Our Last Week in Alaska! Valdez, Delta Junction, and Crossing into Canada

After a great week exploring Valdez, we headed north on the Richardson Highway and stopped for a couple of nights at Northern Nights RV Park in Glennallen ($59/night with Good Sam/military discount) to wait out some high winds that would have been dangerous to drive through the mountain passes with our rig. It also gave us some time for a rest and reset day, and to get caught up on work and homeschooling (we go year round).

Our next destination was at Donelly Creek State Recreation Area ($15/night), a dry campground just south of Fort Greely, and just north of the Castner Glacier, our destination to explore. Somehow, I forgot to get any photos of the campground, but it was a great spot!

We visited Fort Greely to resupply at their commissary, and found that they have a dry campground on post for $10/night, but no dump or water station–good to know if you are military and looking for a spot to stop and resupply, too!

Hiking Castner Glacier trail was our main goal staying here and it was an experience. This is the ice cave that you can walk through in winter, but in summer, when we were there, the river is free-flowing, so you can only view it from outside. We had also heard that it was melting and eroding, so we wanted to catch it this trip. We found the parking area, and the trail info said it was only about a mile to the cave, which is much closer than the actual glacier. However, about halfway there, the trail just kind of stops and you have to find your way over rocky areas and figure out where the cave is since it isn’t marked, and there weren’t a lot of hikers on the trail or signal to look up details. We kept the river on our right and had fun exploring, finding a waterfall ledge area next to a rock wall that we then climbed up in a last attempt to find the cave, only to realize it was below us and just out of site from the waterfall ledge we had just been it–we were standing on top of ice covered in rock and dirt! We enjoyed the adventure of it and, after a quick sandwich break, hiked back to the truck.

After a couple of nights there, we headed for Delta Junction–the last stop for our Alaska adventures. We were keeping a close eye on the Mukluk fire burning in Tok, just north of the highway, so decided to just stop for the night. We used our Harvest Hosts membership (referral link here) to stay at Delta Meat and Sausage (reservations via phone, not the HH system). We grabbed some meat for the freezer (they are a USDA location, so it’s border crossing or shipping friendly) and meat sticks for a friend. We stopped at the Delta Petro Wash for fuel, free dump and water, and a laundromat and RV/vehicle wash. I stayed to finish laundry while they headed down to check in and set up at camp, then come back for me and to explore.

We saw the end of the Alaska Highway sign at the visitors center and grabbed a geocache. We then made our way over to the Sullivan Roadhouse, a free museum, to learn about early life, and grab another geocache, of course! We couldn’t resist the delicious smells of Buffalo Center Drive-in next door, so grabbed some burgers before heading home. They get their meat from Delta Meat & Sausage, where we had just stocked up, and they were some of the best burgers we’ve had–which made us even happier about our purchases!

The next morning, we loaded up and headed west, crossing the Alaska-Canada border quickly and with no issues. We opted to stop at Discovery Yukon RV for the night ($54 US) since we hadn’t had hook-ups for several days and it had been overcast, so we needed to recharge our batteries, and we had our eye on a boondocking spot for the weekend.

We spent a couple of nights at an iOverlander spot on Kluane Lake in the National Park & Reserve, not far from the interpretive center (pronounced clue-AH-knee). We were across from a hiking trail and saw the dall sheep on the mountainside several times. There wasn’t a lot of traffic this time of year, so finding a quiet corner of the overlook made for a relaxing way to end the weekend–and a free camping spot is always nice! We had dreamed of this spot since passing it on our race into Alaska in June, trying to get me to the doctor.

We’ll see you next time as we inadvertently drive 1,000 miles in a week across the Yukon and British Columbia!

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