Two Bob's Ohio to Prudhoe 2016 - Ram/Hawk, Husky, and Wing.

[DYNOBOB]

The Keystone Canyon area is stunning and the area approaching Valdez has a very unique feel, you can see glaciers and moss hanging from trees nearly in the same view.

Home tonight is the Bear Paw Campground. They have two facilities and we chose their adult campground which is a few blocks out of town and right at waters edge. FYI, rabbits are to Valdez as chickens are to Key West..

After we settle in, I doubled Dad back to town and we had dinner at the famous "Fat Mermaid".

View out the back door.

 

[KC10Chief]

Awesome! I love your photos. We lived in Alaska for over four years. I miss it every day. Looks like you had a phenomenal summer! It's not always that clear. Keep the photos coming!

 

[tienckb]

Amazing narration and photos. I will be doing this trip when within 2 years in my 4x4 E350 van. So excited and even more so after reading your thread.


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[toehold]

Envious on two levels. We went to AK 7yrs ago on a late May cruise. Loved it and have been trying to get back since. Spent a few hours in Whittier waiting for the train. WANT TO GO BACK

My Dad died when I was 18. I'd give anything just to hug his neck one more time. To go on a trip like this? Unimaginable. Enjoy your Dad while he's still here. Go on ya for taking the trip with him.


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[DYNOBOB]

Awesome! I love your photos. We lived in Alaska for over four years. I miss it every day. Looks like you had a phenomenal summer! It's not always that clear. Keep the photos coming!

We were crazy lucky on the weather. The last 12 days, from Valdez to home - no rain!

Amazing narration and photos. I will be doing this trip when within 2 years in my 4x4 E350 van. So excited and even more so after reading your thread.

A 4x4 van is absolutely perfect for this trip. If I have a regret from the trip, it's that we didn't venture further off-road. I had some areas marked along the Denali Hwy, the Dalton, and the Parks that I'd intended to investigate. Guess I'm going to have to go back.

Envious on two levels. We went to AK 7yrs ago on a late May cruise. Loved it and have been trying to get back since. Spent a few hours in Whittier waiting for the train. WANT TO GO BACK

My Dad died when I was 18. I'd give anything just to hug his neck one more time. To go on a trip like this? Unimaginable. Enjoy your Dad while he's still here. Go on ya for taking the trip with him.

Yep, so many of my buddies have lost dads and can't imagine doing this. Luckily he's willing and able to. Got a ride in yesterday with him, only the 3rd time in last several years he's been on his bike.

 

[DYNOBOB]

Finally got my .gpx waypoint file cleaned up. This is 5yrs of accumulated data. Here's a link for you GPS folks... https://www.dropbox.com/s/fxrfhx4eg6ngam5/ALASKA WAYPOINTS - CLEANED UP.gpx?dl=0

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[DYNOBOB]

Wednesday Sept 7. Valdez to McCarthy. 180 miles.

Well thankfully we've seen the last rain of this trip. Yep, the last 12 days of this trip, from Valdez to Cincinnati, we won't see a drop! Things start out foggy this morning, but once the sun breaks thru Valdez comes alive. The dedicated fisherman from last night is back at it this morning...

We get another shot at Keystone Canyon and Thompson Pass with a bit more sun..

 

[DYNOBOB]

At Tosina we turn east on the Edgerton Hwy. At Kenny Lake you definitely want to fuel up, it's a 180 mile trip to return here from McCarthy and this is the last reliable fuel. The Edgerton is a nicely paved road.

The tiny villiage of Chitina is located at the confluence of the Copper and Chitina Rivers. It's here you turn onto McCarthy Rd and quickly realize you're heading into a remote area. The 63 miles from Chitina to McCarthy was the worst road we traveled by far on this trip. The first 3 miles from Chitina are bad, I was told that this is to discourage tourists from driving the road. The next 14 are chip seal pavement and not bad. The last 45 are rough and took 2.5 hours to travel. I've decided to stay on the Wing and run a slower pace in hopes of preventing tire issues on the truck. Had I been on the Husky it would have been ~1.5hrs. The future of the road is quite a debate among the locals... https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/art...e-amid-outcry-over-public-process/2014/08/03/

The road out of Chitina is a one lane cut.

At the top of the first hill you're looking north at the Copper River.

Right around the corner you're looking south at the Chitina River.

Even though it's a rough tedious road, it has some nice views and really feels like you're in "remote" Alaska.

 

[DYNOBOB]

The Kuskulana Bridge was a railroad bridge converted to single lane vehicle use when the track to Kennicott was abandoned.

An abandoned bridge.

Just up the hill I spotted a overgrown road and suspected it went back to the trestle.

Yep...

The road dead-ends at the Kennicott River with the town of McCarthy on the opposite side. The only way to town and to reach the Kennicott Mine 4 miles farther is a nice modern footbridge (that you're allowed to ride a motorcycle across!). There's parking along the river as a staging area for hikers heading for the mine or the glacier. While there are several places to stay just up the road, you can also drive down the river a bit and camp for free. The sound of the river is wonderful for sleeping!

