gold, moose & rhubarb

With a nice warm, sunny day it seemed like a gold (good) time to check out a couple of local streams cascading down from the nearby mountains for any color (panning speak for gold flecks in pan). One Mile Creek is about 8 miles from Donnelly Creek and it is a nice clear running creek that on this day was warm enough to stand in and not have frozen feet.

After reading several books on the techniques of panning we set out armed with armchair knowledge and our gear. OK, the gold may be the scenery around and the fun of being outdoors, but we did save a few little shiny pieces that stayed in the bottom of the pan.

After lunch at Ruby Creek we investigated a side road and on the way out spotted the wildlife viewing of the week, a Great Horned Owl.

On the way back, we made a stop at the historic Black Rapids Lodge, currently being restored and were taking pictures, walking around the building. Rounding a corner I suddenly hear Tom yell, “We’ve got company!” Turning around I see a cow and a calf coming at us in a full run right behind Tom. Being trapped between mama moose and the building was not a good idea, so we quickly vamoosed. Just another first encounter of the Alaskan kind.

Our beautifully sunny deteriorated in the afternoon but we were in our nice warm, dry cabin feasting on a fresh homemade strawberry rhubarb pie. The rhubarb was harvested from the garden behind the State Park office and from the Sullivan Roadhouse which offers it free for the picking. Rhubarb grows great here and there is a move in Alaska to commercially grow rhubarb including making juice to sell. While grocery store rhubarb is always red indicating first year growth, subsequent years get greener and this was almost totally green. It tastes the same!

We do eat royally somedays. Sunday dinner included teriyaki moose kabobs, the moose roast a gift from our boss, fresh homemade garlic bread, and more rhubarb pie a la mode.

Donnelly Dome

Donnelly Dome rises up off the flats of the Interior and is visible for miles. It’s on Ft. Greely military land and is used for training but you can hike it if the red flag is not up. A red flag means they are training with live ammunition. Although Saturday began with ice on our creek dock, it soon turned into a nice, warm & sunny day so we checked for the red flag (Russian influence here is still prevalent) and began the 1600’ hike up the dome.

There is no designated trail, just a system of many trails that have been used, mostly steep with many sections of loose rock. We finally opted to get good footing on the clumps of vegetation. Views on the way up were outstanding with many more small lakes below than we’d realized.

It leveled out nicely toward the top (3900’) and we cruised on to the marker, someone’s underwear on a stick, and took in the 360-degree panorama.

Visible from here is the Alaska Range, the pipeline, Delta River (same river that goes by our campground), Ft Greely, and miles and miles of jaw dropping scenery. Not wanting to slide down the loose trail we came up, we decided to try another side of the dome coming down. Trial and error sent us on a much easier route around the dome and we eventually aimed back to a lower, friendlier section of the original trail.

It was an excellent hike, gave us some much needed exercise and we certainly appreciated the warm sunny day after several days of clouds and drizzle in camp.

cabin update

Cabin improvements are now complete and we are enjoying the deck especially in the evening when it’s warm enough to have happy hour and dinner there. Prime time for deck sitting has been anytime after 7pm when the sun is directly on it and the insects are not out.

Weather here changes sometimes from hour to hour with some of the nicest being after 6pm. Taking advantage of a sunny evening last week, about 8pm we put on sunglasses, sunscreen and hats and went for a walk across the delta to the river. Wading across several of the braids of river we passed through much driftwood and wildflowers. This picture was taken about 9pm. Back from this walk about 10:30 with 2 hours of sun up left!

Here’s a shot taken at 3:00am, one of the best sunrises I’ve seen here so far because I am not generally up looking for sunrise at that hour! Solstice is Tuesday and the sun will never quite set.

antiques

The Alaska experience definitely includes antique cars and machinery. There is no lack of vehicles abandoned on personal property, but antique relics are also a common sight on both personal and public places.

Chena Hot Springs has a good representation of this and, like many places, dresses them up with flowers.

The snowmobile here is from1959, the first year snowmobiles were built.

No telling what some of the pieces of equipment were for!

Pioneer Park also had some great things including mining equipment. This big thing is a steam operated shovel that actually helped build the Panama Canal, worked in Hawaii and dug sections of the Alaska “water pipeline” which helped operated gold dredges in the Interior. For you fellow Hoosiers, it was manufactured in Evansville, IN!

bicycle guy

The other night we had a bicyclist spend the night in the campground who was quite unique. Wim (pronounced “Vim”) is from Holland and is biking from Anchorage to Argentina! He left May 31st going up the Denali Highway, then to Delta Junction where he’ll turn back south and go through Canada, down to the Continental Divide, over to Seattle, back to Yellowstone, then I think to San Francisco and on south through Mexico, Central America and South America. This will take him 9 months. Not sure why his route is so yo-yo-ish but that’s what he told us. This is his first time on this continent – what a way to see the world!

His bike weighs 30 pounds and he carries about 60 pounds in gear. The bike has a pedal power charger and it takes 10 hours of pedaling to recharge his batteries for various electronics. The back gear assembly of this 14-gear bike is totally enclosed eliminating lots of mechanical problems due to dirt, etc. Sadly, on the road to Donnelly his iPod had fallen off his bike and was run over by the time he realized it and went back for it. We sent Vim on his way with freshly made chocolate chip cookies and a good pancake breakfast. Good riding to Wim on the rest of his journey!

Gold!

