We dip our toes in Alaska again!

Tuesday, July 12, 2016  Start: Boya Lake C.B. BC   End: Stewart B.C.

We headed out toward Stewart B.C. Tuesday morning, a side trip from the Cassiar Highway.  It winds through a canyon filled with glaciers and waterfalls.

Stewart is a teeny town that abuts the Alaskan border town of Hyder.  We set up the RV in Stewart and drove two miles to Hyder.  There's no U.S. border check here because there's no place to go except back to Stewart, where the Canadian police politely checked our passport cards on the return.

We'd crossed over to see the Salmon Glacier but it was a ways off and it was raining and we had "glacier overload".  There's a salmon run with bears but it is a bit early in the season and the rain was getting heavier.

We headed back to Steward and hunkered down for the night in the pouring rain clear through to morning.  Tomorrow we head back to the Cassiar Highway.

O' Canada

Sunday, July 10, 2016 through Monday, July 11, 2016

Start: Lake Creek Provincial Campground, YT  End: Boya Lake Provincial C.G., BC

Sunday we drove from Lake Creek to Whitehorse. We passed Kluane (pronounced "clue" "ah" "nee") Lake,part of the National Park on the way but it was raining and cloudy so not many pretty pictures this time.  We did stop at the Visitor's Center and learned that the lake was formed during a mini ice age only in the last 500 years.

Rain clouds settling around mountains

We did our second only "freebie" camping - at the Walmart in Whitehorse! There were probably fifty or more RVs in a section of the parking lot, convenient to stocking up at Walmart with a Starbucks across the way.  The last bits of glass from the headlights on the jeep were broken out by rocks so Mike replaced them and fashioned some covers for them for the rest of the trip.  

Monday, July 11, 2016  Start: Whitehorse, YT to Boya Lake Provincial Park, BC

We drove from Whitehorse to Watson Lake, re-tracing our route from early June. 

Teslin River Bridge

 It was sunnier and greener everywhere this time through.   Our sign is still at the signpost forest. 

Mike taking picure of our sign at Watson Lake Signpost Forest

Canoes and Kayaks at Boya Lake

We stopped in the Visitor’s Center in Watson Lake and got information on the Cassiar Highway.  It heads 450 miles southwest, so the right direction. 

We went about 75 miles to Boya Lake Provincial Park for the night.  The provincial parks in Canada are wonderful. Inexpensive ($12 to $20 CAD), free firewood in most places, clean, spacious, level and great scenery.  

water flower at Boya Lake

The water is crystal clear and aquamarine.  I went for a swim, gingerly stepping among creamy white stones, stirring up the silt for the tiny fishes.  It was bracing but refreshing!

kayker heading out for the island about 7:00 pm at Boya Lake

firepit in the rain out the RV window

  I built a fire and we sat outside admiring the view until it started to thunder.  We got a downpour then a steady rain to douse the fire as the evening came to a close.  I think this is the prettiest campsite we’ve had all trip.  

Where did the week go?

We've been winding our way back to the states since we left Anchorage on Tuesday, here's a recap:

Tuesday, July 5^th 2016 – Start: Anchorage,AK  End: Glennallen, AK

Finally back on the road!  We headed out toward Valdez, stopping for the night in Glenallen, AK, the junction of the Glenn and Richardson highways.  We’ll go south on the Richardson to get to Valdez.

The Glenn highway from Anchorage had some fantastic views of the Matanuska Glacier from the highway.  We stopped and did a short one mile hike to get some different perspectives and then ate lunch at one of the rest stops with a view of the glacier.  We’re at Dry Creek State Campground, a primitive campground a couple miles past the junction.

Mantanuska Glacier

Mantanuska Glacier

  

Wednesday, July 6, 2016  Start: Glennallen, AK   End: Valdez, AK

Another beautiful drive, although in the rain a lot of the grand views are lost.  We stopped at the top of Thompson Pass to walk out to the overlook. We’d done a little hike at Mantanuska Glacier but they wanted $25 to go down to the glacier so we moved on to Worthington Glacier which is in a state recreation area and we were able to walk up to the glacier.  Mike found some interesting rocks (gold?) and decided to go back on Thursday.

