Kluane Lake, Yukon/ Haines, Alaska

Saturday, August 25, we left Tok and headed south on the Alaska Highway, with the intention of making our way to Haines, where we hoped to catch the ferry back to the U.S.
About 90 miles south of Tok we crossed the border into Yukon Territory once again. This was one of the worst sections of highway that we encountered on our trip (other than the Top of the World Highway). The frost heaves were numerous with washboards that made us slow down to 10-15 mph. There were numerous pot holes and gravel sections with construction still going on. We had been told that one advantage of driving back later in the summer was that most of the construction would be done. The roads really suffer from extreme weather conditions and they can only work on them in the summer months.
We tried to be patient and appreciative of their hard work.
Once again, we are seeing very few facilities available in the Yukon Territory. Many of the restaurants, cabins, etc. closed in the gas crunch of 2006. The drive was beautiful even though it was slow.
We decided to stop on Kluane Lake and stay at the Cottonwood RV Park that was located right on the lake. It was a beautiful and well maintained RV park. They warned us about being careful because grizzlies were in the area. In fact, they had closed the Congdon Creek Yukon campground just 5 miles away because of bear activity.
We have only seen this several times, but the RV park would not accept charge cards. We were happy to have some left over Canadian money from our last stay in Canada. The Yukon Territory has a very small population and is not set up for dealing with tourists. There are a fair amount of RV parks, however, so with careful planning, you can find a place to stay. Again, our main source of information about RV parks is Church’s Traveler’s Guide to Alaskan Camping.
No bears in the campground, but it was a lovely stay on the waters of Kluane Lake. We were up and going early (for a change) and thought that the rough roads were behind us. We were wrong-more of the same.
Finally, better roads, and we arrived in Haines Junction, BC. We filled up with gas at $4.88 a gallon. We couldn’t make it to the cheaper (everything is relative) U.S. gas.
It was a beautiful ride south on the Haines Highway to Haines, Alaska. We passed through alpine meadows that were above the tree line and surrounded by snow covered mountain peaks.
We crossed the U.S. border back into Alaska. We got a few questions about banned items, firearms, money, and then were waved on our way.
It was just an additional 40 miles to our destination of Haines, Alaska. The highway ran beside the Chilkat River and the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. Most of Alaska’s bald eagles reside in southeast Alaska, with more than 3,000 eagles in this preserve.
We dropped the RV at Haines Hitch-Up RV Park and headed for the ferry dock. It paid off to go down to the ferry dock because we were able to get an earlier ferry. Unfortunately, no space was available back to Bellingham, Washington, but we could get an earlier ferry out to Prince Rupert, BC.
We have enjoyed the peace and quiet and the magnificent scenery of Haines. The small boat harbor sits on the turquoise blue Lynn Canal and is surrounded by majestic jagged peaked mountains that are covered with snow.
This town is not a tourist hot spot because only one cruise ship stops here on Wed. The town only has a half a dozen gift shops and just as many restaurants but we have enjoyed the tranquility and scenery here.
We particularly enjoyed the drive out of town to the Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site. The salmon were running and so were the fishermen and grizzlies. They coexist along the banks of the river while fishing for salmon. We spent quite a bit of time watching an adolescent grizzly trying to catch a salmon.
Haines is our last Alaska town before we head south on the Alaska Marine Highway ferry.

Closing the Loop (Glennallen, Valdez, Tok, AK)

August 18, we left Seward and headed back north to Anchorage. John made an appointment at the alignment center where we had new ball joints put in a month ago. The RV pulled slightly to the left and he wanted it adjusted. We stayed at the Golden Nugget Campground again (in our opinion, the best private RV park in Anchorage).

While John was conducting his business, Pris bought an Anchorage newspaper and read that the ferry Columbia had mechanical trouble and was being taken out of service for the rest of the season. Yup, out of 11 ferries, that was the one that was to take us back to the states. We got a new booking, but we could only get to Prince Rupert BC, and then we’d have to drive the last 900 miles to the U.S. border.

Our business completed, we started our drive back home by leaving Anchorage on Tues, August 21. Driving out of Anchorage, we again saw the moose warning signs. Last winter, 261 moose were killed on this section of the Glenn Highway. Alaska residents can sign up for road kill and get the killed moose. (Another big thing is that residents can get subsistence permits to hunt moose, caribou, and bear.). This really is the “last frontier”.

We had originally planned to attend the Alaska State Fair in Palmer, but we altered our plans and decided to head down the road and possibly catch an earlier ferry (if there were any cancellations).

