Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Just got an 06 H2 for a road trip to Alaska, via Utah. This is my second time on the drive, so this time I plan on doing it right. Hence the new ride. The drive begins in 3 weeks.

Feb 2007 - Miami, FL

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Awesome picture! Post the route you will take so you can meet up with other owners along the way! How long are you planning for the entire trip?

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

You should get in touch with Quick and see if they would sponsor some of your trip.

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Great choice on the color....Congrats on the new rig!:perfect10s:

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Sounds sweet how many miles is that exaclty and how much time of driving is that?

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Congrats and welcome to the site !! That's gonna be a long and awesome trip !! Hope to see alot of pics and get info !!
have a safe trip man !!

frenzy
Belgium

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

If you make it to Anchorage, give me a shout. I can point you in the right direction from a locals view. PM me for my email or cell.

Dan

:beerchug:

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Getcherself to the Moose's Tooth in Anchorage! Grumpy's too! I'll be there in June.

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Beautiful pic.:cool:

Are you driving round trip?

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

oh now thats a great photo! nothing better than the beach. what part of FL you from? I have several clients down that way in Miami and also over in Palm Beach. You are going to post road pics of the trip right? Welcome to the forum!

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

That's a great picture! Welcome to the forum. Be sure and post pics of your trip. There are planty of folks on here that can help if you have questions/accidents along the way.

What made you decide to drive all that way?

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

I did this drive a few years ago. It's around 6k miles. The second part is 50 hours from Idaho to Alaska, or 3k miles. The return trip I sent my truck to Seattle freight, although you can take a ferry as well.

My plans are to spend time in Utah first, and I have no timeline for leaving, could be a month or longer. The drive through Jasper and Whitehorse is enough to get me to do it again, not to mention Denali.

This time I won't be returning to Florida, could end up in Utah long term.

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

The H2 is the best road trip vehicle. Last summer loaded up the wife and the rottie and drove to Ouray from Chicago 21 hours wheeled from Ouray to Telluride via Imogene Pass ( I know stupid did the closed trail backwards but lived)next day. Partied in Telluride that night then to New River AZ next day. Did Crown King,Table Mesa and Soldiers Pass (Sedona) Drove back from Phoenix to Chicago in 26.8 hours non stop (well stopped for fuel). Very Comfortable ride to say the least . Have a great trip.

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

X2! Last summer I went from Oregon to Indiana for Hummer Homecoming, wheeled in Paragon then went to Virginia to visit some folks, and back to Oregon via Colorado. 7000 miles in 4 weeks. I've been down to Arizona and over to Moab. I'm always in Idaho and Western Wyoming, Nevada. I love it because it goes on all the roads, not just the paved ones.

Are you getting a roof rack or anything before you go, Quick?

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

I wanna go! That sounds like so much fun! Wow... so much to see. Have a blast! :beerchug:

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Setup a Blog so we can follow easier and you can give details of what happened on certain days like a diary. Plus pics may be easier to post there do not know for sure. Just seems the easiest way to let all your forum Buds to keep with Your trip.

I'm knew to Blogging and my space, and mytubes all that stuff but, Dragon has helped Me. I want to start one I think to document the road to
The Texas Mile topend run. I wish Dragon and i would have done a blog or something on the process of developing "The Beastly Beauty". Dragon I think did take a good number of photos so maybe he can assemble something from that someday if he ever has time. He is so covered up My free requests get put on hold to actually making money. Can You believe that Dragon making money instead of doing all the free stuff i want done. Go figure that, LOL!!!!

TAZ

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Great question. I'm actually struggling right now with cargo space but I will just travel light. Hopefully I can get some ideas on racks and add ons in Moab. So far all I've seen are GOBI and maybe that's the obvious choice.

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

IMO, and I don't have one, GOBI would be a great rack. I like them because you can walk on them and tie things down easily. Be sure and get a ladder so you can get on the roof.

I use Pelican cases for keeping things dry on top. Mostly I put my off road gear and tools up there. Things I don't need all the time. Extra clothes and a shovel.

www.casesbypelican.com

Another case that I use is a box that goes on the back of a 4 wheeler.
It's curved and goes around my spare tire. I know GOBI makes boxes that fit up there specifically for storage too. They also have a truck vault that fits right in the back.

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Happy Trails:popcorn: Call AAA for a trip tick:popcorn:

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

What an AWESOME trip!!! I'd LOVE to have the time to do that!!

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Thanks. Whats the scoop with Imogene Pass? I'll be in Telluride just before Moab. Is that open around then? What do you mean you did it backwards. Any other SW CO drives?

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Well this is story I took the trail from Ouray to Telluride on August 7th following a trail book I bought a gift shop in Ouray to find out later the book was written in 1999 and when I got home I found this trail report on the net. Imogene Pass
Uncompahgre/Ouray
970-240-5300
Closed
8/11/06
COMMENTS:
8/11/06 - We have already reported on our experiences in June and late July. But it might be worth reporting that scuttlebutt has it that Imogene has been pretty bad since the first of August. It is a fact that a jeeper from Texas was killed by a rockfall on the Sneffels-Ouray section around the end of July, as reported in the Ouray News.
8/2/06- We came from the Ouray side & the trail was closed at the Imogene Trail head. Apparently there are 2 landslides that they have not cleared.
7/27/06 - The road is open -- sort of, as of the 27th. We traveled Imogene on the 27th, and found it to be rougher and rockier than our previous trip. Our party had an unmodified Rubicon and a stock Liberty, and some places on the Ouray side were marginal. Torrential rain on the afternoon of the 27th made it much worse. Rockslides and near washouts between the Sneffels intersection and Ouray were severe at 5:00 PM.
6/29/06 - The trail is open all the way. We traveled it from Telluride to Ouray on 6/29. The Ouray side is rough, and wet and muddy in spots, especially the last two miles or so from the Camp Bird locked gate to the Sneffels intersection.
6/23/06 - Plowed open, but is icy and muddy at the top. Use caution.
5/13/06 - Imogene Pass was snow covered from just across the bridge that crosses the creek.

