Mt Mitchell Getaway

Ever since we camped at Alaska for the first time, we were campadditcs (google tells me this is not a word, but I wonder why not...)! Not just that we enjoyed making a list of items to take along, pack camp food and this time, decided to take our puppy, Neo. 

Tip: IF you wish to camp on Mt Mitchell you need to book way in advance because there are only limited camp sites ( 7, I think).

Destination: Mt. Mitchell ( > 6000 ft, highest peak in East Coast)

Go there, do that list: 

• View Mitchell
• Hike Mitchell (??)
• Camp over night
• Visit a few waterfalls on the drive back next day

All geared up we reached Mt. Mitchell some time in the afternoon and found it was  all clouded up, and should I say with a very different feel to them as compared to other mountains. The summit (we drove up there) is very pet friendly, in fact Neo made a few k9 friends there.

A Compass at the Summit of Mt Mitchell

Mt Mitchell on a cloudy weekend!

Due to the unpredictable weather we decided to not hike that day...tch tch..excuses excuses :) 

We had booked a spot at Lazy J campground to camp that night. Its a pretty cozy campground with decent facilities. 

By the way in case I forgot to mention, we absolutely love our tent. Its a Coleman Sundome, which we bought online from Amazon. Pros: Easy to pitch, waterproof, (this was tested when it poured like crazy in Denali, AK), well ventilated, and I love the fly screen. Cons: Its supposedly for 3 adults, but we could only fit 2 adults and a dog).

(No, unfortunately I am not getting paid by Coleman or Amazon for pitching this tent (pun!), but I just wanted to share my 2 cents worth.) 

Next day, we started early at 10 am (come on, 10 am is early for a Sunday right?), and took Neo to this open horse farm owned by Lazy J, where you don't need to clean up after your dog (I was getting a sense for why J was Lazy). Neo fertilized the farm and after running crazy for 30 min he was ready to leave. 

Warning: Wear boots at this farm! I was wearing open-toed flats and was dodging poop like land mines!

Courthouse Falls,  Pisgah National Forest

Pisgah is a 500,000 acre forest encompassing 12 counties. Our plan was to visit some of the waterfalls in the Transylvania County (Courthouse Falls, Looking Glass Falls, Sliding Rock). 

Pisgah National Forest

Its a beautiful cool (in spite of it being 95 F) mile (15 min easy) walk/hike to the base of the Courthouse Falls, a gorgeous cliff scooped out into a perfectly round pool at the bottom...very tempting to dive (of course at your own risk). 

Note to self: Train Neo to click photos...

By the time we set the tripod up to take this pic, our feet froze...yes, the water is super cold and the moss on the rocks makes it very slippery to stand still. Neo decided to stay warm somewhere up on the rocks...Notice how there is no one here! It was surely a hidden  treasure and we enjoyed the serene spot for somewhere before the rain drove us away.

Sliding Rock Falls,  Pisgah National Forest

A 60 ft slide with a 7 ft deep pool calls out to every man, woman and child on a hot long weekend. The rock has been made into a recreational spot by US Forest Service which is great because for a dollar or two you can take as many dips as you want with life guards to watch over the over-adventurous ones...yes Rahul, I am referring to you ;)

Needless to say, carry some change, towel and some change of clothes if you plan to take a dip. 

Sliding Rock Falls: Kudos to all that braved up to the freezing water!

Looking Glass Falls, Pisgah National Forest

Few miles further South on the parkway on Hwy 276 is Looking Glass Falls. On a weekend, this is one of the easiest to spot because you will see the cars parked along the road. You can actually see the waterfalls from the road, but I highly recommend going to the base (a 3 min flight of stairs).

Looking Glass Falls

If you are in Western NC, this is a must-do trip. Try to at least see 3-4 waterfalls...they are pretty breathtaking!
A tired me, sleepy hubby and happy Neo (coz he snoozed the whole car ride home) reached home at 10 pm. Exhausted, but dying to see the pics I browse through my camera and find this classic expression of Neo...Am I nuts or do you see a hint of a smile on his face? Only answer if you think the latter ;)

"Woof woof, thanks for a wonderful weekend daddy!"

Day 9-12: Clam Gulch, Soldatna, Seward and Homer

Day 1: We decided to stay in a B&B, called The Moose is Inn  at Clam Gulch, a small town, with very friendly people. This location was central to Seward and Homer, both locations we wished to visit over the last couple of days in AK. After a good night's rest, we head out to the beach (a mile from our B&B). We were lucky to catch a spectacular view of the Mt Redoubt, an active volcano, from across the ocean...it kind of made our day!

