You may not have heard of the Tatshenshini River, but it became famous in the 1980’s when plans for one of the world’s largest open-pit copper mines, the Windy Craggy mine, resulted in an international effort to protect the river, its wilderness areas and the salmon fisheries from development and degradation due to sulfuric acid runoff. The effort was successful and this resulted in the Tatshenshini – Alsek Wilderness Park and recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As we reported previously, Pat and I both had colds at the start of this trip. It was not reassuring to hear at the pre-trip meeting from our guides, Trish and Mark, about the lousy weather that the last two trips had experienced on the river. Days of horizontal rain are not uncommon on this trip. We were told we needed 100% waterproof rain gear. Forget GORE-TEX or any breathable fabric. My rain gear was marginal; Pat’s new rain suit was unacceptable, so Pat secured a loaner rain jacket. We then stocked up on a two week supply of Kleenex, cold pills, and cough syrup. With a little luck we might live through this ordeal.
On the way to the put in, we stopped at a First Nation’s camp where they teach students and visitors the traditional ways of trapping and making shelters. Dead falls, we were told, were preferred over traps because the animal was killed immediately. Seeing a dead fall in action left little doubt about its effectiveness. When we got to the put in, it was raining bears and moose. (Yukon’s version of cats and dogs). Fortunately two of the guides, Royce and Rob, had set up a tarp, in addition to getting the four rafts ready. This rain was a particularly bad omen because this river, unlike most rivers, has it start in a dry and warm area and becomes progressively colder and wetter as it loses elevation. As we pushed off, a curious thing happened - it stopped raining! For the next several days the weather was decent, with most of the rain occurring at night.
We camped at the head of the canyon the first night, so we could run the rapids on the second day. It has been said that the rapids are class 3 with class 5 consequences. In other words, you didn’t want to fall out of the raft into the cold and swift river. Fortunately no one fell out but everyone managed to get soaked. There would be more rapids later in the trip, but this is not a whitewater river for thrill seekers. We continued to float west, deeper into the St. Elias Mountains and entered British Columbia.
After a few days on the river, we had a day to go hiking up Goat Ridge from Sediment Creek. We did see four mountain goats from the hike. Even though it was late August, fall foliage was beginning to appear. The mountains continued to gain elevation as we approached the coast. We saw numerous eagles and a few large nests. After two more rafting days, we had a 36 hour rain event during a lay-over day. Again we were fortunate to be able to congregate under a large tarp or sleep in our tents.
The river changed dramatically as we approached the junction with the much larger and colder Alsek River. The river got much broader as its channels braided due to deposits of glacier silt. Unlike the confined river valley we had been rafting through for days, we could now see two miles across the river valley. This allowed us to see several grizzly bears chasing a raven on the far shore. Somehow the raven stayed just out of reach. We took a hike and saw two petroglyphs - it seemed odd that prehistoric people traveled through this area, but they were likely following the abundant wildlife or came to the junction of these rivers to trade.
While my former co-workers were enjoying their convention in Ocean City, Pat and I took a walk on Walker Glacier. The surface had cracks, pools, streams and moulins. Moulin is the French word for waterwheel, where the water carves a well from the surface to the bottom of the ice. Some have a purple hue. We filled our water bottles with the pure glacier water. A little further down the river we approached Alsek Lake. The lake contained icebergs that dwarfed our rafts, some over 100’ long and 30 feet above the water. They had calved from the many glaciers that surround this lake. We were able to avoid the ice blocked channels as we entered the lake and made camp on a large island. The wind shifted during the night and the guides were up at midnight moving the rafts to the leeward side of the island. When we awoke, there was ice packed along the shore, where the rafts were the night before. The sky was clear and the scenery stunning. From our camp we could see icebergs in almost all directions. Surrounding them were mountains towering 15,000 feet above the lake, an elevation difference greater than you would see in the Himalayas. We were in the middle of the largest non-polar ice cap in the world. Glaciers surrounded every peak and filled each valley. We got a glimpse of Mt. Fairweather’s elusive peak, the tallest mountain in British Columbia. We spent the day hiking to a high cliff and watching icebergs roll over, break up and disintegrate. Calling it spectacular would be an understatement. The day was so warm and wonderful even the white socks (a local type of black fly) enjoyed swarming around us. The guides, Mark and Royce, built a steam sauna on the beach and after 15 minutes in the sauna we all jumped into the ice cold lake, then back into the sauna to warm up. (Repeat as needed).
