NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAYS 54-56 - QUARTZ CREEK NATIONAL FOREST CAMPGROUND

I ended the last blog with our impromptu leaving Granite Creek and heading to the roadside viewpoint at the Canyon Creek Rest Area on the Sterling Highway. 

We were glad we vacated that site, due to the increasing water levels. It's best not to take chances. What a way to wreck a vacation by being flooded out? 

We headed on further west on the highway. Our goal was to find another quiet camping spot for a couple days. 

It seems like that's really our main goal of this entire trip. Finding nice quiet beautiful places in nature. Places we would not see back at home. Places we can relax and look out and enjoy and explore. We're not doing the tourist things. We're not doing the crowds. We're not doing the restaurants or the main attraction sights to see.

We looked up on the map and saw there was another National Forest Campground just up the way. It was called Quartz Creek, and located on the Kenai Lake. We look for the National Forest campgrounds because our Federal America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass gains us half price camping fees. This one is part of the Chugach National Forest.

We pulled in and took a right hand turn. Out of the entire loop there were two empty sites that were not reserved. Sites number 39 and 44. We grabbed 39 and we have a feeling it was the best site in the entire park! (The host later confirmed that was so). It was now considered first come first served for the next five nights. It was not reservable by anyone else unless we gave it up after 5 nights. We decided to try for three and then watch the weather and decide if we should stay another two.

We quickly filled out our envelope for 3 nights, for the bargain price of $11.50 a night. And this is what we got:

Yep, we are parked right next to this wonderful aquamarine/azure/cobalt blue glacial lake. The colors are like that from the silt and the minerals of the melting glaciers feeding into the lake.

The puffy clouds going overhead played shadows and bright sections over the mountainside across from us. Look at the rich gorgeous greens, in contrast to the deep hunter greens when there are clouds covering the sunshine. 

The water is reflecting back greens and blues and even a pinkish purple tinge. I look outside in any direction and the colors are different on the surface of the lake in each direction that I look.

It's like an artist's palette of different hues and colors. It kind of reminds me when I blend green, blue, and purple dye on wool fleece and let it spread and blend where it intersects with the next color. I think these are my new "favorite colors"?

Here is a link to the campsite itself: 

https://www.fs.usda.gov/r10/chugach/recreation/quartz-creek-campground

We were standing down along the shore of the lake, we noticed that there weren't any mosquitoes at all. That seemed really strange! It was absolutely gorgeous and the day was climbing up into the mid '70s.

Steve took out our reclining lawn chairs and we settled down to enjoy the afternoon, gazing out across the water.

He had along a pair of binoculars to examine things over on the other shore. Nicholas wasn't sure what he was looking at. But he was paying close attention to see where Steve was going or if it involved him going along on a "walk".

After a while, I went inside to get some supper going. Steve had asked for one of his beers and I handed it out through the slider on the screen door. A moment or two later, I looked out and thought "oh my, this looks almost like a beer commercial!!". So I snapped a shot and added a caption:

After dinner, we took a walk around the rest of the campground. The loop to the left was pretty buggy and we were slapping mosquitoes the whole way. It was amazing the loop to the right closer to the lake had less mosquitoes? 

We wandered along and I took a few photos as we went. I am just loving this purple lupine.

It's in full bloom right now. I love the cascading colors as it spreads up the stem from the leaves below. 

Every shade of purple and violet that you can think of?

We looked across the lake in the evening and saw a lone kayaker paddling his way across. It makes me miss our canoe. But we sure didn't want to haul one all of the way to Alaska. Lol. Maybe we can rent one somewhere?

The next morning, we woke up again to these marvelous hues and colors spread across the lake. The water was smooth like glass and just reflected everything from the hills above.  This is what it looked like when I pulled up the shade on the bedroom window.

The pinkish purples and the blues and the greens are just combined into a wonderful tapestry across the surface of the water.

We glanced at the weather forecast that afternoon about back home in Wisconsin. The Midwest, along with many other parts of the country, are really suffering from an awful heat wave, combined with high humidity to make an even more intolerable heat index.  Back home it was over a hundred! Where we are in Alaska, it was very comfortable 58 because it had clouded over a little bit.

When the weather gets that hot in Wisconsin, it's very common for the concrete sections of the highway to explode! It has to do with expansion and contraction in the rapid heating of the cold concrete. The North and Southbound lanes right by the exit to Oconto both blew up during that afternoon heat. I know there was some video clip making the rounds on YouTube and the news of some other road blowing up somewhere else like it was a really strange phenomenon. But it's pretty common up in our area of Wisconsin.

This pic was on our local Oconto Facebook Group.

We spent a delightful evening watching this pair with their three little adorable babies. They are called the common merganser bird, and we really enjoyed watching the little ones follow around the parents. There's some video footage of them on the YouTube link down below at the end of this blog.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Merganser/id

Gosh, I am really really loving my camera that Steve bought me for my birthday. It was all in prep for this trip! 