We stopped at the Palmer post office and picked up our general delivery mail. Thanks to Jeff and Damilya for always forwarding our mail. We also met up with Melinda, whom we had met earlier, because she was interested in seeing a Lazy Daze RV. Thank you Melinda and Doug for the great halibut and rock fish. We had the delicious halibut that night. I will think about our “Alaska friends” every time I use the hand woven dish towel.

(Alaskans are very friendly people.)

We drove an additional 150 miles to just outside Glennallen to the Tolsona Wilderness Campground. We had a secluded spot right on Tolsona Creek. This was a great campground, more like a state campground (large sites, spread apart, lots of vegetation). The parks are less crowded now because school has started in Alaska and most tourists have started heading back to the “lower 48”.

We were able to change our ferry reservation and get out of Haines a few days earlier, but we still had time to kill. So we decided to visit Valdez. We had heard great things about the drive down. Indeed, the ride was spectacular with numerous glaciers, high mountain peaks, and shear rock canyons with cascading waterfalls.

Valdez is ringed by beautiful peaked mountains and glaciers, although we did not see them because of the rain. The RV parks in Valdez were another story. To our RV friends: take the ferry between Whittier and Valdez, enjoy the drive from Valdez north, and skip staying in Valdez.

Valdez, of course, is known for the Exxon Oil spill and this was the town closest to the epicenter of the 1964 (9.2) earthquake. The town was destroyed and has been relocated to a new site.

August is the rainy month in Alaska and we are starting to experience more consistent rain. We left Valdez (in the rain) on Thurs., August 23, and doubled back up the Richardson Hwy. This is one of the few times that we have covered the same ground. Anyway, we once again crossed over Thompson Pass (2,678 ft)-seems MUCH higher than that. It is known for its extreme skiing. It has the record snowfalls for the North American continent; with over 900 inches of snow for a year and 62 “ in a 24 hour period.

We continued back to Glennallen and then we took the Tok cutoff and followed the Copper River to Tok. We arrived in Tok, completing our driving circle of Alaska. (We were here over 2 months ago.)

Seward, AK

Tuesday, August 14, we doubled back up the western shore of the Kenai Peninsula and hooked up with the part of the Seward Highway that we hadn’t driven on previously. We turned south on the Seward Highway for a short easy drive to Seward. (Total of 170 miles). It was a lovely drive through glacial valleys and mountain peaks into the ice free port of Seward. It is located on one of the southern tips of the Kenai Peninsula and is known as a great fishing harbor and a cruise ship port.

The annual Silver Salmon Derby was going on (with prizes totaling $100,000), so we decided to dry camp on the beach near the boat harbor. We knew it would be crazy and crowded, but we decided to be where the action was. (We got what we expected.) We got a site right on the water’s edge where we could observe the boats coming and going, the fishing, and the wildlife. We had a sea otter and bald eagle going by our site every day.

Pris particularly enjoyed the Alaska Sealife Center. It was a state of the art facility that was built with money from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The marine displays were absolutely outstanding with live seals, sea lions, fish, birds, octopus, a touch tank, etc. Exit glacier is located just a few miles out of town, so Pris drove out and took a ranger lead walk up to the glacier. (John was under the weather with a bad cold.) It’s the most accessible glacier in Alaska. You can walk right up to the glacier and actually reach out and touch it. There are signs posted along the road and trails showing how the glacier has retreated in recent years. It is sad to see all these glaciers retreating so rapidly. They really do see the effects of global warming here. Along with the changing temperatures, the wildlife and vegetation are also changing.

It’s big business here for tour boats to take people out to see the Kenai Fjords National Park. It has the largest ice field in North America and the tour boats visit some of the glaciers and also include wildlife viewing. We decided not to take the tour this time because we had already done it 8 yrs ago when we visited this area.

Even though Seward is a town of only several thousand people, it has lots of nice restaurants. We weren’t tired yet of eating halibut, so we enjoyed a great halibut dinner down on the waterfront, while we watched the fishing and fjord tour boats coming in. (To the Homer gang: they had blackened halibut cheeks on the menu.)

Pris visited the local historical museum and saw the destruction caused by the 1964 earthquake. The earthquake of magnitude 9.2 lasted some 4 minutes (that’s a lot of shaking). The earthquake and 40’ tsunami destroyed much of the town. This is just one of many towns that suffered massive destruction.

The weather in Seward was what we expected-cloudy, with drizzle, and temperatures in the 60’s. Like anywhere, the coastal weather is much different from that inland.

