Manley Hot Springs: Memorial Day 2010

We went to Manley Hot Springs, about 150 miles due west of Fairbanks for a wonderful long weekend, marred only by a lot of smoke from the hundreds of wildfires active during May.

Manley is noted for its rustic hotsprings, located in an old greenhouse.  Of the 4 pools three were so hot that we could not get in and the 4th was only sit-able becuase two hoses were running with cool water.  We shared the pool with this friendly group of 3 from 1 family...and the man went to West Philly High School years ago!!!!   

      During the day we took a very bumby ride to Tofte which is an abandoned gold mining town.  Nothing is left, but it occupies a place on the map as big as Manley.  False advertising.  On the way we saw hundred of swallowtailed butterflies making butterfly "ball" in the road.  David also came upon this lovely abandoned truck.

We camped right next to a slough of the Tanana River and since we had new fishing gear we decided to fish.  Since David kept snagging the line, he wanted to find a new place very shortly after we started so we began to reel in.  At that point a large pike threw himself onto my little tiny hook right at the foot of the boat ramp and committed "suicide by fishing".  He flipped onto the boat ramp and slipped between two of the concrete slabs that made up the ramp.  Well, I tried to scoop him out and David tried to grab him, but he flipped into another depression and got stuck.  It was like the Keystone cops met Captain Ahab, but finally we grabbed the poor fellow.  Beginners luck was with us because we were able to slip the stringer in his mouth and keep him.  Little did we know how viscious they really are. We found out later about their large teeth and propensity to bite!  But we fillet him and had a really good dinner. 

And we even met a resident who had hunted for bear and was willing to trade the salmon we had brought for dinner for some fresh bear meat.  And this man knew someone who lived down the street from David's sister in Oregon.  What a wacky world.

The Natives are allowed to use fish wheels which scoop up the fish and deposit them in baskets.  They manuever them out into the river and leave them there.

Manley airstrip was the staging area for the firefighters in the area and on the morning that we were to leave we went to the Manley Roadhouse for breakfast and to hear the news about the fires. The waitress told us that the road out had been closed in the morning and asked if we really needed to get back to Fairbanks on Monday.  Typical of us, David immediately said "yes" and I, of course, said "No".  We all had a chuckle.  But, the road was open when we wanted to leave, so off we went, with fires on both sides of the road.     The fires were so close that when David open the door to take the photos we could quite clearly feel the heat!

But now there has been much rain in June so the fires have died down.