We didn't even have to go anywhere. We could just sit there in our chairs and the birds floated up to us.

Next up in front of our chairs was a very interesting black and white bird. He and his lovely mate are called Greater Scaups.  

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Greater_Scaup/id

They entertained us by swimming back and forth and back and forth right in front of our lawn chairs. I had a hard time holding the camera to follow him. So I learned to just hold the camera in one spot and let him swim back and forth in front of it. 

She was resting for a while, with her head twisted up over her back, and then she came over and swam back and forth too. She almost looked fluffy and fuzzy up close.

Look at the detail I could bring in on this guy! He kept swimming straight towards us like he wanted to check us out, to see if either of us were going to maybe give him something to eat?

I can think of nothing more delightful than sitting back in our chairs, and watching wildlife play out right in front of us.  Nick was relaxed at our feet and not even concerned about the birds swimming back and forth.  It was so totally peaceful.

Again, you will have to look at the video on the link below to see how these silly birds were entertaining us two old farts. 

By our third night, things had clouded over and we could hear some rain on the rooftop. It was very gentle and soothing and we fell asleep to the sounds of the rain. In the morning, sadly, we pulled up the window shade and this is what we saw: clouds, fog, and more rain.

That made our decision not to renew our site for the next two days. The weather report said rain, rain, rain.

We loaded up and left our site to the next lucky occupant. The host even stopped by and inquired whether or not we were leaving that day, because he was sure somebody else would come and snap it up as soon as we vacated it. It would still remain a "first come - first serve" site until the next reservation started on the third day from now.

We stopped over to the dump station near the entrance to the park. It was unusual, but they required a separate payment to utilize the freshwater and dump station, even if you were already camping in the park. It was not included in the camping fee. Oh well, the camping fee was so low at $9.50 a night we didn't mind.  An additional $10 wouldn't hurt, and the convenience sure was nice to have it available right at the exit to the park.

While someone else was ahead of us at the dump station, Steve was using the potable water to fill our freshwater holding tank. We always use a filter for anything that goes into our tank, even if it's municipal water like this.  

Then inside, we use a Life Straw pitcher for anything we drink, cook with, or make coffee with. Also we use the Life Straw pitcher for Nicholas's water bowl.

https://a.co/d/bfNvtwE

This thing removes 99.99% of Bacteria, Parasites, Microplastics, Lead, Mercury, PFAS and a Variety of Chemicals and all the other crap that's in the water. The best part is the picture is glass and does not give you a "plastic taste" and is BPA free.  We change the small filters every 2 months, and the large one every 6 months.  We like this so much, we even use it at home. And we are not spending tons of excess money buying bottled water, nor cluttering up the landfills with our water bottles.  (Non-sponsored, just really love this product!)

After we were done with our dump station procedure, we headed on up the road 3 miles on the Sterling Highway. We were going to Wildman's!

It's an all-in-one store with a deli, grocery store, coffee shop, gift shop, propane fill, liquor store, plus a mini laundromat and showers!

The only thing they don't sell is gas or diesel!

As I came up the steps, a couple free-range chickens came out to check me out. Boy oh boy, what is this with birds this week? 

We tossed in our three loads into the washing machines, picked up a few things that we needed in the store, had our propane tank filled, and browsed through the giftware.

What a cute little laundry area? There were three working washing machines and one large one that was being repaired that was out of order. There were four dryers and each one was $2.50 for wash or dry. I hate laundromats, but this was cute and tiny and we got everything done in no time flat. $15 later and we had all clean clothes and both sets of sheets to put away.

Now it was time to head on down the road, and see where it was going to take us. 

On to the next adventure!

Here is the YouTube video that goes along with today's blog post: 

91 miles traveled today

4,825 miles traveled so far

NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAYS 52-54 - GRANITE CREEK AND FLOODING!

We moved on from Williwaw Campground, and headed north back up to the Seward Highway.  We saw a sign for another Chugach National Forest Campground called Granite Creek. So we decided to loop through and see what we could see. We liked that it was further away from the road so we wouldn't hear any road noise.  The one prior to that was very close to the road called Black Bear. 

We drove down into the Granite Creek Campground on a Thursday. It was pretty full already. We found a beautiful empty site as we were looping through. We drove over to the kiosk to get an envelope.  This was cash only, no credit card machine. As we looped back to get our desired campsite, lo and behold somebody else was already backing into it! Drat!!! 

Lesson learned, next time leave me at the campsite and let Steve drive back around the loop to get the pay envelope. That way I can hold it. 

