Home, Eugene, OR USA

Introduction

This short section suggests a way to get into and use this blog. 

The tabs at the top of this page are:  Home (this section), About (some context information about the blog and the trip), and Pictures Page (more pictures, too many to post in the main part of the blog, but available if you are interested). 

My suggestion is that you click on the About tab, and take a look at the context information.  Then come back here and explore the trip blog as you wish.  Enjoy!

Warm regards,

Lin & Don Hirst

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Monday, 19 September 2011
Home, Eugene, OR USA

Wow! What a trip! We are home safely, some 8,400 miles later. It feels really good to be home; that said, we are both glad and sad that our Alaska Trip 2011 is finished.

Home, again, and safely.  A wonderful time and
we're both glad and sad that it is over.

After safely arriving home, next we had several of days of unpacking, cleaning up, and taking care of some minor repairs.  Then I had to sort through something like 3,400 pictures and select the best among them to update this blog. It took several weeks to complete the job, but the effort brought back a host of wonderful memories. Also, I've finished editing the blog to make it more consistent and correct some grammar, so the writing is done, finally. Enjoy.

Our last 120 miles was nostalgic, we’ve been across OR 126 from Sisters before, and it is a beautiful drive. We left from Cold Springs CG at about 9:30, stopped for lunch at the Vida Café for a burger and some of their delicious triple berry pie with ice cream. That meant we were really home again. Then the familiar sights of Springfield and Eugene were in front of us and finally, our home. It feels good to be here; we are glad that we made the trip and that everything worked out well, pretty much as we had planned it. Now all we have to do is figure out what our next big trip will be, and when.

We hope that you will enjoy reading this blog.  We'd love to have your thoughts and reactions to it.

The blog didn’t get updated on a daily basis for a number of reasons; some to do with lack of or problems with Internet access, others with our focus on enjoying the time we had away from home. Now, it is all done. We’ve enjoyed writing it; a fitting remembrance of a wonderful two months in our lives.

Cold Spring CG, Deschutes National Forest, Sisters, OR USA

Up, and getting ready to head for home!  Hard to believe this is our last day.  This is a beautiful site, and easy to revisit...

Our site in Cold Spring CG, right beside a small stream.

Additional pictures from our trip are available on the Pictures Page. I've placed the additional pictures on a separate page to make the blog shorter and more readable. Enjoy!

Sunday, 18 September 2011
Cold Spring CG, Deschutes National Forest, Sisters, OR USA

It is a beautiful afternoon, we are camped at Cold Spring CG (NFS), a few miles west of Sisters, OR. I am catching up on this blog, while Lin is taking it easy reading a book in her camp chair. It is quiet, the breeze in the fir trees is keeping us company; no one else nearby. What a wonderful way to end our Alaska adventure. Tomorrow, we will close this out as we head for Eugene and home. Here’s what’s happened the past few days...

Saturday, 17 September 2011
Bend-Sisters Garden RV Resort, Sisters, OR USA

We packed up our trailer at Yakama Nation RV Park, and left for a quick look around Toppenish and Zilla, the small towns nearby. They are part of the wine route around Yakima, but we figured we’d had enough wine up in the Okanagan, so we were just looking around a bit. Both towns are small, with not much happening on a Saturday morning. We headed back to the RV Park and hitched up to head south. We thought to stay a night at Maryville State Park in the Columbia Gorge, a park we know and like a lot. Well, there was a concert over the weekend at Maryville Winery, and there wasn’t an open site in the entire Gorge. So, we just kept going, arriving in Sisters about 4:30 PM. A quick look around led us to the former KOA, now called the Bend-Sisters Garden RV Resort, just south of Sisters. We pulled in and set up for the night. It is a nice park, well laid out and with reasonable space between sites. But it is all grass and asphalt, not what we think of as camping. So, just one night there.