You pay a price for having a beautiful day in the middle of a coastal rain forest. On our final day, we packed up in the rain and we were rafting by 8:45 AM. The famous horizontal rain made an appearance for several hours. The wind was howling at our backs, making the rafts difficult to control as we crossed the lake to the river channel. I was soaked to the skin by the time the rain stopped. A black bear watched in amusement as we jumped around on shore trying to warm up. The rain let up as we reached the final takeout at Dry Bay, AK.
The plan was for a duel engine Hawker Sidley plane to pick us and all the gear up from a gravel runway, normally only used by much smaller aircraft. The runway was cut out of the woods and there was little extra wing clearance for a Hawker. In fact they would refuse to land if the runway was too wet, fearing that they would slide into the woods. Should they refuse to land, we would have to shuttle all passengers and gear to Yakutat AK, taking 5 trips with a smaller aircraft, and then reloading everything into a Hawker the following day. This was the fate of two previous trips. The guides did not like this alternative anymore than the 10 passengers. Our tireless trip leader, Trish, along with very rain soaked Rob, baled water from deep pools on the runway for two hours. (Passengers were not allowed on an active runway). Their efforts paid off when the Hawker successfully landed. While turning around, the plane got stuck in the mud and had to be dug out. After everything was loaded we flew back over the river, mountains and glaciers on the 45 minute flight back to Whitehorse YK. Pat got over her cold, and mine was getting better.
Our guides were great and they prepared us outstanding meals, they even dressed up silly for special meals. We said our goodbyes at dinner in Whitehouse. It was a trip we will never forget.
Don
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Trip Update # 7 Fairbanks to Whitehorse
We made it to North Pole! We were not even planning on going there, but there it was - Santa Clause House. Apparently, from the toys we found inside, Santa’s Workshop has been moved to China along with his elves. I don’t know why National Geographic makes such a big deal about getting to the North Pole (I guess they are just trying to sell magazines). It was rather easy to get there - just take the main road east out of Fairbanks, and 16 miles later, you are in North Pole, AK.
The last town we visited in Alaska was Chicken. The miners who settled the town wanted to name it after the ptarmigan, a quail size bird, common in this area. It is also the state bird. Unfortunately they could not spell ptarmigan, so they settled for Chicken. The public restroom in Chicken is, of course, called “Chicken Poop”.
After we crossed the border in the middle of nowhere, we were on the” Top of the World Highway”. It was a rough and dusty drive, but the views at 4000 feet were spectacular. In order to get to Dawson City, you had to take a ferry across the Yukon River. The locals sometimes just drive across the river, because it is frozen 7 months of the year. We hit Dawson just in time for their Discovery Days celebration. Gold was discovered here in August, 1896. This resulted in the Klondike Gold Rush. There are still about 60 active gold mines in the area. We toured one of the stern paddle wheelers that brought supplies in from the Lower 48, and a huge dredge that dug up stream beds and recovered 98% of the gold. We visited Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall and saw a Can-Can show there. The town is a National Historic Site and Parks Canada has restored many historic buildings and conducts walking tours of the downtown.
After several days of tours and festivities we headed out to the Dempster Highway. The Dempster Highway crosses the Artic Circle and ends at Inuvik. The famous Porcupine Caribou Herd (120,000 head) cross the Dempster highway twice each year as part of their annual migration. We did camp and hike in Tombstone Territorial Park. A violent storm blew in during the night and made us glad we were not in a tent. It left snow on the peaks above us. There was supposed to be bears, moose and caribou in the area but we did not see them- in fact, we have not seen any large animals in the Yukon. Must be a lot of subsistence hunting going on.
