Fairbanks to Glennallen, AK

Day 27   Monday July 13, 2016                  Tolsona Wilderness Campground, site 17, Tolsona, AK

275 miles   11.9 mpg

We were happy to leave Fairbanks, having accomplished everything we set out to do.  Our next destination was the Glennallen area at the junction of the Richardson and Glenn highways.  We wanted to use that as our base for a day trip into the Wrangle-St. Elias National Park.  We weren’t sure where we would stay in the area, but just check out campgrounds as we went.  We chose the Sourdough BLM campground  as our destination, but would check out anything else in the area.

Left Chena River SRA @ 07:15 and headed to North Pole.  Remember the Santa Clause House?  We got there at 07:45 and had to wait for it to open.  Marsha got her moose ornament and post cards sent and we were on our way to Delta Junction.

We couldn’t see the Alaska range this time because it was drizzly,  cloudy, and raining.  At Delta Junction stopped at the visitor center to take photos of the end of the Alaskan Highway monument.

Drove the Richardson Highway all the way down to Glennallen.  It was dreary in the beginning and I was concerned that we were travelling through beautiful scenery and couldn’t see it.  That is so frustrating, like our Top of the World Highway trip.  It got better as we went south, both the scenery and the weather.  We started to see snow covered mountains and two very large beautiful lakes, Swift Lake and Paxton Lake.  Swift Lake had a moose on the opposite shore eating weeds in the water.  Unfortunately we don’t have enough fancy lenses to zoom him in closer.

See the moose?  We watched it with my Nikon binoculars.

At Paxton Lake, there was a BLM campground named Paxton Lake Campground.  We checked it out and was very impressed.  Very rustic with a lot of privacy between sites.  Saw an eagle’s nest there. 

Eagle's nest.

The host camper had family in Grand Rapids and really talked up how wonderful the BLM campgrounds are.  We thought of staying and putting in the canoe for a day, but it would add another day we didn’t want to sacrifice at this time.

Forgot to mention, we saw the Alaska Pipeline many times going down the Richardson Highway because it follows it all the way to Valdez.

Next was Sourdough Creek BLM campground.  Not as nice as Paxton Lake and there was only one other camper in the whole place.

There was one more.  Dry Creek SRA.  We checked it out but didn’t like it.  There was no one there, surprisingly. 

Marsha did her research when we got a phone signal and came up with Tolsona Wilderness Campground, a private campground 15 miles west of Glennallen on the Glenn highway.  It was a gem.

It has 80 sites, all on on Tolsona Creek, beautiful trout stream with grayling and rainbows.  We got site 17 and signed up for two nights.  WiFi if you sit by the office.  Now cell coverage unless you drive 10 miles towards Glennallen.  We were so happy to get such a nice campsite.

This is a private campground!

This was the nicest campsite of the trip so far.

Tolsona Creek, taken from my campsite.

And here’s our Alaskan spirit:

 Ed's favorite - an IPA

Marsha's favorite - an amber

Later on I asked the owner about flyfishing the creek and he does it all the time.  Fish run a bit small but are a blast.  I may stay an extra day just to try it.

Made a campfire with a $4.29 bundle of firewood and we used our pie irons for the first time and made grilled cheese sandwiches.  We were like little kids roasting marshmallows.

A little burnt, but real good.