Friday, 16 September, 2011

Yakama Nation RV Park, Toppenish, WA USA

The drive from Osoyoos, BC down to near Yakima, WA passes through high desert with all of its sere beauty. It is not particularly our preference, but we kept on going through it to Toppenish. There we found a place at the Yakama Nation RV Resort. We set up and called it a day. After a quick dinner, we took a walk around the park, not someplace we’d revisit, except by need. And that was the day.

Haynes Point Provincial Park, Osoyoos, BC, Canada

Friday morning, I was up early and took a few pictures around our site and the campground.

The end of  Haynes Point spit, looking east.

Along the north shore of the point, looking NW.

Same position, looking N.

South shore, looking, SW.

Then we had breakfast, packed up, and were on the road in good time. We were sorry to leave this beautiful part of Canada, so I think we will return and spend more time in the Okanagan region.

Thursday, 15 September 2011
Bear Creek Provincial Park, Kelowna, BC, Canada

Today we’ll be leaving Bear Creek Provincial Park, a former logging storage spit that was made over into a very pleasant small park on the west shore of Kelowna Lake, about 5 mile across the lake and north from the town of Kelowna. We arrived here on Tuesday, after looking at the RV Park I’d picked out from the guidebook and deciding it wasn’t our cup of tea. We much prefer to camp in national, state, or provincial parks, not RV Parks that don’t provide space, outdoor fire pits and real picnic tables. The one big difference is that the RV Parks generally provide electric power, water, sanitation, and most times WiFi Internet connections. None of these generally show up in government run parks, so there is a tradeoff.

Bear Creek PP

Greata Ranch Estates Winery.

Greata Ranch Estate - Tasting Room.

View to SE from Greata Ranch.

View to NE from Greata Ranch.

Wednesday, 14 September 2011

Haynes Point Provincial Park, Osoyoos, BC, Canada

This evening we are at Haynes Point Provincial Park; it’s a lucky day for us. We drove in about 12:30 PM after a slow drive down from Bear Creek PP, with stops at several wineries along the way, some wonderful views of lakes, mountains, and high desert, and, oh yes, some excellent wines (see pictures, above). On arrival, we saw the sign at the entrance; “Campground Full.” Well, we took a chance and drove through, and found the one open site. We pounced on it and set up, lucky us. It was the only open site for the rest of the day. After getting set up, we headed north to the Osoyoos Visitors’ Information office. There we picked up literature and talked with the receptionist. She suggested lunch at Burrowing Owl Winery, and seconded the other winery selections we’d already made for visits. We took off up the road and found Burrowing Owl without any problems. We wandered through their observation tower while waiting a few minutes for an outside table, drinking in wonderful views in every direction. The lower Okanogan Valley is a beautiful area, and we savored every moment of the warm sunshine.

View from Burrowing Owl observation tower, looking SE.  They have
a very nice restaurant, and the Inn is beautiful as well.

View from the observation tower, looking SW.

Shortly, our table was ready, so we sat down and enjoyed a wonderful light luncheon and a couple of glasses of very nice wine. 90 minutes later, we had finished an excellent repast and were ready to tackle some more wine tasting. We went to Burrowing Owl’s wine bar, tasted our way through their selection (all quite nice), and then took ourselves on north to visit several other wineries on our list. We enjoyed each of them, but by then evening was approaching. So, back to our trailer for some very nice beef stroganoff, with (surprise) good wine to go with it. So ended one of our last days on the road, another very good one...

Bear Creek Provincial Park, Kelowna, BC, Canada

We woke up to a beautiful morning, sunny and warm; what a pleasant change from last week. We decided to spend the day looking through downtown Kelowna, visiting the local Tourist Info office, and then exploring vineyards in the area. It was a good plan and worked out very nicely. The town of Kelowna is a pleasant place, with lots of shops, restaurants, and a wonderful location along the lakefront. We visited the Calona winery in town and began to realize the buzz about this area’s wines is the real thing. From there, we headed south on the east side of the lake and visited Summerhill, Cedar Creek, and St. Hubertus wineries, and had lunch beside a very lovely little lakefront park. We found some excellent wines as well. Then we headed over to the west side of the lake, and visited Mt. Boucherie, Quails’ Gate, and Mission Hill wineries. All have spectacular locations, on both sides of the lake and provide superior wines. We could also have dined extremely well in most of them, if we had wished. We drove back toward our trailer for a nap and some down time; along the way, we drove north along the west lakefront, passing by some spectacular homes, and then a wild park area. There we saw a group of mountain goats grazing along the roadside, including one magnificent ram with a full curl of horns (sorry, no pictures). Then a nap, some work on pictures, and a quiet dinner. A wonderful fine day, one of the last, as we will be home soon.  Here are some pictures from our day:

