[tuga]

Hi Clarke,

The roads in Canada were o.k. to good. Alaska, depending on where you are is a different ballgame. The road from Tok to Hanines Junction to Haines is horrible. The "Top of the World Highway" from Dawson City to Chicken is worse than horrible - deadly would be a better description. My traveling companion slid off the road into a ditch (rain and fog). His Prevost was stuck in knee deep mud; 8 hours and $2,000 later he was pulled out by a wrecker.

Frost heaves (cracks and repairs in the asphalt) create what I call "whoop-dedos". These are undulations in the road and are marked by signs so you know to "slow down". After you see about 200 of these signs and they turn out to be just a little bump in the road you start to ignore them. Big mistake! If you hit one going about 40 you'll remember it. To answer your question about how the Newell held up: GREAT! My Falcon II tow bar was bent and twisted so badly that I had to buy a new one. The retracting shafts were bent so that they could not be slid back into the housing! You can average about 35 mph on these type roads. The rest of the roads were pretty good. About every hundred miles there was a section of road construction that was about 3 to 5 miles long! The lesson to be learned here is "slow down and enjoy". Once I learned to do that I was good to go.


The campgrounds were for the most part crap! 90 degree sites, close together, 30 amp, some with no water or sewer, unlevel gravel sites, dusty, the prices were reasonable compared the quality of the site (about $33 on average; $25-$42). I can say that we had 2 nice parks: one in Tok and one in Haines, the rest were dust bowls. We did a lot of dry camping; the outside temps were perfect for it. High 50s at night and high 60 during the day. You can just pull over in a rest area (they call them pull outs) and cook supper and shower and go to sleep. Very little traffic on the highways at night; I'm talking one or two cars an hour!


Now for the good part, the scenry was outstanding and it made all of the road problems melt away. We saw mountain ranges that went on forever, huge lakes that were created by glaciers, widelife like I have never seen before. I mean you are just sitting there with your mouth open. Denali NP was the highlight of the trip; saw grizzlies, eagles, moose, fox, caribou, etc. The little towns were usually about the gold rush era and services were pretty good. We took some great tours: canoe trip on the Yukon River, riverboat cruise in Fairbanks, rented ATVs in Anchorage, rode a train in Skagway. We put the coaches on a ferry twice; Whittier to Valdez and Haines to Skagway. That was a hoot!


Overall, Alaska was long, expensive, but a lot of fun. Diesel was about $3.80-$4.20 a gallon and hamburgers were $14.75. But despite some of the negatives I would go back in a heartbeat! I loved it, and I loved seeing it in my Newell!

If anyone is considering going my advice is: go slow and bring plenty money!