Valdez to Teslin Yukon
Day 41 July 9, 2012Valdez
No sign of the sun to start the day but it wasn’t raining which is always a bonus. We did see it as a dim yellow orb once or twice today but no true sunshine.
We collected up the laundry, the bag of quarters, the Lonely Planet Guidebook and the map of Valdez and set out for town at about 10:30. After going around the block once we found the Just Like Home Laundromat which was “Closed for Repairs”. Time to punt. The good news is that we were just ½ a block from the Valdez Visitor’s Center and shock of shock they were open. They said that the Just Like Home place had been closed for years as far as they knew. But that there was a laundry in the Tesero Station behind the Safeway that was the best in town.
Okey, Dokey off we went the couple of blocks to the Tesoro station which said they had a laundry but you couldn’t tell from the outside where it was. Walter went it and found it and then we drug all the bags and basket and hangers in. It was very busy. The good news is that there were 4 open washers. The bad news is that one of them had clothes in it. I started working on loading my clothes into one and a fisherman came in and snatched up one of the open washers. I got Walter to put some clothes in the other open one and I started to work only to discover the bottle of detergent I bought 2 weeks ago was fabric softener! So off to Safeway I went to buy soap. By the time I got back one more washer was open so we loaded it up and then Walter took the laundry out of the abandoned one because a lady said it had had clothes in it since she had gotten there nearly 2 hours ago. They cost $2 a load which is what I’ve been paying this whole trip. I settled down to wait and Walter went off for a walk to check out the Alaska Halibut House where we planned to have lunch and then just to stretch his legs by walking around the outside of the Safeway.
The good news is that this place had twice the number of dryers as they had washers. So there were open dryers when the washers were done. I loaded up 4 dryers and paid $2 a load to get them started. Meanwhile a steady stream of fishermen came in with their single loads of laundry and kept the washers full. It turns out that there was a 30 hour pause in commercial fishing and ALL the boats were in and so the fishermen were taking advantage of it to get their clothes clean.
All but one load got dry within the allotted time and we folded everything else while the last load got finished. I’m always tired when I get 2 weeks of laundry done. Part of it the actual work of doing laundry and part of it is sitting in the Laundromat listening to the washers and dryers run. When all the washers stopped at one point, I gave an enormous sigh of relief to have the noise level go down.
After we got the clean clothes loaded into the truck we drove around the corner to the Alaska Halibut House. I wanted some halibut in Alaska and we couldn’t find any at a reasonable price in Homer so Walter went on a mission to get me some here. This was basically a fast food joint that served fish and chips. You could get 4 pieces of halibut in a basket of fries for $18. I got the basket with 2 pieces of halibut and 2 butterflied prawns for $15 while Walter had the fried chicken sandwich. It was very good fish but I still think that deep frying such a delicate fish is really a shame. But I’ve had my halibut now and certainly have had my grease allotment for a good period of time.
After lunch Walter stopped to ask one of the fishermen who was in for lunch what price they were getting for fish. He said it depended on who was buying but mostly they got $0.70 a pound for pink salmon and $1.20 for reds. He said if they caught any king salmon they kept them for themselves. He said that there were reds everywhere this year but that nobody knew where the kings had gone. He didn’t know that the Kenai hadn’t opened this year for Kings and was pretty shocked.
From there we drove down to the Small Boat Harbor and walked around. It was full of seiners and we had fun taking pictures of them. In another area of the harbor there were fish cutters who were working on the fish that people brought in from their own small boats. You pay a buy to filet your fish and toss the fish guts down a trough that goes into the harbor. The gulls were all gathered but there were no eagles around.
We walked to the end of the harbor and back and then took the road out of town to Mineral Creek Road which is supposed to go 5 ½ miles out of town to a hike. During the winter they have cross country ski trails and snowmobile routes. In the summer they don’t take care of the road and it was one big pot hole. We drove 1 ½ miles until we came to place where a bridge was out and you had to drive down a steep incline and then through a deep fast creek. We parked and got swarmed by mosquitos as soon as we got out. So we put on our head nets and jackets. Then we walked up the road past several very nice waterfalls. The views in the valley were lovely and the view back to the mountains in town was great too. We got tired walking on the rough rock road and turned around when we came to the 3rd waterfall.
