The Specter of a Flat Returns
We decided to go up the Steese Highway to the BLM White Mountains National Recreation Area today. This meant heading back towards Fairbanks to the intersection with the Steese and then back north again for about 50 miles to the entrance to the recreation area in the middle of gold country.
There were mine tailings all along the Steese, where they had dredged the river for gold. Most of the lands along the highway were still active mining claims. We turned off the highway at Creek Road, by the Davidson Ditch Historic Site and onto a smooth dirt road into the hills. This road was smooth and is was an easy, but steep drive to the BLM land and the Nome Creek Road intersection.
Nome Creek was one of the reasons for coming out here. It is one of the few places where anyone can pan for gold and Harry was hoping to try his hand. The road became considerably rougher at this point and we had two choices at the junction. One was a four mile drive to the Mt. Prindle campground, the other a 12 mile dive to the Ophir Creek campground.
We chose the shorter drive. It wasn't potholed but it was a drive with lots of loose sharp gravel to the Mt. Prindle campground, which was a hot, empty area with small sites and no water (the pumps had been covered up). We decided not to stay.
When we got back to the Nome Creek Junction, Harry and Sally wanted to continue the 12 miles to Ophir Creek to spend the long weekend. I really didn't want another 24 miles on sharp gravel today. We still haven't resolved the overloaded tire situation and we still have a hydraulic jack with a blown seal. We decided to go back towards Fairbanks, splitting up for the holiday weekend.
While they trundled up the gravel, we took the smoother road back into Fairbanks with the hope of finding a solution to the tire and jack problems. We first stopped at the Fairbanks Lowes and found a 20 ton bottle jack similar to the one that came with Speedy. We will store the original until we get home. Maybe it can be repaired, but at least we can lift the van to change a flat.
For the tires, the idea was to try to find someone who could order a set of tires with a higher load index, so Speedy's back tires wouldn't be over their load limit. The only ones we've found were Continental Vanco Four Season tires in Speedy's tire size. Unfortunately, this is not a common brand in Alaska.
The tire shop we stopped at the other day to replace the old spare didn't carry Continental Tires. We tried both Walmart and Sears who showed Continental as one of their brands. It was obvious that this was a specialized tire and no one would stock it, but I was hoping that we could order them in Fairbanks and pick them up in Anchorage when we finished our visit to Denali.
This was not to be. The Anchorage Walmart did not do tires. The local Sears said we'd have to order the tires online at Sears for pickup in Anchorage. This looked promising. We drove over to the Fairbanks Library, where high-speed Internet access exists, to get online. The result was not successful. Sears did not carry our size in its online store and I'm quite leery of trying a different size on a special order to Alaska.
There was one more alternative. The Continental Tire site showed Anchorage Audi as a dealer. I gave them a call. They tried, but found that they could only order tires that fit the Audis and Volkswagens they sold. Our van tire was obviously not a match for an Audi.
We have finally thrown in the towel on this one and will continue to take our chances with our new rear tires until we get back to the "civilization" of the lower 48 states. At least we can, once again, change a flat.
While I was off trying to find a tire, Ellen was finding out about public showers. It had been a few hot days since we'd had one. The local city recreation center has a pool and showers available. A shower pass only costs a dollar for seniors. Off we went for a nice hot shower in a clean locker room.
It was getting a bit late by then, and we first we considered just overnighting at Pioneer Park, a local park that allows overnight parking (for a fee) in their lot. It seems to be popular enough with RVers that they even have a full-time "campground host". We pulled in and had our dinner, but decided that it was just too hot to stay and offered nothing that the Walmart lot also provided (except that Walmart is free). We didn't go their either, but decided to go back out to the Chena River and stay at Rosehip Campground another night and decide what to do next.
We are back in the quiet forest.
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