ABQ to Alaska an overland summer adventure of many miles, animals and unending daylight

Things you wish you would have known before you started:

Reserving campgrounds. We were lucky that we could get prime spots, especially in Denali National Park and Preserve, mostly because it was early in the season. When I checked in the middle of July, almost no spaces were available within the park. There are private campgrounds outside the park in Healy, Alaska, and vicinity.

Travel at the start of June mitigates exposure to mosquitoes. Only a few stops along the way were there more than a handful of the pesky state bird of Alaska.

Some areas like First Nation museums and visitor centers may open only limited hours.

During late spring, early summer roads and sites were less crowded. Campgrounds were never full. At national parks, the most crowded places were where the tour buses from cruises dropped viewers off. Once you got away for those sites, it was uncrowded.

Only saw one speed trap — that one in Alaska in a moose collision zone — and fewer than six state police or Mounties anywhere. That means that help from police is also far away, so drive carefully.

Radar detectors are illegal on private vehicles in all Canadian provinces except British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Sirius satellite radio does not work in Canada and Alaska. Sirius online chat confirms this. Bring your tunes on CDs or MP3s.

You can’t be picky about fuel pumps. Be careful with fuel pumps, the handle colors mean different things in Canada.

Outside is big. Vehicles less than 75-square feet are tiny homes. Leave books and DVDs at home. You can trade at sites along the way. Otherwise, our 30-pound bag of books tripped and tried to kill humans repeatedly through stubbed toes.

The metric system is tough.

Canadian cash is king.

Take five weeks minimum to explore.

Take time to explore First Nations.

Stop early and/or reserve campsites.

Drinking water is as hard to find as in the Southwest. Plan ahead and ask where you can fill up. You can get potable water at many full-price private campgrounds.

You can’t average more than about 55 mph because of wildlife and road conditions, 100 kph is only 61 mph, there’s no cruising at 75 and it feels super slow, but only the few times the road is straight and flat which isn’t often.

Grocery stores prepared foods faster and cheaper than restaurants.

If you miss a turn-off, turn around: some of our best adventures happened after we missed a turn-off like at Pickhandle Lake and the free campground at Deadman’s Lake in Canada.

There’s only a few places to get groceries and snacks: Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake and Whitehorse in Yukon

No plastics at fast food — all made of something biodegradable.

If you want to see whales, take a cruise or at least a boat trip. Sea creatures live in places we could not drive to, at least in the number of days we had. You would need to go via boat from Seward, Homer or Valdez, if not on a longer cruise or on the maritime road system. In fact, you can’t drive to Juneau from Anchorage or the north at all.

• You still need Togo and his sled dog teams or a plane or a boat to reach Nome.

DENALI ROAD ALERT:

The one route into the national park is open to personal vehicles only is Savage River, that is mile 15. The park service tries to get visitors to ride buses. To go deeper into the park, you need to purchase either a daily bus pass for $31 or a go on a narrated bus tour that cost almost $150.

During the 2024 summer season and into at least the next year, all tourist traffic is blocked at mile 43, where a bridge is being rebuilt after the Pretty Rocks Landslide.

Hiking in the park is unusual. There are no marked, maintained trails after Savage River. All hikers after that point just head into the canyons or tundra and are asked to create new paths as to not create permanent change to the fragile ground. A GPS or compass is advisable for backcountry journeys, but short hikes can always be ended by knowing your direction from the park road, which winds through the center of the park.

You can see Denali peak, but it is more than 50 miles away. If you want to reach it, you must get a permit at the backcountry permit station in Talkeetna. An expedition to the peak requires a ski-plane flight, major training and mountaineering gear. Nothing, including urine and poop, can be left on the mountain. The park service recommends all groups use a guide.

FOR THE RICH AND FAMOUS

For $3,000 a day or more, you can visit for two or three days at the private, all-inclusive Denali Backcountry Lodge, which is reachable only by helicopter. It is on private land at the edge of the park.

Put aside $500 a person for adventures

Some of the best adventures requires a boat, a helicopter, a plane and an Alaskan guide. If you want to walk on a glacier or see the ice fields from the sky, expect to pay. If you want to experience native life, many villages welcome you, but it requires a flight on a small plane. Tourism is one of the top non-invasive industries in Alaska. Pay to support to the people who live in some of the last wilderness of the United States.

