Fall is my favorite season in Alaska. All of the color and none of the mosquitoes! This fall I took a few little trips up north, trying to catch the colors on the tundra.
Finger Rock, Dalton Highway
My timing was not the best. We had a late spring this year, which led to a late fall. I expected a lot more color way up north on the Haul Road than I actually found there. But there were bits and pieces.
I had the same problem when I drove the Denali Highway Labor Day weekend. You know when you mix green and red when drawing or painting and get a muddy brown hue? That’s pretty much what I found in the Tangle Lakes area. In other years, I’ve come through around Labor Day and the colors were peaking or past the peak. Global climate change or just an off year? Things got better after I crossed the Susitna River.
Denali Highway
Continuing north to Denali National Park, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The aspens had not even begun to turn! The tundra was the same muddy mixture of green turning red that I’d found in the Tangle Lakes area. What a disappointment! Most years the colors start by mid-August in Denali.
There WERE occasional spots of brilliance on this trip, but not a lot.
Aspens in Chugach National Forest
I even drove over Hatcher Pass, only to find more of the same. Not the most colorful Alaskan autumn I’ve ever seen.
Another challenge on these trips was the weather. It was the rainiest August I think I’ve ever experienced, raining practically every day for the entire month.
September was a different story. It was one of the most fabulous Septembers I’ve ever had the joy to experience in McCarthy. Sunshine nearly every day. It was brilliant!
Gilahina Trestle
I had to stay close to home for most of the month, so instead of the brilliant reds and oranges of the tundra, this year was all about the golden hues of aspens, willow and cottonwoods in the lower elevations. I had to turn to fireweed and roses for my red and orange fix.
Fall rose leaves
The leaves have fallen now. Alaskans have to look to the sky for their color fix now, to the brilliant hues of the aurora. But I’m following the fall. I’m now in the Pacific Northwest, where autumn is just beginning. Lucky girl, I get to do it all over again!
McCarthy Creek is flooding. I may be stranded here at home for a while.
Earlier this spring I had the opposite problem. I couldn’t GET home. Early winter cold temperatures with no snow cover, coupled with a late spring, caused the ground to freeze hard & deep, leading to a humongous lake in the low spot on my road. It was so deep my neighbors called it Lake Michigan. Just to keep things interesting, there were seven new trees down on my foot trail, too.
The lake in my road
Even after the ground finally thawed and the lake drained, it was solstice before I could finally drive my ATV home. I had to wait for the road to dry and firm up so I wouldn’t turn it into a permanent bog. At least I was able to get the trees cleared so I could hike in.
Last spring access was difficult, too. A freak windstorm after days and days of heavy rain the previous fall had downed whole GROVES of aspens. Friends helped me clear my road after the storm, but I never got around to even looking at the foot trail.
One of the trees down on my trail
When I came in that spring, there was a lake in the road, although it was much smaller than this year’s and only lasted a couple of weeks. When I went to try my trail, the dozens of blown down trees were piled ten to fifteen feet high, stacked like pixie sticks. On top of all that, I had a sprained ankle from slipping on the ice. Ahh, breakup! ‘Shwacking through the woods to get home that spring was NOT fun!
I had another interesting challenge that spring. Like a lot of folks who live off the grid in Alaska, I have a “cold hole” for refrigeration. This is a mini-root cellar constructed of three fifty-five gallon drums with the ends cut out, stacked together and buried. Things stay real cold and it had worked well for years. But that spring, ground pressure from either ice or a rising water table started warping the barrels. You know that scene in Star Wars when Luke, Han, Princess Leia and the Wookie start to get crushed in the trash compactor? It was like that. My bottom cooler got completely wedged. Folks that I had come by and look at it to give me advice just looked down and shook their heads. It was such a ridiculous “only in the bush” kind of problem that it was actually rather humorous. But it was still a problem.
My fireweed garden
There’s a reason they call living out here the do-it-the-hard-way club.
I don’t have a garden. I’m overwhelmed enough with my house project. I don’t have time for one yet, especially in a year like this one. But I do have a wild garden – a combination fireweed/rose garden/raspberry patch. I encourage certain plants that grow here naturally by spreading a few random seeds in the fall.
It was starting to look pretty good. Most years the fireweed is taller than I am, and the raspberries had really taken off.
Baby Moose
Then the moose discovered my garden. It started about 2 years ago – I came home from work one day and all those five-foot high fireweed blossoms had disappeared. I was astounded.
Last year I caught her in the act, a mama with 2 babies. I watched her mow down my flowers and cringed as the whole family tore into the two tiny birch trees I had been so carefully nurturing, the only plants I had actually transplanted onto my land. What was I to do? I sure wasn’t going to mess around with a mama moose!
