Sunday, June 11, 2006
Steese highway trip for the ages
So, super fun trip this weekend. The original plan was to head down to Nabesna and hike / bike down there over the weekend but Rob called from Denali with plans to head up the Steese. I hadn't been up there (or driven the whole thing) since Kim and I went up ages ago to go hiking... got super rained out... headed back... got a flat tire... broke the tire jack from some nice North Pole people... got re-rescued by some BLM guy. So, that left a few years of scarring I guess. Anyway, Rob's pretty funny, he just got a cat that's turning into a camping cat. So, it made the drive, too. Bergey's pretty cat neutral. Loda has cats and Bergey's weirded out by them when she's by herself (when Loda's 6 dogs are around then she's more confident around the cats). Midge is dumbly curious about cats and nearly got a paw to the face more than once so that was great.
So, we head up the road. Strange trip. On the way up to Cleary Summit in the steep part of the road I had a pretty good flashback. I'm 90% sure it was this hillbilly red neck that Johnson and I had met up Standard Creek four or five years ago. We went out one late winter day just to do nothing productive maybe shoot trees or something like that and as I'd pull off the road into the powder we'd laugh about having to get unstuck. So, sure enough when it comes time to leave the truck's stuck. After shoveling for a while and nearly getting back onto the road this hillbilly drives on by in a big blue truck. He offers to pulls us out and we're like no thanks we're pretty much out. But, he's super insistent. So, we agree. As we're hooking up the chains he's telling us about his truck and how he just got big new tires. His only inheritance from his dad who'd just died. Classic awkwardness there. So, he pulls us out and we're like thanks. The guy and his friends don't leave though. They want money for pulling us out! So, eventually I write him a check and we're like geez what a day. Flash forward to Friday when I saw him with the same big blue truck with the hood up in the steep section going up to Cleary Summit. Hopefully he had a long wait until help arrive...
That was a pretty good start to the trip. Eventually we got to 12 mile summit like 50 some miles down the road. It was blowing hard but no bugs. Pretty good evening for cooking these crazy sausages Rob picked up from this bar / midwestern food maker in North Pole.
The menu was great: 4lb sausages, 4 lb bacon, 3 onions, 5 tomatoes, chips, tortillas, sour cream. Simple yet filling. We put a dent in the sausages but not really the bacon. Everything gets burned over the fire. Kim Nielsen would be proud.
It was blowing like crazy up there (nice for the bugs) but the poor old kitty had the tent blow over on him when it was time to leave:
So, that was pretty fun. Went hiking with the dogs Saturday and they had a blast, too. We followed this four-wheeler trail up to the top of a mountain opposite the Pinnel Mountain trail. Not super hard for a hike but looks like you could go for miles up there. Another trail that starts at the camp site and connects Circle and Fairbanks. Sounds like a long one. Anyway, the views were cool and hopefully I'll get back there again this summer.
The wild flowers are just starting to pop out but they're so tiny anyway it's easy to miss them if you're not looking. These little flowers are like a quarter inch across or something.
When we got up there the dogs were beat. They went right to sleep till I was done wandering around. Pretty big hike for Bergey, her first off the leash in a couple summers. Usually she runs off exploring and then comes back to the last place she saw me whereas Midge is content to explore in the general direction we're going. Creates trouble sometimes but this trip she was already tuckered out from a day of exploring so that worked out cool and she hung close. You can see they're tired though:
After getting back from the hike I met up with Rob again and we headed down the road looking for a new camp site and wood. The beauty of summer up here, I didn't leave for hiking until 3:30 and got back sometime way later but who cares when the sun doesn't go down. So we head out lookng for wood. Coming up on one camp site down in the valley was the super score. Cool that someone had cut would for us but why do they want that bible book to be burned? The world must be going crazy! The night before we scrounged wood from the other fire pits at our camping spot. Enough to cook a little meat anyway.
We gratefully traded wood piles:
Thought about leaving something even more important than wood (pudding snacks for my world famous pudding dipped donut hole desert), too but didn't:
So, that was pretty sweet. Made for some nice dinner making just outside of Circle later in the evening:
Bergey was getting killed by the bugs at this new camping spot so into the tent she went for a break. Not satisfied to be in there by herself she knocked the tent over, too. Plus, second trip of the year without a rainfly on. Yay!