We drove back to the trailer, unloaded the laundry and put it away and then took a good nap. Then we took showers—lots of hot water in the somewhat rundown but totally adequate shower rooms provided by the campground. A mile and half of bad road had really worn us out so we are concerned about whether we will be able to weather the McCarthy Road or not. We did some research and checked road conditions. It sounds like the first 10 miles are pretty awful. We’ll just have to play it by ear. The good news is that at this point we have already visited some mines and have seen a lot of glaciers. So if we don’t make it all the way to Kennecott it won’t be the end of the world. The plan at the moment is to go the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Visitor’s Center (on the main highway) and then drive at least to Chitina tomorrow. From there who knows?
Day 42 July 10, 2012
Valdez to Glennallen via Chitina
It rained all night last night and we awoke to puddles everywhere in the campground. The good news is there wasn’t one right outside our door or by the door to the pickup. The bad news is there was a big deep one right where the tongue of the trailer was. Ah well. It was about 47 degrees and raining when we began the process to breaking camp. We filled the water tank, hooked up the trailer (with me standing in the middle of the puddle and NOT getting my socks wet for a change) and then we used the dump station.
We motored back into Valdez to the Safeway to do a few days-worth of shopping and found a parking place without too much difficulty. This was a small Safeway but not bad—no deli counter but they did have a salad bar and fried chicken and that sort of thing. Since there are so many fisherman in this town that makes sense I guess. From Safeway we went over a block to the Tesoro and topped of the gas tank. It was raining hard as we headed north out of Valdez and we both remarked that 47 and raining felt like January in Seattle to us.
As we climbed into the mountains the temperature continued to drop. By the time we hit Thompson Pass (2,678 feet) the temperature was wavering between 36 and 37 and there was wet slushy snow hitting the windshield. You could see the snowline on the surrounding mountains and it was sticking at about 3,000 feet. Definitely January in Seattle! We also hit fog about this point so you could tell what the ceiling was—low. The good news is that the road descends quickly so we were back out of the fog again quickly. The temperature rose again but never got above 44 for the rest of the drive.
We decided we’d take the Edgerton Highway out to Chitina and see what we could see and visit the Ranger Station there even though we’d come to the conclusion already that we’d not be driving the road to McCarthy in the rain. It was coming on lunchtime when we reached Liberty Falls State Recreation Center and I turned in so we could have lunch there while we saw the falls. Bad news. The road was rutty mud and steep. We both reacted the same way, “We can’t go down there!” But it wasn’t an easy entrance to get out of. I tried backing up and of course a car came and got behind me wanting to go into the park. Walter got out and waved me into a place where they could get in but by them I was pretty much jackknifed. He changed places with me and I made sure there wasn’t any traffic and that he didn’t back into the ditch and he got us turned around.
You could only get a little glimpse of the falls from the road but that was plenty for me! We stopped for lunch at the next turn out and I didn’t even try to hike back to see the falls. It was 50 degrees in the trailer at lunch. Talk about having a winter picnic. We ate quickly and got back into the nice warm truck. Chitina was only another 10 miles down the road and we found a parking spot in front of a wonderful old building with a sign that said Chitina Emporium complete with dusty bottles in the window.
We went and visited the Ranger Station and watched a really nice movie about the Kennecott Mine. The ranger was very personable and said that she was sure we could drive the road it would just be very slow and might not be worth our while given how long it would take. They’ve closed the big Kennecott Mill building for stabilization and restoration work and it was one of the big draws. It’s a 14 story building the climbs the hill. We learned all about it and how it worked in the movie. She convinced us that we should drive the first mile of the McCarthy Road across the bridge and over to the campground where we could easily turn around.
The road starts out through a very narrow cut in the rock hillside—part of the original railroad grade. If you meet someone coming there they folks returning to Chitina get to yield to the folks going out the road. Then we hit construction where we sat long enough I turned off the engine. They were working on landslide prevention I guess since they were using a front loader to dig out the hillside some. The bridge is the only crossing of the upper portion of the Copper River. It’s pretty long and very new. The campground on the other hand is one of those free-for-all affairs that stretches along the river’s edge. There was trash piled up next to a porta-potty and a few picnic tables here and there. Out on the river there was a row of 12 fish wheels out in the river. Only one was turning but there were people out working on several of them. We saw a guy drive his 4-wheel ATV out into the shallows of the fast moving river and over to one of the wheels. There was also at least one motor boat out with people using dip nets in the river. I took photos and then we motored back to Chitina to take a photo of the pretty little lake across from the ranger station.
