Alaska - The last quiet pleasures of winter
Our Evergreen Oasis - Whitefish Campground
May 2-4, 2023
Exploring our Patch along the Chatanika
One day at Whitefish, turned into two more with the anticipation of a full day of sun to recharge all our batteries and dry out our perpetually wet socks and boots after exploring up and down the river along the campground road.
Photo walk on our camp road
We couldn’t have felt more at home sitting under our evergreen oasis, sipping coffee each morning, amazed to have this spot all to ourselves. Our afternoons were spent journalling and watching the river display early signs of break-up. The heat of mid-day was slowly releasing swaths of ice, moving like liquid pavement down river until it hit the next s-turn or shallow river bed of ice halting the flow.
The rivers edge and the road were dotted with moose nuggets and some curious mounds of what looked like wood pellets, but no bear scat. It was evident the moose had gleaned the area of tender willow branches and moved on some time ago. Presumably, the bear were still higher up in the mountains. And the mosquitos had yet to appear.
Each day was filled with early morning bird song, duck calls and squirrel chatter. In the long afternoons, butterflies danced around our camp, while the tiniest of silvery spiders dangled from evergreen boughs wafting in the breeze on strands of silk above our tent. Spring was slowly arriving in the smallest of ways, only noticed, by being still.
Word to the (Campground) Wise
After arriving at camp, we were dismayed to find the trash bins as well as the bathrooms nearby had been locked for the season, unlike the campgrounds along Chena Hot Springs Road that had been left open for winter recreationists. That is until the next day, we discovered the bathrooms and trash bins at the far end of the campground road next to the boat ramp had been unlocked backwoods-style, a bullet hole through the latch. Nivaun opened the “unlocked” trash bin to discover a case of Bud Light had actually made it into the bin. An unusual discovery, as several bottles, cans and another BL case had not been so fortunate. After doing some trash collection, we noticed there was also a latch on the back side of the bins, obviously used to replace the trash bags, that had no locking mechanism....really?? Feeling next level savvy after our discovery, we were able to dump our own trash in the bins near camp using the back door, along with hanging our food bags in the rafters under the Pavilion at night.
To Wickersham Dome
The morning of Day 3 at Whitefish the realization sunk in, if we wanted to go much further up the highway, we had better leave today. This time we were able to push our bikes one at a time on our self-made track, fully-loaded, back out to the road. We were again leaving mid-day, unsure how far we would go, but Wickersham trailhead was not too far. We anticipated camping there, if needed.
Locals with a sense of humor…we’d laugh but were still climbing!
…And OH was it needed, not even a mile from leaving the campground, it was a never-ending climb to the trailhead. Even when the road looked like it was going to level out, it did not...for seventeeeen miles.