Chicken.
- Rach
- Jul 15, 2015
- 3 min read
After arriving in Alaska we weren’t really sure what to do… so we headed North toward Fairbanks. We stopped in a few places on the way like Chicken and Tok. They were little towns that had some gift shops and little else. The state bird of Alaska is a Ptarmigan. Apparently the people who first arrived in the town of Chicken wanted to name it Ptarmigan but didn’t know how to spell it. So they settled on Chicken.
As we were leaving Tok, we looked in Milepost (our how to do everything book) for nearby adventures. It listed an off road path to some remote lake that was noted to be “extremely hard to access”. We looked for the turnoff point and decided this would be a good dirt biking opportunity. The lake was only 8 miles away and "extremely hard to access". Sounded easy enough.
We pulled into a huge circular lot with no indication of a trail anywhere. We drove around, came to an animal skull, and eventually saw a large rock that was painted yellow and blue. It definitely had to be some type of trail marker... right? We took the bike off the van, made some lunch to take with us and were on our way. Now… which way was it? This extremely hard to access trail seemed unnavigable. Odd.
We started down a path that was pretty wide. We thought it had to be an ATV trail. We took it pretty slow as my newly installed pegs (a u-bolt, coupling nut, and bolt smushed together) were already sliding and bending.
Also, trees were thrown all over the path. We saw a lot of odd things as we traveled down this path. It looked like an old house had been abandoned and burned down at some point. The trail eventually stopped, but kind of led in different directions, but really led no where. There were so many fallen trees that I got off the bike so Adam could just ride over them himself. The trail really seemed more like a small maze and we quickly questioned which direction was right. We got off the dirt bike and walked around looking for the right way to go. Eight more miles of this? Seemed impossible.
We turned around and headed back to the van. Maybe there was a trail we missed? We drove all the way back out toward the highway and saw another path. It was clear, no skulls, no impassable trees, no eerie feeling. We decided this must be right.
We followed this trail for a couple miles and it took us out to a huge rocky beach by a quick flowing muddy river. We were on the banks of the Tanana River. It wasn’t the remote lake we were promised, but we also didn’t have to battle death for 16 miles.
It was the perfect place for me to practice my dirt biking skills and for Adam to fish. The rocky terrain and 3rd gear speeds sadly led to my first wipe out--- better known as, The Biggest Wipeout of 2015.
Adam did much better, however.
We ate sandwiches by the river and watched the clouds turn dark. It looked like a storm was a brewing, so we headed back. It was about that time to start looking for a place to camp. We drove for a bit and pulled into some pay sites. We just didn’t want to pay $15 when our book said they charged $10. That matter of $5 made us drive around for another hour looking for a better deal.
We never found a better deal and stayed at Harding Lake for $15. We were tired at this point and annoyed we didn’t stay at the better more remote place with a lake view, for $15, 2 hours ago. Oh well, the loud neighbors scared the bears away, even though they left out 3 coolers and massive amounts of booze.