Kelowna Lake, with Bear Creek PP in the center.

Kelowna Lake, west shore.

The old man at the Summerhill Winery.

View from Summerhill Winery Terrace, looking NW across Kelowna Lake.

Summerhill Winery - Pyramid Wine Cellar.

Inside the pyramid.

The quartz crystals and copper strips that "shield"
the interior of the pyramid.

We visited several other wineries on the east side of the lake, and then drove back north and across the bridge to the west side of the lake.  Lots more to see down into West Kelowna; beautiful sights and good wine.

Pinot Noir grapes at Quail's Gate.

Looking west, up the hill at Quail's Gate.

The grounds at Mission Hill, a really spiffy place.

A view SE across the Lake from Mission Hill.

And a view NE from the end of the gallery seen above.

After dinner, we took a short walk along the lake's edge.

Looking from our campground across Kelowna Lake at night.

Tuesday, 13 September, 2011
Irvine’s RV Park, Valemount, BC, Canada

Tuesday was a travel day. We enjoyed our stay here, but now it's time to move on:

The Valemount area is beautiful, with snow-topped mountains surrounding the valley floor, well worth a revisit.

The drive south to Kelowna was just that, several nice rest stops and some beautiful scenery along the way. We continued to listen to our audio books, working our way through Anne Perry’s series of stories about Thomas Pitt (a police detective) and his wife, Charlotte, who helps out with investigations. The stories are set in late 1800’s London and give interesting vignettes of Elizabethan English life of that period. They certainly help the miles pass more quickly, and finally we arrived in Kelowna. The GPS routed us through some side streets on the north and east of the town, so we picked up some produce at a roadside stand, and eventually found our planned RV Park. It was definitely urban and crowded; by the time I added in the cost of WiFi Internet access, it was also too spendy for our tastes. So, we looked into the guidebook, and decided to see if Bear Creek Provincial Park was more to our liking. It turned out to be a very nice small park on the west side of Kelowna Lake. We found a beautiful open site, and set up for a two night stay; and are very glad we did. So ends the day...

Monday, 12 September 2011
Crooked River PP, Bear Lake, BC, Canada

In the morning, before leaving Crooked River PP, we took some time to walk the western shore path along Bear Lake.  It was a lovely walk:

Squirrel gave us a good scolding!

Beach and kayakers on a lovely morning.

Bear Lake, looking back toward our camp site.

The drive from Bear Lake / Crooked River PP south to Valemount passes down the Salmon River valley, a beautiful area, and into St. George. We stopped for a while in St. George to look around and do some shopping. Then we headed further south to Valemount. It was just a long day, nothing special to say about it. The CG at Valemount was north of town, quite a nice one, but of the commercial variety rather than the forest campgrounds that we prefer. We set up, and asked about a good local restaurant. The RV Park owner, enthusiastically seconded by several others in the office, suggested the Caribou Creek Grill in town. We had diner there and enjoyed it greatly. We had received good advice; it was a very nice restaurant, big wood log walls, nicely spaced tables, interesting objects on the walls, excellent service, and a delightful dinner. Definitely a place worth another visit, both for the food and the surrounding countryside.

Sunday, 11 September 2011
Northern Lights RV Park, Dawson Creek, BC, Canada

Strange to remember those terrible days 10 years ago, the world is certainly different now...

