And this guy was looking noble on the gangway of the neighboring dock.
There was even a great blue heron sitting out on a float.
From Clover Pass Resort we drove north on the North Tongass Highway to the end of the road and Settlers Cove State Park—drive slowly there are potholes galore the last mile or so. The campground there was empty but for one tent with a water view. We found a site that was the perfect length for us and had a sliver of a water view. It was nice to have someplace quiet and peaceful after all the hubbub at Clover Pass. This place reminded us of a whole lot of places we’ve camped on the Olympic Peninsula both in terms of the weather and in terms of the trees and other plants.
Here’s a view of Settlers Cove at low tide.
There was even elderberry in bloom (though theirs is a red berried one).
After we got settled in we took a drive to town via Ward Lake to check out the Forest Service campgrounds up there as a possibility of a place to camp the next night. There are 3 campgrounds near the lake and all of them were basically empty so we knew we could move there if we liked. After getting gas at the Safeway gas station (probably the cheapest gas in Alaska at $4.15 per gallon) we stopped by the Forest Service office to see if they had a little wild flower booklet (which they didn’t—I’d find that finally at the Juneau Forest Service Office after buying a nice book in Petersburg). In front of the office next to a rhody just coming intp bloom there was this blue poppy. For those of you who aren’t gardeners, blue poppies are an exotic in the Seattle area and really hard to grow. Obviously that’s not true in Ketchikan.
From here we drove to Totem Bight Park to look at more totems. This park is a much nicer park than the Saxman park we’d visited the day before. The park itself is lovely with a great ocean view and the totems are nicely placed along a winding path.
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These totems were in the corners of the room inside the Clan House.
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The collection of totems in this park was brought here as part of a CCC project in the 1930’s. They were saved from villages along the coast where they were rotting and over the years they’ve continued to have carvers make copies to preserve the designs. They are painted with nature dyes and paints so the colors look much more realistic than the bright shiny ones at Saxman.
When we got back to the trailer the tide was in. What a difference a few hours can make.
After lunch and a nap we decided to take the Lunch Creek Falls Loop trail that starts right in the campground about 30 yards from our campsite. It’s a lovely trail that first leads to a bridge where you can see Lunch Creek Falls and then up to a viewing platform for a closer look at the falls.
From the bridge that goes over the creek the view out to the cove is really lovely.
And this is what it looks like strait up stream.
From there we opted to take the loop trail rather than the longer more challenging trail that follows the creek up the mountain side. The loop trail is a wonderful hike through the rainforest mostly on boardwalk covered with pieces of shingles so you won’t slip on it when it’s wet (which is most of the time).
The first thing I noticed was that the skunk cabbage here was really happy. I’ve never seen such huge plants before.
And then there were the bunchberries (Cornus canadensis). At home I’m excited when I see one or two growing together. Here they grow in masses. On this first hike I was so excited by all that I saw I kept taking photo after photo of them. Their flowers were smaller than those I’d seen in the Cascades and tended to be a little green in the shade but there were so many of them.
Here’s a classic close-up for those of you who may not be familiar with them. Their other common name is creeping dogwood.
The trail went up a series of stairs. And then it went up some more. And of course eventually it went down a whole bunch too.
It was damp enough for the moss to be entirely unfurled. I love how it looks like odd little umbrellas.
The mosquitos were out from the start when we arrived at the campground so I’d put on some DEET right after we arrived. Walter being a he-man demurred. But after we had been hiking for a while the bugs got to him so he put on his bug net over his hat. It worked really well and he didn’t get any bites. Here he is in front of the falls with it on as we completed the hike.
After dinner the sun actually peeked out and I went out to take few more photos. Here’s the cove in the late evening sunshine. Notice the sandy beach. That’s pretty much all the sandy beach in the entire Ketchikan area.
I climbed around on the rocks and shot a close-up of the kelp that covers all the rocks around here and of course slipped and got my sandaled foot in a tide pool. Oh the smell of wet wool in the morning!
In Part VI we’ll move up to Ward Lake and take a hike around the lake there and then take the ferry from Ketchikan to Petersburg.