Byron's Alaska Adventure (and beyond!): Picture catch up from Dawson City to Alaska Highway

20-Jun-14
On Thursday and Friday, we made our way from Dawson City YT to Chicken, AK, and eventually on to Fairbanks, where we sit in an RV park having showered, currently doing laundry, and enjoying WiFi access.

Our trip here included a ferry ride across the Yukon River at Dawson City. There was a huge line of RVs awaiting the ferry when we queued up, but luckily our vehicle does not classify as an RV...I don't know whether that's an insult to Byron, or if I should consider it a compliment. Regardless, it put us well ahead of many in getting onto the ferry.

From there, we began our journey up and across the Top of the World Highway. This was an amazing journey due mostly to the road conditions being slick and muddy due to a major rainstorm that had caused significant flooding only the night before. The road traverses across a series of ridges with steep to sheer drop offs, sometimes on both sides, with no guard rails. It would be exciting even in the dry. The folks I have to say are crazier than us were the ones driving big RVs and all the motorcyclists on their way to the rally in Dawson City...each will have a story to tell!

About 65 miles into this journey, we came around a ridge and saw signs for the US/Canada border crossing and noticed a group of buildings off in the distance. It was amazing to find this at the top of a treacherous mountaintop, staffed and ready to receive visitors from either side. It is the northernmost, land-crossing into the US. The person checking vehicles could not even see Meghan through the mud-caked windows...she had to come up front to get checked.

From there we made our way down to Chicken, AK, a 'town' with 23 residents in the summer, 7 in the winter. We bought gas and got a free campsite across the creek, where the recent rains had swelled the creek and washed out the footbridge back to 'town'. Well, that made the walk about 300 yards longer. We had dinner at the van, then went to town for homemade pie for dessert at the cafe. The bartender at the saloon came out with the town cannon and proceeded to pack it. He offered to Rebecca to put her panties or bra into the cannon as a celebration of her visit to Chicken. She declined.

On the way to Fairbanks, we thought we might have caught our first view of Denali...but it was actually a much closer mountain we eventually passed by. See below.