She likes raspberries!
Then I woke up this morning to a moose in my raspberry patch. No-o-o! Stick to the fireweed! I had to go stand on my porch and tell her she needed to share. She wasn’t so sure about that, but since I wouldn’t go away, she eventually ambled off to the other side of the house.
I think she might be one of last year’s calves. She looks young, possibly a yearling. I’m resigned to losing the fireweed, but the raspberries? No fair! I didn’t even know moose LIKED raspberries until today! As soon as she left, I went out to pick what was left before she came back.
So why do I put up with it? Why deal with all the hardship? Why not go somewhere with the basic comforts of life, like electricity and running water?
Baby bunny
Well, I like watching my neighbors the moose, even though I don’t want to share my raspberries with them. I like waking up to the birds singing and greeting the bunnies hopping around my front yard.
As a former Colorado girl, owning an aspen-filled ridge is truly living the dream. How did I ever get so lucky?
I like lying back on a mossy hill, surrounded by lovely lichens and low-bush cranberries. I like living in a land full of kind, courageous, happy, amazing people, that it is a privilege and a pleasure to call my friends and neighbors. I like looking out at one of the most sublime views on the planet. Living here, I feel like every day, as I gaze out at the view from my front porch, I hear the angels sing.
Is living here the do-it-the-hard-way club? Most certainly. Is it worth it? Absolutely!
Living remote in McCarthy, sometimes you have to go out for groceries, doctor, building supplies. Often it’s the hell trip to Anchorage or the Valley – 600 miles round trip, 7-8 hours of driving each way, with a whirlwind of stops crammed between as you pick up everything you need to maintain your life.
Unusual albino fireweed flowers
Occasionally you just need a few essentials or you don’t have enough time for a full-on Anchorage run. If you’re lucky, you can get what you need at Wenger’s, an excellent old-fashioned country store in Kenny Lake, just 85 miles away. When you need to go mid-range, you have 2 choices – Glennallen, 120 miles away (B-O-R-I-N-G) or Valdez, 180 miles away.
Valdez has a hospital that’s far better than the clinic in Glennallen, a good chiropractor, a thrift shop I like and a natural foods store. The grocery store gives me sticker shock every time I’m there. It’s more expensive than the one in Glennallen, but the produce is better.
Mineral Creek
The town of Valdez doesn’t look like much. Although it has a rich and fascinating history dating all the way back to the “98 Gold Rush, the entire town washed away in a tidal wave during the 1964 earthquake. Most of what was rebuilt was essentially a man-camp in the pipeline boom – ugly, square, utilitarian. No character. But the drive and the setting – Oh my!
Lowe River
Valdez is a town defined by water, in all its myriad forms. Snow, ice, waterfalls, of course the ocean, and rain. Incessant rain.
Bald Eagle on the Dayville Road
But if you happen to visit Valdez on a good day, it is one of the crown jewels of the Chugach.
Driving to Valdez, you must go over Thompson Pass. This is one of the snowiest places in North America, with 600 to 900 inches of snow a year. In the winter, it is one of the world’s primo extreme heli-skiing destinations. In the summer, think alpine wildflowers, glaciers, tundra benches, jagged mountains, and a little later, blueberries. Lots and lots of blueberries.
Arctic Ground Squirrel near Thompson Pass
Coming down from the pass, you enter Keystone Canyon. The Chugach Mountains are forbiddingly steep, rising 5,000 feet straight up from the coast. And when all that winter snow melts…Can you say waterfall?
Horsetail Falls
Of course, there are the big ones, Bridal Veil and Horsetail Falls. But there are dozens more. Every time I take this drive I spy another one I hadn’t noticed before. In the winter, this is an ice climber’s dream.
When you get to town, you’re surrounded by all the wonders of Prince William Sound. Valdez is a great destination if you want to get out on the water. You can go kayaking at Shoup Bay. You can take a tour to see the Columbia Glacier, or go halibut or salmon fishing.
Prince William Sound from the Dayville Road
If these activities are not in your budget, there are plenty of things to do on land. You can revisit Gold Rush history with a visit to the Museum or the Valdez Glacier, the “All-American” route to the goldfields. Take a hike on the old Valdez Trail, constructed by the army in 1899 as a safer route into the Interior.
Stop at the Forest Service Visitor Center and watch the salmon come in. Sometimes there are bears. Take a drive out the Dayville Road to watch the sunset. Get a view of the coast on the Shoup Bay Trail, or check out the waterfalls and flowers along Mineral Creek.
A Valdez View
This weekend it’s Gold Rush Days in Valdez. Go down and join in on the festivities, and on your way, enjoy that beautiful drive!