There was a pair of backpackers standing next to the lake looking as if they were trying to hitchhike out the McCarthy road. I wish them luck since it was going on 4 pm and it takes at least 3 if not 5 hours to drive the road. I don’t think there were many folks starting out that late in the afternoon. We checked our trusty campground book (the blue Alaskan Camping by the Churches) and decided that the best place to go was Northern Nights RV Park in Glennallen. So I drove the 33 miles back to the highway and then Walter drove the 30 miles up Richardson Highway to Glennallen.
As we drove out the Edgerton we passed a farm with strange black beasts. They weren’t exactly cattle and they weren’t musk ox. We slowed down and the sign on the fence said they were Tibetan Yaks! I took photos but they were all eating so I’m not sure they came out well. By this point the rain had let up and it was mostly just spitting. It had started to clear to the south and you could see the lower elevation mountains of the Chugach Range dusted with a heavy coating of snow like someone had taken a sifter full of powdered sugar to them. Behind them very white peaks were just starting to show.
We got a spot okay at Northern Nights. It had a tree or bush or more between sites so you aren’t cheek by jowl. And they aren’t full which helps too. There’s a bright yellow picnic table right outside our dining room window which reflects yellow light that makes me think from time to time that the sun has come out. The rain has stopped but not it’s windy. Who knows what we’ll get tomorrow, though it is supposed to warm up some.
Our plan is to drive back south 10 miles to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Visitor’s Center and then drive up the highway to the Nabesna Road which goes into the northern section of the park. It’s supposed to be in better shape than the McCarthy road at least for the first 28 miles. We can drop the trailer at an RV park right at the beginning of the road and then drive out with the truck. If it’s raining, it’ll just be a road trip. If it’s not then maybe we’ll take a hike.
Day 43 July 11, 2012
Glennallen to Slana
Wonders of wonders the sun woke me up shining through a break in the blinds at 5 am this morning. Blue sky and 50 degrees (warmer than it got all day yesterday) at 8 am. Thank you Mother Nature for the kindness of sun after a very wet cold day. It was breezy along with being sunny when we got up. I did my exercise band exercises outside in the sun where it was brisk if I stayed too long in the shade of the trailer. Then we broke camp and motored into Glennallen to top off the gas tank. There was a traffic jam at the gas station but it didn’t take long to get to a pump.
Once we were gassed up we went south 10 miles to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Visitor’s Center. You could see Mt. Drum clear as a bell with only one wispy cloud in the way as we drove down. I took photos from the overlook at the Visitor’s Center first thing, not trusting the clouds to stay away. Then we explored the exhibits in the exhibit building (separate from the main visitor center building) and then went into the visitor center itself. They have a CD that you can get that narrates the drive on the Nabesna Road which you can get for a donation of $2. We got it and then asked about the movie. It was going to start in 3 minutes in the theater in the next building so we walked over and hardly had a moment to wait until it began. It was a great movie about the geology, topography and biology of the park with wonderful photography. I’m always so grateful that they have such good movies because there are so many place in a park this size that I’ll never get to and now at least I’ve seen a bunch of it from the air and from the ground.
We went back into the visitor center after the movie so I could look at the big relief map of the park and make a quick round of the book store. Then we hopped into the car to drive north to the tiny town of Slana which is just off the Tok Cut-off Road on the Nabesna Road. I got Walter to stop at the view point we had stopped at on Sunday so I could take more photos of Mt. Drum and Mt Sanford. Sanford wasn’t all the way out of the clouds but Mt. Drum was perfect.
Then we motored on with me taking photos from the car window from time and time and Walter turning off at viewpoints when he could so I could take photos of Mt. Sanford as it appeared out from the clouds. As we drove north and east Mt. Sanford got bigger and bigger and showed his real size in comparison to Mt. Drum. From Glennallen, it looks like Mt Drum is taller than Mt Sanford. But when you get north of them both you can see that in fact Mt Sanford is much taller. Drum is only 12,010 ft. while Sanford is 16,237 ft. In the end I got some truly wonderful photos of both of them. Hot diggity for wonderful clear days especially when you weren’t expecting them. Last night the forecast said it was going to be cloudy at best and we might have showers. To have clear blue skies and sun instead was a miracle.