Worthington Glacier up close

The view in the clouds of Thompson Peak

  After the glacier we stopped at Bridal Falls and Horsetail Falls in Keystone Canyon.  We stayed the night in a campground near the Valdez Glacier but that glacier is only accessible by boat.  The town of Valdez wasn’t much to see but we had some good halibut and drove out to a great view of the bay and saw some sea lions scooping up fish from the hatchery.

Sea lions at hatchery in Valdez

Valdez bay

Thursday, July 7, 2016  Start: Valdez, AK  End: Tosina River, AK

Today we turned toward home!  We’re going back toward Tok and then will take the Cassiar Highway south to B.C.  We left Valdez in beautiful sunshine and since we decided to drive separately so as not to strain the RV going up Thompson Pass, I took another look at the bay in the morning fog. 

Valdez in the morning

Dayville Road on Valdez bay

Keystone Canyon

2nd visit to Worthington Glacier

It was a short drive through Keystone Canyon and over Thompson Pass down to Tosina River.  We stayed at a campground near the turnoff to Chitnia, the last town before the entrance to the Wrangell-St Elias National Park.  We got caught up on household stuff and Friday will head into the park.

Friday, July 8, 2016 Wrangell-St Elias National Park

We woke up early to take the 90 mile or so ride into Wrangell-St Elias National Park.  We passed the Chitnia River salmon fishing areas and crossed a 14 foot wide bridge to get to the very commercialized  Kennicott Mine site at the end of the highway. I couldn't capture the vastness of this glacier.  The moraines stretch out at the leading edge for several square miles.  They looked like piles of sand until we got closer and could see the glacier silt was covering several hundred feet of ice.

Kennicott Glacier (30 miles away)

Moraines (glacier leftovers) of Kennicott Glacier

There's a fee to park before the footbridge across the Chitna River and a fee for a shuttle to the town of McCarthy (pop. about 50) and on to the mine.  Then, if you want to tour the buildings there's a fee for that too,  We opted to hike out to get a closer look at the glacier.

Kennicott abandoned mines preserved as historic buildings

narrow bridge to access park

Kennicott Glacier

fishing ladder on Chitnia River

 Not what we expected, a different version of a national park.  It was a 2 mile hike to see the Kennicott glacier and its moraines up close and were back at the RV after a long day.

Saturday, July 9, 2016  Start: Tonsina Lake C.G., AK   End: Lake Creek Campground, Yukon, CN

Goodbye to Alaska!  It was a wonderful 30 days in Alaska.  Today we left Tonsina and stopped in Tok to fill-up and then crossed into Canada.  We spent the night at the Lake Creek Provincial Campground, about 150 miles from Whitehorse.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day, big fluffy clouds, green everywhere and sparkles across every lake.  Summer has really come to the North!  We’re losing a couple minutes of sunlight each day too.  I’ll be glad to see a night sky, though I did spot a new moon peeking out of the clouds about 6:00 pm tonight while sitting by the fire. 

Some reminisces about Alaska:

The mailboxes jutting out from the driveways to be above the snow in winter; electric outlets in parking lots to plug your car into to keep the engine warm in winter; fishing and more fishing; mountains; purple, yellow, red, and white flowers, “drunk” spruce trees, frost heaves, road construction,  glacier silted rivers, just to name a few.  

Wrangell mountain 

Lake Creek campground, Yukon

And to think, we only explored a very tiny part of this huge state!  There were some t-shirts at the Farmers' Market in Anchorage that had the saying "Alaska - pissing off Texas since 1959" with the "tiny" state of Texas overlayed on the 4 times larger state of Alaska.   We talked to several people who when they found out we were from Arizona said the wintered there and summered in Alaska.  Maybe someday!