We left Dawson Creek at about 10:00 am, planning to stay at Whiskers Point Provincial Park on McLeod Lake Monday night. The drive south on BC 97 from Dawson Creek to Valemount is a beautiful one. It passes through an area of rolling hills, with lakes, and further south, mountains. There are a series of small, but very picturesque provincial parks along the road. We went in and out of several, just to see how they looked. BC does a very nice job with their parks, and we’d like to come back to revisit some of them. When we reached our planned stop over at Whiskers Point PP, on MacLeod Lake we found it closed. The next alternate was about 60 miles further south at Crooked River PP. We kept going till we came to it and were glad we did. The CG is on Bear Lake, a small, but quite pretty lake, very clear and with a nice sandy beach area. We set up and made dinner, so nice that we were able to enjoy our dinner outside; all very peaceful.

After dinner, we walked down to the lake shore and enjoyed a few quiet minutes watching the moon rise in the east:

Bear Lake, about 7:45 PM; a beautiful, peaceful place.

North shore of Bear Lake, a nice beach to revisit.

Lin wished we could stay a second night here, but I confess a certain eagerness to be headed towards home, so we took time in the morning to walk around part of the lake, and then packed up to get on the road again.

Saturday, 10 September 2011
Northern Lights RV Park, Dawson Creek, BC, Canada

We took the day to wander around Dawson City sightseeing and shopping. The Visitors' Information Center is in the old railroad station, along with a nice museum.  Back a few years the RR was the sole link to the outside world. The the station-master’s office is set up with all the original equipment; it is interesting to compare now (sleek electronics everywhere) with then (all in black, large, blocky), but it clearly got the job done for a long time. We watched a video of the building of the Alcan Highway - an immense feat in the early 40’s, and even today a marvel of engineering; fun to drive, and challenging, still.

Dawson Creek RR Station, Visitors' Center and Museum.

Next door, there is an old grain elevator that has been converted into an art gallery.  The interior is a spiral ramp up several floors to provide space for hanging artworks. Three women had a show on, with water colors and pastels of nature and people, interesting material well done, we enjoyed walking through it and seeing how they interpreted the scenes of the area.

Town art gallery in the old Grain Elevator.

The downtown was active, with a good mix of shops and some tourist spots.  This is clearly more than a tourist town, though; we enjoyed our stroll:

Mile Post "0" on the Al-Can Highway.

Note the murals on the north wall of this fancy old hotel.  Many of the old
buildings in town are decorated with interesting murals of scenes from the old days.

Southwest of town, there is a wind-power installation, with 34 huge wind turbines along a high ridge. It is an interesting sight, not so usual in Canada, but one we are familiar with from our stay in The Netherlands, where wind-power is a commonplace. There is a commemorative book published about this installation, and it is touted as a park area as well, so we drove up to it and looked around. Not much of a park, but an interesting visual sight. And a bit strange to sit in the truck below one of these immense stalks, listening to the wind whistle over the blades as they swish by, with random groaning sounds as the yaw motors turn the nacelles to keep the blades facing the wind. Each one is independently controlled, and as you look along the line, the unit above you may be facing directly west, while the units at the other end of the line are almost head on to you. Interesting to watch for a bit.

Wind-farm, unusual in Canada, but wide-spread
in other regions.

Interesting paint job on the bottom of the pylons.

After our look at the towers, we drove back into town, did a bit of shopping, and called it a day.

Friday, 9 September 2011
Northern Lights RV Park, Dawson Creek, BC, Canada

Dawson Creek is Mile / KM “0” on the Alcan Highway, and that’s where we are this evening. We’ll take a down day tomorrow, and look around the town before heading further south. Mostly, we have been traveling since leaving Valdez. That won’t change much until we are down to the Okanagan Valley, in southern BC. We’ll stop there for a couple of days to look around the area, which is reputed to be beautiful, and with many good wineries. We are curious to explore that area. For the rest, I’ll include brief notes of our travels...

