Skagway, Juneau

Kluane Lake – Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory, Skagway and Juneau, Alaska

August 18, 2013

Day 36 of our adventure brought more trying travel and participation in the “Rough Road Rodeo”. Poor Mike had his fill of the difficult driving yesterday, and we had even MORE today. Over 200 miles were taken up with loose gravel, potholes, washboard surfaces and LOTS OF FROST HEAVES! The landscape was again pretty, but we tended to be a bit preoccupied with the road and how to avoid the worst of the obstacles. Mike once again did an amazing job of keeping us safe and sound. The 4 of us were very glad to make it into camp and be done with the roller coaster action of the day. The night’s camp was a bit primitive, small space and only limited hook-ups and not enough for all of us, but we made do and everyone seemed just glad to be done driving the “hell road”.  Wild life count for the day – cute caribou and moose planters at an interpretive center we visited.

just can't wait to get........

on the road again......

Miles for the day: 227   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 3269.2

August 19-22, 2013

Days 37-40 we had crossed out of AK and back into the YT, Canada for one night, interesting geography with international boarders changing along the way.  Most of the day’s drive was in Canada.  We were up and on our way early (unusual for us, as we are often one of the last rigs to leave – no rushing me some mornings J) made us feel like we could more easily handle the day’s challenges.  Fortunately he road conditions were much better, thank goodness – the last 2 days had been a trying and worrisome, could the old coach “hang together” over more rough roads?  The vistas and views were very pleasing again. Kluane Lake, as we left was beautiful, as was Emerald Lake that we passed later in the day.  Scenic rivers, waterfalls and mountains with their first snowfall of the season were at every turn.  We drove through an area called Carcross Desert – complete with a few miles of sand dunes.  Summit Lake Valley was very unique – a rocky surface with low clouds that made these several miles of the drive look “other world-like”.  We ended the drive today by crossing back into the USA and on into Skagway. Mike had to thrill us by announcing, as we are driving out of the boarder crossing that “we have no BRAKES!” YIKES! – we had been driving down an 8% incline for 12+ miles and guess we had over heated the stopping power. Fortunately we quickly regained them and all was well.  Very few dull moments with us.

U.S.Customs

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Miles for the day: 272   Total miles for the AK Adventure: 3541.2

While in Skagway we took the White Pass Railroad for a ride on the narrow gauge rail. We saw breathtaking panorama of mountains, glaciers, gorges, waterfalls, tunnels, trestles and historic sights. We rode in vintage parlor cars and excellent views from the large windows.  Mike spent most of his time out of the deck between cars shooting lots of pictures.  Skagway’s main reason for existence seems to be to sell the passengers on the cruise ships DIAMONDS.  There must be 3 jewelry stores for every other tourist trap in the 7-8 blocks of shops that lead from the port.  There were 4 ships docked and the streets were quite crowded.  We enjoyed a drink at the Red Onion Saloon, Mike and our waitress were quite taken with each other – wild old guy!!!

Skagway

Tipping!

Skagway

We took a daylong trip to Juneau. At 7:45 am we boarded the 63-foot fast-hulled catamaran the MV Fjordland. This was a comfortable boat with indoor seating and a 360-degree view of the breathtaking scenery. We cruised through the Lynn Canal the longest and deepest glacial fjord.  On our trip we saw several bald eagles, some sea lions and a couple of hump-backed whales playing a few hundred yards off our deck.  We arrived in Juneau mid day and took a short bus ride to downtown.  We had a couple of hours to eat lunch and see the sights of Alaska’s state capital.  It also is another “cruise ship” town – lots of other “tourists” besides our group of motor homers.  Juneau is an interesting place – one can only get to it by air, sea or being born there.  There are no roads to Juneau.  The state has put initiatives on the ballot to propose changing the location of the capital, but it would be so costly that it does not make sense to the voters.  The same thing goes with proposals to build a highway to Juneau – TOO COSTLY.  After lunch and a short walking tour we went to visit Mendenhall Glacier.  This was another breathtaking location.  The glacier is about 12 miles long from the Juneau Ice field down to Mendehall Lake.  The face the glacier is about ½ mile wide and about 100 feet tall above the water.  Beautiful blue highlights with many icebergs  floating at her base.  We took a short walk around seeing many spawning salmon but no bears made their presence know.  The boat trip back Skagway was great – we spent the better part of a ½ hour watching 6-8 whales all around our boat.  We knew we had a good chance of spotting some when we saw a dozen or so whale-watching boats nearby.  The cruise brought us back to Skagway about 8:00pm.  The BOYS were quite glad to see us, way past their dinner time and it had been a long day with out any “potty breaks”. 

Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau

view from the boat

another Humpback