Welcome Home to Alaska
| Campground | Tundra RV Park and Bar in TOK (highly recommended) |
| Total Distance | 4055 Miles. |
| Traveled today | 297 Miles. |
| Highlights | Logan Super Tour (LST) with Kluane Glacier Air Tours, Canada day in Hanes Junction, lots of driving Tundra RV park’s Bar |
it was a once-in-a-lifetime (I hope for a 2nd one) experience. The Kluane national park has the biggest non-polar icefield, and for people like us (aka not mountain climbers) – a (not cheap) flight above the park is the only way to see this magic. The aircraft is a 5-seater Cessna, and the pilot is also the guide, the person at the reception, and the air traffic controller in this tiny, unpaved runway airport. The icefield size is about 2x the area of Switzerland (so they say), and we took the extended 2 hours flight that goes all the way around Mount Logan – the tallest peak in Canada. It is hard to express in words the view, and pictures, as good as they can be, cannot deliver the area’s sense of size, wilderness, and abandonment. Un-touched land that is not accessible to people, white and beautiful. The most impressive sites are seeing the never-ending glacier- as rivers of ice, frozen on the one hand- but clearly showing the signs of the glacially slow movement. If you are ever around – do your best to go on one of these flights. We were smart and half lucky to book a day in advance – as we did not remember it was July 1st – Canada’s independence day – a long weekend with high domestic demand. So we got the last seats for the week.
Upon returning to Haines Junction, we stopped to celebrate their independence day with the 800 people community. A very small and cute parade and a fun community bar-b-q held us in Hanes Junction until almost 0100pm. Unfortunately, that was a bit late for the 300 miles of the drive we had planned for that day. Had we had more time – we would have stayed there for one more night, exploring one more of the many local trails, and spent at least one more night near Thechàl Dhâl Visitor Centre – where there are many great views of the slopes of the Kluane Park.
From there – the road was long and gutting rougher by the mile – to the point, it was not fun driving. Just a few minutes before accessing the Alaska border – we were nervous again about what will the US customs not like in our RV campers (last time, it was the wood, the eggs, and the lemon from California). Ruti was wondering and wishing – when would be the day the customs officer would just say “welcome home.” As we exited Yukon, the rain started pouring (cleaning the air from the smoke around during most of the drive). The customs officer was asking all the usual strange and random questions – this time, it was our car registration – yet 2 minutes later, he turned to us with a smile- handing back our IDs and saying, “Welcome Home, guys,” to Rutis delight. Another wish came true.
Tundra RV park in Tok is highly recommended – it was as spacious as some of the small national parks but with full hookups and a Bar. The Bar is simple and cheap and attracts local characters happy to share their stories about hunting and eating Mosse, shooting an attacking bear, and the never-ending winter, as well as the RV park guests all sitting around a round bar table sharing stories.
Woooooooooooooo