3G's Hide-away RV Park, Ft. Nelson, BC, Canada

Friday was another mostly travel day; we were up and packed early, then walked next door to the Ft. Nelson Historical museum. They were closed for the season, already, so we walked around the outside. They have many old engines, large and small, and a fair amount of mining hardware, but most of their collection was in closed buildings; a disappointment. We had looked over the local activities and didn’t find anything of more interest, so off we went, on the road for a long day’s drive. This was the day that took us from the northern edge of the Rocky Mountains onto the rolling hills and farm country of the high, intermountain plateau. The change is quite remarkable and a major shift in the landscape. Also, the weather improved dramatically. We’d been under mostly cloudy skies, with showers, and finally, the sun came out with only a few clouds to be seen, and for the first time in six weeks, the temperature climbed above 70°F. We are very glad to see this change. We took a few breaks along the way, and then about 10 miles west of Dawson Creek, we ran into a very long line of stopped traffic. After an hour, we reached a point where we could turn around and did so. We went back past several miles of stopped cars and trucks, and finally found a through road south to another highway. We took it, and then an east bound road which brought us back to the Alcan; which by that time had finally cleared out. So we got to our RV Park an hour+ later than expected, but with no further trouble. That’s it for Friday.

Thursday, 8 September 2011
Baby Nugget RV Park, Nugget City, YT, Canada

Thursday, I took some time before leaving the Baby Nugget RV Park to spray wash the undercarriage of our travel trailer (it still was carrying dirt and gravel from the Top of the World Highway). Then, we drove from Nugget City, a few miles west of Watson Lake, YT, to Ft. Nelson, a distance of 340 miles. It was a long day, with the most notable stop being the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake. We stopped and looked around for a bit, finding a sign post for Eugene, and many others of interest.

Just a few of the huge number of sign posts.

Here's Eugene!

Lots more to see.

Then we were back on the road, it was a good day for spotting wild life, we saw a good size black bear and then several of them in a group (much smaller bears than the browns we saw in Katmai), a herd of bison, then several caribou, and finally a small herd of mountain goats by the road. 

A good size black bear.

A family of black bears. 

Old man bison, and his herd.

And some caribou.

... with fawn.

Finally, some mountain goats.

Also, we saw much beautiful scenery during the long day’s drive. We eventually arrived in Ft. Nelson, and found a place to stay at 3G’s Hide-away RV Park, set up, and shared a quiet meal. Afterword, Lin read for a while and then went to bed. I stayed up a bit later, working on my picture files and uploaded the first batch to the blog. That was it for Thursday...

Wednesday, 7 September 2011
North Country RV Park, Whitehorse, YT, Canada

This travel day we drove from Whitehorse, YT to Nugget City, YT, a few miles west of Watson Lake, YT. Before leaving Whitehorse, we took some time to walk a bit, and drive through the downtown area to see what was there, anything that we might have missed on our walk through the area. It is a small town, during the summertime there are a lot of activities for visitors, but by the 2nd week in September, things are getting very quiet. So, we packed up and headed south, again. The scenery along the drive was as spectacular as ever; broad valleys covered with spruce, and golden alders and aspens in patches along the mountain-sides; beautiful country, but so empty of people and activity.

The crossing at Teslin, YT is particularly nice:

Teslin Lake.

We arrived in due course at the Baby Nugget RV Park, which is a basic park set on loess soil and gravel. There are sparse trees and it was mostly empty by now. We looked in the restaurant and decided that we’d make our own meals, thanks very much...

Tuesday, 6 September 2011
North Country RV Park, Whitehorse, YT, Canada

We are now beginning a stretch of mostly driving to get us back south. Our next major stop-over will be in the Okanagan Valley, where we are much closer to home, and are interested in exploring a bit for further visits in the future. The start of this stretch took us from Carmacks to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. This is still a remote, wilderness area with little development, rough roads, and long distances between stopping points. We saw a number of closed and abandoned road houses and fueling points; only a few of them remain active now. The mountains are less steep and rugged than further north, but the scenery retains its interest. We arrived in Whitehorse about 2:00 PM, ate our lunch (late) and set up. Then we went into town, checked out the VC, found many attractions already closed, so went for a walk around the downtown area. It seems a thriving community, nice murals on some of the buildings. A short drive around the lake south of town took us back to our trailer for dinner and a good night’s rest...