View of Mt Redoubt

We drove towards the little town of Soldotna. We had planned to take the day easy, probably a hike or two, chill out by some lakes, and so on. We stopped by Lake Tustumena for lunch. We also squeezed in a hike around Skilak Lake, part of Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. Pretty views on a bright sunny day...

Day 2: We decided to explore Seward, a town N of Clam Gulch. It is a beautiful city, studded with harbors. We spent at least an hour, exploring one such picturesque harbor.

Views from a harbor

Do stop by a restaurant in the downtown and indulge in some sea food...We helped ourselves to lets say, gourmet burger place...it was pretty good!

A couple of miles from downtown is Exit Glacier (Herman Leirer/Exit Glacier Road at mile 3 Seward Highway). There are many short hikes that take you to different views of the Glacier. The closest view is a easy 20 minute hike. There are also tours that take you climbing on the glacier. Yes you have to go with them, because you need special kind of footwear. Park rangers conduct free educational walks throughout the day. 

Day 3: Bear viewing!!!

We started early on our last day in AK for a bear viewing trip to Katmai National Park. The drive to Homer is an hr, from Homer we boarded our plane booked through KBay air. The 2.5 hr flight to Katmai was so beautiful, we saw volcanic mountains, snow covered peaks, glaciers and...bears! Yes, although I knew bears are huge, I was amazed that you could see them so distinctly from up so high!

As soon as we landed on the beach, we were briefed about the rules of staying together. Bears never attack people as long as you respect their personal space and don't intimidate them. The tour guides explained to us that at any point in time, we as a collective need to appear larger than the bear, and stay as a pack. We walked through piles of bear poop (and I don't use the word pile loosely!) to the 'viewing area', which is an area designated by the park officials for tourists. We saw some bears just going about their daily business, which largely comprises of grazing. This is a special season because it is the first time that the females bring out their cubs to introduce them to the rest of the pack. We saw a few cubs too! The way the cubs rolled around in the wet grass reminded me of my crazy dog, playfully covering himself up in the dirt and throwing a tantrum at the same time. I wanted to take the cub home! After watching them for sometime, we moved to another viewing area, where there were 2 cubs a 1 mama bear chilling out in the grass. They didn't really seem to be bothered by our presence...In fact I wondered if the mama bear was telling the cubs "Look, I told you this is a great viewing area...These are the funny smelling 2-legged creatures I wanted you to see...they drop down from the sky, with black boxes that click and flash when they see you. No, they are not dangerous, they just smell and sound funny...What's amusing is they will follow you where ever you go... Watch!" And the bear family slowly walks away, while we hurriedly packed up our camera and tripod and follow them! I guess she was right :)
Make sure you collect free memorabilia from the beach...no, not bear poop but beautiful green jade stones and interesting looking sea shells.
5 hrs later, we boarded our flight, and flew back to Homer. The drive back to Anchorage was quiet and mostly reminiscing the past 2 weeks...What a trip! Highly highly highly (have I stressed highly enough?) recommend it to everyone who seeks adventure, nature  hikes and wildlife...

Day 8: Prince William Sound Glacier, Whittier Cruise

The drive from Anchorage to Whittier is about an hr and half. To reach Whittier, you have to drive through the Whittier Tunnel, which is the second longest highway tunnel and longest combined rail and highway tunnel in North America. Since it is shared by eastbound, westbound and Alaska Railway, it follows a strict schedule. The speed limit is 25 mph and  passing through it, I was reminded of the long, musty smelling, Konkan railroad tunnels of Mumbai. 

Display by a humpback whale on the way.

We had booked a Prince William Sound day cruise with Major Marine. Unlike some other large vessels, this is a fairly small one, which means at any time the deck is never over crowded with people and there is plenty of room to walk around inside. The crew are also friendly and they try to keep you entertained at all times :)

On the way there, we also saw a lot of bald eagles, sea gulls, and otter chilling out in the sea...The ship passes through Blackstone Bay and we saw the towering glaciers looming up against the vessel. Two of the active glaciers we saw were the Blackstone and Beloit Glaciers. 

Above: Beloit and Blackstone Glaciers. Below: Blackstone Glacier

We spent about 30 minutes watching and listening to these beauties calving slowly right in front of our eyes. It almost sounded like thunderstorms at first, followed by a loud crackling, followed by a big chunk of ice splashing in the water...It was breathtaking!

