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