This is the 22nd in a continuing series about our trip through Canada to Alaska
NEWS FLASH!!!
The Top of the World Hwy., Alaska Hwy 9, is closed for an undetermined time due to a washout. You may know more about this than we do since the news didn’t reach us until Saturday while we were at an overlook in Homer, Alaska, when we got into a conversation with a couple planning to take the notorious route home.
The official Alaskan road conditions website [http://www.511yukon.ca/#advisories] Saturday night stated: Highway 9, the Top of the World Highway, motorists are advised that the Taylor Highway in Alaska is closed from the Yukon/Alaska border through to Chicken due to washouts. Re-opening of the highway has not been determined as water levels have not started to recede.
Checking the Whitehorse News site, this quotes the article published July 13:
One person is feared missing and more than two dozen travellers are stranded after heavy rain on Sunday washed out huge sections of Alaska’s Taylor Highway – some as long as 15 kilometres – between Tok and the Tetlin Junction.
“It was reported a vehicle went off the road and we’ve located it in the water but what’s to come of that right now, it’s an ongoing situation,” Megan Peters, an Alaska State Trooper spokeswoman, told the Star.
Currently, state troopers are attempting to locate the driver of the car that plunged into the river at Mile 113. The highway is closed indefinitely until the 150-kilometre section can be repaired.
“There are very severe washouts, sliding of hills and we’ve lost quite a few sections and long sections,” said Meadow Bailey of Alaska’s Department of Transportation. Bailey estimates it will be two to three days before work crews can bring the highway back to a standard to allow those stranded to proceed.
“There’s no estimate for how long it would take (to fully repair the highway) beyond that,” she said. “So we’re discouraging travel, especially for larger vehicles.”
We haven’t been able to find out anything more current. Our caravan took that road June 30 without incidents, although we were warned that it is hazardous driving. A few days earlier, we talked with a two-RV group that had decided to turn back rather than risk driving that road.
Now for some random observations by Monique and me, jotted down before finding out about the Top of the World situation:
We are in mid-July. The short-sleeve weather here is perfect almost everyday, with intermittent overcast skies. Our travels for the past week or more have taken us down highways lined with wildflowers of every color, highlighted by the magenta fireweed, blue-purple lupines and white cow parsnip. You may not be into appreciating weeds, but the colors are overwhelming.
En route to Homer: Mt. Redoubt in Lake Clark National Park & Deacon Andre in Ninilchik
We continue to see endless lines of RVs on the roads, many of which are rental C-Class rigs, apparently picked up by tourists from the Lower 48 and foreign countries who flew into Alaska or Canada.
Carved Creature Hiding at the Sterling Saw Fest
Unfortunately, it seems that the high traveling population is reducing the number of moose to be ogled. In Fairbanks a sign states that 225 moose have been killed there this year with another 170 hit in the small City of Sterling.
The Alaskan roads are really much better than we expected, even in the Interior. There is construction and it causes problems, but it’s not something that stops people from loving the adventure. There are no Interstate Highways in Alaska for an obvious reason.
Mosquitoes – no big problem this season. We had to go looking for them Saturday in the bog area of the Carl Wynn Nature Center in the hills above Homer. Matter-of-fact, all the mosquitoes in Alaska may be in those few acres of marsh … but not something that should stop you from hiking the nature center.
Each day since June 20 we have lost 3½ to 4 minutes of daylight. Doesn’t sound like much, but multiply that by a seven-day week and you can tell the days are getting shorter from their 19-hour maximum.
In the Lower 48 we hear all-too-often, “If you don’t like the weather here right now, just wait five minutes.” We laugh politely and groan to ourselves.
Hundreds of RVs Park on the Homer Spit
When you’re in Northwest Canada and Alaska, try to limit yourself to only making a joke once about “we’ll do that when it gets dark,” being cute about the fact that it doesn’t get dark in mid-summer. Also, everyone here knows it gets cold in the winter. In the play and movie “The Music Man,” it was explained that you won’t get accepted in the community if you joke about winter there. Comments about winter get a cold reception here, too.
We are in Homer, a town that borders on the beautiful Kachemak Bay on Cook Inlet. If that weren’t spectacular enough, everywhere we look we see the incredible Aleutian Range with its snowy mountains, volcanoes and glaciers. On this rainy Sunday morning, we’re heading out across the bay.
Homer Spit Scenes: the Boneyard & the Huge Marina