It is time to travel further north and east on the Taylor Highway. We are headed to that crazy quirky town called Chicken!
We are reduced to mostly gravel roads, full of washboards and potholes. There are areas where the dirt has eroded away at the sides due to rainfalls that could easily crumble if you get too close. We are mostly traveling in the middle of the road. Of course, no guardrails!
Every now and then some sections had been pavement. But they were actually worse than the gravel sections! At least the gravel can be regraded and smoothed over. When the gravel meets the pavement there are big bumps, then there are big bumps when you go back off the pavement onto the gravel again. It was pretty slow going and at times we were doing 10 or 15 mph.
But the scenery was worth it all!
Breathtaking doesn't even begin to describe it. I felt like I needed to go out and run in circles with my arms spread wide like Maria.... and start singing "the hills are alive..."
We finally came upon the town of Chicken. It was so named because it was too hard to spell "Ptarmigan"!!!
Here is the story:
"The Alaskan town of Chicken owes it's name to the humble ptarmigan, a bird that was a crucial food source for the miners who settled the area in the late 19th century. When the town was established and incorporated in 1902, the settlers wanted to name it Ptarmigan. However, there was a problem: nobody could agree on how to spell "ptarmigan". The solution? They opted for a name that was much easier to spell and still recognized the bird that had sustained them: Chicken."
The first stop we made was to the Chicken Creek Cafe. Steve was following the scent with his nose, like a hound on the hunt. He knew they had great big cinnamon rolls. And he knew where to get them!!
They were huge! And spread with rich cream cheese frosting. We bought one to split. Then we bought a second one for the next day, and they put the frosting in a separate container for us so it didn't get all mushy during 24 hours. (If it lasts that long). Steve might snitch for a midnight snack??
We drove over to the iconic chicken on display. This beautiful masterpiece was made by high school students as a project. They recycled old school lockers for the metal and tack welded the pieces together. It is magnificent!
The rusting of the steel just adds to the texture and the colors. How perfect. His name is "Eggee".
We did our "tourist pose" thing next to the statue and along with the signpost. It's hard to read but it is all different towns around the world that have chicken type theme sounds to their names.
There, I lightened it up so you can read the names...
Next we wandered over to the Pedro Gold Dredge. There are guided tours available, but not during the time frame that we were there. We had done our research ahead of time. This is a really interesting piece of equipment and part of the history of gold mining in the area.
FOLLOWING IS SOME INFORMATION I FOUND ONLINE.... IN RED TYPE
The Pedro Dredge was owned by the Fairbanks Exploration Company (FE Co.), a subsidiary of the United States Smelting Refining & Mining Co. (USSR&M). It spent less than a 1/3 of its operating life on Chicken Creek.
Until 1998, the Pedro Dredge was hardly visible, resting on upper Chicken Creek where it had been parked in 1967. In the fall of 1998, the dredge was moved a mile to it's present location in the center of Chicken by it's new owner, Bernie Karl, and the owner of the mining claims, Mike Busby. The million-pound artifact was moved in one piece, and took less than two weeks of preparation and two weeks of actual moving, during which 120 tires were used to support it.
(Their photos of it being moved... The rest of the photos are mine)
The 3-cubic-foot dredge (measurement of the bucket capacity), the smallest in the FE Co.'s dredge fleet, was originally built to mine the fairly shallow gravels of Pedro Creek, north of Fairbanks.
The Pedro dredge, originally driven by steam, was built by the Yuba Manufacturing Company in California, and was shipped from Oakland on the S.S. Point San Pablo on April 1, 1938. It was assembled on Pedro Creek and began operating on July 11th. The Dredge operated on Pedro Creek, with the exception of the war years, until October 1958. Having completed its available ground there, it was decided to move it to Chicken Creek, as the Cowden Dredge, also belonging to the company, had suffered from years of neglect. It still rests in the Mosquito Fork of the Fortymile River, and can be seen from a lookout at the end of a good hiking trail.
The Pedro Dredge was disassembled on Pedro Creek and trucked to Chicken beginning in June 1959. The move and reconstruction were completed by September at a cost of $148,095. During the re-construction, the dredge was updated to diesel-electric, adding two Cat 375 engines for power. The dredge commenced operations on lower Chicken Creek in September and worked approximately five months every year thereafter until October 1967, when it produced its final cleanup.
There were many hazards related to dredging in a northern riverbottom. In the spring of 1961, the Pedro Dredge was flooded by an early spring thaw that flooded the dredge pond before the dredge could be thawed loose from the still-frozen pond. Stuck in the ice, the dredge was unable to float on top of the flood as would normally happen.
During its production years on Chicken Creek, the dredge washed about 2,500 cubic yards of gravel each day (29 buckets per minute) at a cost of around 30 cents per cubic yard. Between 0.30 and 0.80 ounces of gold were recovered from each cubic yard of gravel.