Carmacks Hotel & RV Park, Carmacks, YT, Canada

Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Carmacks Hotel & RV Park, Carmacks, YT, Canada

OK, I have been behind on the blog; but with this post I’ve caught up. Today is Tuesday, 6 September, and we’ve spent a quiet night at the Carmacks Hotel and RV Park in the Yukon. This is a busy spot for trucks headed up and down the Klondike Highway, which runs right by the RV Park, so we didn’t sleep as well last night as we might have wished. That’s OK, today is a short day driving into Whitehorse, YT. We’ve finished breakfast, and Lin has washed and put away the dishes while I catch up this journal and tell what happened last week...

Monday, 5 September 2011
Dawson City RV Park, Dawson City, YT, Canada

Monday was another travel day. We were up, not too early, had breakfast, cleaned up, hooked up the trailer, and then spent some time driving through Dawson City, just to see what had changed since we visited here about 15 years ago. There were lots of changes, the town has grown considerably, and is much more “touristy” now than it was back then. Many of the buildings which were dilapidated and falling down then have been restored, and many new ones built. I didn't take any pictures, too much tourist trappings for my interest.  After our look around, we set our route down the Klondike Highway to Carmacks, YT, headed south now, bound for home over the next couple of weeks. The drive was a very beautiful one, first along the Stewart River and then along the Yukon. We stopped at several overlooks to take in the sights and I captured some pictures near Minto and at the Five Fingers Rapids overlook:

Yukon River overlook, near Minto, YT.

Overlook above Five Fingers Rapids in the Yukon River,
about 10 miles north of Carmacks, YT.

Five Finger Rapids, Yukon River.

The stairs and path to the river, the signpost
said allow 2 hours round-trip.  We passed.

We reached the Carmacks Hotel and RV Park late in the afternoon, and set up our travel trailer beside the Yukon, a nice spot. After dinner, we played Russian Bank for a while and then called it a (very good) day...

Sunday, 4 September 2011
Sourdough Campground, Tok, AK, USA

Sunday was a mostly travel day, over some spectacular roadway, and through some interesting villages. We left Tok and headed up the Taylor Highway towards Chicken and the Top of the World Highway leading into Dawson City. The weather, as we started, was cool and partly cloudy, excellent driving weather. We made a short stop at Chicken; parts of the town seemed just as we remembered, and we had pie and ice-cream at the one old cafe there. There has been some new construction as well. The Pedro Gold-dredge has been moved into town from its old resting place and restored.  Beside it there is a new, modern RV park. We just looked around the outside of the dredge, skipped the inside tour, got some pictures, and were soon on our way again.

Beautiful downtown Chicken, AK.

The Chicken chicken...

The Pedro Gold Dredge, restored for you to see in Chicken, AK.

Entry gate to the dredge, with Chicken's
chicken in the background. 

Watch chicken at the gate to the dredge.

The other guard chicken, with an admirer.

And don't forget the guardian of the sign...

Chicken, AK is always fun.

The drive over the Top-of-the-World highway was quite different from what we had remembered. The road surface is still gravel for the most part, but it has been rebuilt to better standards, and the views are outstanding. The greens we remembered had changed to a lot of dead, but still standing, spruce (due to the spruce bark beetle), interspersed with some live spruce, and much birch, glowing with gold and red leaves. Still beautiful, but very different from our memories.

Wayside near the Canadian border.

And the beautiful 40-Mile country-side.

Taken from right beside the sign-board, above.

Then, just over the Canadian Border, but before arriving at Dawson City, the skies turned black, and the rain and hail poured down. The ground quickly turned white, and it was so noisy we could not listen to the audio book we had been playing along the way. It was quite intense for about 15 minutes as we plowed along in 4-wheel drive, pushing up the drifts of hail on both sides of the truck. I took it slow and easy, and eventually, we drove out of the line of showers and hail.