Distance covered: 8,750 miles

ALCAN miles: 1,390 each way from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Delta Junction, Alaska

COSTS:

Diesel $1,668 total vs. our monthly fuel cost of $993 (with two cars or more)

Average per gallon US: $3.75

Sold by liter in Canada

Groceries on credit card: $418 vs. normal $993

Incidental spending: $290 Canadian for campgrounds, snacks and groceries in Canada

Less than $100 cash in Alaska and the lower 48

If you collide with any wildlife with your car in Alaska, you are required by state law to report it to Alaska’s Department of Transportation. If you don’t, you are violating the law and face penalties.

Canada has similar rules, but has different reporting rules per wildlifecollisions.ca/collision/if-collision-occurs.htm

In Alaska, the meat does not go to waste: the Alaska Department of Public Safety keeps a list of salvage teams that recover animals for butchering and human consumption under the direction of Alaskan Wildlife Troopers of the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

”Call your local police department or 911 if you witness or are involved in a moose-vehicle collision, even if it seems minor,” according to the website of Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Roadkill is harvested for charity or subsistence use rather than going to waste.

More than 250 moose were killed in collisions with vehicles on one stretch of highway just north of Anchorage.

According to Alaska Department of Fish and Game: “In 2023, about 520 wildlife-involved crashes were reported to the Alaska State Troopers. In the previous two years there were even more — close to 670 wildlife-related collisions each year. Since not all moose-vehicle collisions are reported, it is likely that at least 800 vehicle accidents are caused by moose collisions throughout Alaska each year. Moose don’t usually survive a collision but sometimes they move away and die later.

“Most of the documented collisions occur in the Matanuska-Susitna (31.6%) and the Kenai Peninsula (26.2%).”

Interestingly: Iditarod sled dog races rules allow mushers to kill big game animals (moose, caribou, buffalo) if it’s necessary to protect themselves or their dogs. If a kill occurs, the musher must gut the animal and report the incident at the next checkpoint. If the musher doesn’t properly gut the animal, the musher receives a time penalty.

“Houston was established as a railroad town in 1917, named after William Cannon Houston, a congressional leader who shepherded the Alaska Railroad Act through the US Congress,” according to the frontiersman.com.

During the trans-Alaska pipeline construction boom, the town’s name caused confusion among workers from other, smaller, oil-producing states. The confusion prompted locals to display bumper stickers that read “No, Damn it! Houston, Alaska.”

Denali National Park and the peak were renamed from Mt. McKinley in 2016 to reflect the name that was used by the native Athabaskan groups living in proximity to the mountain, according to the NPS web site.

On Jan. 20, 2025, President issued an executive order restoring the name to Mt. McKinley.

Renaming of Mount McKinley. (a) President William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, heroically led our Nation to victory in the Spanish-American War. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed rapid economic growth and prosperity, including an expansion of territorial gains for the Nation. President McKinley championed tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturing, boost domestic production, and drive U.S. industrialization and global reach to new heights. He was tragically assassinated in an attack on our Nation’s values and our success, and he should be honored for his steadfast commitment to American greatness.

In 1917, the country officially honored President McKinley through the naming of North America’s highest peak. Yet after nearly a century, President Obama’s administration, in 2015, stripped the McKinley name from federal nomenclature, an affront to President McKinley’s life, his achievements, and his sacrifice.

This order honors President McKinley for giving his life for our great Nation and dutifully recognizes his historic legacy of protecting America’s interests and generating enormous wealth for all Americans.

Journal Outside’s Donn Friedman took a bucket list trip from Albuquerque to Alaska in June 2024. Journal Outside would like to hear about your Bucket List Adventures at outside@abqjournal.com.

Some things to check before you go:

Any vehicle can travel the route, but a fuel range of 500 miles makes it less stressful. Even with a 21-gallon tank in a diesel vehicle that gets 25 mpg, you cannot be picky with gas stations and must fill up at the few big cities you may see. On the ALCAN that is one of the three with a Tim Horton’s doughnut shop: Prince George and Fort Nelson in British Columbia, and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory — and many one station villages. Free charging stations in the Yukon and others placed strategically along the route make it possible for electric vehicles. See how some people have accomplished it: electricamericas.org/2022/08/01/the-alaska-highway.

A house battery with enough power to keep a refrigerator cool for fresh food and drinks is needed. Two 200AH lithium batteries charged by a heavy-duty alternator along with the long day length powering a 100-watt solar panel kept the electrical system topped off.