We had no wildlife sightings to speak of though I did spy 2 swans at the far side of a kettle pond on the Tok Cutoff Road.
We got to Slana at about 1:30 just at the lady who owns the Hart D Ranch was arriving from her job at the post office (which is right next door to her house). She got on her 4 wheeler and showed us the way to our site and then sat down at the picnic table and checked us in. We got a pull-through site with power, water and sewer and Wi-Fi (which you have to go to the main office area to use) for $38. The place is for sale because she is here running the place alone at age 71. She said she had lost her family to death and hadn’t been in a store for a year. She’s an artist (sculpture), runs the post office and runs a B and B and RV park all by herself. Amazing at any age.
After we got set up and had lunch we took our new CD and climbed in the truck to drive the Nabesna Road out into Wrangell-St Elias. This road goes 42 miles but it has 3 creek crossings that can get dicey after it rains. We’d heard at the Visitor Center that the creeks were high and the post man had gotten stuck in one so we hadn’t expected to get to drive the whole way. In the end we made it through the first crossing because it was dry but the second at Mile 30.8 was too steep and too deep for us. We have a policy that you don’t drive through water if you can’t see the bottom and I couldn’t see the bottom and neither could Walter.
The drive was lovely and there were very few cars on it. The first 11 miles or so were paved! Then it becomes dirt and it was pretty muddy in places but because it’s a full 2 lanes wide and there was so little traffic you could pick what part of the road to drive on and stay out of trouble. There were pot holes but nothing serious and no washboard areas at all. We had some views south to Mt Sanford but he had clouds on his top in the afternoon. I was very glad I’d gotten my good photos earlier. But there were nice views of what I think were the Mentasta Mountains to the north and some of the small mountains of the Wrangell Mountains further southeast. In any case there were lots of snow-capped mountains to take pictures of and a number of very pretty little lakes.
We stopped and explored the newly renovated Kendesnii Campground at Twin Lakes. It had 3 rigs in it and the folks were all sitting outside enjoying the sun and swatting at mosquitos. It’s very pretty but there’s a lot of standing water in bogs in the campground which means mosquitos. It would have been an okay place to camp tonight but we were fine with the fact we hadn’t had to two Rosita out there and back on the bumpy muddy road.
The drive back went faster than out because we didn’t need to stop as much and we knew the road better. The sun was on our laps and got pretty sleepy riding along as Walter drove (I’d drive out). When we got back we both hit the sack right away. A large trailer arrived and parked right next to us while we were asleep and neither of us heard them—even with the windows open.
After our nap we took time to plan out how far we were going to drive tomorrow. We are way ahead of schedule now having not spent all those days going to McCarthy. So we will take our time going to Carcross, the site of our next excursion—to Skagway.
Tomorrow (Thursday) the plan is to drive to Beaver City. The next day (Friday) we can drive to Haines Junction and then on Saturday we’ll stop at the hot springs outside of Whitehorse and then go down to Carcross. Hopefully the forecast for decent weather on Sunday will hold for our scenic drive to Skagway and back.
Day 44 July 12, 2012
Slana, Alaska to Beaver Creek, Yukon
It was sunny again when we woke up this morning. There were a few high clouds but it was over 50 degrees and that’s good news. We had showers after breakfast over at the big house. She has several very nice hotel-style rooms in the lower level and a Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ rooms with 2 toilets and a shower in each. There was plenty of hot water and everything worked except the light in the shower stall. Once you pulled the shower curtain closed it was kind of dark but my eyes adjusted in time and it was fine. The shower area was warm and clean and all was good.
Our hostess was stripping beds in one of the rooms as we left and we stopped to talk to her a moment. It turns out that she and her husband homesteaded this place back in the late 1950’s. Then in 1976 she got the contract for the Post Office while her husband was in the hospital so she built the log cabin that is the post office (right next door to her house) by herself. She’s an amazing lady.
We finally broke camp and then stopped by at the Ranger Station so I could make sure of the names of the mountains that I’d photographed yesterday. The ones to the north are the Mentastas and so was the one I could see across the creek, though they call those the Boyden Hills in the Park.