When we went to the Post Office on the Friday before we came up the Dumpster Highway, they told us our mail was not there but it might come in over the weekend so check back on Monday. So this did not leave us enough time to drive to the Artic Circle, but we got to within 100 miles of it. We returned to Dawson City for our final attempt to get mail. While we were in the US (including Alaska) our mail was being forwarded from Rapid City SD and we would receive it at the Post Office in about 4 to 5 days. Canadian mail is a different story. After driving back to Dawson we found out that Monday was a territorial holiday (Discovery Day). Even though it was not a federal holiday the Post Office in Dawson was closed. We had to get to Whitehorse, so we left Dawson City. If and when our mail, from late July, ever arrives in Dawson City (it had been in the mail 11 days from Rapid City), they will hold it for 30 days before sending it back to Rapid City. We should get it by mid October! I hope there was nothing important.
We camped by a series of lakes on our way to Whitehorse, and while preparing dinner we could hear loons yodeling back and forth to each other. We grabbed the binoculars and went on a search to find them. We found one pair on a green lake to the west and three more on the blue lake to the east. You could see them stretch their necks as they pierced the air with their eerie calls.
In the evening in the North Country, you can sit back and look up at the sky and watch the northern storm clouds march across the sky. This saves you from having to stay up late at night waiting to see the elusive Northern Lights. We are still waiting and getting pretty sick of stormy weather. Last night was the first time we saw stars at night. The first month it was too bright, for the last month it has been too cloudy. We discovered our roof leak was caused by a crack in the outer layer of our sky light. A little silicone patch took care of the problem, at lease for now.
Next we are starting a 12 day rafting trip down the Tatshenshini River. It flows from the south west corner of the Yukon, joins the Alsek River and empties into the Gulf of Alaska. It flows through the largest bio-preserve in the world. Pat got a cold last week and now I have it. I guess we will be coughing our way down the river. We will not be on-line again until September 4.
Don & Pat
The last town we visited in Alaska was Chicken. The miners who settled the town wanted to name it after the ptarmigan, a quail size bird, common in this area. It is also the state bird. Unfortunately they could not spell ptarmigan, so they settled for Chicken. The public restroom in Chicken is, of course, called “Chicken Poop”.
After we crossed the border in the middle of nowhere, we were on the” Top of the World Highway”. It was a rough and dusty drive, but the views at 4000 feet were spectacular. In order to get to Dawson City, you had to take a ferry across the Yukon River. The locals sometimes just drive across the river, because it is frozen 7 months of the year. We hit Dawson just in time for their Discovery Days celebration. Gold was discovered here in August, 1896. This resulted in the Klondike Gold Rush. There are still about 60 active gold mines in the area. We toured one of the stern paddle wheelers that brought supplies in from the Lower 48, and a huge dredge that dug up stream beds and recovered 98% of the gold. We visited Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Hall and saw a Can-Can show there. The town is a National Historic Site and Parks Canada has restored many historic buildings and conducts walking tours of the downtown.
After several days of tours and festivities we headed out to the Dempster Highway. The Dempster Highway crosses the Artic Circle and ends at Inuvik. The famous Porcupine Caribou Herd (120,000 head) cross the Dempster highway twice each year as part of their annual migration. We did camp and hike in Tombstone Territorial Park. A violent storm blew in during the night and made us glad we were not in a tent. It left snow on the peaks above us. There was supposed to be bears, moose and caribou in the area but we did not see them- in fact, we have not seen any large animals in the Yukon. Must be a lot of subsistence hunting going on.
When we went to the Post Office on the Friday before we came up the Dumpster Highway, they told us our mail was not there but it might come in over the weekend so check back on Monday. So this did not leave us enough time to drive to the Artic Circle, but we got to within 100 miles of it. We returned to Dawson City for our final attempt to get mail. While we were in the US (including Alaska) our mail was being forwarded from Rapid City SD and we would receive it at the Post Office in about 4 to 5 days. Canadian mail is a different story. After driving back to Dawson we found out that Monday was a territorial holiday (Discovery Day). Even though it was not a federal holiday the Post Office in Dawson was closed. We had to get to Whitehorse, so we left Dawson City. If and when our mail, from late July, ever arrives in Dawson City (it had been in the mail 11 days from Rapid City), they will hold it for 30 days before sending it back to Rapid City. We should get it by mid October! I hope there was nothing important.
