Tell me everything I need to know about campsites in Alaska
 

Hi HUBB,

Not a very frequent poster, but frequent reader.

My lovely lady and I are heading to Deadhorse this summer -- her in our Jeep, me on my Tiger. We're taking the month of July, leaving from Edmonton.

We've done a fair bit of overland travel within the Canadian context, and are adept at finding "Crown Land" (publicly owned land, free to camp, hunt, fish, etc. on by anyone) in various counties in several provinces.

We'd like to do the same for Alaska, but I'm not sure what the deal is in the USA.

We prefer to avoid serviced camp sites for several reasons -- we don't care for crowds; we find the ancillary costs of serviced lots to be quite high (like $15 for 10 sticks of Firewood...I'm looking at you, Gregg Lake, AB!), and in general we only ever have a rough idea of where we will end up in a day in terms of mileage and such.

So my questions:

1) What land can we camp on in Alaska? Logging Leases? Parkland? Random clearings down a dirt road?

2) Where is a good place to go for land ownership maps so we know we are on 'public' land?

3) As I described "Crown Land" above, what's the US equivalent, specifically for AK?

4) What general tips/ideas for camping in Alaska do you have?

We are proponents of leave-no-trace camping; we don't even collect firewood as usually we use our Propane fire pit or we go with a lantern for the light, share some stories, and go to bed early for an early start the next day.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Safe travels, all.

Craig

No problem finding a place to camp for free in Alaska. If you are not in Anchorage it is very easy. In Anchorage the Harley dealer has/had free camping for bikers by the dealership. I camped behind the Napa store in Deadhorse. At the little rest area at the Artic Circle. I think the only place I paid to camp was in Denali. Camped at Wasila but didn't see Sarah Palin but found a nice spot down a dirt road with a collection of abandoned furniture.

Thanks Juan. I don't want to end up on someones private land and be a bad travel ambassador so the info like you shared is very helpful.

Is it safe to say that if I find a clearing down a side road or cut line that I'll be OK to camp there in most cases?

Yep. I went down one little road and there was a bear trap at the end. Found another spot. Came out of the woods one cold morning to stand in the sunshine. Pickup going down the highway turns around and comes back. Scruffy guy in old truck asks me if I have any coffee. I told him I had run out. He says, "Go get yer cup," and pulls out his Thermos.

The mosquitoes can be brutal. I had to resort to wearing my rain gear they were so bad. And it can get pretty cold even in the summer. I got rain on, hailed on and snowed on in one sunny day.

ak
 

bring a head net mozzies can be so thick you inhale them while breathing.
skin so soft,absorbin for black flies

bring good rain gear

bring extra spares,air compressor and tire plugs.

take the bus in denali,but get off and do some hiking.busses come by about
every half hour ,they will stop to pick you up.

if anyway possible come back the alaska marine highway,get off in juneau,do the tracy arm tour,wrangell anan bear observatory,ketchikan tourist trap
but should be seen once.

camping is easy,keep a clean camp,put food back into jeep"bears"

have fun
kp

Thats a great story, Juan. The people really make the adventure, for me!

KP, thanks. Check on the net, rain gear, tire patch stuff, spares, and bug spray. I spent most of my youth and late teens working in the bush in northern ontario, so I'm used to bad bugs (Not Alaska bad, but bad) -- and at the end of the day there's only so much bug spray and coils you can use!


Thanks for the tops on the Marine highway -- I'll look into it!

Took the ferry from Whittier to Valdez, nice ride.