From the Ranger Station we hit the road north on the Tok Cutoff. Mt. Sanford was out again with a few clouds but it came out fully for one last photo before we reached Tok. At Tok we joined the Alaska Highway going southwest toward the Canadian Border. We stopped for lunch at a rest area we’d stopped at on our way in and then switched drivers. The Fireweed is finally fully in bloom in places along the road as is a little yellow stalk of a flower that I think the locals call Dune Goldenrod.
We stopped and topped up the gas tank in Border City, our last US gas station for a while. Canadian Customs is on the far side of the 20 mile no-man’s-land between the US and Canada which means it’s right before you reach Beaver Creek. We were ready for the border ahead of time thinking that it was just across the road from the US Customs but it’s not.
We rolled into the Westmark RV park at 3:30 only to discover that it was 4:30 because we’re back in Pacific Time. It’s a big gravel parking lot with a few trees between each site and it was pretty empty when we arrived. We parked as far back from the road as we could get. It was warm (as in 74 degrees) in the trailer when we got set up and we both felt hot. Two days ago it was 50 degrees in the trailer when we went to set up. Talk about wild temperature changes.
We set up camp and then fished the groceries out of the storage container in the back of the pickup truck. That gives us food for the last 16 days of our trip. Of course having done that, it meant that I had to find a place for it all. I didn’t all fit so I pulled out the storage bins under the bed and put the food for the last five days down there. In the process I pulled out the mostly empty bin in the very back and discovered that 2 of the empty canning jars I’d tossed in there had broken. Oh joy. So we cleaned out everything and Walter took the container with the broken glass to the trash can. I guess that goes to show that we’ve hit some pretty good bumps over the last few weeks.
Once the food was taken care of Walter took a nap while I took the laptop back to the office to use the Wi-Fi. There were tables in the laundry area where you could sit so I took my time picking up the email and checking the weather for the next few days. It looks like we may get a few more days without rain and with temps in the 60’s which sounds pretty wonderful to both of us.
After I made dinner we spent some time with the campground book and the Milepost and decided that we’d drive to Pine Lake Campground just past Haines Junction tomorrow. It’s a Yukon Territory campground on a supposedly nice lake. I’m hoping that we’ll have the energy for a hike when we get there but tomorrow is the worst section of the Alaskan Highway and we were pretty tired when we finished driving it last time.
Day 45 July 13, 2012
Beaver Creek to Haines Junction Yukon
It was cloudy when we woke up but by the time we’d broken camp and dumped our tanks the sun was trying to come out. It wasn’t long before the sun was out and so were the mountains. Frost heaves make it interesting to try to take photos from a moving car! In the end Walter found a wide spot for us to pull over so I could take some photos of what are probably the Kluane Range.
There was a long (6 miles) gravel section today that was still under construction. They had a pilot car for about half of it. 3 weeks ago that section was maybe 1 mile or two and it was wet—both from rain and from the sprinkler truck. This time most of it was dry and dusty. We stopped for a potty break just before this section and talked with a guy from Texas who was heading southward too. He noticed that there weren’t a lot of cars in comparison when they came up 3 ½ weeks ago. They’d seen some wild life in the last day including moose and bears. I guess it’s just not our turn right now. Aside from some squirrels we didn’t see a thing today.
After lunch we hit yet another long gravel section—this one maybe 5 miles and again it was dusty. I just made sure I stayed way back from the folks in front of me so we had our own little dust free bubble. We stopped at the rest area just south of Kluane Lake to take photos and there was a German family out playing with their kids—jump rope and Frisbee. There was a very still pond at the very bottom of the lake that Sheep Mountain was completely reflected in. But there was nowhere to pull off so I missed a really great photo.
We stopped in Haines Junction to get gas and there was a traffic jam in the gas station. There were 4 or 5 big RV’s who all arrived at once and were in line for diesel and gas. They looked like they might be a caravan. The other weird thing at the gas station is that it was a pump and then pay station just like the one in Border City. Everyone is trained to either swipe their card or go in and give them cash or their card before they pump and now here are two stations that just want you to pump and come in and pay when you’re done. Ah the wonders of trust in the north country.
