It was a gorgeous spring night on the Alaska highway, and we made it to Haines JCT to view a nice sun slipping behind the St. Elias mountains. We saw some clouds up ahead but didn't think much would occur from them, wrong!
Just after Destruction Bay, we started seeing the snow falling. At first excitement came over us, thinking how cool it was we were get to experience a snow shower on our way. Starting at 10:30 pm we had to slow down to 35mph and could barely see infront of us. There was no place to pull over, so our only option was to forge on...after some very tense driving, mom and I switched and continue on. After a few hours and no sign of stopping, the storm got the best of us and we pulled into the visitors center in Beaver Creek, where many others were also parked for the night. As we prepared to sleep in the car, we discovered that the ice had built up on the car so much that it was blocking the doors, and rubbing the tires...eek! The thermometer read 21, coldest we've seen on the trip. We definitely picked the wrong night to sleep in the car. We had no choice now; I slipped on my down jacket and muck boots and cozied myself under my sleeping bag in the drivers seat, mom hunkered down under a polar fleece blanket. The clock read 1:15am, around 4am I could sense my mom's restlessness. Her feet were cold. I knew there was very little chance of either of us getting a decent rest, so we fired up the engine and headed for Tok, still plagued by falling snow.
Once again the border crossing was simple, the road conditions were the difficult part. There were a few times when my stomach dropped; the sight of ice covered roads with a herd of caribou in the middle of it, I just prayed I would be able to slow the car down and avoid all collision.
We made to Tok around 6am, we crossed another time zone, so more like 5am to us. Working on just three hours of sleep meant we needed some fuel for ourselves. We stopped at Fast Eddies and filled our bellies with food and our Togo mugs with coffee. That's when it hit us, we made it to Alaska in a week! A trip we had allotted two weeks for!
From Tok we had roughly 700mi to go. We came across more caribou in the road and confined to face bad road conditions, probably the worst stretch of highway along the route. The thick storm clouds lifted just in time to give us spectacular views of the Wrangell mountains in Wrangell-St. Elias national park. Our third national park of the trip.
The rest of the day was filled with sunshine and a clear view of Denali! I am so glad to be back in Alaska!!!!
Haines JCT
Destruction bay
Braving the storm
Caribou in Alaska
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