The trail turns out to be the most popular one in all of Ketchikan. On a partly sunny day there were a lot of locals walking the trail on their lunch hours and women out with their kids getting some fresh air.
Besides the people there were flowers! These pretty little stream violets (Viola glabella) were all along the trail and there was even a patch of them in our campsite.
The trail has a couple of nice bridges over the creek that feeds the lake and the one that drains it. They were pretty little creeks but they didn’t make very good pictures.
The far side of the lake from the campground had lots more flowers. There was false lily of the valley (Mainanthemum dilatatum) coming into bloom. The heart shaped leaves carpeted the area along the trail. The common name for them in Alaska is Deer Heart.
There were also bunches of bunchberry some with flowers much bigger than those on the trail down at Settlers Cove.
A native red squirrel came out and scolded us and then stayed still long enough for me to take a photo of him. These guys look an awful lot like our native Douglas Squirrels from home.
The view opened up to give us a great look at the mountains from this side of the lake. The buildings in the photo are the day use picnic shelters.
For those of you who haven’t ever seen one here’s a skunk cabbage in bloom. Most of the plants were well past blooming but there were a few with flowers left and since I’d been raving about how big the plants were I thought I should show what the flowers are like.
There were also some Siberian Spring Beauty (Montia sibirica) in bloom along the trail.
And there were Salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis) in bloom--a little bit of home along the trail.
We spent the afternoon hanging out in the trailer reading and resting. It was good to have a down day after being so busy the first week of our trip.
We had the next morning free before we had to check in at the ferry dock at 1:45 so we motored back down to the Safeway and parked there so we could walk down into the old town portion of Ketchikan. It was kind of cloudy but it wasn’t raining and there were 4 cruise ships in town again. It’s amazing all the things they come up with to entertain the cruise ship passengers for the few hours they are in town. There are duck boat tours that take them both on the water and through town.
And there are strange little electric cars for people to rent to motor around in.
We walked and gawked at the tourists gawking at Ketchikan. Before you get to the cruise ship docks there is actually a bit of real town, including the local hardware store with tomato plants on sale. They weren’t very happy looking plants and I don’t give anyone much of a chance for getting fruit without a greenhouse but they get an A for effort at least.
We hiked past a number of float plane docks full up with planes.
And of course since there were cruise ships in town there were planes taking off.
One of the float plane docks was next to a fish processing plant. Guess who was hanging out there?
The best part of the walk were the stained glass ‘flags’ along the promenade in front of the cruise ships.
At the end of our walk we stopped in a little park and I took this photo of an eagle sculpture that sits in the middle of the traffic flow--cruise ships on one side and cars and tourists on the other.
We walked back in time to check in for the ferry and have our lunch before they boarded us. It’s amazing what a process they have to go through to get all the vehicles on the ferry in the right order to get off at their ports while balancing the weight properly for the vessel! The large 37 foot fifth-wheel next to us in line (he was going to Juneau—the last stop--while we were going to Petersburg—the second stop) had to back down the ramp into the ferry. Yikes. He wasn’t fazed by it but the idea gave a lot of the rest of us in line pause.
We finally got underway and headed northward towards Wrangell. Here's a map of the ferry route. First we'll go to Wrangell and then on up to Petersburg.
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Here’s a panorama view taken about an hour after we got under way.
I love the little islands with the trees on them that dot the channels.
The weather got wetter as we went along and I finally gave up trying to take photos. But when we were in the cafeteria having dinner Walter noticed how cool our wake was so we went out and took this photo to show you. It’s like we’re leaving a road behind us for the sea gulls to follow!
The ferry got into Wrangell a little after 10 pm and it was still light enough for us to see it. There was only a 45 minutes layover while they unloaded and loaded the vehicles and passengers so we didn’t get to see much more than this of Wrangell.
At sunset they turn the lights off in the forward cabin where we were sitting and it was raining pretty hard which made it hard to see much. So we gave up on trying to see what was going on as we passed through the Wrangell Narrows and retreated to a lighted area to read and work on the computer. Folks who stayed said the ship turned 45 times as it met each lighted buoy along the narrows.
The ferry arrived in Petersburg at 1 am and we went down to our truck to wait to unload. As we sat there waiting we realized that the vehicles in front of us didn’t look like they had anyone in them. The longer we sat the more I began to fear they were going to ask me to back up. Sure enough, a nice ferry guy came and tapped on the window and indicated we had to back up a ways and then make a wide turn to go out the front side door. This lady doesn’t back up! So Walter was kind enough to change places with me and he got to back the trailer up about 2/3 of the length of the ferry and then make the turn up the ramp. The man guiding him was really good at it—so good I probably could have followed his instructions and done it but I was very grateful that Walter could do it for me instead especially at nearly 1:30 in the morning.
We spent the night in a city holding lot in the pouring rain. We awoke at 7 am to voices and Walter went out to check what was going on. It was a construction crew waiting to start to do the grading to prepare the lot to build a new library on it! Needless to say we made quick our escape and headed south on the road out of town towards the Trees RV campground where we planned to camp. We stopped at a turnout for breakfast and spotted this Sitka black-tailed deer. There had been another deer with him to start but he/she made a quick getaway while this guy stayed for quite a while.
After breakfast we motored on to the Trees RV Park. Good thing that we had stopped on the way. They didn’t open until 10 am and we arrived just before 10. We chose them because they had power hookups, showers and Wi-Fi. It was time to get clean and get back in touch! We set up camp and I tried to take a nap. Walter caught me with a teddy bear trying to no avail to go to sleep.
In Part VII we’ll take you around Petersburg and it’s environs. We’ll even have another sunny day to share.