My first full Alaskan day

t full day in Alaska

I had gotten a great nights sleep right next to the river and woke up happy to finally be in Alaska.  There was no need to hurry to take off this morning, as the post office wouldn’t open until 8, so I took my time and drank an extra cup of coffee.  I got packed up and headed to the post office.

Oops

Although I had been told that the postmistress had just recently retire and the I should expect a long wait at the post office, the parking lot was empty when I got there.  It was nearly 0815, so I was feeling pretty lucky.  Well, I was feeling lucky until I got into the post office and found the doors to the counter shut and locked!  I walked around, hoping to find an open window or something, but there were only PO boxes and no access to customer service.  Without knowing what else to do, I knocked on the door.  When there was no answer, I knocked again (I can be persistent) and said, “Hello,” in a loud voice.  I was answered with an angry, “We open at 8!”  I looked at my watch, almost 0820.  What the heck?  I looked at my phone and realized, Alaska is in a different time zone!  I sat outside to wait until Alaska 0800.

Resupply box

When it was 0800 Alaska time, I made my way into the post office and picked up the package I’d sent a bit over a week earlier.  I’ve done this when hiking for longer than a week, when I’m unable to carry enough food to get me through.  It’s easy to send a box to yourself to a post office with general delivery and pick it up.  This would be the first of 3 boxes that I would pick up in Alaska.  I apologized to the man at the post office for getting there early and took my box outside to sort my food.

It was so nice to see new meals that I’d get to eat over the next 10 or 11 days.  I packed everything that could fit in the bear can there, and the rest went in the dry bag on the back seat of Kymani.  I did have a few things that I wanted to send back home to lighten my load, things that weren’t working out the way I thought they would.  Once the box was packed, I mailed it back home to myself.

Visitor’s Center

I’d been told the Tok Visitor’s Center was a wealth of information on road conditions, construction, campground statuses, and other things helpful to a traveler.  This turned out to be not really true, but the woman there clearly WANTED to be helpful.  She had no information except what she saw on the map, and I already had this information.  They did have a lot of interesting displays in the Visitor’s Center, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.  Kymani and I headed out, down the Alaska Highway 1.  We were headed south, getting set up to visit Kennecott Mine the following day.

Kymani on the side of an Alaskan road

Gorgeous day

The ride was beautiful, and this was the first day in a week that it didn’t rain on me!  This is what I had come all this way to see!  There were occasional pullouts where I could take photos, and I did, since it wasn’t raining.  I was thrilled to be here, on this amazing day, riding Kymani.  Sometimes it just feels great.

Some shots of a beautiful little lake at one of the turnouts

A mountain view.  Look at that blue sky!

Another turnout, another great view

Gas stations are few and far between here in Alaska.  This forced me to plan things a bit more carefully than I would if I were riding in California.  I stopped at the Hub of Alaska gas station in Glennallen which is the busiest gas station I’ve ever been to.  I filled Kymani, then filled my 2-gallon gas can I carried to stretch my mileage.  Kymani has a 4.4-gallon tank, and the furthest I’ve ever made it on that 4.4 gallons before the bike tells me I need to fill up is 160 miles.  I thought it would be about 200 miles to get to Kennecott and back to a gas station, which would mean I would definitely need the extra 2 gallons of gas.  From the gas station I rode toward McCarthy, Alaska, where Kennecott Mine was located.

There’s always time for pretty flowers.  I loved these bluebells.

Liberty Falls

I rode for about 40 miles before seeing a sign that said McCarthy 93 miles.  I started doing some math in my head, which I am not very good at, by the way.  Feeling like I was coming up with the wrong answer, I decided to put the math problem aside and focus on the riding.  I made my way to Liberty Falls campground and found a spot.  This is a really small campground, run by the state, so it was free for me to stay.  The driveway in was steep, gravel, and filled with potholes, but I made it in without a hitch.  I chose a site and got set up.

The river at Liberty Falls campground

After my site was set up, my laundry done, and my water collected for the day, I went back to work on the math problem.  If I could go 160 miles on 4 gallons of gas, that meant my average mileage was about 40 mpg.  I did get better mileage than that, but the 40 was probably a good number since I’d never gotten further than 160 before the bike was telling me to get to a gas station immediately.  When I had passed the sign, it said McCarthy was 93 miles, so that would be 186 miles, roundtrip.  Plus the 40 miles I had already traveled and another 40 miles back to the gas station, that would be a total of 266 miles.  I had gotten 1.9 gallons of gas into the can, and that would be about 6 gallons.  At 40 mpg, I would not have enough gas to get to McCarthy and back before running out of gas.  Dammit!

Shots of Liberty Falls

I worry a lot about running out of gas.  It’s one of the two big worries I have when driving any vehicle.  That, and overheating.  I don’t know why these things scare me so much, but they do.   There’s a chance I could get better mileage and take the chance to go to McCarthy, or I could take it a bit easier and skip it.  I would think on it and try to decide what to do.