A bit closer to Canada, and just before the hail-
storm crossed the road and hit us.

Then the sun shown again, and we continued down the road, listening to our audio book again.

By the time we got to Dawson City, we had enjoyed the sun shine for quite a while and we had the extremely good fortune to drive up to the (free) ferry over the Yukon, just as it began loading for the 10 minute trip across to Dawson City. We boarded without any trouble, crossed over to Dawson City, and drove off the deck onto the shore.

Looking up-river, the Yukon is big; the ferry is small, but we made it across OK.

Dawson City ahead.

A quick look in town at the Visitors’ Center, a bite to eat at Sourdough Joe’s, and we were ready to head for the RV Park to set up for the night.  This was the first night we had to use our head nets to keep the flies out of our face so we could get set up.  This is how I looked when I walked in after finishing the job:

Head nets are sometimes a good thing to have...

Saturday, 3 September 2011
Eagle's Rest RV Park

We had thought to spend the day sightseeing in Valdez, but didn’t see anything compelling to keep us there. We visited one place, the Maxine & Jesse Whitney museum, which started as a gift shop collection in the 30’s. The Whitneys ran the gift shop while collecting all sorts of art and artifacts from all areas of Alaska and were quite successful in their business. Later, when they retired, they started the museum with the pieces they had kept. It was filled with interesting art and artifacts of all sorts, we enjoyed seeing the collection. Then a film started and we went in to sit down for it. That was a treat -- it showed Columbia Glacier in all its active glory, one calving event after another. If we couldn’t see the action in person, it was good to see it via the video. After that very interesting 40 minutes, we walked back to our trailer, and started on our way north to Tok. The drive up the highway went quickly, we saw real evidence of the advancing season along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, north of Valdez:

The foliage was brilliant, this was the first real evidence of fall that we saw.

Along the way, we drove through the Strawberry Lake NFS Campground where we stayed in 1997, and stopped at the Visitors' Center at the terminus of the Worthington Glacier.

Terminus of one arm of the Worthington Glacier.
In 1997, it was an easy walk up to the ice; now it is a
 real hike.  The glacier has retreated nearly a mile.

Further along, we passed more spectacular scenery along the Wrangell - St. Elias range, (though it was mostly in the clouds), and arrived in Tok in due course. We set up at the Sourdough RV Park, a bit south of Tok, and called it a day.

Friday, 2 September 2011
Tolsona Wilderness Campground, Glennallen, AK, USA

Since we had a 9:30 AM boarding call in Valdez, and we were camped in Glenallen, we got up early (4:50 AM) to have a quick breakfast, pack up the trailer, and hit the road. We were sorry to leave Tolsona Wilderness CG, but it was time to go. We drove down the highway to Valdez in increasingly bad weather, rain, wind, and low clouds -- it didn’t look good for the cruise, but we kept going. We pulled into Eagles Rest RV Park at 8:45 AM, checked with the office for a trailer space and mentioned our tight timeline for the Cruise at 9:30 AM. The lady at the desk told us that the Muir Glacier cruise was cancelled due to high winds in Prince William Sound; a real disappointment for us. Still, the cruise at 12:00 Noon for the Columbia Glacier was scheduled to depart normally.

We set up at Eagle’s Rest, and then went down to the Harbor area to look around and sign up for the Columbia Glacier Cruise. Then we looked around town a bit, until it was time to get in line for boarding the cruise. We gathered with about 120 others, under an awning, in the rain, waiting for boarding time. It was cold, windy, and rainy; not looking too good for the tour, but the crew said that conditions were improving at the glacier, so we said OK, and went aboard. We had good seats, at the front, port side. The departure was on-time, and smooth.

Leaving the Port of Valdez in the fog and rain.

The view east from the Port of Valdez

We sailed out of Valdez Harbor and down the channel into Prince William Sound. The Captain pointed out the sights, and spoke about the Exxon Valdez disaster which happened here in the late 1980s. We stopped briefly to watch sea otters, seals, eagles, and other wildlife along the shore.