As we headed back, the clouds cleared up, the water colour changed to a beautiful turquoise and we saw many small waterfalls. 

We stopped by a famous one, called Surprise Falls (below), named because of its secret location.

All in all, a great day! Next destination: Clam Gulch!

Day 7: Fairbanks to Anchorage via Richardson Hwy

After bidding good bye to Alina and Frodo, we started on our road trip back to Anchorage this time via Richardson Hwy. It is the oldest, longest and most well connected highway connecting Valdez in the south (Mile 0) to Fairbanks in the north (Mile 362). Some beautiful landscapes on the way. We stopped briefly at Rika's Roadhouse on Mile 275. Its a historic oasis for travelers, hunters and prospectors since early 1900s. 

Mile 275, Rika's Roadhouse

Mile 195, Summit Lake

A nice place to stop and stretch on the way is Matanuska Glacier. It is a valley glacier, the largest glacier in the US that is accessible by car. There is a Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Site at milepost 101, and if you continue further on there is a paid road access. I believe there are guided tours (~$50) and they take you far into the ice. We spent a few moments around the glacier, when it started to rain and we decided to continue on our way.

Matanuska Glacier, Mile 101

We reached our abode for the night at Sea Wolf Inn, Anchorage, and cozied in after the long day...Whittier, here we come!

Day5,6: Fairbanks

Our abode in Fairbanks was a really cute cabin...heavenly, may I add! It was surrounded by woods, right in the vicinity to almost all places of interest in Fairbanks. I would highly recommend staying here, even if it is for a couple of nights. The owner, Alina is an amazing host, and made us very comfortable with the cabin and had a great stocked up kitchen. Check out her cabin (Forget-me-Not-Cabins) for sure!!

Forget-me-not cabin, and Frodo and his belly-rubs :)

Fairbanks is a small town with a relatively big University of Alaska campus. Early next day we decided to visit the university (10-15 min drive from our cabin). We were interested in visiting LARS (Large Animal Research Station), that houses muskoxen, caribou and reindeer. 

Bob thinks he is boss

There is an  hour info tour of the facility, after which you can watch the muskox being fed. That was quite a novel experience...apparently even though food is freely available as pellets/supplements, the males have to establish dominance by head-butting each other...every single day!! What's with men ;)! We also briefly visited the Alaska Museum (also part of the AU), but like any museum, you need a whole day or at least half a day to do justice to all the exhibits. 

From here we proceeded on to Chena Hot Springs (60 miles East of Fairbanks). It is powered entirely using geothermal power source and research here is focused on alternative power engineering, and has a well-established greenhouse (left) to produce vegetables throughout the year. 

There is also a beautiful Ice Museum, that you must surely check out. It is free and has amazing sculptures, again powered by geothermal energy throughout the year! There is also an ice bar (on the right) where we had apple martinis...it was good! The actual hot springs was even better after the chili museum :) 

We spent about an hr or maybe more here, talking with the locals, and the other tourists, and decided to have dinner at the restaurant. Food is on the pricier side, and everyone recommended the salmon, but it wasn't as great as it was worth. The Chena Special Salad was awesome and was made with veggies from the in house greenhouse :) Content and tired we drove back to our warm cabin...

Sun shining upon the hot springs at 8 pm.

Day 3, 4: Fairbanks to Dalton Highway to Fairbanks

Our plan for Day 3 was to leave DNP and drive up north to Fairbanks (about a 4 hr drive). The ultimate plan was to drive on Dalton Highway, but since the highway is mostly dirt and gravel road, only a handful of rental car companies allow you to take their cars up there for fear of  windshield chips and flat tyres. Hence we needed to pick up another car, a 4WD from Fairbanks. We started out from DNP early, had breakfast and reached Fairbanks at about noon. They have a great visitor center with helpful volunteers  and we highly recommend stopping by there.We picked and packed  up our new and bigger car and hit the road! 

The trans-Alaska pipeline carries oil 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay (North) on the Arctic Ocean to the pipeline terminus at Port Valdez. The Dalton Highway was largely built to facilitate this transport and do to icy road conditions is almost always in poor condition. Just outside Fairbanks (Milepost F 8.4 on the Steese Highway), there is a  Viewpoint, and a Pipeline Visitor Center. Past this point, you will only see the pipeline parallel to the Dalton Highway. So stop here and take pictures!

