Tag: Destruction Bay

Valdez, back to Destruction Bay, and on to Skagway

We didn’t have good data service in Valdez so I didn’t post anything there. Therefore a lot to catch up on!

Oh, and it rained again. Pretty much continuously. Have I mentioned that I am so, so tired of rain? We had a big glacier and wildlife tour booked with Stan Steven’s company, and it pretty much rained the entire time. There were a few limited periods of just fog/haze, but it mostly rained. We also went on a day when a major gale was headed our way, so the captain had to get a bit creative with our routing. We did get to see some lovely things though.

Turns out sea lions will perch just about anywhere
The fjords were lovely even in the fog
In the lee of a bigger island, this one had clear glass for a reflection
Mendenhall glacier was spectacular
This guy must not have wanted his whiskers or tail to get cold
The glacier is still growing as evidenced by the trees being swallowed on the left

Yes, it is hard to see some of the things through the fog. It was harder to get pictures of other things we saw – sea otters in small and large groups, puffins all over the place, and we even saw a small group of orcas. There were three of them, but Kevin only got this one picture by accident. They were a long way away and pretty fast.

Even the spout!

Notice I said “Kevin got only this one picture.” Turns out my camera really has given up the ghost! Too many times it fell off the cabinet I guess. The majority of my pictures from now on will be from my phone or Kevin’s camera. I can’t find the camera I want anywhere in Alaska outside of Fairbanks, and I am definitely not driving back that far! I will order one when we get home. The trip really was enjoyable, but it would have been much better in nicer weather.

We had a free day in Valdez, and we used it doing some sightseeing. We drove up Thompson Pass, the snowiest in Alaska. It was too foggy for good pictures. We stopped by this historic site in the canyon below Thompson Pass. In 1906 multiple railroad companies were fighting for railroad rights from Valdez to the massive Kennicott mine.one group dug this partially completed tunnel, but the effort was abandoned when a gunfight broke out between the groups. Interesting story about very wild times.

Hand dug railway tunnel

We also spent a few hours at the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery in Valdez, hoping to see bears catching salmon as they came through the fish ladder there. The hatchery itself was interesting. There are so, so, so many fish! I had never seen a salmon run before. At the bottom of the weir that exists to funnel the fish to the fish ladder, the fish are almost a solid mass.

Just one small part of the thousands of salmon

There were other hunters besides bears pigging out on the salmon though. We saw numerous sea lions eating their fill. They would go under water, looking almost like a lot, then come up with a fish in their mouths. They tossed the fish in the air to get it positioned for their mouth, then the swallowed it.

Yum!

And another one of the videos that are annoying in this blog, but worth the click. Keep the sound on to hear the thousands of gulls too. They were feasting too.

IMG_8063

We did finally see one bear, but he wasn’t right by the hatchery. There were still lots of fish for him though until people spooked him. He is on shore in this picture, but he wandered out into the water to do some catching a bit after this was taken. Oh, and it was raining again.

Bear

After Valdez we headed back to Tok, staying in the same place as before. We then had to drive the road from HELL that is the Alaska highway between Tok and Destruction Bay. It was actually worse than our first trip through due to more frost heaves. I have never been so glad to see an uneven gravel parking lot in all my days! The views were pretty spectacular.

Do you see the BLUE SKY?

The weather had cleared up as soon as we headed away from the coast. The drive to Tok was nice, and the views of the drive to Destruction Bay were nice too, but I was concentrating too much on not shaking my motorhome apart to take pictures. The one above is from our “campground” – a gravel lot. Note the colors in the hills. Autumn has arrived in the Alaska and Canadian hill country. We did have to cross the Canadian border again, and this time it took almost an hour. That’s what we get for crossing on a Saturday! A nice border agent, just a lot of vehicles.

I will leave the description of the drive we took today to arrive in Skagway, AK along with those adventures for another post after we have completed some of our planned activities here. I will say that it only sprinkled on us some this first night in Skagway!

The road from hell (or Yukon Territory to Alaska)

We left Whitehorse on 30 July to head to Destruction Bay. The scenery was as lovely as anything we have seen. The place was a construction depot during the build of the Alaskan Highway. One night a massive chinook wind of 60+ mph came through and basically destroyed all the tents near the lake where the crew stayed, therefore the name! The campground was Destruction Bay Lodge and RV Park, but there wasn’t any lodge any more. The RV park was a gravel parking lot on a sloped hillside, but they had solid 30 amp power and the best views we have had from any campground plus NO BUGS.

There are 16,000’ mountains trying to hide in the smoke haze
Huge ice fields and glaciers
Lots of glaciers
Gorgeous mountains with the Kluane River below them
Trumpeter swans are making a come back in Tetsin National Wildlife Refuge
Our campground in Destruction Bay looking towards Kluane Lake
Destruction Bay campground looking to the mountains

We left early the next day to get to Tok, AK. We had been told by many people including our wagon master that this would be the worst stretch of road we would be on. Everyone was right! It started out deceivingly mild, and I rolled along at the 90 kph speed limit for a while, but then the frost heaves, pot holes, and unbelievably rough road began. I have drive  roads as bad as this, but never for as long. The bad part was perhaps 100 miles, and it was truly awful. Most of it I drove at 50 kph (35 mph), but I routinely dropped down to 20 kph. It was a long, long day. We took very few pictures since we were just concentrating on the road surface, trying to anticipate the next nastiness. As we got to the US border the road temporarily got better, but it didn’t last!