By the way, if you head this way only head to Circle if you're desperate to see the Yukon. Central to Circle the road was pretty rough. In Nome we were laughing about the road warning markers how the huge bumps wouldn't get them and the small bumps would. Same deal - to the extreme! - out on the Steese. Lots of miles of this junk (camera phone strikes again):
The end of the road is pretty anticlimatic, too. Just another trashed out picnic spot:
Just like in Nome lots of stories waiting to be told. Here's probably the only deck of cards I could do magic tricks with:
... is it the nine of hearts?
Anyway, we spend the afternoon in Circle checking out the river and the sun when out of the blue Sveta shows up. Apparently her and Martin here flew to Eagle yesterday and dropped off some canoers. Before flying back to Fairbanks they checked in at Circle. They cracked me up. After landing at the air strip they took the plane down the gravel highway and parked it at the general store. So, had to get a picture:
The capper on the day was a couple of locals. After seeing Martin and Sveta off, Rob and I headed back to the vehicles. A thirtyish dude and a sixtyish dude in a big truck with a bible verse bumper sticker on the door stopped us:
After chatting for a bit about Rob's camping cat (this cracked me up, the guy was allergic so that was the conversation starter) they mentioned church was beginning in twenty minutes and we were welcome, here's directions to the house, yell if we get lost etc. I really should have gone for the experience (can you imagine?) but the scene just got a bit weird so that was a good moment to high tail it out of town. So, pretty fun trip. Now I'm hooked on the Steese highway, too. It's way closer to town then Tangle Lakes/ Denali Highway etc. so maybe there's more exploring to be done up there this year.
So, we head up the road. Strange trip. On the way up to Cleary Summit in the steep part of the road I had a pretty good flashback. I'm 90% sure it was this hillbilly red neck that Johnson and I had met up Standard Creek four or five years ago. We went out one late winter day just to do nothing productive maybe shoot trees or something like that and as I'd pull off the road into the powder we'd laugh about having to get unstuck. So, sure enough when it comes time to leave the truck's stuck. After shoveling for a while and nearly getting back onto the road this hillbilly drives on by in a big blue truck. He offers to pulls us out and we're like no thanks we're pretty much out. But, he's super insistent. So, we agree. As we're hooking up the chains he's telling us about his truck and how he just got big new tires. His only inheritance from his dad who'd just died. Classic awkwardness there. So, he pulls us out and we're like thanks. The guy and his friends don't leave though. They want money for pulling us out! So, eventually I write him a check and we're like geez what a day. Flash forward to Friday when I saw him with the same big blue truck with the hood up in the steep section going up to Cleary Summit. Hopefully he had a long wait until help arrive...
That was a pretty good start to the trip. Eventually we got to 12 mile summit like 50 some miles down the road. It was blowing hard but no bugs. Pretty good evening for cooking these crazy sausages Rob picked up from this bar / midwestern food maker in North Pole.
The menu was great: 4lb sausages, 4 lb bacon, 3 onions, 5 tomatoes, chips, tortillas, sour cream. Simple yet filling. We put a dent in the sausages but not really the bacon. Everything gets burned over the fire. Kim Nielsen would be proud.
It was blowing like crazy up there (nice for the bugs) but the poor old kitty had the tent blow over on him when it was time to leave:
So, that was pretty fun. Went hiking with the dogs Saturday and they had a blast, too. We followed this four-wheeler trail up to the top of a mountain opposite the Pinnel Mountain trail. Not super hard for a hike but looks like you could go for miles up there. Another trail that starts at the camp site and connects Circle and Fairbanks. Sounds like a long one. Anyway, the views were cool and hopefully I'll get back there again this summer.
The wild flowers are just starting to pop out but they're so tiny anyway it's easy to miss them if you're not looking. These little flowers are like a quarter inch across or something.
When we got up there the dogs were beat. They went right to sleep till I was done wandering around. Pretty big hike for Bergey, her first off the leash in a couple summers. Usually she runs off exploring and then comes back to the last place she saw me whereas Midge is content to explore in the general direction we're going. Creates trouble sometimes but this trip she was already tuckered out from a day of exploring so that worked out cool and she hung close. You can see they're tired though:
After getting back from the hike I met up with Rob again and we headed down the road looking for a new camp site and wood. The beauty of summer up here, I didn't leave for hiking until 3:30 and got back sometime way later but who cares when the sun doesn't go down. So we head out lookng for wood. Coming up on one camp site down in the valley was the super score. Cool that someone had cut would for us but why do they want that bible book to be burned? The world must be going crazy! The night before we scrounged wood from the other fire pits at our camping spot. Enough to cook a little meat anyway.