Well, we drove back around the loop and there was only one other site available and it was actually the camp host site. We looked online and it said it was still available. So evidently they hadn't hired a camp host for the season? So we backed in and took the site and then walked over for the envelope to pay. We paid right away for three nights Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights so we were secured here for the weekend. It was a gorgeous site right next to the water!!! 

Granite Creek was flowing swiftly. We figured it's from all of the melt off the mountains because of the extremely warm weather that the interior of the state is experiencing this week. They even had high heat index warnings for Fairbanks in the '80s! Keep in mind, the people in Alaska don't even own air conditioners. They never need them. So there were weather warnings out for the elderly and also to let people know to stay hydrated and to get indoors if it gets too hot. 

We were further down near the ocean so we were in cooler temperatures. But the melting waters up on the mountains were churning down through every little creek and river in the valleys.  

(We would later regret taking this campsite)

The concessionaire that manages the national forest campgrounds in this area stopped by. She said that she does have a host hired for the season, but she only comes on the weekends. So Mon-Thurs this site is open.  We offered to leave the campsite on Friday morning, but she said no, that was fine. She would have the host to stay up the road at the Black Bear site. Then we could be comfortable where we were at for the entire weekend that we already paid for.

The view up through the trees was beautiful, with snow-capped mountains around us. The babbling and churning creek next to us was a pleasant feature (or so we thought...)

Nick snoozed for an afternoon nap.

We settled out on our lawn chairs and watched the water churning by.  See that log on the other shore?  More about that later.

We enjoyed the day. We cooked out chicken on the grill. Steve had the solar panels going to top off our batteries.

Little Nick hangs out close by, he is always on his leash. We tie him right to our lawn chairs and he hangs out underneath. We sat out in the sunshine and it got pretty hot during the day. Inside the camper it was well over 80°!

The first night was very relaxing. We could hear the gurgling and churning of the river right near the back of our camper. We happened to be the only campsite that was low along the bank of the river. All of the rest of the sites were up much higher.  

There was a father with two cute little boys that was trying to find a spot to fish with the rushing water. Right next to our campsite was a little cove with kind of a whirling eddy of a pool. Steve invited them to come in and fish from there, where it was safer for the little boys.

The little guys were about 3 years old and 5 years old and each one had on a little backpack and had a Snoopy fishing pole. I did not take any pictures of them because I didn't have any permission to do so. But they were pretty darn cute. 

They lost interest in about 10 minutes. But in the meantime I had put together two little Ziploc bags of s'mores kits. Honey Graham crackers now come in small packages of about 6 or 8 crackers to keep them fresher. I put a pack of each into a Ziploc for each little boy, along with a full size Hershey's chocolate bar and about eight marshmallows. I asked the father discreetly if they were allowed to each have a treat. He agreed, so I got to give them each a little some s'more kit to take with them. I think the little guys were more excited about the s'mores than they were about fishing!!!

By Friday afternoon, we noticed that the river was getting higher and higher. If you notice in this photo next to Steve, the log that was there the day before is now almost completely submerged!

I made a little video of what I was seeing...

It was about 10:00 p.m., but still very light out because it is The Summer Solstice. The sun wasn't even going to set until after midnight here. 

We were getting ready to go to bed but something just kept bothering me about the river. I looked back out and it was even higher in the last hour than it had been before!!! 

Since we were the lowest campsite to the shore, we would be the first ones that get flooded out. I didn't want to be waking up every hour looking out at the levels on the river. Aa I said, all of the other campsites were situated much higher.

I went on the USGS government site to check on the height of the river up above at the nearest monitoring station.  I could set an alert that it would buzz us if we got above a certain level. But I didn't want to trust that either. It looked like it was only being monitored once or twice a day for a reading. If more of the snow melt came rushing down this far, the river would rise before anybody would notice?

It had rapidly raised, and it was still going higher. 

IT WAS TIME FOR US TO LEAVE! 

It only takes a few minutes to pull in our slides and gather our gear. By 11:15 p.m. we were on the road driving up to higher ground along the highway. Just a little way down the highway is a pull off wayside that we are able to overnight in. And that's just what we did. 

By midnight, we were curled up in our bed and trying to get to sleep. My anxiety level was relaxing and it only took a little while to fall asleep.

We woke up to the sound of pouring rain on the roof. That's just going to add to the flooding situation by having rainfall on top of the snow melt, adding to the levels of the rivers. Yes, we did make the right call to leave.

We were safe and high and dry.

We looked out of our windows, and we saw a guy parked right next to us overnight. He had a boat! He was evidently sleeping in his boat because of the ladder that we saw going up the side. So I guess he didn't trust any levels in the rivers either? Lol

Here is the YouTube video that goes along with today's blog:

55 miles traveled today 

4,704 miles traveled so far

NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAYS 49-52 - PORTAGE GLACIER, WILLIWAW AND BLUE ICE TRAIL

I left off from the last blog by coming out of the Anderson Tunnel on our way back from Whittier. 