The footbridge is in the background, and the Kennicott Mine is 4 miles off in the distance.

Glacier in the distance.

After we set up and grilled some burgers, I rode across the bridge to make sure the Wing fit between the barriers.

This was another "Top 5" place we stayed on the trip!

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[whitenoise]

Really well done travelogue and the pictures are absolutely breathtaking. Can you share the details of your photography setup - camera, lenses, how you organize it etc?

 

[DYNOBOB]

Thank you sir!

(If you're not a photog this will prob sound like white noise )

Between us, Dad and I are blessed to have some nice Sony equip. I've had a first-gen Sony A7 for a couple years and really like it. Full-frame sensor performance in such a small package is amazing. Dad saw my A7 and bought the A7ii and a 16-35/f4 Zeiss last year. He carried my A7 with the 16-35 in the truck with him. He also had his A7ii with a Samyang 135/f2 (amazing lens) on the seat next to him. Both of those combos give image stabilization.

Knowing this would be a "trip of a lifetime", I justified the (painful) purchase of a A7Rii and the new SEL2470GM shortly before we left. This combo is just mind boggling and accounts for 90% of the shots you see. Between the 42mp sensor and G Master resolution it's easy to get 150mm crops. It was in the trunk of whichever bike I was on and came out frequently (an advantage to motorcycling is you can pull a quick U turn and go back for a scene you "saw").

I had my 1st gen Sony RX100 in a zip-loc in my jacket pocket to hopefully get quick critter shots and Dad had his NEX6 for snaps (not sure we really needed it..).

Every night I'd download the pics and back them up to secondary storage as well. I've never had the time/patience to learn RAW, Lightroom, etc, so all shots are in-camera jpegs. I've fixed shadows/highlights with Photoshop on a few shots and cropped as needed. Most of the time I shoot on Auto mode. If the lighting is tricky, I switch to Prog and use a mild HDR setting (3) to help things. The camera saves both the HDR and regular exposure, so combined with the "Auto" shot you get three versions of a scene quickly.

I'll finish by saying this...if all the above is too much deal with...buy any version of the RX100. They can be had new on eBay for under $500 and will deliver 85-90% of the quality needed for internet sharing.

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[DYNOBOB]

Thursday Sept 8. McCarthy to Jack's house. 210 miles.

This morning we're blessed with beautiful conditions to visit one of the highlights of the trip for me, the Kennecott Mine. After breakfast, I load Dad on the back seat and we ride the 5 miles back to the mine. There are tour vans that will pick you up at the bridge, but this way we can control our schedule. Besides, I want a pic of my bike there... Prob haven't been many Wings back here.

The story of the Kennecott Mine is remarkable and a testament to "can do" determination. In the early 1900's this place was unimaginably remote, but men of ambition got it done and contributed a hugely valuable resource to the building of the country.. Great info on the NPS site here: https://www.nps.gov/wrst/learn/historyculture/upload/Kennecottbulletin.pdf

How it all started...
“Mr. Birch, I've got a mountain of copper up there. There's so much of
the stuff sticking out of the ground that it looks like a green sheep pasture
in Ireland when the sun is shining at its best.”
~ prospector Jack Smith to Stephen Birch, 1900

Cool stacks!

Stacks are connected to this...

(It was really dark in here!)

 

[DYNOBOB]

That's a lot of mine tailings.

On the way back to the truck we walked around McCarthy a bit...

The Roadside Potatohead is a nice looking place that just opened in the spring.

Heading back to the bridge.

 

[DYNOBOB]

Our destination tonight is Jack's (Alcan Rider on ADVRider) house just south of Tok. We're getting on the road late and have 200 mile to go so we have to keep steppin'. McCarthy Road took a similar 2hrs to make it back to Chitina.

Almost to Chitina.

Along the Tok Cutoff

We make it to Jack's around 8pm where we made some dinner and conversed until midnight. We greatly enjoyed hearing stories from 50yrs of Alaska travel. This was absolutely a highlight of the trip for Dad and I, if you ever have the chance to meet Jack don't miss it!

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[whitenoise]

... He carried my A7 with the 16-35 in the truck with him. He also had his A7ii with a Samyang 135/f2 (amazing lens) on the seat next to him. ...

Knowing this would be a "trip of a lifetime", I justified the (painful) purchase of a A7Rii and the new SEL2470GM shortly before we left. ....

I had my 1st gen Sony RX100 in a zip-loc in my jacket pocket to hopefully get quick critter shots and Dad had his NEX6 for snaps (not sure we really needed it..).

Wow, nice setup! This is definitely way above the average person's single DSLR with a kit lens LOL. But it is a good glimpse into what you actually need to be able to get really good shots on a trip like this, if you dont want to do a ton of post-processing later.