There were normally 16-20 men employed in the operation, with 10-12 involved directly with the dredging and the remainder mostly associated with thawing ground ahead of the dredge. The dredge mined over 55,000 ounces of gold in the eight years on Chicken Creek.
(That is worth $183,000,000 today!)
After we were done poking around the dredge, we went on over to get some fuel at the Goldpanner. It's kind of cute, you wait out at the locked pumps wayyyy across the lot, and a little old man comes wandering on out. He unlocks the pumps for you and stops to chitchat. He asks where you're from and he tells you where other people were from that day. I think he kind of keeps a running tally of where people are from?
After we got our fuel, we saw some people that we had met back at the Alaskan Stoves Campground in Tok!
There are a group of three Harley riders and a fourth person following in a vehicle with a cargo trailer with camping gear and repair supplies. Their group is called Oneness In All Riders, out of Surrey, British Columbia. Here is their Instagram link:
They took the time to pose with a couple other bike riders that were there, as well as a fellow guy from Wisconsin, and Steve in the "lineup". All the guys. I took some group pics for them on each of their cameras.
After they stopped at Chicken, they are going to be turning North and going all the way up to the Arctic Ocean! What a tough bunch.
I'm glad they had another vehicle following with repair supplies and a way to transport a bike if something happened.
We watched them all right off and bid them farewell. It's all on the video and the link down below.
We also took the time to do a few of the tourist things in Chicken. And pose for a few photos too!
But then it was time to head out and hit the highway. Well, not actually a highway if you look at the type of terrain we are driving on...
But it's the only road, and it's called the Taylor Highway until it reaches the turn off to go up to the Arctic. Then it is called the Top of the World Highway. We will get there tomorrow. About 200 miles a day is our limit or about 4 hours of driving. Then we are done.
We found the turn off to another beautiful little BLM campground. This one was called Walker Forks. Look at this inviting road into the campground...
Doesn't that make you just want to stay and set up and relax? Crack open a beer or get a beverage of your choice? Time to relax.
We got all set up and one of the sites down at the end of the loop. There were a lot of pull through sites up in the wooded trees. But we opted to be down closer to the water. We could hear it rushing from the open windows of our motorhome.
It was time to take it easy. Nick agrees. We've been going - too far - too fast - for too many days. Now it was time to slow down a bit.
Especially before tackling the next section of that highway!
Here's the link to the YouTube video that goes along with today's blog:
I am trying hard to catch up on the blogs. I am over a week behind. But it's just that there are so many wonderful things to see as we are traveling, it takes me a while to settle down and work on a blog each night. Between unloading pictures, combining videos into a YouTube, and just enjoying and relaxing where we are at, it all takes time.
I left off with Matenuska Glacier, and we were traveling further east. The road is a little of what you can say bumpy and wavy and undulating pavement. We worked our way over to Tok. We have been here before. This is the one section of highway that is all a repeat of what we saw on the way up. So we knew that once we got to Tok, we could pull into Northern Energy fuel station and get diesel, as well as propane, but also get free potable drinking water for our freshwater tank. And best of all--- We could do a free RV wash!
They furnish the water, the buckets, and the brush. Steve has our own preferred RV washing soap along. It was so good to get off the layers of road grime again. These things are important to Steve!
Look at that, all shiny again!
It was getting a little later in the day. So we decided to spend the night over at the Alaskan Stoves Campground again in Tok.
I reviewed this place in my blog on the way up in May:
It's a quirky place, and pretty much self-serve. We were able to catch up on laundry and refill our water tanks. Steve took a long shower over in the park building. I prefer to take showers right in our own motorhome. Then we can dump the excess water that is in the holding tank at the sani-dump before we leave the campground.
We met some interesting guys riding on Harley-Davidsons. They were called the Oneness Riders out of Surrey, British Columbia. We do meet up with them again up in Chicken, and I will include photos and more information in that blog in a few days.
Once we got everything squared away in our campsite, we were treated with a beautiful sunset along the edge of town. I was going to walk out to the edge of the campground so I could get a clearer shot down the road. But instead, I decided to curl up in my jammies and go to bed. So this is the best sunset picture that you're only going to get.
The next morning, after breakfast, we got roadworthy and ready to leave the town of Tok. But first, Steve had a stop off to make at the Three Bears store.
It's a local Alaskan owned chain of stores. In Tok they happen to own the grocery store, as well as a nearby hardware store, and then a convenience store gas station along with sporting goods. So they pretty much have it covered in the town of Tok. It also happened to be senior citizen discount day of 10% off. They were very, very busy, so Steve just ran in while I waited at the parking lot in the RV with the dog.
He has grown addicted to the marvelous chocolate chip cookies that they have, And also a particular type of cream soda that he has been enjoying.