We gratefully traded wood piles:
Thought about leaving something even more important than wood (pudding snacks for my world famous pudding dipped donut hole desert), too but didn't:
So, that was pretty sweet. Made for some nice dinner making just outside of Circle later in the evening:
Bergey was getting killed by the bugs at this new camping spot so into the tent she went for a break. Not satisfied to be in there by herself she knocked the tent over, too. Plus, second trip of the year without a rainfly on. Yay!
By the way, if you head this way only head to Circle if you're desperate to see the Yukon. Central to Circle the road was pretty rough. In Nome we were laughing about the road warning markers how the huge bumps wouldn't get them and the small bumps would. Same deal - to the extreme! - out on the Steese. Lots of miles of this junk (camera phone strikes again):
The end of the road is pretty anticlimatic, too. Just another trashed out picnic spot:
Just like in Nome lots of stories waiting to be told. Here's probably the only deck of cards I could do magic tricks with:
... is it the nine of hearts?
Anyway, we spend the afternoon in Circle checking out the river and the sun when out of the blue Sveta shows up. Apparently her and Martin here flew to Eagle yesterday and dropped off some canoers. Before flying back to Fairbanks they checked in at Circle. They cracked me up. After landing at the air strip they took the plane down the gravel highway and parked it at the general store. So, had to get a picture:
The capper on the day was a couple of locals. After seeing Martin and Sveta off, Rob and I headed back to the vehicles. A thirtyish dude and a sixtyish dude in a big truck with a bible verse bumper sticker on the door stopped us:
After chatting for a bit about Rob's camping cat (this cracked me up, the guy was allergic so that was the conversation starter) they mentioned church was beginning in twenty minutes and we were welcome, here's directions to the house, yell if we get lost etc. I really should have gone for the experience (can you imagine?) but the scene just got a bit weird so that was a good moment to high tail it out of town. So, pretty fun trip. Now I'm hooked on the Steese highway, too. It's way closer to town then Tangle Lakes/ Denali Highway etc. so maybe there's more exploring to be done up there this year.
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Classic! That menu reminds me of an old Simpsons episode. Homer:"as long as you're in my house you'll do things my way, now butter your bacon boy!" Bart:"dad, my heart hurts!" Homer:"do it...!" Bart:(sadly)"ohhh" And by the way things were a little fuzzy, but is that a bottle of Segrems clutched in your grubby paw? Yeah, gotta love the 'ol Timberline, thats like the first thing I noticed. Mine has been officially retired. Never was the same after the bear sat on it. I'm totally diggin' the scene where your dog flipped it over. Too funny. Landing on roads is pretty common around here. In fact, there is a cool little cafe over in Montana that folks used to drop in at for coffee, pie ect. but there were a couple loony tunes that got a little agressive with the throttle turning around and sprayed gravel over all the rigs in the parking lot. To get an accurate picture of their reaction, figure 70 percent of Montana's population is interchangable with Willow, AK. DOH! Pilots are no longer welcome.
Yeah, seeing his timberline made me think about getting one for the next tent but this sierra designs one that I've had for a few years now is a pretty good size. It's held 2 people and 2 dogs before and I don't think that's the limit.
Not Seagrams but this crazy Belgian Ale, Rasberry Lambic (I think that's the name). It's like candy pretty much but what the hay, okay to get every once in a while. The peach one's awesome, too but comes in a smaller bottle. The rest of the time it was something light and summer timey from a local place out in Fox.
Pretty awesome deal with the planes. I'm not surprised but I don't think it will ever stop being funny for me for planes to land on the runway and then taxi down the road to park.
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Not Seagrams but this crazy Belgian Ale, Rasberry Lambic (I think that's the name). It's like candy pretty much but what the hay, okay to get every once in a while. The peach one's awesome, too but comes in a smaller bottle. The rest of the time it was something light and summer timey from a local place out in Fox.
Pretty awesome deal with the planes. I'm not surprised but I don't think it will ever stop being funny for me for planes to land on the runway and then taxi down the road to park.
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