Planning a trip to Alaska

[neparker]

I'be been following this blog as they travel through Alaska and Canada. Plenty of stunning photography and detailed place descriptions to whet your appetite!
Island Girl Walkabout - Hector, Brenda and Angel on a journey of discovery

[CarrieR]

We're going next summer too! We want to stop in Seattle and Vancouver, so we're going up via the Inside Passage/Alaska Marine Highway from Prince Rupert, and then home via the Alcan. The ferry is something else!

[rgrugg]

We've made three trips from Michigan to Alaska and never felt even the slightest reason to carry extra fuel or extra tires. The only issues were a stone broken window in our camper and that happened in Montana. The other incident was when I backed into a retaining wall and damaged a camper jack. Neither of those had anything to do with travel conditions in or near Alaska.

[Woodchick]

Bringing fuel can be helpful on an Alcan trip. If you travel with limited hard cash, be aware that some remote stations have "unpredictable" credit/debit card services. There are also a few price-gougers on the road. Using Gasbuddy.com to plan your stops ahead of time and carrying an extra 5 gallons can literally save hundreds of $$. I recently re-routed my trip north to go through the interior states and provinces (Nevada, Utah, etc) rather than up the west coast. The price differences were dramatic, and the scenery was spectacular.

[beckyruns]

I also recommend that you have a couple of extra tires for a trailer. On one of our trips, we had a blowout about 30 miles from Soldatna. To make matters worse, our jack broke and we had to call Good Sam's Emergency Service to have someone come out and change it for us. We went back into Soldatna with the intention of getting two new tires for the trailer. We could not find any and had to wait three days for them to be delivered. We now travel with the spare and two extras for things like this situation. No, we do not travel with extra gas and as long as we topped off the tank as soon as we got near half, we had no problems. Yes, there were times when we did pay top dollar for the gas.

[Woodchick]

Tires are definitely a concern. Even Anchorage can be limited in its odd sizes. The Denali highway, the Taylor and the Haul road are especially rough. It is mainly these more 'rustic' highways that have occasional phone line and supply problems, although I did spend 2 nights in Delta Junction living on a stash of old beef jerkey and waiting for my bank to open due to just that problem. Alaska is unpredictable.

[Woodchick]

Also, in the last decade we've had several 'ol reliable' remote gas stations close, and several others have burned to the ground.

Cantwell and Chitina come to mind as more recent closures. They no longer have a gas station, although it may still show that they do on your maps.

[Jon Vermilye]

I carried a 2 1/2 gallon can of gas on the Alaskan Highway & the Cassier for the trip back & never needed it. The closest I came was on the Alaskan Highway is Canada - No electric utilities in the area, and the station's generator was down. Was down to a couple of gallons pulling into the next gas station.

[Jack L]

My cousins do this trip about once a year, sometimes more, and have run in to closed stations and stations that were sold out of gas with the next truck not due for several days.

[trainjunkie]

Originally Posted by Woodchick

Cantwell and Chitina come to mind as more recent closures. They no longer have a gas station, although it may still show that they do on your maps.

There is a brand new Chevron station and foodmart in Cantwell.

[trainjunkie]

The gas situation depends on the time of year too. In the off-season (Sept through May) you will find fewer open gas options. I've driven it mostly in the off season, including the dead of winter, so I had a 46 gallon replacement tank installed in my Tundra, which is nearly double the original capacity.

But I still carry 5 gallons just in case. A station that was open in the spring may be closed when you arrive in the fall. It's best to be prepared. And trust me, if you run out of gas in the winter, you don't want to be standing outside trying to get gas in the tank from a 5-gallon can. If you think this process takes forever when it's warm outside, imagine how long it will seem when it's 20 below.

[thrifty bill]

Originally Posted by Woodchick

Also, in the last decade we've had several 'ol reliable' remote gas stations close, and several others have burned to the ground.

Cantwell and Chitina come to mind as more recent closures. They no longer have a gas station, although it may still show that they do on your maps.

I definitely saw this on my last trip on the Alcan (2014). I was on my motorcycle (Goldwing), pulling a small trailer behind it. So my range was somewhat limited. I passed so many gas stations that were closed, and had been closed for a long time. I had to sweat it a couple of times. And this was in July (prime season). Invariably, I would see a sign on the road, gas 2kms ahead, and feel relieved, only to come upon a station where the weeds were a foot high, place boarded up and abandoned. This was not the case on my prior trip up the Alcan (2005).

I also saw very little pay at the pump, past Fort Nelson, the only pay at the pump I saw was in Whitehorse.

Myself, I prefer to travel to Alaska in the summer, rather than the spring. Of course, snow on a motorcycle would be more challenging than with a car.

As far as tires, not much help along most of the Alcan. I needed replacement tires for my motorcycle trailer (poor planning on my part). Ended up finding them at the Walmart in Fairbanks, AK (second largest Walmart in the world, huge tire department).