Just look at the face of that happy man! Now he's stocked up on his favorite soda and cookies for a while.
(T-shirt is compliments of the grandchildren)
Then it was time to hit the road. We know it is really rough and rugged, just like this photo below.
Once we got out to the corner about 9 or 10 miles out of Tok we would be turning north... Towards Chicken, AK and the Top of the World Highway.
Now this is uncharted territory for us. We are now entering the Taylor Highway.
I saw this cute little log cabin, and it looked so adorable tucked away in the pines. What a great little place to escape to (if it wasn't so close to the highway). But, in terms of highway, there's relatively few cars. We're not thinking like Highway in the lower 48 states. We're thinking like one car every 10 minutes or 15 minutes like a back County Trunk road in Wisconsin. Lol!
Shortly the pavement gave way to gravel. Now the Taylor Highway was going to get a bit more challenging. Once we drive it all the way North past the town of Chicken, it would become the famous "Top of the World" highway. Combined with this Taylor Highway it's over 500 miles of some of the most rugged terrain and difficult driving surfaces.
Most of it is gravel, like this. Full of washboard and potholes and definitely no guardrails!!!
Now we are being subjected to some of the most beautiful scenery. We noticed that as we get further north, the trees are getting shorter and more stunted. Even the grass growth around the sides of the road and of the hills is shorter.
Each and every turn is bringing a wonderful new panorama view. In the lower areas we are crossing rivers. Many of the rivers in Alaska are what are called "ribboned". It's where the bed of the river is ever changing and the river is flowing depending on the volume coming down. It's always changing and making little rivulets and currents as it winds it's way along it's path.
Sometimes it flows to the left of the bank, sometimes it flows to the right. Other times during spring runoff or heavy rains it consumes the entire river bed. It sure is an interesting feature and ever-changing for the scenery.
We wound our way up very steep inclines. The views were amazing! The gravel road wasn't too dusty, because there has been rain the night or so before. Everything has a soft powdery layer from the dust. When it gets wet, it's very greasy, and slippery! I would never attempt to drive this road on a rainy day.
There literally was NO traffic coming either direction for our first 30 or 40 miles. Steve was able to stop at one spot so I could get out to take some photos way down deep into a valley. Notice, no guardrails! In some places it was a single lane and you had to be careful not getting too close to the crumbling edges.
The valley was way way way far down. This is a huge river at the bottom. The camera really can't capture the depth of this. But hearing the birds and feeling the breeze will be caught forever in my memory when I look at the photo.
It was a beautiful day, and the clouds kept making amazing formations in the sky. None of them contained any rain.
The clouds made interesting shadows across the rolling undulating hills. The colors were so vivid from sharp bright greens in the sunlight to deep muted dark rich colors in the shadows. They were ever-changing and it was a delightful array to see how many different shades of green there actually are.
After 60 miles, we really needed a break. We had looked up this campground called West Forks Campground, run by the BLM. That is the Bureau of Land Management. They accept our Federal Access Senior Golden Age passport, so instead of $12, we were only paying $6 to camp here in a rustic site. It was good to get off the road and relax.
We entered into the campground, and there were two loops. One to the left that was deeper down and all shaded sites along the river, and the one to the right were more open sites ringed around in a larger group area and away from the river. We opted to go to the right and camp where it was easy access to get in and out.
Of course, there is absolutely no cellular signal here and there's no way to use a credit card. Be sure if you come this way you have cash or a check. They have a pay station with envelopes. You write out your information and drop it in with the exact amount needed. There is no change. There was a campground host nearby for assistance. But mostly, you are on your own. We always are sure to carry a variety of bills in different denominations so we can pay for campground fees as needed.
We got set up on a nice site in the shade but also had access for our Starlink to the sky. The best of both worlds.
Nick seems to think this is a pretty good campground too. But after all, he thinks any campground is good if he can get out and sniff.
I've talked on some of my YouTube videos about fireweed. The plant that grows native along the road sides in abundance all summer long in Alaska. It's bright pink blooms are absolutely beautiful. As the blooms open up along the long pointy stalk, it's in an upwards fashion. The lower blooms open first and it works the way up the stalk. Legend is that once it reaches the top it can be as few as two more weeks or as many as six more weeks until snow flies. Depending on which website you read. Lol. So once the blooms on fireweed climbs to the top, you better get the heck out of Alaska and heading south if you don't want to be stuck there for the winter.
“The traditional story with the fireweed — and apparently this might go back to Native folklore or earlier — is that when they bloom out to the top, it’s six weeks till winter. They start blooming from the bottom, and they can still have flowers to the top, but after that, we should get ready for winter.”
So we will follow its advice, and start heading south as soon as we conquer this Top of the World Highway!
Here's the YouTube that goes along with today's blog:
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