Never a Wrong Turn (Ever): Not the Scenic Route!

This is going the hard way - which we were in the kind of shape that would allow us to do this!

Today we left Tok, AK and drove to a campground outside of Glennallen, AK. According the Mile Post book that we are following, today’s drive is not scenic, but tomorrow’s will be. I selected a few pictures from our not-so-scenic drive. The next leg must be impressive!

The road has had lots of frost heaves with big dips. We have found that you can judge how deep the dip will be by the number of tire skid marks at the bottom. If there are less than 4 – no sweat! If there are 5 to 10, slow down and brace yourself, and if there are more than 10, just give up and recount your teeth after you have gone over the dip. We talked to a trucker who explained that the trucks that have the extra wheels that can be cranked down and up, often leave those tracks when then bounce enough to touch the ground with the wheels cranked up. It is so nice of the truckers to help of rate the dips.

We camped at a place that had advertised a trail to a “mud volcano”. We hiked the trail; who could possibly miss a mud volcano? The trail is marked by CDs nailed to trees and goes through a stunted forest growing on spongy ground. Only the top layer of the ground thaws in the summer and then there isn’t anywhere for the water to go because the deeper ground is frozen. This not only creates mosquitoes, but leaves strange squishy dirt. The trees have shallow roots and several times when we stood by a tree, the tree would wobble because our weight would move the ground. Many trees tip and lots fall over. When we got to the “volcano” we found a large circle of mud and in the middle were a couple of puddles with muddy water and gas bubbling up to the surface. The most interesting part of the phenomenon was all of the animal tracks around it. We saw bear and elk and then something that was elk like but bigger, and about 4 - 5 inches long. We know there are caribou in the area, and believe they may be caribou tracks. AND there was one bigfoot track! But we didn’t see him. While the hike was only about three miles, it was difficult to walk on the unstable ground with lots and lots of roots to stumble over. And we did stumble! We did not have the ten essentials for hiking with us (Mountaineer’s Club in Seattle recommends them) because we did not take a flash light even though it was after 8 p.m. when we got back. So reckless!