We arrived at Pine Lake Campground at about 3:30 and there were maybe 4 rigs here. We found a nice level spot with a slice of a view of the lake and set up camp. There were mosquitos so Walter deigned to put on some DEET before we went to turn in our payment envelope and take a little hike. We walked back up to the entrance to look at the map of the place since I’d read there was a nature trail we could hike. It seemed to start down at the beach so we took the road down to the beach and looked around. The water was emerald green with nice views both to the hills in the north and to the mountains in the west. Walter found the trail and we followed it a little ways and discovered it was flooded. We detoured around the flood and went a ways more until we met yet another flooded area. One more detour and we were next to our campsite and the trail was flooded again. So we bagged it and came back to have a snack and talk about what we will do tomorrow. We had talked about going to the hot springs outside of Whitehorse but they are just a big heated swimming pool that they keep at 100 degrees. This didn’t excite either one of us so we opted to go ahead with the original plan of going to Carcross in preparation for our drive down to Skagway. We’ll stop and do grocery shopping in Whitehorse (the big city). There are two choices for camping in Carcross, a territorial park like this one with no power and a private one that has power, showers and Wi-Fi. It will probably lack ambience but we’re leaning towards it since we’ll be there two nights and will need showers.
The sun is still out and shining brightly and it’s nearly 9 pm. A squirrel has tried to climb up the screen door so Walter has closed it and gone off in search for the water source in this place since our water jugs are low. I have flower ID to do since I saw a number of new ones today in the rest areas and here at Pine Lake. In the woods the Single Delight was still in bloom (and my camera still won’t focus on the flowers). But out in the sun the fireweed is just starting to bloom.
Day 46 July 14, 2012
Pine Lake to Carcross
It was cloudy when we got up but not real cold. It didn’t take long to break camp and hit the road. I saw a few new wildflowers at the rest stop we stopped at outside of Whitehorse plus the tiny little blue flowers I saw yesterday that my camera refuses to focus on. The area west of Whitehorse is an old Ice Age lakebed –a big one like Lake Missoula. The soil is very sandy and the trees look much healthier than when they are growing in muskeg.
We followed Carmine’s instructions to the Canadian Superstore which is a BIG grocery store much like a WalMart but nicer. We did our shopping with some difficulty. The first hurtle was to figure out how to get the grocery cart out of the line. They were attached with chains like the ones we saw in England 15 years ago. But these required a Loonie and THEN you had to push the coin in with the little chain handle and pop, the chain came loose and you could use the cart. We didn’t have a Loonie so Walter went to the Customer Service desk and they gave him one to use and told him to bring it back when he was done!
With some difficulty we found everything we were looking for. It’s interesting to see how every store has a different method to the madness of where things go and what belongs with what. They didn’t have pepper jack but they had pepper Havarti which is pretty close. The fruit was pretty sorry looking (mostly apples and a few plums) but the veggies were nice. They also had a bakery where you could buy individual hamburger and hot dog buns—no having to buy 10 of them! When you’re in a trailer these things are a real boon. No wine though, you have to buy all your liquor at the state run store. It was a ways away so Walter suggested we get a bottle in Skagway tomorrow.
It was after 1 when we were done with our shopping but we decided to get out of town before we ate. Then Carmine gave us very unhelpful instructions (drive to a street we didn’t know and couldn’t find) but in the end we made it out of town and onto Yukon 2 which goes south to Carcross and eventually Skagway.
We stopped at a nice little territorial recreation area which was day use only. It was on Kookatsoon Lake which was another of those lovely marl lined lakes that have such nice colors. After lunch we motored on and stopped at Emerald Lake (a REALLY wonderful marl-lined lake with fabulous colors). I also got some nice photos of the mountains to the west which I think are the Grey Ridge Range. Just a little ways further down the road we came to the Carcross Desert. It’s not really a desert, just a set of nifty sand dunes with a few pine trees growing in them. We got out and took a few photos and talked with some other tourists who noted that I had on my Death Valley National Park t-shirt that shows the sand dunes there. Pretty funny.
We at last arrived in Carcross and turned in at the Montana RV Park and gas station. There were two rigs parked in their lot but all the spaces had dandelions in bloom in them. Something was funny. We got to the main office door and it said closed until further notice. Oops. Time to punt. The good news is that there was a territorial park just a tenth a mile back up the road, next to the airport. So we drove in there and found a nice treed spot and set up camp. We paid for 2 nights since we’ll be driving to Skagway tomorrow and won’t be back until late afternoon (check-out is at noon). We’ll spend the night here again tomorrow even though there isn’t power.
