Solo Truck Camping in the Yukon

Yukon is one of those places that forces you to recalibrate your sense of scale. Kluane National Park alone covers nearly 22,000 square kilometers. It's the sister park of Wrangell-St. Elias, sharing the same mountain range with 17 of Canada's 20 tallest peaks, including Mount Logan, the highest point in the country at nearly 6,000 meters. Most of the park has no trails, much less roads, leaving it to raw, untouched wilderness. But let's back it up a little to my arrival at the border, leaving interior Alaska behind. We are stopped at U.S. Customs, 20 miles from the Canadian border due to a wildfire that is about two miles that way, with no service. Probably for the best, because my mom would be tripping. Border security said the wait would be four hours, no exceptions, so me and over half of the other travelers left our vehicles to wander around in different forms. Looking at my map led me to believe I could hike through the Tetlin Wildlife Refuge to a view at the border, though it was so overgrown I eventually ran back down to walk the road to the official border. Today clearly would have been a good day to wear pants and hiking shoes, not shorts and sandals. We've got bigger problems than mosquitoes, I don't think that's true. Oh wait, invasive plants are pretty wack too. A suspicious plant? Yo, that plant's looking pretty sus. Dang, I have the border all to myself? Well, the cool thing about this was, let's take a f*** little pictures with the Alaska sign. Who are you? It's been an hour and a half, two hours. I'm over here messing around by the signs. Mind you, they said there was no way it was gonna be less than four hours. And cars start going by and I'm like, well my truck is just sitting in line. So I sprinted back to my truck. There was definitely some other people in the same boat as me, and now there's just like RVs in the middle of the road. Anywho, I'll be going through Canadian customs here shortly, which I have done many times in the past few months since working in Southeast Alaska. It's raining ash. Smoke is not fun to breathe. You're not gonna believe this. We are stuck in between a wildfire and a trailer that combusted, unrelated to the wildfire. Thankfully the guy was okay and his truck was all right. Apparently it was an electrical fire. His trailer was burnt to a crisp. I feel horrible for him. There was a lot of ammunition, a lot of big booms going off. Definitely heard a propane tank explode. So they were just waiting for everything to burn off before letting us pass through. I offered the firemen some snacks but they declined. Made some friends with the neighbors, got to pet some dogs, read my book, played guitar. About to go through customs. The Alcan is a notoriously rough highway connecting Alaska and Canada. It has no shortage of humongous potholes and flagger buckets marking literal chunks of the road that are missing. So I drove through here on the Alcan a week ago and camped out where the fires are now. So that's wild to think about. It is almost 10 o'clock here in the Yukon. I left Tok Alaska around noon today. That's what I want to say a two-hour drive from Tok to the border. My truest condolences to the guy who lost his trailer. That's just awful and any other people that matters. It seemed like travelers for the most part. It's not like I'm late for anything. Oh no, I have to, I have to go to the lake. All right, this is the f***ing Alcan for you. My goal is to get as far as I can from the smoke as possible before I find a spot to sleep tonight. Too many cucumbers. Not enough time. Fiddle. I'm getting fed out here. I was so sad today. I'm literally f***ing praying that the sky doesn't open up on me because I have so much s*** to clean up. Oh, it smells so good. I'm just waiting for a damn bear to walk up. Swiss cheese. Swiss cheese chorizo sandwich on sourdough. The chorizo itself is already spicy. Cracking open this new bottle of blue agave sriracha. Light me up before you kill me. All right, good work team. My friend did. So what do you got there? What's this? Like under, what do you put under there? This is my kitchen. Yeah. And like random car stuff. Yeah, yeah. It's really full because I'm also moving. Oh yeah? That's awesome. Yeah, I love it. Tell him he's doing a good job. Yeah, he's the best. Quality. This plant is barely hanging on, boy. That canyon over there. This is future Ash checking in. I wanted to say that this trip as a whole was probably the peak of my existence so far. I had the time of my life and was largely floating around on cloud nine, though I do remember getting hit with a seemingly out of left field bout of sadness on this breathtaking leg of the trip. It happens. Probably the anxiety creeping in around starting a new chapter so far from home and what am I doing? What am I gonna do? I've been on the road for quite some time, so likely experiencing a little burnout. But these lake days and sunshine definitely helped get me out of my head. That was a pretty epic chill day at the lake. Just found an amazing campsite. I'm eating this Mediterranean salad that I made yesterday. About to make my specialty, which is a tuna melt. I swear everywhere I go I'm like, this would be the prime spot for a grizzly to just pop up. Where are they at? I don't know, man, but I'm gonna keep being loud and obnoxious. Damn, look at all that mayo. I bet you're like, what in the what is going on over here? Speaking of white, I might need a sun shirt. Is it dripping? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The backup bag. You're like, that's too much mayo. Get some dry ass sandwich. Trying to be extra careful because tuna is very fragrant. Will attract bears. Lemon juice, salt, pepper, onions. Dude, I'm getting toasted. I'm gonna die. Oh, thank the lord for that cloud. Brother. All right, just started working my way up. There's Lake Kathleen. The wind blowing on the lake. I'm down because it is so windy. It's not helping my vertigo. The duration and wind and seeing some highly athletic people turn around that I decided I did not feel remotely comfortable enough to complete this hike alone given the conditions of this particular afternoon. I got pretty down on myself not being able to make the summit, but I think it's important to listen to your gut, especially when you're by yourself. I'm trying not to beat myself up. Hey, two hours later. It's like I'm on alone, but with tons of snacks, a cooler, a guitar, blankets, batteries. Oh, and a truck.