Italian Creek Road/Upper Reno Divide
Gunnison/Gunnison
970-641-0471



I got to top of the pass the trail was difficult coming for Ouray, it was raining like a beyatch, I thought the landslide part was of an obstacle, became best friends with my locker button and only had three off the once. Not to bad I thought for have my wife who has never been in the mountains and has never off-roaded before, be it as may she walked the last mile to the pass cursing me and threatening divorce every step of the way. She felt better when this old guy Rich a jeep tour drive asking where I was coming from I said Ouray, he made this face and said that he had done Imogene Pass about 2000 time and he does even go that way. He said how did you do it. I said locker. He just laughed as said he thought I had kicked my wife out of the truck and made her walk, and he told Lori that she was safe in the truck because I was a helluva driver. The he told me that trail from Telluride to Ouray is a 4, but the way I did was rate an 8. So we followed him down to Telluride, because my wife felt better follw someone who what he was doing, that turned into a fun game of follow the leader on the way down we were flying. There was couple of tights spots on the way down to Telluride that part of your tire hung off the shelf road ( trail) by about 2 inches and the other side of the truck your rim and rock rail where scraping the rock. All in all a fun ride just be sure to check trail conditions before you roll and follow an up to date map. And go the right way.:D
One day I will post the pics. I just get lazy with those new larger capcity memory cards the pics sit in the camera forever

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Nice call on the places to go and eat/drink in Anchorage, but I need to make one small correction......

It's Humpy's, not Grumpy's :giggling: :giggling: :giggling:

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

You'll love driving the H2 on a road trip. If you pass through Orygun, give me a hollar.

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

I'm in Orygun, and you never told me that.;) :D

Great places in Anchorage.

Paris Cafe! Downtown. Great steak and seafood. (esp king crab)

Chilkoot Charlies, off Spenard and Northern Lights Blvd, (i think) Great place to have a beer and watch the sailors. (if you're into that sort of thing):D

Theres another place called Whiskey Jacks or something. I remember it was a great place, too bad I can't remember the name.:o

Quick, are you driving back?

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

Platinum Jacks (recently busted by the cops for one of their owners being a front for dirty money), but a good place regardless.

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

I did a monthlong trip from Portland to Anchorage and back a few years ago. Lots of great places to stop. I set up a website and uploaded pics from the road, you'll be able to find plenty of internet cafes along the way - definitely keep it up because you'll develop a huge following of people living vicariously through you!

Here's some suggestions, if you plan on camping (I can give you more details GPS coordinates and a full map if you PM me).

• Yukon Brewing in Whitehorse was a great place. Their Cranberry Wheat is surprisingly good. Get some of their red.
• If you can get to Hyder, AK (next to Stewart BC) head out to Fish Creek, get up really early and you can see lots of brown bears feeding on the fish. Keep going and the road heads up and ends at a glacier (can't remember the name right now), great open areas camping out there and you won't see a whole lot of people. Meziadin Lake at the turnoff to Hyder is gorgeous on a good day and has good camping if you don't want to drive that far out of your way.
• Get to Nebesna Gold Mine (Nebesna Alaska). It's on the highway between Tok and GlenAllen. Turn off, there are a couple stream crossings, then you get to the town of Nebesna (population 7). Where the road ends and says says 'Road Closed' just keep driving, your H2 will get a workout. When you get to the mine, and the guy comes up to you (gun in hand), call him Jack (that's his name). He's a little wierd, but if you are nice to him, he'll let you stay on the property and walk through the old mining equipment - very cool stuff! Tell him the guy in the blue suburban with the big red kayak from 2-1/2 years ago says hi.
• Drive the ?? miles north from Fairbanks and see the Arctic Circle (there's a campground off the haul road)
• Get really adventurous and drive the 800(?) miles out to Inuvik. Spend $5 on a gallon of gas!
• The Chevron in Cantwell, AK has wireless internet, keep your laptop on at all times you never know where in the middle of BFA you might find internet.
• Go to Seward (south of Anchorage) and eat at the Rose Cafe, they have great Halibut poppers - you can also eat good italian food at Apollos.
• Drive to Whittier (S of Anchorage), take the ferry over to Valdez, or better yet, come into AK, head to Valdez, and take the ferry to Whittier and come into Anchorage from the south.
• North of Whitehorse, you can sleep on the shores of Lake LaBerge.
• Stop at Chicken, Alaska, because it's a town called Chicken and they are wierd people.

Sounds like a great time! Enjoy the trip and set something up for all of us to follow you!

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

hey, im here in south florida. Miami, just came from the local trails... couldn't wheel this silly brick but going back next weekend.

Anyways, i have only gone as far as orlando in the H2 and i will say that she is the smoothes ride i have ever driven. Wide and very comfortable. Mileage isnt that bad, my old ZL-1 tahoe didn't get any better than that last time i drove to MI last may.

Re: Road trip; Florida to Alaska
 

What a cool thing to do! I've always wanted to drive across country. I plan of doing just that when I get back from Iraq. :) Good luck on the trip! Take LOTS of pix and video!