Katmai National Park (Bear Viewing)

Monday, August 13, was our BIG adventure day. We selected to go brown bear viewing with Ken and Chris Day of Emerald Air Service. The reason we selected their bear viewing company was because they are known for going where the bears are (as opposed to other tours that take you to a viewing platform where there are crowds of people and allow only a few minutes observing bears). Chris and Ken are very knowledgeable about bears and share this information while getting up close to the bears in their natural environment. (Although, we admit we were apprehensive about being up so close.) We were assured that in 20 yrs of doing this, no one had been harmed.

The day started out with Chris meeting with the 9 of us and explaining about the dos and don’ts of bear watching. (Give them their space, walk slowly, don’t make any quick movements, stay close together as a group, etc.). We were fitted with hip boots, headed for the float plane (deHavilland Otter), and we were off for our 90 min trip west over the Kachemak Bay and Cook’s Inlet. The flight took us right over the Augustine Volcano where we could see steam coming out of the top.

The Katmai National Park is located on the Alaska Peninsula and is only accessible by water or air. There are no roads into the park. We flew inland and landed on Crosswind Lake. Most of the tour groups fly into Brooks Camp where there is a viewing platform. Ken and Chris fly to different areas depending upon where the bears are. This particular area is very remote. The hip boots came in handy for getting out of the plane and also walking in the streams and bogs. We walked a short distance over the tundra on a bear path and immediately saw bears feeding on salmon in the stream. The first photo here catches a sow between us and our second group of photographers. It gives you an idea how close you can get and how uninterested they are in us.

There were thousands of bright red salmon spawning in the stream. In fact, there are so many fish that the bears are very picky about what they eat. At the beginning of the season, they eat everything they can catch, but later in the season they eat only females because they like the roe and the fatty skin. One of the photos shows a bear stripping the skin off.

The bears would look up and see us, but then went back to catching salmon. They weren’t interested in us as soon as they saw we weren’t a threat. (Thanks goodness they were only interested in the easily caught salmon.) We watched several large bears (browns/grizzlies) feeding, and then we walked farther up the stream to observe other bears. The large males seemed to be by themselves and didn’t move around much. The sows keep the cubs away from these bad boys. We saw several sows with cubs. When we would see bears, we would sit down and just observe them. We enjoyed a lunch, while sitting on a bluff overlooking the stream, where we were entertained by a sow teaching her two cubs how to catch salmon. All this time the bears were approximately 100-200 feet from us.

More walking over the tundra along a bear trail, and we followed another sow with her 2 cubs. This time the curious cubs came within about 25 feet of the group. We never felt threatened at any time, but we had our experts with us who made us feel very comfortable. It was an experience of a lifetime to get this close to so many grizzlies (approximately 50) and be able to just sit and observe them.

The weather was unusually warm (probably low 80’s) and there was some hiking over the bumpy tundra, so this adventure is a bit more rigorous than flying into a viewing platform. We, however, thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone, as long as they understand what kind of trip it is. And we haven’t even mentioned the expense. But hey, you only do this once.

Homer, Alaska

Sunday, August 5, and 15 miles down the road to Homer. We made reservations at Oceanview RV Park and they gave us a site on the bluff overlooking Kachemak Bay. Each day was sunny and Alaska warm (mid 60’s) with a spectacular view across the bay with volcanoes, snow covered peaks and glaciers.

Homer is located at the end of the road on the Kenai pennisula and is a renowned halibut fishing town. They catch the really big ones here (300 + pounds). This town of 5,300 residents is unique in that it has the fishing charters and commercial fishing, but is also known for its artists and art works. There are also some very good restaurants here. The weather is fairly moderate (for Alaska), because of their location near the water. The temperature rarely gets below zero in the winter.

Our friends Benn and Judy arrived from southern California to visit their daughter Laurie, who is currently living in Homer. It was great to see them and spent time shopping, eating and sight seeing. One day we took an hour’s water taxi ride across Kachemak Bay to visit the small former Russian fishing village of Seldovia. We walked around town and saw small, quaint, and uniquely decorated houses. Since this took about an hour, and we had 6 hours left before the boat returned, we decided to take a hike. The Otterbahn Trail took us through a forested area that had lots of ripe berries (blueberries, salmonberries, watermelon berries), a marshy wetland, and we ended up on an isolated beach cove. Laurie, Nancy (Laurie’s friend), Judy, Pris, John, and Benn kept up constant conversations-the bears didn’t stand a chance.

