3 of his friends followed the same route with the same tools as the old miners during the gold rush time. First they hiked the staircase and afterwards they floated the Yukon River with a selfmade lograft, built a loghouse to survive the cold until the Yukon river was completely frozen and were able to continue their way with skis and dog sledges until the Yukon Delta at the Bearing Sea.
Today, due to the rain, we decided to take a lazy day off and to prepare dinner for Paul and Barbara.