We camped by a series of lakes on our way to Whitehorse, and while preparing dinner we could hear loons yodeling back and forth to each other. We grabbed the binoculars and went on a search to find them. We found one pair on a green lake to the west and three more on the blue lake to the east. You could see them stretch their necks as they pierced the air with their eerie calls.
In the evening in the North Country, you can sit back and look up at the sky and watch the northern storm clouds march across the sky. This saves you from having to stay up late at night waiting to see the elusive Northern Lights. We are still waiting and getting pretty sick of stormy weather. Last night was the first time we saw stars at night. The first month it was too bright, for the last month it has been too cloudy. We discovered our roof leak was caused by a crack in the outer layer of our sky light. A little silicone patch took care of the problem, at lease for now.
Next we are starting a 12 day rafting trip down the Tatshenshini River. It flows from the south west corner of the Yukon, joins the Alsek River and empties into the Gulf of Alaska. It flows through the largest bio-preserve in the world. Pat got a cold last week and now I have it. I guess we will be coughing our way down the river. We will not be on-line again until September 4.
Don & Pat
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Trip Update #6
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
When the Office of Homeland Security read my last e-mail, they did not like my comment about Big Oil owning Valdez. Here is part of the e-mail I received.
“ Mr. Jacobs, how dare you imply that Big Oil only controls Valdez. All of Alaska is controlled by Big Oil, and the entire economy is centered on Big Oil. We will take the necessary steps to prove this to you.”
The next day BP shutdown the pipeline. In Alaska BP stands for Big Problems. You can bet I will not be making any comments in my e-mails about the Middle East or Korea!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
From Anchorage we drove up to Denali Park (the town outside Denali NP) and had lunch. On the trip up I made camping and shuttle reservations for Denali NP. After lunch we notice the RV was running very rough and the breaks were not working. Fortunately we were in a town and did have cell phone service, which is rare out side the big cities. We drifted into a campground and called our road service. Being a Sunday afternoon, we were told to sit tight until tomorrow and then they would see who could respond. There were no auto mechanics in the area. It seemed that the two choices would be to tow the RV to Fairbanks, 150 mile away, or tow back to Anchorage, where the closest VW dealer was, 250 miles away. Neither choice was appealing, but we were afraid if we went to Fairbanks, we would have to wait for parts from Anchorage. I cancelled our reservations at Denali NP. On Monday morning we started making calls and finally got in touch with a former VW mechanic in Fairbanks. After describing the problem to him he determined the problem was with the vacuum line. We were able to fix the problem and we were on our way.
We did spend the next 4 nights in Denali NP. We took the shuttle bus into the park and did some hiking, constantly looking over our shoulder for Mr. Griz. Luckily, Mr. Griz was preoccupied trying to collect his 15 gallons of berries that he needs each day. We did see several grizzlies from the bus. A female and her cub were feeding near the road. See attached photo. We also saw lots of caribou. We went to the park’s kennel for sled dogs. The rangers hooked up the dogs and took them for a short run. Seven pups were born just 3 days before we arrived. The 30 sled dogs (3 teams) are used to patrol the park and carry supplies to remote ranger stations in the winter.
It’s rare to actually see Mt McKinley, but we saw it on the way up from Anchorage and on our second day in the park. After that it was covered in clouds. We headed into Fairbanks and went to the State Fair to see those 500 pound pumpkins and 100 pound cabbages. Maybe this was not a good growing year, but the largest cabbage was only 36 lbs.- well short of the fair record of 65 lbs. I guess it was too early in the year to see giant pumpkins. We did go to the farmer’s market to get some “Alaska Grown” produce. A trip to Chena Hot Springs, Museum of the North, some hiking and a Salmon Bake rounded out our Fairbanks experience We also enjoyed a solid day of rain. Our roof leak returned. Life goes on.