Many kinds of campgrounds exist, from free municipal parks, private campgrounds with running water and more, to provincial and state parks to national park sites that require reservations far in advance. Many require exact cash American or Canadian bills to stuff in an envelope. Average cost of the state and provincial sites is about $20. No one free map seems to have all the different types of campsites. Many of these campsites have vault facilities.

Food is only slightly more expensive. Longtime residents said as prices rose around the country, groceries here didn’t seem as expensive. Some foods like specialty brands or beef — few ranches here — were more expensive. In Alaska, hamburger meat was $5 a pound at a local grocery chain that was owned by Kroger like Smith’s. And our discount codes at stores worked, offering gas points.

Avocados were $3 each even at Walmart in Fairbanks, Alaska. Grapes and strawberries were similar prices, as were canned goods.

The price for diesel in larger Alaska cities was comparable to the Southwest.

In Canadian villages, fuel is sold by the liter, there’s no shopping around in a one-station village. The prices were incomprehensible, especially with the exchange rate of one dollar U.S. being worth $1.30 at the time. Be prepared for a fee added by credit card companies for currency conversion — consider checking with your bank for better cards — just shove in your credit card and hope it says authorizing. Carrying an extra card if you have it might lessen fear of rejection.

These gadgets and tools were life changing:

Don’t ever travel without duct tape. Here are a few things it can do: Repairing clothing, including parkas. Slow leaks in plumbing. Act to keep doors closed when latches break. Stop bleeding.

Paper maps: The best source for these are the visitors’ center. Because of the huge distances along the route, each center offers details best seen on the map of each province. In 2024, you’d think Google Maps would lead you all the way to adventure. Not true as you hit long stretches without service — even if you downloaded all the maps in advance, paper maps with visitor center guides keep your navigator sane. And what if you lose charge or your iPhone — it happens.

“The Milepost” and other paper books can provide a guide, but do not function as well as digital versions. Downloading to multiple devices like an iPad and an iPhone takes forethought and if you do not have cellular data service you may be missing pages at decision points. And digital devices break, go missing among gear and may be lost.

Paper maps provide perspective of distance and relationships between areas. Many places in Alaska can be reached only by a single road or by the Alaska Maritime Highway System that requires planning for its sailing schedules and often reservations.

Hardware: Many roads require lights on at all times, so extra headlight bulbs and tools needed for replacement are essential, though every fuel stop includes three essential stores: Ace Hardware, NAPA Auto Parts and a gas station of some form doubling as a grocery — think Sinclair Dino on our Southwest reservations with a few fresh vegetables, but mostly a small assortment of chips and beef jerky.

Food and eating: For this reason, carrying multiple days of food in your rig is essential. From observation, most of the vehicles making the trek are vans, RVs or camper trucks. Otherwise, the planning for spots to sleep can become overwhelming. Mile-by-mile planners come in handy when trying to determine where to stop for scenery and more importantly for camp sites and to replenish provisions.

If you have a power inverter and a little planning, a Crock-Pot can help you have hot, ready to eat meals when reaching camp.

Cans of soup, beans and jars of salsa travel well. Cup-a-soup or ramen in its own cooking cup saves cleanup.

Paper plates and towels save the water and the day with ease of use, despite creating mounds of trash.

Trash bags are always needed. Even along major roads trash cans are rare or full.

A trash bag on rear-door spare tire carriers helps make the no trace left behind ethos obtainable.

Some other essentials: Baby wipes to clean up between showers or sink baths.

Backup chargers and cables for all devices.

A medical kit with bandages and itch ointments.

Silverware including cookware like spatulas, knives and tongs.

A tool kit including at the minimum wrenches, screwdrivers, a hammer for pounding stakes and heads, as well as a lithium combo jump starter and an air compressor that can also be used to inflate pillows and sleeping pads. And of course, more duct tape. Our tool kit container was a Step 22 Pangolin tool roll.

Carrying a week or more of food in a porous camper with water pipes and doors leading outside attracts rodents. As cute as Fievel Mousekewitz is, they require at least catch and release traps.

Snacks galore. Stock up before heading out, as a $2.50 soda or chips costs twice that on the road.

A clothesline and clothespins can be used to wash and dry and the road.

One thing not needed in June: Light sources. Even at 2 a.m. the path to bathrooms are always well lit, but you might need a flashlight inside the bathrooms.

And by the way, if you expect to see the Northern Lights, head to a museum theater — Watson Lake has a center dedicated to the aurora borealis. The nearly midnight summer sun prevents seeing stars or the colorful dancing lights.