We drove up to a scenic overlook, and gazed down upon Portage Lake. Even up at this height it was very pleasant and warm and we didn't even need a jacket. 

We were literally only 7 miles away from the windy and freezing atmosphere of Whittier. Now we had our jackets off and we were enjoying the sunshine and the warmth.

I used my camera and zoomed in on this waterfall way over on the other side of the lake.

I believe this is Portage Glacier around the corner, and there was a tour boat company down below that would take out ferry boats full of tourists to glide over by the Glacier and the waterfalls. We watched two tour buses that came in and everybody loaded up into the boat.

Like I said, it was so nice and pleasant there. Nicholas posed for a regal mountain photo of an Elegant Doggy.

Then he clearly told us he was tired of all this posing and it was time to relax in the sunshine.

We left that lookout area and drove a little bit further down the road, maybe another half of a mile. There was a really nice campground called Williwaw Campground that was in between that glacier and Byron Glacier. 

There were some very private sites available and we found a really good one in the far loop that was facing the glacier.

https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/232324

It was beautiful and peaceful. With our America the Beautiful Golden Access Pass, we got it for half price for $11.50 a night.  

The bright white snow glaring in the sunshine actually made us feel like we had to put on sunglasses. 

Out came the lawn chairs, and it was time to relax.  The birds were singing all around us and we heard no other noises other than the distant gurgling of the stream and a rushing waterfall way far off in the distance on the Byron Glacier. Yes, we could hear a waterfall from that far away.

While we were cooking dinner, it was time to break out a couple adult beverages. This is my last bottle of my "Two Buck Chuck" wine from Trader Joe's!   (Charles Shaw label sold exclusively at Trader Joe's). 

I'm going to have to start shopping for and trying some Alaskan wine. Steve is drinking Alaskan beer. That is his Uncle Dunkle beer from the Denali Brewing Company, made in Talkeetna, Alaska.

We spent three wonderful days in this campground, totally enjoying the serenity and quiet and sleeping in peace. 

We walked on The Trail of Blue Ice for a ways and took in the scenery. It goes on for many miles, but we just walked the short section of it that went around our campground and over to the fish viewing platform.

Through the swamp, and alongside of a babbling brook was this wonderfully built boardwalk. It really made it nice to walk amongst the trees and alongside the brook with ease.

Across the walkway bridge over the Williwaw River. From here we could finally see the waterfall that we've been hearing all the while from our campsite!

I zoomed in with the 1200 mm lens on my camera and I could actually photograph the waterfall far far away on the mountainside. 

The waterfall is actually way up this mountain that is over Steve's shoulder. 

There's a big fish viewing platform for when the salmon are running. This is a nice depiction of all the types of salmon that are native to the Alaskan waterways.

We wandered among the displays and the storyboards, learning about the area and the life cycles of the salmon.

Beautiful tiny flowers are in bloom all over in the woods. There are wild roses, lupine, bluebells and some little tiny white flowers we aren't sure what they are.  These pink ones smell especially fragrant.

We walked along in beautiful sunshine weather in the 70s. Hard to believe just a little ways away there are huge drifts of snow. This curled one at the top we said might become an avalanche!

Yep, it's kind of fun to play "tourist"... And we've been doing that for the last 2 months.

We thought these were interesting fire pits up here in some of the National Forest campgrounds. It's a l-shaped piece of heavy iron that creates a windbreak with a grate on top and a triangular shape. The grate pivots up out of the way if you don't need it. I think it would be rather cozy to sit around, because it would direct the heat over towards your legs in your lawn chairs if you were sitting on the open side of it.

Back to the campsite:

We cooked up the other half of our slab of salmon from Valdez. It was tender, flakey and just fell apart with the touch of a fork.

This next video clip didn't make it into the bigger You Tube link below... So I am going to try to attach it here: 

All too soon, Steve said let's throw in our gear and pack it up and hit the road again...

We headed back up towards the Seward Highway and drove alongside of the Turnagain Arm by Portage. 

We wanted to refill our freshwater tank by Girdwood again, and have a chance to watch a "bore tide" come into the Turnagain Arm.

What Are Bore Tides?

The bore tide is a rush of seawater that returns to a shallow and narrowing inlet from a broad bay. Bore tides come in after extreme minus low tides created by the full or new moon.

It was a gorgeous day, so we drove up near Beluga Point to watch the tide come in. 

This is a strange phenomenon where the tide comes in so fast, it makes a long curling wave as it comes in. During full or new moons, it's even higher.  Some people go out and use a surfboard to ride the small wave!! 

It's hard to show the rapid increase of the tide in photos, so you will have to watch on the video below. 

Here's the YouTube video 

that goes with today's blog post:

55 miles traveled today 

4,649 miles so far