The US border patrol confiscated my eggs, but I wasn’t surprised. It was a brief stop. We took a picture at the “Welcome to Alaska” sign, but I can’t find it! Just as well because the welcome was the worst road yet! The US, in their infinite wisdom, used asphalt for the road after the border station, and it was the wrong choice for permafrost. The tar and rock used in Canada was much easier to repair, but the asphalt was pot holed the worst I have ever seen, and I have driven on I-40 west of Flagstaff, my precious bad example. The permafrost made massive ripples that went on for hundreds of feet, and the frost heaves were huge!I ended up traveling a lot of it at 15 mph! Ugh. When we got to Tok, I basically collapsed. It took a total of 7 hours to drive the 225 miles from Destruction Bay to Tok. Hardest driving I have ever done.

After Tok, we enjoyed continuing to drive , now mostly along the Tanana River. This river is HUGE, and it flows through a very large valley in numerous braids. The river is a major resting spot for migratory birds, and much of the area is protected in the Tetlin National Wildlife Preserve.

Tanana River up close
The Tanana River valley is so wide!
There is an awful lot of water heading to the Bearing Sea.

Delta Junction is the official end of the Alaska Highway, so we got the mandatory picture.

End of the road

We continue following the Tanana until we got to the Fairbanks suburb we are staying in – North Pole, AK. The ride was much easier, though there were still occasional frost heaves especially along the musket areas. I also finally got a good picture of the skinny trees that were so common. I am pretty sure they are a variety of hemlock., but feel free to correct me! They get quite tall, but the limbs are very short.

The land of skinny trees. Blow up the picture to see many more across the pond.

We are now in a really nice campground in North Pole, AK, Riverview RV Park. It is north of town in a quiet area. There are all kinds of things on the schedule here, so expect a lot of pictures coming up.

Whitehorse

We stayed at another tight campground in Whitehorse – Pioneer RV park. Not only were the sites narrow enough that we couldn’t open one of our slides, but the power was flaky. Thank goodness we didn’t need much AC! If I stayed again, I would just use one of their dry camping spots which were more spacious. Whitehorse itself is a nice town though. It is the majority of the entire Yukon Territory population, so it has lots of restaurants and shopping.

Our first group activity on arrival on Tuesday, 26 July, was a dinner out on by the caravan staff. The RV park had a nice meeting room for such activities. It was a break from cooking. The next day we started early with an entire set of museums beginning with the S. S. Klondike National Historic Site. I have mentioned how a group does have some advantages, and this was one of them. The ship is undergoing renovations, and most people can only see it from shore. We got a ranger-led tour of at least the outside of the boat in an otherwise restricted area. Fabulous old boat, the last of the really big Yukon River boats that opened up the territory.

S.S. Klondike

We then continued to the MacBride Museum with some really nicely done exhibits about the local history including mining and fur trapping. There was a nice Robert Service area too, the famous Yukon poet. They even had Sam Magee’s cabin, though we discovered the real Sam Magee wasn’t from Tennessee and wasn’t cremated “on the marge of the Lake Labarge”. Instead he was a local figure active in mining and early Yukon/Whitehorse history. If you don’t get the quote, go read Service’s poem “The Cremation of Sam Magee.” We then went to the Yukon Transportation Museum and the Beringia Museum. Beer Gia is the name for the non-glaciated area that included parts of the Yukon during the last Ice Age. It included the land bridge from Asia, and was a refuge for the mega fauna of the age.

“The little engine that did.” Cute little narrow gauge mining engine.

For dinner, we ate at the famous Klondike Rib and Salmon restaurant. It deserves it’s reputation. I had the salmon and Kevin had ribs, and both were fabulous. The roasted vegetables were particularly tasty!

After dinner we were beat, so it was early to bed. The next day was a free day – unplanned by the caravan. That meant we were able to take a very lazy start to the day. I went to Bear Paw Quilts – “Compassionate Care for the Quilting Addicted.” They had a large number of north country fabrics including some fabulous batiks; I bought 3 one meter lengths!

After having lunch and a nap, both important tasks, we decided to do some last minute sightseeing. Miles Canyon is one of the places that complicated river travel in the Yukon. The river is squeezed into a volcanic canyon with shear rock walls. It generally required an overland by-pass. While my picture lacks scale, the walls are 10-15’ above the water now, and in historic times before the dam was built in Whitehorse  the river was 20+ foot below the top of the walls. It was a beautiful place.

The dam in Whitehorse was a serious obstacle to the very important salmon fishery, so a fish ladder was built. These aren’t that unusual these days, but it was the first one I had seen in person. Sadly the salmon weren’t running. I bet it was be fascinating to see the climbing the ladder!

There is also a boat lock next to the dam on the short opposite the fish ladder. It is under reconstruction though and not in use.

The river itself is sometimes wide and braided, and sometimes fast and wild. The volume of water is huge, and it moves quickly. It is easy to see how challenging it was for the early riverboats to traverse it.

We spent 3 nights in Whitehorse, and there was definitely more to see. It would be a nice place to come back to. We had to do a lot of housekeeping tasks like laundry and shopping which cut down our time in the community.

Today, Friday 29 July we took off for Destruction Bay and Destruction Bay RV Park. We had been told the road was bad, but it wasn’t bad at all! A few frost heaves and a fairly long gravel area with a pilot car, but it wasn’t a challenge. Tomorrow we go to Tok, AK, and supposedly that road is awful! We will report our experiences on that in a day or two. We change time zones again, but I am hoping my AT&T and Verizon hotspots start working again! Being with very limited service is tough for putting pictures up which is why there are so few.