Alaska in September?

We are planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Alaska in 2019.  We'll be pulling our travel trailer with our Toyota Tundra from southern NJ and plan on a 2 1/2 to 3 month trip there and back.  We want to do the loop in central Alaska crossing the border near Tok then to Fairbanks, Denali, Anchorage, Kenai Peninsula then to Valdez and back to Tok, or possibly in the reverse order if that would be better. We are told that we should have a good chance of seeing the Northern Lights at the end of September.  My question is, will RV parks be open at this time?  If not, what have others done?  Thanks for any advice you can share!

I don't know how late the RV Parks stay open in the fall. 

What I do when I want reliable info about RV Parks is to go to http://www.rvparkreviews.com/ then select the state or Canadian Province and the city/town and look at the RV Parks and their websites.  If the info is not in the RV Park website then give them a call.

You should be able to see the Northern lights most anytime, but mid-late August and on into September will be more spectacular than earlier in the summer.  We've watched them in July along the Alcan Hwy and other places.

By early September many roadside services (fuel, restaurants, campgrounds, convenience stores) will be shutting down as tourist traffic disappears and the weather gets cold and snowy. They close their doors when they run out of goods to sell or customers to buy stuff.

You can only see the lights when it's dark. So the later in the season you can go the better. You won't be able to see the lights in Fairbanks in July because it doesn't get dark.

The Alcan is a year round highway. I'm sure a lot of the campgrounds are closed but gas stations, restaurants and other services are open. Maybe not as many of them than in the summer but still enough that you don't have to worried about finding what you need.

The first thing you want to get is a copy of the Milepost. The 2019 edition I think comes out in February or March. This gives a mile by mile narrative of what businesses and attractions are along the road. Most businesses list when they open and close for the season if they close.

Take your time and enjoy the trip.

I'm assuming you have your passports, no guns and all the paperwork for your pets if you are taking any.

Sounds like a really fun trip and your going to see some giant plants while you are there. Stuff grows bigger with all the sunlight.

Alaskansnowbirds said:

The first thing you want to get is a copy of the Milepost. The 2019 edition I think comes out in February or March. This gives a mile by mile narrative of what businesses and attractions are along the road. Most businesses list when they open and close for the season if they close.

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On our trip I had the Milepost in my lap every mile with a highlighter to mark our way.  Such a resource!  I remember previous tales of some forum members being in Palmer for the Fair in September?  Maybe Don can provide more info on timing.  That's where you can see the incredibly huge vegetables.  Wish we had dawdled and taken that in.

Tom and Margi said:

Maybe Don can provide more info on timing.

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Here is the web link for the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute's Aurora Forecast. The aurora depends on sun spot activity so what it will be like and how active it will be can't be predicted this far in advance. When Bayspray is in Alaska just check on the GI's site to see what the aurora is doing.

Tomorrow their forecast is that Aurora activity will be low.  Weather permitting, low-level displays will be visible overhead from Barrow to Fairbanks and visible low on the northern horizon from as far south as Anchorage and Juneau.

If you really want to know the weather history for a location, don't depend on peoples opinion and stories.

Use the internet for FACTS!

Weather Underground has a great calendar history page where you can view the actual temps and rain or snow days and accumulation for every day of a month and year you select, going back some 20-30 years. If you want to see other cities, such as Anchorage, just go to Anchorage on WU and click on "Calendar".

Here is a link to the September 2018 weather in Delta Junction, AK:  https://www.wunderground.com/calendar/us/ak/big-delta/PABI/date/2018-9 

Note that in this most recent Sept, Delta Junction had NO snow and the temps generally with highs in the 50's and low 60's and lows in the 30's and low 40's.  Down right chilly, but not too bad, if you are committed to seeing the norther lights.

Also September 2017 looks pretty much the same.

An advantage to this part of Alaska, is that it is an easy drive to leave the state via the Alaska Hwy.  Much easier & quicker than leaving from Anchorage.

This is not to say you can't have a winter storm come in and bring some really nasty weather.  It is just that your odds of nasty weather are not as great as the common opinion would have you believe. 

You do have some exposure to snow and cold on your way down the Alaska hwy, so plan on staying put for a day or few days in some of the towns to wait out the weather.

Additionally you will be far better off, not only on the way back down, but on your whole trip if you can dry camp, i.e park your w/o hookups, running off of your batteries and recharging with the generator.  Lots of great places to dry camp and boondock in AK, BC & YT. 

Alaskansnowbirds makes a good point: the towns along the major highways remain open year around; it's the  intervening places that cater to summer tourist travel that close their doors whenever its no longer worth their time & effort to remain open.  There may be much longer distances between towns than in the lower 48, though.

Thanks all for all the information.  We do have the Milepost, both 2018 and 2019 editions.  And we've been using RV Trip Wizard to map out the trip.  Based on what we are seeing, it seems that we should be able to do this as long as we are flexible with our timing to allow for weather hiccups.  We're very excited and continuing to do more research almost daily!  Thanks again!

I'm also planning to go to Alaska this summer and return mid-September or so.  Sean and Kristy Michael (Long Long Honeymoon on Youtube) came back from Alaska around mid-September a couple of years ago and reported most RV parks were closed by then and most RV dump stations were also closed for the season, making it hard to find a place to dump their tanks.  Also, the Alaska Highway through BC has mandatory carry chain requirements starting October 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw4unbfJhYo

Tom and Margi said:

I remember previous tales of some forum members being in Palmer for the Fair in September?    That's where you can see the incredibly huge vegetables.  Wish we had dawdled and taken that in.

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That was us. ( Brewers and  Mahoney)  We went to the Palmer State Fair Sept 15 and it poured rain on us. I mean poured. But we loved it anyway.  Big vegetables and pork chops on a stick. As we wandered home many parks had closed but we boon docked in a few spots as well. 

Betty Brewer said:

That was us. ( Brewers and  Mahoney)  We went to the Palmer State Fair Sept 15 and it poured rain on us. I mean poured. But we loved it anyway.  Big vegetables and pork chops on a stick. As we wandered home many parks had closed but we boon docked in a few spots as well.

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I should have known that was you two and Russell.  ;D  I'm still disappointed we missed the fair and the huge vegetables.  One of those "Oh, we'll see it next trip moments".  We always thought we would make a return trip, but alas ....  :

We did an Alaskan cruise in September a few years ago, the weather was miserable for much of the time (second to the last cruise of the season).  We did not see the sun for 6 days, missed 2 of the ports of call due to an early season winter storm with 75 mph winds and 30+ ft seas.  I learned on that trip that cloudy and gray, if not worse is to be expected at least in the coastal parts of Alaska after July.

I too took a cruise to AK in early September and the weather was not so good. Cloudy most of the time but still had a good time, mostly due to the activities on the boat and of course the food.

I would do the research as you seem to be doing. You didn't mention when you plan on leaving AK but Oct can get difficult to travel. We plan on AK this summer, arriving late June and departing late Aug.