We crossed the border at Sweetgrass successfully with no trouble, stopped overnight in Kaycee, WY, had lunch at Chugwater Chili and finally arrived home on Friday afternoon. After 2 days of unpacking and cleaning and sorting and organizing, we thought it would be fun to do a summary of our trip, in the way of fun facts for our trip in particular.
Exchange rate to Canadian dollars: $1 US = $1.32 CAD. All prices listed below have been converted to US. Gas prices in Canada are by the liter. Prices listed below have been converted to gallons and then converted to US for comparison purposes.
Overall Trip
Camper SetUp: 2015 Ford F-350 Dually + 2016 Eagle Cap 1165 + 14′ Enclosed Trailer
Left Home: June 15, 2019
Arrived Home: September 7, 2019
Total days of trip: 85
# days in lower 48: 5
# days in Canada: 25
# days in Alaska: 53
# border crossings: 7
Hours Mark and Mandi spent apart: 5 (a few times Mandi ran, once Mark went into town shopping in Homer for fishing supplies)
Total cost of trip: $13,894 (ouch)
Campground Stats
Camped in 48 different places
Boondock (dry camp not in a campground): 8
RV Park: 14 (this was more than we expected)
Campground: 26
Total Lodging: $1638 (average camp fee per night $19.27, we had estimated $20)
Driving/Fuel Stats
Total Miles Driven in Truck: 10,326
Total Miles Driven in Side by Side UTV: 769
Total spent on fuel (diesel-truck, gas-UTV and generator, and propane-camper): $3,784
Average Truck Fuel Mileage: 9.7 mpg
Average Diesel Price in lower 48: $2.96
Average Diesel Price in Canada: $3.84
Average Diesel Price in Alaska: $3.12
Total Driving time in Truck: 274 hours, 40 minutes (The truck calculated this.)
Mechanical issues: 1 flat tire, sunroof in truck, electric seat panel in truck (notable 0 rock chips)
Food Stats
Groceries: $1487
Dining Out: $2859
New foods we tried: poutine, reindeer sausage, schnitzel, halibut cheeks
Best Restaurant: Skagway Fish Company (ribeye and red crab legs), North Pole Creperie
Best Pizza: Prospector’s Pizza outside Denali National Park
Food ate most often: Fish & Chips (halibut, cod, salmon)
Food we both missed most from home: Mexican
Excursion Stats
Activities/Tours Total: $3200
Floatplane to Katmai $1300
Halibut Fishing in Haines: $400
Also includes fishing supplies
Hikes: 22 different hikes for a total of 73.5 miles (not counting all walks with Molly)
Favorite Excursion: Floatplane to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park
Best town for shopping: Skagway
Favorite stop: Homer
Wildlife Stats
Wildlife seen on land: porcupine, black bear, grizzly bear, coyote, caribou, elk, moose, stone sheep, Dall sheep, bison, lynx
Wildlife we didn’t see: wolf, musk ox, fox, mink, pine Martin, wolverine, ermine
Birds we saw (we are not birders so I’m sure there are many more): owl, golden eagle (bigger than bald eagle), bald eagle, raven
Wildlife seen on sea: orca, humpback whale, fin whale, sea lion, harbor seal, otter, puffin, beaver
Fish species caught: King Salmon (Chinook), Pink Salmon (Humpy), Red Salmon (Sockeye), Silver Salmon (Coho), Dolly Varden, Arctic Grayling, Rockfish
Amount of fish brought Home: roughly 80 pounds (frozen weight 100 pounds), mostly sockeye from Kenai
Fish species NOT caught: Chum salmon (Dog), halibut, cod
National Park Stats
National Parks visited: 7
Canada: Banff, Jasper, Kluane
US: Kenai Fjords (boat tour), Denali, Wrangell-St Elias (UTV), Katmai (floatplane)
thank you for sharing your cost.
gregory.raven@mail.ru
That was some trip. I never knew that the costs would be so much. The price of fun!
You really need to be well off to afford such a outing.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the trip. You didn’t have any problems with the truck? I read. You can’t go wrong with a Ford F-350.
seregainbox48@mail.ru