July 27, Glacier View to Tok
Rained during the
night and woke to heavy clouds, fog and temps in the low 40's. Just
plain cold and nasty – feel bad for the tenters on either side of
us that are bicycle camping. We continued driving east on the Glenn
Highway, but could see nothing of the mountain scenery behind the
clouds. We took the Tok cutoff, heading slightly north and east. I
was driving and Jack was sleeping when I came around a bend and there
in front of me was a huge grizzly. I slammed on the brakes and
luckily, the bear quickly ran to the side after giving me a “which
way do I go?” panicked momentary stare. One of Jack's purchases, a
huge container of peanut butter filled pretzels that had been wedged
behind the stove tipped over, slid down the counter, clipping the
water faucet on the way to the floor. Luckily, I had a place to pull
over immediately because the faucet had a steady trickle of water
leaking across the counter and onto the floor – where everything
that had not been nailed down was now to be found. Close call for
the bear and luckily we had no damage.
We stopped for the
night at a roadside pullout near a quiet river about 50 miles west of
Tok where the clouds were finally starting to give way to a bit of
sun.
July 28, Tok,
Alaska to Beaver Creek, Yukon
At Tok, we picked
up the Alaska Highway and started southeast, but skies are clouded
over again, so could not see the mountain scenery that we knew was
there somewhere. Jack spotted a moose and her baby in a roadside
pond, but by the time we backed up, she had wandered off into the
woods. Tried to get a campground with WiFi, but it is unstable and
so no blog update.
July 29, Beaver Creek to Whitehorse
It rained most of
the night and we woke to pouring rain. Enough! Continued on the
Alaska Highway and in the afternoon, the clouds started breaking up
so we were able to enjoy some snow capped mountains and lots of
beautiful glacial lakes. We arrived back to Whitehorse, 3,300 miles
and 33 days after we left here. We got a campsite in Whitehorse with
severely limited internet and the clouds started breaking up, giving
us a bit of sun.
July 30, Whitehorse south on Alaska
Highway
We were planning
on driving due south to Skagway and take the fast ferry for a day
trip to Juneau, but the weather for the next five days in both places
called for rain. Jack and I do not handle extended rainy weather
well (we would never survive living in Seattle) and so decided to
skip our trip to Juneau. We had been to Skagway before, and even
though twelve years ago the ferryboat we were on stopped in Juneau,
we had not disembarked because it was 1 a.m. So, we will again miss
seeing the capitol of Alaska that is reachable only by air or boat.
Maybe an Alaskan cruise will be in our future.
We spent the
morning in Whitehorse checking out art galleries where Jack purchased
a pretty piece of fused glass depicting the ubiquitous fireweed
wildflower. We got on the road late and drove til 6pm, getting a
campsite at a provincial park. As we drove in, we realized it was
the same spot we had stopped at on our way north – a great spot
next to a river. We noticed that we were still awake for sunset and
that it actually got dark during the night.
July 31, Alaska Highway to
Stewart-Cassiar Highway
Woke to cloudy
skies, 49 degrees and a couple of sprinkles. No sitting by the river
with my morning coffee this morning....again. Got on the road late
morning and continued to drive east on the Alaska Highway to the
Stewart-Cassiar Highway and headed due south. Stopped for lunch next
to a lake in a provincial park. Would have been a good spot for our
kayak, but it was only in the 50's and some dark clouds around
threatening rain, so we decided to drive on.
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| Cassiar Highway. Decent road, a bit narrow, no guardrails and no center line |
At first, the mountain
scenery was hidden behind the low cloud cover, but we got a mix of
sun of clouds later in the day, with frequent sprinkles. Lots of
pretty, isolated lakes and the road began to curve up the mountains. We did see a couple of creatures along the road.
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| Two babies - where is the Mom? |
We stopped at a nice RV park around 5:30 with WiFi, but as we have
found all over this area, the satellite internet has such limited
bandwidth, it makes it impossible for me to update the blog.
August 1: Stewart-Cassiar Highway
to the Glacier Highway and Stewart-Hyder
It is a new month,
but same old crummy weather this morning. Headed south on the Stewart-Cassiar
Highway and took the 40 mile detour west to the combo towns of
Stewart-Hyder. The drive in was beautiful – the weather cleared up and was mostly
sunny and we got to enjoy gorgeous mountain views with waterfalls and
Bear Glacier.
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| Closeup of blue glacier ice in Bear Glacier |
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| Many waterfalls along the Glacier Highway |
Stewart is in
Canada and 5 minutes away and across the bridge is Hyder, Alaska.
The road to Hyder deadends 25 miles beyond town at a copper mine. We
checked out a couple of campgrounds in Stewart, but ended up staying
Hyder. It turned out to be the perfect choice as the weather was
perfect and the campground host said we should do our sightseeing
today as tomorrow is supposed to rain.
We didn't even stop at the
campsite, but kept right on going out the mine road to see Salmon
Glacier, about 20 miles up the mountain on a pot-hole filled road
with no guardrails and steep drop-offs.
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| The road to Salmon Glacier |
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| Sometimes it felt like we were in a video game turning and twisting trying to avoid the potholes |
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| Someone has a sense of humor - probably a Dept. of Transportation employee.... |
We were rewarded with some
fabulous views of the largest road-accessible glacier in the world.
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| This glacier makes a hard left turn... |
It took us over two hours to negotiate the terrible road up and down,
so we drove back to Stewart to grab a pizza.
Afterward dinner, we
drove back out to Hyder and found a parking place at Fish Creek where
the salmon were running and hopefully to see a bear fishing and
feeding. Lucky us.
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| Looking for salmon |
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| Just missed that one |
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| Missed him again |
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| Got him! Check those claws! |
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| Got another |
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| No delicate way to put this - they skin the salmon alive and leave most of the rest of the fish, often still flapping about |
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| See the strange head and teeth on this salmon? It is a male and this is how they change during their run upstream to spawn. |
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| Eerie stream as we returned to the RV after watching the bears |
We returned around
10 p.m. to our campsite just down the road-- weary, happy, and in
sensory overload. After several driving days in cloudy weather with
little to see, today was a bonanza!
