Paxson Lake is worth visiting

Attitude is everything

I called the family that night and told them how tired I was of the weather.  I was also tired, homesick, and sore from so much riding.  At this moment, all I wanted was to come home.  My biggest cheerleader, my BFG, told me that I couldn’t come home until I went to Denali.  This was both encouraging and infuriating.  I really was over the weather and I wasn’t having fun.  Being cold is definitely NOT my thing and I was having plenty of cold.  I was also tired.  It’s tough to sleep when the rain is pouring on your tent and you’re anxiously waiting for it to leak.  It didn’t leak, but flashbacks to my last trip had me stressed out.  In addition to that, I didn’t realize how freaked out we can get when our modern technology doesn’t work.  I hadn’t had internet access on my phone for over a week, and being unable to find myself a place to get out of the rain was the straw that broke my back.  I didn’t know why it wouldn’t work, only that I could not connect to anything unless I was connected to a wifi network.  He told me to keep going, and while I didn’t want to hear that, I also really did want to.  I hung up the phone and snuggled under the covers to get some sleep and be ready to tackle tomorrow.

Still bad

The weather was still cold and cloudy, but at least it wasn’t actively raining.  I carried my stuff outside and loaded poor, dirty Kymani up.  The plan for the day was to make it to Paxson.  It was a bit less than 200 miles, but there was a bunch of construction to make it through and some waterfalls that I was hoping to get some photos of.  I wanted to take my time and hopefully have nice weather to be able to stop and enjoy the ride.  My plan was to take my time getting ready, but the power went out in the hotel, so there was really no reason to stay any longer, so we hit the road.

Alaska pipeline

One interesting thing I saw in Valdez was the end of the pipeline that travels from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez across the state of Alaska.  This pipeline travels about 800 miles long, 48 inches in diameter and has 11 pump stations.

The end of the road for Alaska oil

While the photo is a bit blurry, this is where the all the oil from the north ends up to get on the boats to ship it out.  Valdez was a small town and I didn’t see a lot of it due to the weather, but even in the rain and cold, I likely could have seen it all without getting much more wet than I already was.

All of the locals I ran into told me I picked the wrong year to ride to Alaska on my motorbike!  They were having the worst summer in their memories.  Well, great!  I was advised to stay away from the coast because of the weather.  This did not bode well for the rest of my trip where I planned to go to Anchorage and Seward.  I guess I would play it by ear.  There had already been so many changes to the trip, I was just going to go with whatever happened.

What’s next

It was definitely time to leave the weather in Valdez, so Kymani and I hit the road.  Back up over the mountains and into the clouds.  There were some pretty waterfalls on this road, but I’d not been able to see them well on the way to Valdez, but I was hoping for better today.  The cold didn’t let up and the visibility was terrible, so bad, I actually said out loud in my helmet, “This isn’t safe.”  I pulled over and got some photos of the waterfalls and the river.  This made me feel lucky that it wasn’t raining!  I also got a shot of a glacier that you could see from the road!

                                         

Bridal Veil falls                                                    Horsetail Falls                                      Two in one shot

 

                   

Lowe River                                                                             Lowe River and Horsetail Falls

 

Worthington Glacier

Construction

The road construction was bad, as the day before, but rather than take the 1 back up, I stayed on the 4 to head to Paxson.  In Alaska, they usually wave motorcycles to the front of a line for construction so they go through first.  I came to a long line of vehicles waiting to go, just as the pilot car was starting to leave.  I kept to the back of the long line, behind a bunch of trucks and trailers.  The dirt on this stretch was rough and muddy.  The trucks and trailers were doing okay, so though it took a lot of concentration and care on my part, it wasn’t bad being in the back.  Until.  There was a bridge they were working on and the detour around the bridge involved a steep downhill, transitioning in a blink to a steep uphill.  The trucks and trailers had a tough time with this sharp angle, and it was muddy, slippery, deep mud.  It was tough to keep Kymani going in the mud at such slow speed, but I was doing okay until the hill.  I stopped before going down the hill behind a huge trailer pulled by a truck.  He made it to the bottom but stopped when the trailer got to the transition.  I waited until he was nearly at the top before starting down.  The mud had Kymani going squirrely as she traveled down the hill, but I stood on my pegs and managed it.  The trailer stopped as it made it to the top of the hill.  I was on my way up and slipping the entire way.  If I stopped, there was a good chance I’d fall, but there was nowhere for me to go.  I opened the throttle and decided to try to get around him on the right.  Kymani slid like crazy and I thought we were going down.  Oh well, there were the construction guys there to help me pick her up.  BUT, we didn’t fall!  I was so impressed with myself.

After the mud, it was nice to see a scenic turnout.  The sun was shining and I felt so happy.  The lake here and mountains were certainly spectacular.  I was glad I stopped.

         

From the scenic turnout

Stunning view

Mountains and campground

Once I passed through that section of road construction, while there was more construction, none of it was too bad and the scenery was amazing.  The ride to Paxson Lake Campground was beautiful.  I did manage to get a couple of photos while stopped waiting for construction traffic.

       

The view you get when you’re stopped in traffic!

The gravel road into the campground was really steep and gravelly.  I was a bit stressed riding it, but after the crazy mud, it didn’t seem too bad.  I got a great spot and set up camp.  They had bear lockers at this campground, so I had a secure place to store my extra food.  This was awesome and Paxson Lake was beautiful.  The rain had stopped, and it was windy but nice here and I felt so much better and happier.

Gather water

The only small hiccup here was there was no water at this campground.  There was a lake and a creek, so I would be able to get some.  I had developed a great system for getting water.  Using my laundry bag to gather up a bunch of water, I then poured it into my pot and from there into my filter bags from my Sawyer Squeeze.  I could easily get all the water I needed for a day and only hit the pump or water source once.

There was a lot of moose poop around this campground, so I was hopeful I’d see some.  My BFG wanted to see what it looked like, so, here’s a photo if you’re curious like him.

Moose poop!

My night was great and I headed to bed in the light, as the sun didn’t really go down.  I love the light, so it didn’t really bother me, in fact, I liked falling asleep in the light.  Tomorrow I would head to North Pole and see the rest of this stunning highway.