Day 5: 09/14/2025

Start time: 8:23

End time: 5:44

Starting Mileage: 87521

Ending Mileage: 87906

Low Temp:27

High Temp:52

Total driven: 385 miles drive time 9 hrs. 21 min

Blog Entry:

If we ever get a chance we will for sure stay at camp Kusawa, very nice campground. Definitely a locals hangout but a very nice place. Lesa captured some wonderful northern lights last night so make sure you watch the video on day 4. On the way out of Kusawa we saw a sow black bear with two COY (cubs of year). Not great pics through the windshield but we saw them.  Mom was standing up looking down the road at us. Not long after that we saw some Tundra swans and then a beaver.  So after days of nothing we saw all of this in like 7 minutes.  I didn't have the big gun out yet (800mm lens) but it is all set and ready to go for tomorrow. Saw many other Tundra Swans along the way in lakes and ponds.  We stopped at Destruction Bay to take the pups and ourselves out for an extend walk down by the water. One thing we find interesting here and the only place we have ever seen it is the tenting area is surrounded by an electrical fence. 

Well one thing that has gotten worse is the Alaska highway on the Canadian side.  From Burwash all the way to the Alaskan border it was one frost heave after another. If you kept your speed around 50 mph you were ok on most of them but others even at that speed it threw you into the air or bottomed out the shocks and springs. On a couple the airbags didn't even help much. CRAZY!!! We ran into two construction areas that took up about 45 minutes of our time waiting on pilot cars to take everyone through. Construction along many of these roads is normal every trip, we just seem to have hit the "wait" times wrong.

Along the way we saw a nice bald eagle that flew up into a treetop from the road with something it had "grabbed". While waiting at one of the stops we saw a flock of Sandhill cranes migrating, love their song as they fly.  At 2:47 pm PST we entered Alaska and with that we gained an hour, yea! We decided that since we had lost so much time waiting on pilot cars we would drive later tonight since we gained an hour. Border crossing was pretty easy asked if we had any weapons and where we were going. First person to say anything about Lesa not signing her passport and had her do that.  Told him the Dalton and he asked are you sure, I hear it is pretty bad up there right now. I told him that if we made it would be our 6th time above the Arctic Circle on the Dalton and he was like really your kidding.  I said no we love going up there or over to the Dempster and he said you have done that one also and I said yes 7 times now.  He was very surprised and then we discussed some of our trips and what we have ran into in the past.  He said well for one thing you have the vehicle, tires and the camper to do these trips. He also asked if we had done all the trips in this rig and I told him no Lesa and I have done many of them in a Jeep Cherokee until we started taking the pups with us. He was impressed to say the least. Very nice border crossing.

Now the Alaska side of the Alaska highway was beautifully paved but there are frost heaves starting to show up already on the new pavement. We decided to stop at Moon lake recreation site for the night, site number 6.  We knew about this place when we came through here in 2021 with Selah and Granger. Nice little place only 13 sites and here we are in the same site as then.  Granger and Moxee are doing ok but I think the long days are getting to them.  Tonight since we were the only ones around our area we let them off lead and they ran around camp for a while, Granger chasing Moxee because she had the dragon. One thing about Alaska is you have to bring your own firewood it isn't supplied for you like they do in the Yukon camps or a camp host to bring it around to buy like in BC.  Didn't see any to buy so no campfire tonight will just have to sit out under the sky without one. Will be looking for some along the way to the Dalton so we can have a fire or two up there is the weather allows it. Another flock of Sandhill's just flew over as I'm typing this up. The pups tonight were adorable, laying together. We believe we could be on the Dalton tomorrow, will have to see how things shake out. Also check out the cute video of Granger and Moxee: https://youtu.be/_P9w4CZMBvU