Alcan Highway?

[Starfish]

Have any women here driven the Alcan highway? Any of you done it solo? Would like to hear about your experiences if this is a trip you have done. Thanks! :)

[crazycanuck]

Í do hope you're referring to the Alaska highway..Are you starting in Edmonton & then north west..? Or reverse>?

I've not biked it but ian'[s driven part way to the Yukon.

A thought might be to avoid the main highway from Edmonton through to Grand Prarie??

I'm just pondering thoughts atm..

[Irulan]

I've taken the Cassiar highway, which is much more scenic than the Alcan.

You after scenery, adventure, getting from point A to point B or what?

[Starfish]

I've taken the Cassiar highway, which is much more scenic than the Alcan.

You after scenery, adventure, getting from point A to point B or what?

Just toying with the idea. It would be scenery and adventure. I will have to Google the Cassiar Hwy.

I am in WA state, and enjoy long road trips sometime on vacations. I have some family history in Williams Lake in BC, so would be heading up through Vancouver and on up into the interior that way.

[Sheesh]

I drove the Alcan when I graduate from college - ten years ago. I didn't do it solo, I had a friend fly up from California and drive down with me. She has a AAA map that we followed, but I have to admit that I don't remember much of the specific route. I do remember that I was paranoid about running out of gas and not being able to find a gas station, so we carried extra gas with us. But, we never ran out. Our original goal was to camp along the way, but after the first night of camping, my friend the Princess was ready to start staying in hotels. So, we did.

It's a beautiful trip and definitely gives you something to talk about later. I would recommend it!

Here's a link (http://sheesh1.blogspot.com/2006/08/homesick.html) to a blog post I did about Alaska recently, including pictures that I borrowed from the web.

[Starfish]

...how long did you guys take?

[Sheesh]

We didn't drive more than 12 hours each day, and we were coming from Fairbanks to Northern Cali. I think we took 4 days, but I can't remember for sure.

[Irulan]

We did Spokane - Whitehorse on the Cassiar about 5 years ago. My hubby has done both roads, and the Cassiar by reputation, and his opinion is by far more scenic. The Alcan in many places is just cut into the trees; the Cassiar follows along just inside the coast range and has fantastic scenery. It's very remote in places however; you definitely want to have spare tires and so on. I don't remember the exact number but we saw something like 27 black bears. I'd say go for it, it is an incredible drive.

here's a couple of views:
http://www.cet.com/~pennys/tat/images/cassiarcamp.jpg

http://www.cet.com/~pennys/tat/images/cassiarview.jpg

We drove to Whitehorse for a raft trip on the remote Tatshenshini-Alsek River...
http://www.cet.com/~pennys/tat/tat.htm

[Starfish]

Wow, I checked out your website...that trip looks like it was AMAZING. Thank you for posting!!