Alaska Bound - May 2nd, 2013 - Fun Day of Driving!

Early departure this morning with a plan to make it to Whitehorse. Fueled up first thing, had a confirmed gas stop in Teslin, just about half way.

The roads had been reported to be very bad last night, with one trucker saying that the road was almost impassable in spots. I was hoping that was due to freezing. The first hour or so was fine, then it turned to snow packed in sections, then a little while later it was snow packed on ice with about 2 inches of freezing slush on top, which made you really stay in the grooves, otherwise you were all over the place. Hit a pretty big hill and it got worse, really slick had to slow way down and I jumped into 4 wheel drive. I counted 6 different RV's and cars off the road, some from last night and a couple with people standing around looking like they were screwed! Which they were. Shame some people just have to try and go fast. I had no problems at all only slid a little one time on the steep hill. Actually had to pass an old Dodge Van / Camper looked like his tires were bald and he was going nowhere on that hill.

The most dangerous part was when a big truck passed you oncoming and threw up 200 pounds of slush all over your windshield. At Teslin I fueled up and the road was clear from that point on, so easy driving the rest of the way. The first half I averaged 35 mph according to the GPS and the second half I was averaging about 50 mph.

I got to my stopping point in Whitehorse and did a drive through and much was closed, fueled up and decided to head on another 96 miles to Haines Junction, good road for the most part with a few frost heaves but all were well marked with little pink flags and cones, so easy to slow down for. Pavement was good with some small pot holes, but easy to avoid if you were paying attention. The roughest part all day was the frozen slush on the snow packed part, it was a teeth rattler.

Truck ran like a dream with no problems at all!

Here is what the better part of the snow packed road looked like, couldn't take a picture in the bad part!



As the day progressed the views got better!!









Stay Tuned for the next leg of my journey! ALASKA Tomorrow!!



Capt. Jim - "The Gypsy"

Traveling and photographing the Southwest