Things you wish you would have known before you started:

Reserving campgrounds. We were lucky that we could get prime spots, especially in Denali National Park and Preserve, mostly because it was early in the season. When I checked in the middle of July, almost no spaces were available within the park. There are private campgrounds outside the park in Healy, Alaska, and vicinity.

Travel at the start of June mitigates exposure to mosquitoes. Only a few stops along the way were there more than a handful of the pesky state bird of Alaska.

Some areas like First Nation museums and visitor centers may open only limited hours.

During late spring, early summer roads and sites were less crowded. Campgrounds were never full. At national parks, the most crowded places were where the tour buses from cruises dropped viewers off. Once you got away for those sites, it was uncrowded.

Only saw one speed trap — that one in Alaska in a moose collision zone — and fewer than six state police or Mounties anywhere. That means that help from police is also far away, so drive carefully.

Radar detectors are illegal on private vehicles in all Canadian provinces except British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Sirius satellite radio does not work in Canada and Alaska. Sirius online chat confirms this. Bring your tunes on CDs or MP3s.

You can’t be picky about fuel pumps. Be careful with fuel pumps, the handle colors mean different things in Canada.

Outside is big. Vehicles less than 75-square feet are tiny homes. Leave books and DVDs at home. You can trade at sites along the way. Otherwise, our 30-pound bag of books tripped and tried to kill humans repeatedly through stubbed toes.

The metric system is tough.

Canadian cash is king.

Take five weeks minimum to explore.

Take time to explore First Nations.

Stop early and/or reserve campsites.

Drinking water is as hard to find as in the Southwest. Plan ahead and ask where you can fill up. You can get potable water at many full-price private campgrounds.

You can’t average more than about 55 mph because of wildlife and road conditions, 100 kph is only 61 mph, there’s no cruising at 75 and it feels super slow, but only the few times the road is straight and flat which isn’t often.

Grocery stores prepared foods faster and cheaper than restaurants.

If you miss a turn-off, turn around: some of our best adventures happened after we missed a turn-off like at Pickhandle Lake and the free campground at Deadman’s Lake in Canada.

There’s only a few places to get groceries and snacks: Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake and Whitehorse in Yukon

No plastics at fast food — all made of something biodegradable.

If you want to see whales, take a cruise or at least a boat trip. Sea creatures live in places we could not drive to, at least in the number of days we had. You would need to go via boat from Seward, Homer or Valdez, if not on a longer cruise or on the maritime road system. In fact, you can’t drive to Juneau from Anchorage or the north at all.

• You still need Togo and his sled dog teams or a plane or a boat to reach Nome.

DENALI ROAD ALERT:

The one route into the national park is open to personal vehicles only is Savage River, that is mile 15. The park service tries to get visitors to ride buses. To go deeper into the park, you need to purchase either a daily bus pass for $31 or a go on a narrated bus tour that cost almost $150.

During the 2024 summer season and into at least the next year, all tourist traffic is blocked at mile 43, where a bridge is being rebuilt after the Pretty Rocks Landslide.

Hiking in the park is unusual. There are no marked, maintained trails after Savage River. All hikers after that point just head into the canyons or tundra and are asked to create new paths as to not create permanent change to the fragile ground. A GPS or compass is advisable for backcountry journeys, but short hikes can always be ended by knowing your direction from the park road, which winds through the center of the park.

You can see Denali peak, but it is more than 50 miles away. If you want to reach it, you must get a permit at the backcountry permit station in Talkeetna. An expedition to the peak requires a ski-plane flight, major training and mountaineering gear. Nothing, including urine and poop, can be left on the mountain. The park service recommends all groups use a guide.

FOR THE RICH AND FAMOUS

For $3,000 a day or more, you can visit for two or three days at the private, all-inclusive Denali Backcountry Lodge, which is reachable only by helicopter. It is on private land at the edge of the park.

Put aside $500 a person for adventures

Some of the best adventures requires a boat, a helicopter, a plane and an Alaskan guide. If you want to walk on a glacier or see the ice fields from the sky, expect to pay. If you want to experience native life, many villages welcome you, but it requires a flight on a small plane. Tourism is one of the top non-invasive industries in Alaska. Pay to support to the people who live in some of the last wilderness of the United States.

