June 19, 2015

Friday, dawning chilly but still and peaceful.

Quietly and quickly taking down the tent and packing up, we left the campground around 6:30 Am.  Finding a nice little pull off area down the road a bit, we pulled over, cooked our oatmeal, and hit the road again.  We left early with several goals in mind: 1. To see the game before they moved away from the roadside.  2. We had a distance to go and did not know how long we would be delayed in traffic because of the Willow forest fire.

We were traveling out of the park when I happened to see just a part of a moose in the brush beside me.  So we stopped and watched for a bit, finding out to our surprise that the one was actually three! These fine young men decided to be social and joined us right up on the road.  Even young they look large!  The only other even remotely exciting thing was noticing layers of ice on the ponds along the side of the road - our sleeping bags were great!  We had no idea it was that chilly last night!

Back at park headquarters we took much appreciated hot showers and did laundry again.  Between our hike, and riding the park buses which can be extremely dusty, we were ready for the shower!

Then we hit the road heading south towards Anchorage.

We had originally planned to get in to Wasilla and go over the Hatcher Pass, camping along the Pass a night or two and do some more hiking.  However, having met and talked with others about their trips, we decided to change our plans and feed our cultural side a bit.  Our route regardless was taking us through the Willow fire area.  As we went south there was a fine haze in the air, which we understood was from the fire.  There were quite a few delays as it is road construction season in Alaska.  With the long days, the construction companies are able to work crews almost right around the clock, getting the jobs done relatively quickly.

 Back in 2004 there was a very dry Spring, and enormous forest fires ignited, burning 6.7 million acres before the season was done.  This year, Alaska did not have it's typical snowfall, and has had a very dry Spring.  Forest fires are a real concern this year, and unfortunately those concerns are being realized.  Without really having access to much news, we have heard that the Willow fire has burned about 8,000 acres already and is only 5% contained.  There are other fires burning on the Kenai Peninsula as well but we don't know how larger.

Just on the outskirts of Wasilla is the Iditorod headquarters with a small visitor's center. (http://iditarod.com/resources/about/headquarters) This was one spot we were advised not to miss, and so took the advice.  We stopped and watched a film on the race and the care of the huskies, and enjoyed the few items posted and displayed around the building there.  There is normally a sled dog team with a summer sled hooked up that you can take sled dog rides on, but they leave before five, and we arrived after five.  So we decided to camp that night in the area and come back in the morning to see the dogs.  This was one nice thing about not having reservations in campgrounds ahead of time.  We were free to change plans and camp just wherever we were at the time.

Since we were in the Wasilla area, we decided it might be easier to go in to a campground instead of finding a roadside site again.  Wasilla is rather built up - in fact they have chains that have not even made it to Concord, NH yet!  We found both the Fred Myer and the Walmart to be very nice stores.  We found a campground not far from the Sled Dog museum and pulled in for the night.  It was an interesting experience to say the least, with many other campers having dogs, and a quick visit to another site by the police.  In the morning we found the picnic table down a hill and covered in with weeds.  We woke and packed up early, and cooked our oatmeal in the Walmart parking lot.  The campground has a lot of potential, and a nice day use area that gives access to the lake, but not a place we'd recommend camping in for any length of time as long as it is in it's current condition.

As things turned out, this was our last night sleeping out in the fresh, cool air of our Alaskan vacation.