Made it to Alaska and back!!
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2015 3:36 pmMy son and I drove to Alaska this summer and pulled my home built teardrop trailer, "The Alcan Traveler". It is a 60"x120" modified Cub that I built over the last year. We drove up by way of The Harley Davidson Museum,The Badlands,Devils Tower, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Little Bighorn, Yellowstone, The Grand Tetons and Jackson Wyoming, Glacier National Park, Baniff, Lake Louise, Jasper, up to Dawson Creek, The Alcan up to Fairbanks. Traveled in Alaska to the Arctic circle, Anchourage,Valdez, Mcarthy and Kennicott and about everywhere in between. LOTS of driving!!! 14881 miles round trip and a week shy of 4 months. No flats, no cracked windshields, no nothing other than the right trailer brake gave out pulling up to the border at the Port of Pigeon on the way up and the left gave out leaving Fairbanks going to Denali. We replaced the brakes with a loaded backing plate in Calgiry on the way up and repaired the left before starting home. Drove all over Alaska with brakes on one side with no problems. My Teardrop weighed in at 1640# and the Durango stopped it fine. We did a lot of salmon fishing and I moose hunted the month of September with no luck. We did get 3 bull moose out of the party of 6 I hunted with. The gas prices were not too bad and the most I paid was $1.80 a liter in Jasper. Alberta and Youkon prices were the cheapest as they have lower taxes than B.C. We got gas in Souix Falls for a bargain of $2.25 a gallon but our mileage lost 7MPG on that tank so I guess it wasn't such a bargain after all.
We saw about all you would want or expect to see and did all that we planed!
Two suggestions are, the Mcarthy road to Mcarthy and Kennicot is terrible and about beat the teardrop apart and the Denali Road is about the same and 3 times longer. So if you want to travel them I would recommend dropping your trailer and going in by car or truck only unless you plan an extended stay on those roads. But be prepared! It's rough!!! DO take extra gas after September 15th travel, as many places that were open in the summer close Sept. 15 till sometimes May.
The brake issue on my Dexter axle was that they were probably too small for a trip like that. Everyone you talk to while looking for parts tells you that Dexter 7 1/4" electeric brakes are Junk and to get rid of them and up grade to 10" brakes and you will never have a problem. Everyone, to a man that we talked to while looking for parts or just traveling to trailer dealers and repair shops has that same opinion. I will say that after the third rebuild that I did before starting home lasted all 4400 miles home without a problem. I kept the gain as low as I could and still had braking assist.
I will post some pictures, once I figure out how.
It WAS the trip of a lifetime and I wouldn't have changed a thing. I only hope my 16 year old son was inspired by it and has some great memories to pass on someday.
We saw about all you would want or expect to see and did all that we planed!
Two suggestions are, the Mcarthy road to Mcarthy and Kennicot is terrible and about beat the teardrop apart and the Denali Road is about the same and 3 times longer. So if you want to travel them I would recommend dropping your trailer and going in by car or truck only unless you plan an extended stay on those roads. But be prepared! It's rough!!! DO take extra gas after September 15th travel, as many places that were open in the summer close Sept. 15 till sometimes May.
The brake issue on my Dexter axle was that they were probably too small for a trip like that. Everyone you talk to while looking for parts tells you that Dexter 7 1/4" electeric brakes are Junk and to get rid of them and up grade to 10" brakes and you will never have a problem. Everyone, to a man that we talked to while looking for parts or just traveling to trailer dealers and repair shops has that same opinion. I will say that after the third rebuild that I did before starting home lasted all 4400 miles home without a problem. I kept the gain as low as I could and still had braking assist.
I will post some pictures, once I figure out how.
It WAS the trip of a lifetime and I wouldn't have changed a thing. I only hope my 16 year old son was inspired by it and has some great memories to pass on someday.