Milepost F 8.4, Steese Hwy

Hilltop: The last trucker stop

After about 60 miles driving N on Steese Hwy, we finally reached Dalton Highway...If you ever watched Ice Road Truckers, you will probably understand why we both said a silent prayer under our breaths before entering the highway. It is a lonely stretch of deserted road, with only 2 gas stations along 600 miles and no services until other than Coldfoot (~175 miles north  into the Dalton Hwy!

A truckee, unpaved road, some paved road and

a brave biker!

The dirt road ahead!

Our aim was to go to Arctic Circle, and camp at Coldfoot for the night, and take pictures along the way :).


There are a few things of interest to see along the road. The first thing you will see is the Alaska pipeline which runs almost parallel to the highway. It is above ground where ever the permafrost would interfere with it under ground.

Finger Mountain Valley, MP98

On the right is the Dalton Highway within first 60 or so miles and adjacent Alaska Pipeline. 

Mile 98, The Finger Mountain Valley: Finger Mountain is called so because it points to Fairbanks in the south and was used as a  guide to early travelers). Winds were very strong in this area. 

Mile 115, The Arctic Circle: Dalton Hwy is the one of the 2 roads in N America that crosses Arctic Circle.  Take a picture in front of the big board and prove that you made it till here!! 


Mile 150, The Grayling Lake: Carved out of glaciers, stop to take a pic.


Mile 175, The Coldfoot Camp: 

Bar at Coldfoot. Pic was taken at 12AM!!

This is the only real stop on Dalton Hwy. There is a bar, a hotel, and a campsite to crash for the night. This was originally a mining camp (old name, Slate Creek). Around 1900 it got its present name when the prospectors going up to the Koyukuk River  got "cold feet" and turn around! We camped here that night.


Day 2 on Dalton...

We left early on the next day and had  plans to drive further up N of the Dalton. Interesting, about 15 miles beyond Coldfoot, the road is very well laid out. 

Right (top), Post office (no longer in use), has sunk in 2 ft 

below ground. Bottom: Parts that might get recycled one day!

Mile 188, Wiseman: An old historical town with only 13 residents, this is a quaint little mining town founded by prospectors who abandoned Coldfoot after finding gold in a nearby creek. The 13 residents lead a very interesting life, subsistent on hunting and gardening, makes for a great stop on your trip. They are really self-sufficient, as they also make their own electricity, and build their machines from recycled parts. The residents are very friendly and happy to have visitors. There is also a B&B (believe it or not), and they can get up to 20 visitors during a busy season. Quotes from residents:

"I used to be a vegetarian, then met my husband and settled in Wiseman. Sometimes when I don't feel like eating meat, I supplement my protein needs with pulses and lentils that I order from amazon.com!"

"When I get bored in winters (so much snow that everything is in a standstill), I just snowboard or ski with my little brother!"

" I am originally from Utah, came to Anchorage, AK to study, met my now husband, dropped out of school, and came to settle down here!"

"Once a week, when the mail man comes with mail, we all get together to welcome him with food and drinks and make an evening out of it!"

What a unique and happy little town! Be sure to visit Wiseman if you drive all the way up to Coldfoot.

Initially we had planned to turn back from Wiseman, but the beautiful landscapes motivated us to move on further N!

Mile 203, Sukakpak Mountain

Sukakpak Mountain Panaroma

Northernmost Spruce

We saw a beautiful view of the Sukakpak Mountain (unique because it glows in the afternoon sun and rises like a wall) Stop here to take in a view or a picture.
Mile 235, The Northernmost Spruce: As you drive along further N, we noticed fewer trees due to the extreme cold weather. Here lies the furthest north spruce tree on the highway, killed by a vandal in 2004 (~ 273 years old)!!

Mile 237-240: Chandalar Shelf/Pass

Chandalar Shelf, Mile 237+

You will start to notice there are no trees beyond this point. The landscape was absolutely breathtaking, so scenic and...untouched! 
Mile 244, Atigun Pass: The first major incline beyond this point is the Atigun pass, the highest pass in Alaska and spans across the Brooks Range. You can get stunning views of the Brooks Range and of the trucks ascending and descending the pass. Around Mile 244 there is a little pull out zone where you can stop by to take photos. 

Two truckers driving towards each other over the Atigun Pass,

At this point we decided (quite hesitantly) to return...The only bonus to the driving up 245 miles on the Dalton is that you get to enjoy the beauty and the peace all over again! It was all so worth it!

Us, with a "been there, done that" smile :)

We drove back 300 or so miles (250 on Dalton + 60 or so on Steese Hwy) to our abode in Fairbanks...finally after 3 days of camping we will be rewarded with sound sleep on a real bed...zzz...