Monday was orientation at the Fairbanks Visitor and Convention Center, another good stop for travelers. They have room of interpretation that go through the seasons of Alaska as well as short videos of the pipeline. Not your typical VC with just flyers of info. This day allowed us time to meet and talk with other volunteers from the entire district.

Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day with no wind (yea!) and a day for seeing the rest of the best of Fairbanks, gratis the State Park system. First stop was the #8 Goldstream Dredge which began in 1905 and ran until 1959. The dredge was built in the stream and moved 4-1/2 miles taking out about 350 million ounces of gold over the years. The buckets in the picture scooped up the gravel which then went through a very large rotating cylinder, sorting out the rocks and ultimately capturing the gold. 750 men worked there in the 40s-50s on 24 hour shifts. It stopped not because the gold ran out but because in '59 AK became a state which meant regulations that the dredge would not have met!

The tour included a typical miners lunch of meat and potato stew and biscuits which was delicious.

Next stop, the El Dorado Gold Mine where we got to pan for gold. The adventure here began with a train ride through a tunnel showing how gold was extracted and out past a cabin and mine operation. The tour guide on the train was a professional musician who used to play with Don Ho and who also played at least once with Johnny Cash. He did many guitar and fiddle tunes and was wonderful. On to the main attraction though, we were shown the entire process of using the sluice and then panning and then each person got a poke (a bag) from which you were guaranteed to find gold flakes. What fun! Here's my pan in the process of weeding out gravel from gold.We didn't get rich, but my pan ended up with $13 and Tom's with $15 which you cannot exchange for cash, but who wants to do that anyway!

We then drove to Chena Hot Springs where we enjoyed soaking in the springs with another volunteer we'd met, followed by dinner there, excellent salads and creme brulee for dessert. We camped out in a nearby Granite Tors state park that came complete with the most mosquitoes we've seen this trip. Next morning we hiked up about 4-5 miles of the Tors Trail in a drizzle of rain. Nice views but nothing spectacular.

Back into Fairbanks we headed to the Alaska Prospector. We've caught the gold bug and plan to have some fun panning some of the creeks that we pass by on the road from Donnelly to Fielding Lake. The Prospector though is gem of a stop that the typical tourist would definitely miss. The proprietor is a retired geology prof from the University who is another grand AK character. His shop is part museum with a 1937 working juke box, old cash resigster and penny slot machines, 1929 and'31 Fords outside one of which he says still runs (although the last time he started it was 20 years ago) and many, many rocks and gemstones. Time spent talking to these guys are becoming the best part of the summer.

Shopping for staples for the next month would up this trip and we are now back in Delta Junction and headed for Donnelly.

Fairbanks trip

This week we got a vacation from the volunteer vacation and headed north to Fairbanks for orientation. Sightseeing began right in Delta Junction with a visit to nearby Clearwater, another state park campground about 10 miles outside town that is next to the Clearwater River. This is a remarkably clear river that would be great fun to kayak or canoe down to the Delta River. I’ll be checking into that possibility.

Next stop, also close to town, was Rika’s Roadhouse. Rika was a single woman in the early 1900s who ran the roadhouse, cultivated hay and potatoes and raised chickens and ducks for eggs for patrons as well as being postmistress for Big Delta.

Continuing north we visited Quartz, Harding, Birch and Salcha Lakes, the other State Parks in this district. All these obviously have lakes with boating and fishing, many more campsites than we do and … more mosquitoes than we have! Confirmation that we have the best volunteer site of all.

Once in Fairbanks we headed to Pioneer Park which is a must for any Alaska travelers. This free park is where Fairbanks history has been transported and the interpretation is wonderful. One of the first things you see is the SS Nehana, a 237-ft paddlewheel boat that was in service from 1933-1954. It went on the Yukon River from the Interior to Nome hauling passengers, the US mail and freight. Inside there is a marvelous miniature representation of the villages that the boat visited along the way. The detail went right down to salmon drying on racks; pictures do not do it justice. Here we also saw several old original and replica log cabins of the early 1900s and went through the air museum which was packed with planes from vintage to home builts.

To finish the day we found the best dinner deal in the state of Alaska I’m sure. A Mexican place has all you can eat beef and pork, tortillas, beans and rice for $5 every 5th of the month and yes, this was the 5th of June so we had our fill of very good food!

Fielding Lake

Monday and Friday we drive 40 miles south to Fielding Lake to care for the campground and public use cabin. The Richardson Hwy follows the Delta River and I enjoy the names of some of the creeks we cross: Darling, Gunnysack, Whistler, and Suzy Q (who was she?). We pass Black Rapids and the new lodge there above the historic wooden roadhouse. The lodge is a 3-story inn with lovely decorated rooms and they serve 3 meals, but there’s no menu; you get whatever the cook chooses to prepare that day. See more about the lodge at www.blackrapids.org.

The road also follows the pipeline. The pipe rests on beams that allow it to move 22 feet in event of an earthquake. It also runs so hot (155-180 degrees) that if it were buried it would thaw the permafrost!

Fielding Lake still has some ice, but campers say they are already out catching grayling. Lots of waterfowl are here. So far we’ve seen a trumpeter swan, golden eye and mallard ducks, loons and AK’s state bird, the Willow Ptarmigan. Also watched a beaver on a chunk of ice one day.

These days end with the trip into Delta Junction to take trash and get supplies and use the library. It’s a very nice friendly library and does tend to send me back in time each time I check out a book and they pull out the hand stamp to remind me of the due date! They have wifi and computers, but still hand stamping.

Best wildlife sighting of the week: moose and her 2 calves – no camera handy unfortunately