OUTDOORS: It’s that time of year

With our subfreezing overnight temperatures, you should have winterized and stored your boat, motorhome, or any other vehicle you use which has a water system. If you wait much longer, you might be faced with frozen and broken water lines when you next decide to use the vehicle.

I’ve already got the boat winterized and in storage. I’m holding off on the small RV we have because I plan to use it one last time for the year on a trip to the Kenai later this month. I do have it sitting, plugged into “shore power” with the propane furnace set to about 50 degrees to keep the water lines ice free. The water holding and hot water heater tanks are empty. I’ll fill them just before the trip.

We last used the unit for a family trip to Byers Lake Campground the last day of September. We were only planning a picnic and sightseeing day trip, but having the RV allowed us to have our own bathroom and kitchen facilities while travelling. Having the larger vehicle also gives our three little dogs more space to stretch out and nap during the trip.

My wife had never been further north than the Talkeetna area, so it was fun for her to see some new country. However, she commented that it didn’t look any different than what she had seen around here. One thing I noticed, to my surprise, was the trees further north had more leaves than what we were seeing around the Big Lake area. I’m guessing they didn’t get the wind we had the end of last month.

The day was clear and sunny and the drive up, about 100 miles north of our Big Lake home, was uneventful. We paid our day use fee at an “iron ranger” and proceeded to explore the multiple loop gravel road camping layout. The gravel roads were so full of deep potholes that our vehicle speed was often around 2 miles-per-hour to keep from shaking the RV too violently. I could have walked faster!

Once we discovered how rough the campground loop roads were, we returned to the day use area, parked the rig, and had lunch. We were in an area which overlooked the lake and had trails leading down to the lakeshore. We took advantage of them to stretch our legs. Three little dogs got their legs stretched as well.

Byers Lake has three public use cabins and we found one along the trail we walked. It had a nice view out over the lake. Just before reaching the cabin, a spruce grouse flushed up off the side of the trail and into a spruce tree maybe 15 feet from where we stood. The dogs were so focused on exploring along the trail that they never noticed the grouse. The bird sat in the tree for the longest time, stretching its neck to watch the dogs. It finally saw enough and flew off further into the forest.

After returning to the RV, we decided to stop in and visit the Alaska Veterans Memorial located adjacent to the campground area. Quoting from a state parks brochure: “This multi-war memorial honors the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard veterans of Alaska. Each branch is represented by a plaque that shares a short history of their contributions to Alaska.” We both enjoyed reading the information on the plaques. My wife said she thought the whole trip was worthwhile just to visit the memorial.

We visited during the week and well after Labor Day. There were only a few cars in the day use area and only two campers we saw in the camping loop area we were able to drive around. We saw one kayak with a couple of paddlers out on the lake. I wanted to check out the site for a possible multi-day visit next summer. I had heard a lot of good things about Byers Lake and wanted to see if they were true.

The facility was nicely laid out and provided more privacy per campsite than most state parks campgrounds I have seen. It’s in a beautiful area with mountains and forests surrounding the site. Fresh water, toilet facilities, trash dumpsters and a dump station are all available on site. I’m told the site can fill up over holidays and weekends, but we’d be visiting during the week, so it might not be too crowded.

Now if they’d just grade the roads!