Distance covered: 8,750 miles

ALCAN miles: 1,390 each way from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Delta Junction, Alaska

COSTS:

Diesel $1,668 total vs. our monthly fuel cost of $993 (with two cars or more)

Average per gallon US: $3.75

Sold by liter in Canada

Groceries on credit card: $418 vs. normal $993

Incidental spending: $290 Canadian for campgrounds, snacks and groceries in Canada

Less than $100 cash in Alaska and the lower 48

If you collide with any wildlife with your car in Alaska, you are required by state law to report it to Alaska’s Department of Transportation. If you don’t, you are violating the law and face penalties.

Canada has similar rules, but has different reporting rules per wildlifecollisions.ca/collision/if-collision-occurs.htm

In Alaska, the meat does not go to waste: the Alaska Department of Public Safety keeps a list of salvage teams that recover animals for butchering and human consumption under the direction of Alaskan Wildlife Troopers of the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

”Call your local police department or 911 if you witness or are involved in a moose-vehicle collision, even if it seems minor,” according to the website of Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Roadkill is harvested for charity or subsistence use rather than going to waste.

More than 250 moose were killed in collisions with vehicles on one stretch of highway just north of Anchorage.

According to Alaska Department of Fish and Game: “In 2023, about 520 wildlife-involved crashes were reported to the Alaska State Troopers. In the previous two years there were even more — close to 670 wildlife-related collisions each year. Since not all moose-vehicle collisions are reported, it is likely that at least 800 vehicle accidents are caused by moose collisions throughout Alaska each year. Moose don’t usually survive a collision but sometimes they move away and die later.

“Most of the documented collisions occur in the Matanuska-Susitna (31.6%) and the Kenai Peninsula (26.2%).”

Interestingly: Iditarod sled dog races rules allow mushers to kill big game animals (moose, caribou, buffalo) if it’s necessary to protect themselves or their dogs. If a kill occurs, the musher must gut the animal and report the incident at the next checkpoint. If the musher doesn’t properly gut the animal, the musher receives a time penalty.

“Houston was established as a railroad town in 1917, named after William Cannon Houston, a congressional leader who shepherded the Alaska Railroad Act through the US Congress,” according to the frontiersman.com.

During the trans-Alaska pipeline construction boom, the town’s name caused confusion among workers from other, smaller, oil-producing states. The confusion prompted locals to display bumper stickers that read “No, Damn it! Houston, Alaska.”

Denali National Park and the peak were renamed from Mt. McKinley in 2016 to reflect the name that was used by the native Athabaskan groups living in proximity to the mountain, according to the NPS web site.

On Jan. 20, 2025, President issued an executive order restoring the name to Mt. McKinley.

Renaming of Mount McKinley. (a) President William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, heroically led our Nation to victory in the Spanish-American War. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed rapid economic growth and prosperity, including an expansion of territorial gains for the Nation. President McKinley championed tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturing, boost domestic production, and drive U.S. industrialization and global reach to new heights. He was tragically assassinated in an attack on our Nation’s values and our success, and he should be honored for his steadfast commitment to American greatness.

In 1917, the country officially honored President McKinley through the naming of North America’s highest peak. Yet after nearly a century, President Obama’s administration, in 2015, stripped the McKinley name from federal nomenclature, an affront to President McKinley’s life, his achievements, and his sacrifice.

This order honors President McKinley for giving his life for our great Nation and dutifully recognizes his historic legacy of protecting America’s interests and generating enormous wealth for all Americans.

Journal Outside’s Donn Friedman took a bucket list trip from Albuquerque to Alaska in June 2024. Journal Outside would like to hear about your Bucket List Adventures at outside@abqjournal.com.

Some things to check before you go:

Any vehicle can travel the route, but a fuel range of 500 miles makes it less stressful. Even with a 21-gallon tank in a diesel vehicle that gets 25 mpg, you cannot be picky with gas stations and must fill up at the few big cities you may see. On the ALCAN that is one of the three with a Tim Horton’s doughnut shop: Prince George and Fort Nelson in British Columbia, and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory — and many one station villages. Free charging stations in the Yukon and others placed strategically along the route make it possible for electric vehicles. See how some people have accomplished it: electricamericas.org/2022/08/01/the-alaska-highway.

A house battery with enough power to keep a refrigerator cool for fresh food and drinks is needed. Two 200AH lithium batteries charged by a heavy-duty alternator along with the long day length powering a 100-watt solar panel kept the electrical system topped off.

