The Cassiar Highway is really a bad road by most accounts. Narrow, poor sight lines around corners, broken pavement, sections of pavement washed out BUT replaced with some dirt and such. The real kicker to these roads north of the 50th parallel are the frost heaves. I know many have seen what I’m talking about at some point in life. It’s when the ground under the road expands due to frozen water creating a lump at the surface. The resulting lump can be an annoying bump, or worse, a trench or ramp to launch you and yours into a low flight path.
We departed Skagway on a “short” leg North to Tok, Alaska. 500 miles, 9.5 hours if you believe the google. This section of road is the worst section of “road” on the ALCAN. I don’t have a great reason why its so bad other than it’s built on frozen earth in a very extreme climate. That and what interest does Canada really have in making a road to Alaska since 99.99999% of the people live well east of Whitehorse? Think I’m being cynical? Well, the US Army did put the Highway in the first time, then handed Canada a pile of money to rebuild the road and keep it rebuilt in the interest of US Citizens trying to reach Alaska. So, really, it makes sense that the USA keep the road drivable. We are the ones using it the most. The original plan in the 1960s-1990s when the road was “fixed up” was to make it a road that can be driven at 60 mph. I’m not sure that plan has ever come together.
Our plan was to drive from Skagway to the bottom of Kluane Lake. There is an amazing little pull out with a great view north across the lake. Well, it’s a very large lake and you can’t really see allll the way across. This plan worked out well as we made it in a reasonable amount of time.
The lake is rather interesting. About 350 years ago a glacier moved into a position to cut off the flow into a river at the south end of the lake (near where we camped). This caused the water level to increase in the lake and eventually the water began to flow out the north end of the lake into a new river. The glacier melted and the water level was now too low to resume flowing the original south direction. Careful inspection of the shoreline will reveal that the lake was much higher and the south end is now just a swampy mess. I can only imagine how confused the salmon were!
The most “popular” place along this route is Destruction Bay. I mean, with a name like that, how could you not remember it?!?! It’s also known for the turning point of the road conditions. From here to the boarder the Alaska Highway increasingly becomes broken, heaved, potholed, and even reduced to simple dirt path. It will make you question everything about going to Alaska. It’s BAD. I know people will say “oh come on now, I’ve seen Honda Civics” drive that road. Yes, they do…and I’ve seen plenty of them broken down. They also don’t haul trailers which adds a whole new dimension to frost heaves. It’s one thing to be in a car going over a bump. It’s much more interesting to have 7000 lbs behind you pushing and pulling on your bumper with every trip over a frost heave. Once you make it to Beaver Creek, the most western community in Canada, the road becomes more or less dirt. With ruts. And potholes. And washboard. Clearly it’s a lost cause trying to keep this section in good condition. If you make it to the US boarder it’s amazing how the dirt road becomes pavement again and it’s actually in good surface shape. BUT, and this is a big BUT, the frost heaves will tear you apart going anything over 45. Much of the time between Destruction Bay and Tok was spent doing about 30mph. Often less. Sometimes more.
The real challenge to the last 100 miles was the fridge door. It had given up the fight on staying closed. The door is “locked” with a small pin that slides into a slot when the door is closed. To open, the handle retracts the pin to allow the door to freely open. Even though we’d leave the trailer with the door closed and “locked”, moments later driving only a few hundred yards at 25mph, we’d come back to inspect the situation and find the door open, contents scattered, and the sound of other campers whizzing by at 50mph leaving us asking how they can do that! I know all the internet will begin screaming “don’t pack all your beer and pickles in the door dummy!”. Well, we didn’t. We packed the door with salad. Heather used a bungee cord to strap the door closed and we limped into Tok to get gas, dump the tanks, fill with water at the Chevron. Talk about full service! We stayed in the driveway of some amazing people in Tok for the night before heading off for Fairbanks. The weather had become wet on our drive north and a bit more cool. Fires dotted all around Canada and Alaska causing a haze to fill the sky. Fires in Alaska are just part of nature. They don’t do anything about them unless people are property are in it’s path.
Tok to Delta Junction proved to be a better road mostly because we were getting used to the idea that at any point there could be frost heaves that would cause rolling bouncing feelings and the contents of the fridge to empty. After a few hours thinking about the fridge, we concluded the door is bouncing up and down on it’s hinge causing it to, more or less, self destruct and pop open. It would seem the door leaves the factory with too much play in this hinge and washers or a spacer are needed to fill in this gap to keep the door from moving. I only had a few random spare parts, but it was enough to prove this was probably the issue and solution if we could just find the right washers.
We were in full on rain by the time we rolled into Delta Junction and the end of the Alaska Highway. A quick stop at the end marker and we headed to Big Delta Brewing for some grub and drinks. Great beers and super foods!
I know I got a bit ahead of myself talking about Delta Junction, but it’s an exciting trip! Overall I Skagway to Tok was about 15 hours. It’s not the time or the miles, it’s the intense bump dodging driving that really wore us down. Next stop, Fairbanks.
Didn’t you bring duct tape? If it won’t work on the door you could probably tape the food inside?
Glad to see you’re still smiling. Apparently you haven’t encountered anything a beer can’t fix.
Tape was high on the list of solutions! Later we learned that many use painters tape to hold everything closed. Lucky(?) for us we only have one door and a mirror that cause problems.