We continued along the Sterling Highway with hopes to get a site in the Quartz Creek USFS campground along Kenai Lake near Coopers Landing, a very popular area. It was a Friday early afternoon when we arrived. We circled the beautiful campground but all the sites were already either reserved or occupied. No surprise since it is fishing season and tourists and locals were all out in the area fishing. After circling the campground, I also didn’t notice any sites on the water as I had expected. So not a huge loss to me to move on.
There was another USFS campground, Crescent Creek, a little further down the road, so we decided to check it out. It wasn’t a great road, but we just went slowly. There were only nine sites at this campground, one of which was the campground host site. There were four sites available, so we checked them out, and got lucky enough to get the best site there. Our site was roomy with a private open view of the creek running by and a semi-private beach. Lucky us!
Since it was the weekend, we stayed for two nights and enjoyed the sound of the rushing water of the creek. (We considered moving on, but it seemed very unlikely that we would be able to find any campsite remotely as good as what we had here on a Saturday.) Coda enjoyed walking in the creek, and we walked a trail from the campground a little way.
Come Sunday morning, it was time to continue our journey north toward Anchorage and Denali.
Day 67 (Day 33 in Alaska)
Miles: 94*
Driving time: 2:30
Roads: Sterling Hwy (AK-1), back roads
Road conditions: Poor to excellent
Overnight: Crescent Creek NF Campground, Cooper Landing, AK
Weather: Partly cloudy (53/62)
Total miles in Alaska: 1,200*
Total miles since crossing Canadian border: 3,760*
Total miles: 5,328*
* Since our motorhome is our only vehicle, mileage includes side trips.
Day 68 (Day 34 in Alaska)
Miles: 0
Overnight: Crescent Creek NF Campground, Cooper Landing, AK
Weather: Partly cloudy (54/61)