Friday, August 4, 2006
Trip Update #5
Our trip to Valdez started out rainy so we visited some museums in town and learned about the earthquake of ’64 and the Exxon Valdez spill in ’89. The 8.6 earthquake destroyed the old town of Valdez which was built on glacier deposits. The town was later rebuilt nearby on a bedrock foundation. The town of Valdez gets 20-30 feet a snow a year. The town is surrounded by snow covered mountains that receive several times more snowfall than that.
The history of the spill is somewhat whitewashed in Valdez. This is definitely an “oil town”. The oil companies pay them well to keep it that way. The town has so much extra money they built a container handling facility and a port with 8 grain silos. Although more than a decade old, both are still waiting for their first shipment. “Build it and they will come” has it limits. They are still trying to figure out what to do with the extra school they built.
If you didn’t know there was a spill, you couldn’t tell by visiting the town or by going out in a boat. Although the visible signs are gone, the long term effect on the wildlife is still being evaluated. Changes have been made to make a similar spill much less likely. There are pilot boats for each tanker and the tankers are smaller and double hulled. During the cleanup, many pristine beaches that were covered with oil were cleaned with hot water and pressure washed. Some believe that this actually was more damaging to the beach than the oil, because all of the natural growth was destroyed and the oil was pushed deeper into the beach. To give you an idea of the size of this spill, if 10.8 millions barrels of oil were spilled on the Atlantic coast, the beaches from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod would be covered in oil.
Despite all this, Valdez is a pleasant place to visit. We took a cruise to the Columbia Glacier and along the way we saw sea otters, sea lions, horned puffins, eagles, Dall porpoise, a humpback whale and a herd of mountain goats.
I was asked if there were any glaciers left in Alaska. The good news is that there are 100,000 glaciers in Alaska and one is the size of Rhode Island. The bad news is that 90% are retreating, some up to 9 miles in the last 100 years.
From Valdez we headed over to Homer, the most beautiful town in Alaska. We knew this from a previous visit - good thing, because clouds covered the mountains that surround Homer while we were there. A canoeing trip on the Moose River gave us a good dose of Alaska liquid sunshine. A local told us “It never rains THAT hard”. We took a boat trip to Portage Glacier which we noted had receded considerably since our last visit 20 years ago.
Back in Anchorage, we finally got our refrigerator replaced. Next stop Denali National Park.
The history of the spill is somewhat whitewashed in Valdez. This is definitely an “oil town”. The oil companies pay them well to keep it that way. The town has so much extra money they built a container handling facility and a port with 8 grain silos. Although more than a decade old, both are still waiting for their first shipment. “Build it and they will come” has it limits. They are still trying to figure out what to do with the extra school they built.
If you didn’t know there was a spill, you couldn’t tell by visiting the town or by going out in a boat. Although the visible signs are gone, the long term effect on the wildlife is still being evaluated. Changes have been made to make a similar spill much less likely. There are pilot boats for each tanker and the tankers are smaller and double hulled. During the cleanup, many pristine beaches that were covered with oil were cleaned with hot water and pressure washed. Some believe that this actually was more damaging to the beach than the oil, because all of the natural growth was destroyed and the oil was pushed deeper into the beach. To give you an idea of the size of this spill, if 10.8 millions barrels of oil were spilled on the Atlantic coast, the beaches from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod would be covered in oil.
Despite all this, Valdez is a pleasant place to visit. We took a cruise to the Columbia Glacier and along the way we saw sea otters, sea lions, horned puffins, eagles, Dall porpoise, a humpback whale and a herd of mountain goats.
I was asked if there were any glaciers left in Alaska. The good news is that there are 100,000 glaciers in Alaska and one is the size of Rhode Island. The bad news is that 90% are retreating, some up to 9 miles in the last 100 years.
From Valdez we headed over to Homer, the most beautiful town in Alaska. We knew this from a previous visit - good thing, because clouds covered the mountains that surround Homer while we were there. A canoeing trip on the Moose River gave us a good dose of Alaska liquid sunshine. A local told us “It never rains THAT hard”. We took a boat trip to Portage Glacier which we noted had receded considerably since our last visit 20 years ago.
