BeefCake's build...a roll your own Earthroamerish family expo rig

[lostih]

Been a while since I did an update. We ran into some rainy weather in SE Alaska and slowed down a bit to wait it out. Also, there is just so much amazing scenery we have been on view overload! We drove the amazing Glenn hiway and barely took a pic as there is just so much to see!

Also...Tapatalk seems to not want to let me post any pics at the moment

 

[lostih]

And we’re back! Camping at the foot of the exit glacier:

Boondocking is tough around here but we found a pullout on the way to the exit glacier where a few other folks were camping and spent two nights there waiting for weather to clear.

We knocked around Seward for a day. Cool little town. Then we went on a Kenai Fjords NP wildlife boat cruise. Kids loved it and we were glad we waited for a sunny day!

 

[lostih]

We camped at a lake outside Eagle River last night that was super peaceful:

Ran into this guy:

We’ve headed North now towards Fairbanks up the parks hiway. Beautiful drive. We spent an hour in Denali

 

[lostih]

Well...we’ve made it to Deadhorse! Camped on the koyokuk river north of Coldfoot last night.

Took a 1am pic...still sunny!

Came through the Brooks range in gorgeous weather

I think I caught some air on the frost heaves . That might explain the broken shock mount on the front I’m happy to have the air suspension...really smooths out the washboard.

 

[lostih]

Oh...and apparently the 7am shaking was 6.0 magnitude earthquake


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[73datsun]

Ran into this guy:

We saw that same rig back in mid-June in Talkeetna. Pretty cool set up. Safe travels.

 

[Jeffer949]

Anybody else wonder what happened? Did the whole camper fall apart and he is ashamed to post? Jk hope all is well

 

[shortbus4x4]

Probably too busy having fun way off the grid where cell phones don't have service.?

 

[chris_the_wrench]

Awesome build and trip. I'd like to hear how the airbag front suspension is working out. Also your running the 41" Conti's with just 1.5" lift and a bit of sheetmetal massaging and your modified fender flares? Do you think the OEM front bumper would pose issues with fitting them?

When you were at buckstop getting your bumper did you see any of their single wheel conversion 4500/5500 rigs/kits?

Thanks
-Chris

 

[lostih]

Anybody else wonder what happened? Did the whole camper fall apart and he is ashamed to post? Jk hope all is well

Haha! Nope. Sorry. Got back to real life a week or so back and getting caught up. I’m posting up some pics now

 

[lostih]

Probably too busy having fun way off the grid where cell phones don't have service.

Also true...cell service in Canada was $$ so didn’t post on the trip home. And it was Smokey...


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[lostih]

Sorry for the long break in posts. Didn’t have much cell service on the way home and then had to catch up once we got home. I’ll try and start where we left off...Deadhorse.

We had great weather in Deadhorse. Had to do the tourist trip out to the ocean and go for a dip

It was high 40’s outside but bright sunshine. Felt like swimming at the Oregon coast. After the swim we headed back south an hour or two to camp next to the river. Beautiful country.

Next day was the long slog almost all the way back to Fairbanks. We found a rock pit just off the road that was the highest point for miles all around and there was a cat track to the very top so that’s where we camped Windy but fun. It was too rainy and nasty for me to make the hike down so you could see just how high we were...but it was pretty fun.

We got back to Fairbanks with the only casualty from the dalton highway being a broken shock mount on the front and the speed sensor on the rear pumpkin. To be fair the speed sensor was already cracked and the shock mount was a crappy welding job by yours truly. Apparently my upside down welding skills need some improvement Easily fixed at the local welding shop. The abs sensor I couldnt diagnose until home however as NONE of the auto parts stores in Canada that I tried would check out a code reader. Didn’t know what the problem was until I took the camper off the day after we got back and saw the sensor dangling.

 

[lostih]

From Fairbanks we we headed down to Tok and then up to chicken. The Top of the world highway goes from here to Dawson City and was absolutely breathtaking. Pictures don’t do it justice but it was one of my favorite roads of the entire trip. It’s a must see if you drive to AK in my opinion.

At the end of this is Dawson City which is cool but bustling with tourism.

One of the largest dredges in North America is just outside of town which was cool to see.

 

[lostih]

From Dawson City we headed south for Whitehorse. Route 13 diesel there was very helpful to me when the dpf filter plugged up on the way north, but MotorOps, the company that I bought the tuning from has been nothing but difficult to work with. The truck has tons more power but needs a few tweaks to the tune that we’re supposed to be ready for me when I got back to route 13. No such luck and no one was available to trouble shoot. I had called weeks in advance and they never returned calls and even that day said they’d get back to me in 15 minutes and I never heard a word. I very dissatisfied with my experience. A month and many phone calls later they’ve yet to address the issues. I don’t like to give bad reviews, but these guys are earning this one

Anyways, back to the good stuff. We had to return to Watson lake and retrieve the license plate we added to sign post forest there. I got a call when we were in Alaska from my brother asking me if I knew where the boat trailer license plate was. Oops.

From Watson Lake we headed south and hit the Cassiar and tons of smoke!

I’ll be back for the cassiar someday. It looks phenomenal...but was pretty hard to see through the smoke. We did stop at Boya lake which has beautiful turquoise water and great kayaking.

 

[lostih]

At the end of the Cassiar we took a very worthwhile detour out to Stewart and Hyder. I had been here about 12 years earlier but came one a rainy cloudy day and had no idea what I was missing. This is another must see. The drive into Hyder is gorgeous.

There were two really incredible things to see here though: Salmon glacier and Fish creek. If you head all the way through Hyder (not hard to do...it’s a town of 40 people) you head out on a gravel road that climbs to above the salmon glacier. It’s about 20 miles but the scenery just gets better and better.

The road leads you up above the glacier to some incredible views. You can also stop right at the edge of town at fish creek and check out the salmon running. Pretty crazy. And those fish have some serious teeth on them. Apparently the bears come and fish in this stream and there is a forest service viewing platform but we didn’t see any fishing while we were there.