We rested a while and Walter went looking for the water spigot. He found the spigot but there wasn’t any water! We needed water so we took a look at the guidebooks and decided maybe we could get some at the Visitor’s Center. So off we went to beautiful downtown Carcross. We found the Visitor’s Center (in the old original Railroad station building) and asked about water. They didn’t know that there was even a spigot at our campground. However they were happy to fill a couple of 1 gallon jugs for us so we’re good for drinking water for another couple of days. We have 5 gallons in the big blue jug in the pickup if the trailer needs water.
I asked about hikes both in Carcross and in Skagway and we picked up other literature while we were there. Then we went to see the burned remains of the sternwheeler Tutshi (I have a photo from 1967 before it was restored and then burned in the late 90’s). We also went and paid our respects to The Duchess, an old mini-railroad engine that was used on a different lake at the turn of the century and then brought to Carcross.
I wandered around and found the Railroad station that I photographed in 1967. Now it had a row of tourists eating ice cream in front of it. The railroad trestle was there and so was a nice foot bridge out over the lake. So we hiked over to the bridge and talked to the fishermen (they weren’t catching anything) and got some photos of Lake Bennet. By now it was after 5 so we went back to the trailer and talked about what we were going to do tomorrow and then took a nap.
Tomorrow we’ll drive down to Skagway and go to the National Historic Park Visitor’s Center to see the movie and then take one or two of the hikes we have info on. There’s a nice waterfall to see over by the old cemetery, there’s a view point to hike out to in the bay and there’s a trail over by the beginning of the Chilkoot Trail to sample.
The clouds didn’t stay around today. By the time we got to Whitehorse they had begun to break up and most of the afternoon it was sunny. It’s still clear now at 10 pm. I hope it will be this nice tomorrow. It was in the low 70’s today which was a real treat.
We tried the cell phone again today and had no luck. I guess the darned thing doesn’t work in The Yukon like they said that it would. We’ll check for messages etc. tomorrow in Skagway.
Day 47 July 15, 2012
Skagway daytrip
It was cloudy when we woke up but even by the time we’d had breakfast and packed our lunch the sun was trying to come through the clouds. It was out for most of our trip to Skagway, save a patch of fog at the pass on our way down—it had burned off by the time we came back several hours later.
We stopped at all the turnouts we could going down. The mountains got taller and the view got progressively better as we drove along. The water in some of the lakes was emerald and others were sapphire blue. Sometimes a green one would be right next to a blue one producing some very interesting contrasts. The area at the top of White Pass is very strange. It is very bare sharp rock with lichens with kettle ponds and little ponds all mixed in amongst the hummocks of rock. When you come to a bigger lake it all looks wrong—like they built at dam to make a reservoir in an area where water doesn’t look at home. There weren’t any turn outs in this area so I didn’t get photos of this.
There were nice waterfalls here and there and you could see the narrow-gauge railroad line part of the time. There aren’t any views of the really high trestles that I remember. I asked about that at the National Historic Park Visitor’s Center and the ranger thought the ones I remember are probably in the part nearer Whitehorse that isn’t used any more. Who knows.
We got into Skagway at about 11:30 their time (Alaska time again) and got gas and found a place to park with time to spare before the noon showing of the movie about the Klondike Stampede. It was pretty good—though not as good as many of the other National Park videos we’ve seen. We wandered down Broadway, the main drag of Skagway and I took photos of the old buildings. There was only one cruise ship in town and there were very few tourists roaming around so we had the place mostly to ourselves. In fact, I stood in the middle of Broadway and took a photo towards the waterfront without having to think about any traffic.
We had a cell signal and phone worked so we checked messages both on the cell and at home (nothing happening) and Walter called his brother to see how he was doing. We also stopped by the Liquor Store which is right across the street from the Visitor’s Center and bought a bottle of wine that should take us until we’re out of the Yukon.
It was getting on to lunchtime so we drove out to the old cemetery and had our lunch before taking the hike through the cemetery and up to see Lower Reid Falls. The falls are really nice though taking a photo of the whole thing was a bit of a challenge that required some rock climbing on my part. The rocks here are not smooth river rock but very sharp-edged and unfriendly.