Many kinds of campgrounds exist, from free municipal parks, private campgrounds with running water and more, to provincial and state parks to national park sites that require reservations far in advance. Many require exact cash American or Canadian bills to stuff in an envelope. Average cost of the state and provincial sites is about $20. No one free map seems to have all the different types of campsites. Many of these campsites have vault facilities.

Food is only slightly more expensive. Longtime residents said as prices rose around the country, groceries here didn’t seem as expensive. Some foods like specialty brands or beef — few ranches here — were more expensive. In Alaska, hamburger meat was $5 a pound at a local grocery chain that was owned by Kroger like Smith’s. And our discount codes at stores worked, offering gas points.

Avocados were $3 each even at Walmart in Fairbanks, Alaska. Grapes and strawberries were similar prices, as were canned goods.

The price for diesel in larger Alaska cities was comparable to the Southwest.

In Canadian villages, fuel is sold by the liter, there’s no shopping around in a one-station village. The prices were incomprehensible, especially with the exchange rate of one dollar U.S. being worth $1.30 at the time. Be prepared for a fee added by credit card companies for currency conversion — consider checking with your bank for better cards — just shove in your credit card and hope it says authorizing. Carrying an extra card if you have it might lessen fear of rejection.

These gadgets and tools were life changing:

Don’t ever travel without duct tape. Here are a few things it can do: Repairing clothing, including parkas. Slow leaks in plumbing. Act to keep doors closed when latches break. Stop bleeding.

Paper maps: The best source for these are the visitors’ center. Because of the huge distances along the route, each center offers details best seen on the map of each province. In 2024, you’d think Google Maps would lead you all the way to adventure. Not true as you hit long stretches without service — even if you downloaded all the maps in advance, paper maps with visitor center guides keep your navigator sane. And what if you lose charge or your iPhone — it happens.

“The Milepost” and other paper books can provide a guide, but do not function as well as digital versions. Downloading to multiple devices like an iPad and an iPhone takes forethought and if you do not have cellular data service you may be missing pages at decision points. And digital devices break, go missing among gear and may be lost.

Paper maps provide perspective of distance and relationships between areas. Many places in Alaska can be reached only by a single road or by the Alaska Maritime Highway System that requires planning for its sailing schedules and often reservations.

Hardware: Many roads require lights on at all times, so extra headlight bulbs and tools needed for replacement are essential, though every fuel stop includes three essential stores: Ace Hardware, NAPA Auto Parts and a gas station of some form doubling as a grocery — think Sinclair Dino on our Southwest reservations with a few fresh vegetables, but mostly a small assortment of chips and beef jerky.

Food and eating: For this reason, carrying multiple days of food in your rig is essential. From observation, most of the vehicles making the trek are vans, RVs or camper trucks. Otherwise, the planning for spots to sleep can become overwhelming. Mile-by-mile planners come in handy when trying to determine where to stop for scenery and more importantly for camp sites and to replenish provisions.

If you have a power inverter and a little planning, a Crock-Pot can help you have hot, ready to eat meals when reaching camp.

Cans of soup, beans and jars of salsa travel well. Cup-a-soup or ramen in its own cooking cup saves cleanup.

Paper plates and towels save the water and the day with ease of use, despite creating mounds of trash.

Trash bags are always needed. Even along major roads trash cans are rare or full.

A trash bag on rear-door spare tire carriers helps make the no trace left behind ethos obtainable.

Some other essentials: Baby wipes to clean up between showers or sink baths.

Backup chargers and cables for all devices.

A medical kit with bandages and itch ointments.

Silverware including cookware like spatulas, knives and tongs.

A tool kit including at the minimum wrenches, screwdrivers, a hammer for pounding stakes and heads, as well as a lithium combo jump starter and an air compressor that can also be used to inflate pillows and sleeping pads. And of course, more duct tape. Our tool kit container was a Step 22 Pangolin tool roll.

Carrying a week or more of food in a porous camper with water pipes and doors leading outside attracts rodents. As cute as Fievel Mousekewitz is, they require at least catch and release traps.

Snacks galore. Stock up before heading out, as a $2.50 soda or chips costs twice that on the road.

A clothesline and clothespins can be used to wash and dry and the road.

One thing not needed in June: Light sources. Even at 2 a.m. the path to bathrooms are always well lit, but you might need a flashlight inside the bathrooms.

And by the way, if you expect to see the Northern Lights, head to a museum theater — Watson Lake has a center dedicated to the aurora borealis. The nearly midnight summer sun prevents seeing stars or the colorful dancing lights.