Benn, Judy, Laurie and Tito (Laure’s friend) went out halibut fishing the next day and brought back the limit of 2 halibuts per person. This resulted in 100+ pounds of halibut filets that we enjoyed at a cookout at Nancy’s. Well, we ate some of it; the rest was shipped home to southern California.

There are many interesting places to visit in Homer. The Pratt Museum is an excellent museum with displays about wildlife, local and Alaska Native artifacts, a botanical garden and a mesmerizing “bear cam” that has live feed of the grizzlies catching salmon on the MacNeil River Falls.

The Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center is also a worthwhile stop. It has many interesting displays about the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge which encompasses the Aleutian Islands. There are numerous hiking trails nearby with excellent birding opportunities.

Homer has its tourist spot, “the spit”. It’s a 4 ½ mile strip of land that extends into Kachemak Bay that houses a boat harbor, tourist shops, and allows camping along the beach. It’s a very busy place with lots of tourists. It’s much quieter in town.

Pris attended the local farmers market and loaded up with fresh local vegetables, some bakery bread, jams and jellies, and Benn and Judy were headed back to Anchorage for a flight home. It was a fun week seeing Benn, Judy and Laurie and meeting many of Laurie’s friends. Thanks guys for the delicious dinner.

Ninilchik and Anchor Point, Alaska (Eastern shore of Cook’s Inlet)

Wed, August 1, we headed south on the eastern shore of Cook’s Inlet to find a campground. There were many state campgrounds to choose from. This is a popular area for people to come down from Anchorage to camp and fish. We checked them all out and settled on Ninilchik View State CG. It was located on a wooded bluff 300’ above the old village and Cook’s Inlet. Our campsite was located at the edge of the bluff overlooking the village and the Ninilchik River that fed into the Inlet.

The quaint old village consisted of perhaps only 20 or so buildings situated in a cove off of Cook’s Inlet. The picturesque village consisted of faded log cabins; some clap board houses, abandoned shacks, and beached fishing boats. Many of the residents are descendants of the original Russian fur traders. There was another lovely Russian Orthodox Church with 5 golden onion-domes located on a hill above the village.

Fishing is popular here but the #1 summer activity is clamming. This area is known for its large razor clams. (It brought back memories of razor clam digging on the Oregon coast.)

We decided to visit a local restaurant and order our clams already cleaned and cooked. (whimps) But there were many people out at low tide digging for clams. You need a license and can get a daily limit of 60 clams. That’s a lot, because many of the clams reach a size of 7” long. Lots of people were camped on the beach and clamming.

We received a visit from Rob and Gerri (met in Kenai) as they are in the area to partake in a charter fishing trip for halibut.

Thurs, August 2 we decided to move 20 mi down the coast. We had seen and done what we wanted in Ninilchik, and we wanted to explore other areas. This time we picked another hot fishing spot-Anchor River State Recreation Area and the Halibut CG. The CG was located just off the beach and a short walking distance from where they launch the boats. They have a rather unique system of launching the boats in the surf. They use tractors that push the trailers into the water and the boats back off of them. It’s interesting to see the boats make a run for the trailers when they come back in.

Anchor River is known as “the most westerly point on the North American continent accessible by a continuous road system”. Capt Cook christened the site in 1778 after his ship, the Resolution, lost an anchor here.

There are many charter fishing companies located all along the coast of Cook’s Inlet. The Anchor River is known for its king and silver salmon and steelhead trout. The ocean fishing yields very large halibut and salmon. Rob and Gerri each got their limit of 2 halibut a day, and also some salmon. Rob even caught a 47 lb. halibut. (They even catch halibut in some waters that approach 400 lbs. That’s a lot of filets.) We enjoyed a very tasty freshly caught halibut filet for dinner, thanks to them.

Our campsite is located in a meadow with brightly colored fireweed and other flowers. They must like the rain here because they grow up to 4 ft. high. Wild strawberries abound but previous campers raided most of the patches. We understand that there are lots of wild blueberries but we haven’t looked for any.

We’ve taken many long walks along the beach and enjoyed watching the bald eagles. The fishermen remove the filets from the fish and then throw the carcasses along the beach at low tide for the birds to feed on. I guess it’s good recycling but I wonder if it makes the birds dependent upon these easy “pickins”. I guess not, because the bald eagles are huge-the size of turkeys. The eagle photo here was taken from our campsite. It was in a tree about 100 feet behind our RV. The bird is about 3 ½ feet long.

It rained off and on for most of the time during our stay here, but it gave us a chance to use our rain gear.

We enjoyed a seafood dinner in town with Rob and Gerri and said goodbye to them. They are heading back to California and want to arrive home by Labor Day.