Back in Anchorage, we finally got our refrigerator replaced. Next stop Denali National Park.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Trip Update #4
Since we left Haines our RV has been running well, thanks to the help we got from Tom Remy in WA. The Remys help get us through a difficult period when it seemed like everything that could go wrong (with the RV) did go wrong. We miss their company (and home cooking)!
Shooting wildlife has always been a fun past time, plus there is no bag limit when you are using digital ammo. On the ferry we saw dozens of eagles, some humpback whales, killers whales, sea otters and a harbor seal. In Haines, we could walk down to the stream near our campground and see grizzles eating berries or looking for salmon. There are fishing counting devises on spawning streams, there were 1700 salmon/day going up this stream. On the road from Haines we saw moose and beaver in the ponds. A black bear was crossing the road as we entered Valdez.
The road out of Haines was in great shape and almost no other traffic. Once we joined up with the Alaska Highway, the traffic increased considerably. Now we would see RVs every few minutes. (It should be called the RV highway). The road conditions got worse with frost heave a common problem. Imagine a roller coaster ride in a 3 ton RV. Of course like DC, there were potholes to dodge. Unlike DC, an recent earthquake had done considerable damage to sections of the Richardson Highway. There were sizable sections of roadway under repair. This meant gravel roads and all the dust you can choke on. We made the mistake of washing our RV before we left Haines, we thought it was dirty then, now we have given up hope on ever seeing it clean again. Hats off to the highway crews, they have been working 12-16 hour days 6-7 days per week since April.
I don't know what's happened to the economy recently, but in the Yukon, the unofficial exchange rate for the dollar is 1 to 1. Then my credit card notified me (nice timing guys) there will be a surcharge on foreign transactions. Luckily I had money stashed in a Canadian Bank and beat then at their silly game. People say Hawaii is expensive, but after paying $6 for a bag of ice, $5 for a hot shower, Interior (no man's land) Alaska has them beat.
Sorry to hear about your flooding follow by Hazy, Hot and Humid weather. Last night was the first rain we had since we got off the ferry. On a hot day it reached the mid 70's. Currently we are in Valdez. It was 43 degrees this morning. No one complaining here. Next stop Anchorage.
Don & Pat
Shooting wildlife has always been a fun past time, plus there is no bag limit when you are using digital ammo. On the ferry we saw dozens of eagles, some humpback whales, killers whales, sea otters and a harbor seal. In Haines, we could walk down to the stream near our campground and see grizzles eating berries or looking for salmon. There are fishing counting devises on spawning streams, there were 1700 salmon/day going up this stream. On the road from Haines we saw moose and beaver in the ponds. A black bear was crossing the road as we entered Valdez.
The road out of Haines was in great shape and almost no other traffic. Once we joined up with the Alaska Highway, the traffic increased considerably. Now we would see RVs every few minutes. (It should be called the RV highway). The road conditions got worse with frost heave a common problem. Imagine a roller coaster ride in a 3 ton RV. Of course like DC, there were potholes to dodge. Unlike DC, an recent earthquake had done considerable damage to sections of the Richardson Highway. There were sizable sections of roadway under repair. This meant gravel roads and all the dust you can choke on. We made the mistake of washing our RV before we left Haines, we thought it was dirty then, now we have given up hope on ever seeing it clean again. Hats off to the highway crews, they have been working 12-16 hour days 6-7 days per week since April.
I don't know what's happened to the economy recently, but in the Yukon, the unofficial exchange rate for the dollar is 1 to 1. Then my credit card notified me (nice timing guys) there will be a surcharge on foreign transactions. Luckily I had money stashed in a Canadian Bank and beat then at their silly game. People say Hawaii is expensive, but after paying $6 for a bag of ice, $5 for a hot shower, Interior (no man's land) Alaska has them beat.
Sorry to hear about your flooding follow by Hazy, Hot and Humid weather. Last night was the first rain we had since we got off the ferry. On a hot day it reached the mid 70's. Currently we are in Valdez. It was 43 degrees this morning. No one complaining here. Next stop Anchorage.