After the cemetery, we drove out to Dyea the original settlement here where the Chilkoot Trail starts. The road is paved for the first 3 miles or so and there’s a nifty overlook where you can see all of Skagway spread out below. Then the road turns to dirt and gets narrower and narrower until it’s only one lane with pull offs here and there. It’s one of those roads where they keep telling you “Road Narrows” and you wonder how in the world it could get any narrower. The view of the bay and estuary at Dyea was lovely. It’s emerald green from glacial melt. The old town site is a long flat area across the river from the road and there were cars out there so I guess you can drive around. We didn’t go across the bridge to explore there.
We did drive through the campground looking for water. There wasn’t any but it’s appears to be a very nice campground with some decent sized sites. I wouldn’t have wanted to haul Rosita out there but we did see someone pulling an old 16ft Casita out when we were driving back. Having finished with the campground we drove out to the Chilkoot Trail trailhead which is right by the bridge that goes across the river. The views from the bridge are worth the drive. Then we walked along the flat beginning of the trail and Walter chose to sit and wait for me at some benches while I hiked out the first section of the trail. It goes straight up to begin with. It’s rocky and full of roots and I just had tennis shoes on. But I made the first section up to where you register for the trail and then turned back.
On the drive back to Carcross we stopped and had a look at Pitchfork Falls where they have a pipe that goes all the way up to the top of the mountain. It turns out it’s a hydroelectric project that provides power for both Skagway and Haines.
We got home without seeing any wildlife today—not even a squirrel. We’re both pretty tired at this point. I noticed it when we hiked to the falls. We just don’t have much power left and all this riding around for miles and miles is taking its toll. I fell asleep in the truck on the way back and then we both hit the sack for a nap when we got back to the trailer.
Tomorrow we’ll explore Atlin Lake Road and then go on to Teslin. The plan is to camp someplace with power and showers!
Day 48 July 16, 2012
Carcross to Teslin Yukon
It was sunny when we woke up and the wind that had blown so hard last night was gone. But the clouds descended on us pretty quickly. I put on a coat of DEET and did my exercise band exercises outside with my fleece on and then we packed up to motor on down the road. Our plan was to find some place to drop the trailer and then drive down the Atlin Road to see the views there which were supposed to be very pretty. But we had no luck finding a place to put the trailer, the weather was cloudy and gray and neither of us had the energy for a drive down 40 miles of dirt road and back. So we bagged it and drove to the next place that sounded like it would have a good place with power, water, showers and Wi-Fi. That turned out to be a 90 mile drive to just east of Teslin, Yukon which took us about 2 hours.
We were checked in at the Dawson Peaks RV Park by 1:00 and had an afternoon off. What a concept. The mosquitos here are pretty fierce and somehow we got a bunch of them in the trailer and spent the afternoon swatting and squashing. Now 8 hours later we think we’ve got them all. We’ve also had showers ($2--you have to have two $1 coins to make the showers work for 7 minutes) and are up to date with our email and FaceBook and the like. The campground is great with trees between the sites. The showers were hot but the changing area was pretty darned small. We filled our water tank up to the brim since we were nearly out of water and topped of our 5-gallon back-up jug and our drinking water jugs.
The sun peaked out in the late afternoon but neither of us wanted to open up the door and let in any more mosquitos so we didn’t go down and look at the lake. Hopefully it will at least not be raining come morning and I’ll take a photo of it then. Lake Teslin seems to be a pretty big lake in a series of big lakes that stretch from Lake Bennet in Carcross nearly 100 miles away. The scenery on today’s drive was pretty once we got back on the Alaskan Highway. It was supposed to be pretty on the Tagish Loop road but it was mostly just Taiga. There was a mountain ridge just as we joined the Alaska Highway at Jakes Corner that reminded me a great deal of the rocks along the top of White Pass. Clearly this mountain has been thrust up above the valley or worn down by a glacier long past, to reveal the whole rock that underlies the pass.
Tomorrow the plan is to drive to Watson Lake and see the Signpost Forest and spend the night before we start the drive down the Cassair Highway to Hyder/Stewart.
To continue to follow our trip got to Part IX.