06/06 to 06/09/19 - Watson Lake Campground, Sterling, AK

Watson Lake Campground is a free, 3-site campground on Watson Lake near Sterling, Alaska.  It has a pit toilet and a water pump. The sites have a fire ring and picnic table. Cell service varied from 3G 4 bar to 1x 2 bar. We got 5 TV channels most of the time. It is in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

06/06/19

The Forestry Department fire truck stopped by about 4:00. They parked in the middle of the lot and got out and walked around looking at the sky. We had no idea what they were watching; we couldn’t see anything inside the coach. After they left, we went outside and saw that there was a fire to the north of us. We had no idea how far away it was, but figured if it was a danger to us, the fire department probably would have had us evacuate. We’ll keep on eye on it, but it did better that evening.

06/07/19

Friday was a busy day as far as traffic here. The fire department stopped by again. A federal wildlife officer stopped. We found out the fire was started by lightening but was not coming our direction. The three camper spots are now full. Besides us, there is a tenter and another camper. There’s been cars and a few campers coming and going. Most have been Alaska license plates. We had a short thunderstorm with some rain later in the afternoon.

06/10/19

The weekend wasn’t as crazy as we thought it would be, but there was traffic.  The campers we’ve had haven’t stayed longer than one night, and another one comes in. Monday morning we drove the Skilak Lake Loop Road with the jeep. It’s supposed to be a popular fishing and camping area, so we thought we’d check it out. The road is gravel, very pitted. Curt said there’s no way he would take the motorhome on it. We did look at some of the campgrounds. There were a few motorhomes in one of them, but mostly smaller campers and tents. We got to see a moose mother and baby, and also a black bear.

Sunday it was getting really smoky out and smelled strong from the smoke. Curt was busy waxing the coach, but I didn’t go outside and kept the windows shut. Monday morning the smell was worse, but we couldn’t see dark smoke like the other day. A Forestry Department vehicle stopped, and Curt asked the guy where the fire was. It was the same fire as a couple of days ago, but the wind changed direction and was only 3 miles from us now. That’s all we needed to know, and we decided to leave.

We had two moose in the campground Monday morning too. I don’t know if the fire moved them our direction, but it was fun to watch them.