Don & Pat
Sunday, July 9, 2006
Trip Update #3
Since I wrote last time, we got our RV problems resolved, except for a dead frig. which we have scheduled to be installed in Anchorage. Of course, it is a special order and has to be air freighted to AK. Our last few nights in WA were spent at Larrabee State Park which is right on the coast. We left Bellingham on 7/11 at 6 PM. Since we made our ferry reservations with little advanced notice, we were unable to book a stateroom. Their staterooms only accomodate about half the passengers. Therefore we set up our tent on the stern deck with other 'campers'. Unfortunately, our cheap Coleman A-frame tent was not designed for the high wind conditions on the boat. We survived the first night of wind & rain and were lucky a tent seam did not rip. We decided to 'break camp' and sleep on the floor inside the second night. Pat had the foresight to put us on the waiting list for the staterooms in case one came available. Sleeping on the floor was not too bad as long as you didn't mind being awakened by fellow passengers shortly before 6 AM. We were just getting ready to 'bed down' on the 3rd night when the purser paged us. A stateroom was available - we felt like we won the lottery!
On the way up the Inside Passage, the ferry stopped at Ketchikan, Wrangel, Petersburg, Sitka and Juneau. At most of these towns we got off the boat and either took a hike or walked through town. We landed in Haines on 7/15. Haines is a nice size Alaskan town. We kept busy several days here hiking, biking, touring. One day we took a high speed ferry over to Skagway. We took the White Pass & Yukon Railroad (WP & Y RR) to the summit of White Pass and back. The Klondike history and the story of the construction of this 110 mile rail line in 2 years, 2 months and 2 days is fascinating. The railroad is an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. There were three cruise shops in Skagway the day we arrived - and we heard that Ketchikan has as many as 7 in port at one time on some days! The cruise industry is likely responsible for the survival of the WP & Y RR since hundreds of passengers ride its rails everyday. Unfortunately, the historic town of Skayway is now mostly jewelry shops owned by the cruise lines. Fortunately, cruise ships rarely visit Haines. Our next stop is Valdez.
Don & Pat
On the way up the Inside Passage, the ferry stopped at Ketchikan, Wrangel, Petersburg, Sitka and Juneau. At most of these towns we got off the boat and either took a hike or walked through town. We landed in Haines on 7/15. Haines is a nice size Alaskan town. We kept busy several days here hiking, biking, touring. One day we took a high speed ferry over to Skagway. We took the White Pass & Yukon Railroad (WP & Y RR) to the summit of White Pass and back. The Klondike history and the story of the construction of this 110 mile rail line in 2 years, 2 months and 2 days is fascinating. The railroad is an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. There were three cruise shops in Skagway the day we arrived - and we heard that Ketchikan has as many as 7 in port at one time on some days! The cruise industry is likely responsible for the survival of the WP & Y RR since hundreds of passengers ride its rails everyday. Unfortunately, the historic town of Skayway is now mostly jewelry shops owned by the cruise lines. Fortunately, cruise ships rarely visit Haines. Our next stop is Valdez.
Don & Pat
Saturday, July 8, 2006
Trip Update #2
If you thought this message would be coming from Alaska you would be wrong. We thought we could drive across country and not have any RV problems, boy were we wrong! Lucky for us we have a friend in Washington State who is a mechanic and has been helping us get the RV back in shape. None of the problem were too serious (except for a roof leak) but there was a lot of adjustments needed (despite several expensive maintenance checks before we left). We rescheduled our ferry departure to July 11 and should be in Haines AK by July 15. We did do a check out trip to Mt. Rainier for four days of hiking, biking and swimming. We enjoyed walking thru the areas with large Western Cedar, and Douglas Fir trees. We had all types of weather from hail storms, high winds, heavy rain to hot and sunny. One storm causes the mountain pass to close and it took 4 days to clear the debris. There were 4 other road closures due to the heavy rain. Tomorrow we leave for a short camping trip on the coast before we get on the ferry. One advantage of being retired is the flexibility it gives you, and we found out we need to be flexible.
That's all for now.
Don & Pat
That's all for now.
Don & Pat
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)