Well, in the words of Forest, I ate when I was hungry, I slept when I was tired, and when I need to....well, you know, I did! I left Seattle, and 8 days and ~4500 miles later, can say I saw some of the most beautiful country in my life. I progressed north through British Columbia to Dawson Creek, Mile 0 of the famous Alcan highway that was built around the time of World War II in an effort to have a military road to Alaska. This highway was built in the worst conditions (cold as hell in the winter, swarms of mosquitoes in the summer). This highway officially ends in Delta Junction, Alaska, around 2250 miles later. It has been largely rebuilt over the past ~60 years, and the "old" highway can be seen at times alongside the current road. One night, I shifted the 4runner into 4-wheel drive, and creeped off the highway onto the old road bed, drove a ways behind a grove of trees, and spent the night camped on the old road bed. I built an extension onto my cargo box in the back that converted the 4runner to a pretty comfortable place to sleep in the back, so I wasn't too worried about bears. Another night was spent off the Cassiar Highway in a canyon filled with glaciers, on an old railroad bed. My dog woke me up in the middle of the night, and I looked out the window to see the Northern lights, which were an amazing site.

As far as wildlife goes, I saw moose, carribou, mountain goats, black and brown bears, and spawning salmon. See pictures below. It put life in perspective for me, its definitely not worth sweating the small stuff when there are things like that out in the world to be seen!
See random pics below:

 

Brandywine falls:

 

Stone sheep that come down off the mountain to lick salt off the side of the road:

 

Carribou:

 

Black bear:

 

Sunrise in the Yukon:

 

Mooses...

 

When you can't afford a real cop car:

 

Filling up gas yet again at an average of about 3.50 a gallon!

 

Awesome glacier, in the area of Hyder, Alaska:

 

Another great glacier shot:

 

Finally, a scary sign on the way out to some cool glaciers, but it wasn't enought to scare off Jackson (my dog), me, and the trusty 4Runner!

 

When budget cuts go too far...


I definitely have get up there sometime soon.



waitaminute..... that's a CANADIAN cop car!

 

It was awesome, alot of it can be seen within the BC and Yukon, only spent a little time in Alaska.

 

Very nice pics Dave.
Some day I'd like to visit Alaska, it's very beautiful up there.

How far were you from the bear when you snagged his pic?

 

That's really cool!
I'm jealous, I'd love to drive across the country at my own pace

 

yea that looks awesome. I remember when I took a cruise up to Alaska, it was the most beautiful trip I've been on.

Very nice pics.

 

David, I wanted to thank you for sharing your pics. How lucky you are to have gone on that trip. I want to just up and hit the road some day to explor that neck of the woods. Thanks for sharing.

 

It was fantastic. All the bears I saw were usually about 40-50 feet from the car. Once, a black bear caught a wiff of my dog, and took a fake charge at me to get me to move-he knew something was there, but he couldn't see the vehicle. It was amazing how quickly he went from a docile, fuzzy creature, to this menaicing ball of fur. It was a wake up call that they're a bit higher up on the food chain than us. The carribou let me get out of the car and sneak up on them a bit, I had the wind in my face so they weren't able to smell me.

 

That's a sweet trip. Got to do a T.V. show up there a couple years ago. Did a lot of events on the Salmon glacier road. Even got to canoe on a lake in the middle of the glacier. Did you get to the tunnel or just to the lookout on the salmon glacier road, or was it blocked again? Did you get hyderized as well? It's truely beautiful up there. Got any more pics? The little glacial lake that's on the road into Stewart/Hyder is also where the house was in the movie Insomnia. Most of it was shot in Stewart.