Sea otter, looking us over.

Trans-Alaska Pipeline terminal, and security marker buoy.

Seals hauled out on the security marker buoy.

Two of the many bald eagles we saw along the coast line.

The face in the rock.

The Port of Valdez Pilot's Hotel and ferry boat.

For most of the time over the past 40 years, ice has been trapped between the retreating face of the glacier and the terminal moraine (now under 40 - 80’ of water). This year (and in a few past years), due to water levels, melting rates, and winds, the ice has broken free of the terminal moraine, leaving clear sailing up to within 3/4 of a mile to the face of the glacier. The face is so broad, that this placed us well within the arc that the face forms from one side to the other.

It was a spectacular place to be, and we were able to see and photograph a variety of small and large ice floes that had broken off from the glacier face, both above and below water. It made for a stunning vista. 

Terminus of Columbia Glacier.

The darker ice was on the bottom of the glacier and
has picked up a lot of rocky debris.

The blue is very pronounced, would be even more so in sunlight.

Note the vertical stripe of a lateral moraine in the face of Columbia Glacier.



Another picture of the face of Columbia Glacier.  I couldn't take
a series of pictures for a panorama due to fog and flat lighting.

That looks like a squirrel in the ice, but I don't really think it is one.

A more distant view of the terminus.

A crew-member fished out a piece of floating
glacier ice so we could see it up close.

Amazing colors in the ice.

Columbia Glacier ice, up close.

A working boat off the Columbia Glacier, taken
as we departed for the Port of Valdez.

The only bummers were the weather (some sunshine would have been really great) and that for the entire time we were there, the glacier was quiet.  So, no glints of sunlight on water and ice, and we didn’t get to see any huge chunks break off and fall into the water. Those were disappointments, but they didn’t dull the impact of seeing this immense glacier and the beautiful bay in which it terminates. Another great day in Alaska; but now we are at the far point of our trip, and tomorrow, we start back to Eugene; we will be headed north to Tok, Chicken, Dawson City, and thence homeward bound to points south. This has been every bit the adventure we’d hoped and planned for...

Thursday, 1 September 2011
Tolsona Wilderness Campground, Glennallen, AK, USA

I have already mentioned our pleasure at staying at the Tolsona Wilderness CG, I have to say, as well, that our day last Thursday was also a very good one. We were up, got breakfast, and made our way to Copper River Flying Service at the Gulkana Airstrip, by 9:00 AM. I checked in with Natalie and we discussed options for the day, since we hadn’t been able to make our scheduled flight on Wednesday. She suggested the all day mail-run trip, which would take us directly to the airstrip at McCarthy, give us a 4.5 hours to explore the village of McCarthy and tour the old (1930’s) Kennecott Copper Mine structure.  Then, on the return trip to Gulkana Airstrip, we'd have an hours flying time around the Wrangell - St. Elias Wilderness. We thought that sounded like a great idea and signed up for the trip. That was more than we had planned when we left our trailer, so back to it we went to get different shoes and outer clothing.

We made it back to the airstrip just in time for the scheduled take-off at 10:00 AM. We got our safety briefing, loaded into an already pretty full plane (mail piled up in the back and in place of the seat beside me, and another couple ahead besides us on the flight) and off we went. Anna, our pilot, took us up above the cloud layer and we got a good look at the tops of Mt. Wrangell, and surrounding peaks. The clouds looked pretty solid and she was flying a plane that was limited to Visual Flight Rules (a Cessna 206, with only basic instrumentation), so down we went to cruise just below the clouds into McCarthy.  Along the way we saw lots of tundra and boreal forests, with lakes interspersed, and the Copper River valley. It was beautiful, as most of Alaska is:

Copper River Valley, on the way to McCarthy.

Mt. Wrangell and Mt. Drum, above the cloud deck, just after takeoff.

After about 45 minutes of flying time, below the clouds, we arrived at McCarthy.  Here's what it looked like as we came into the airstrip:

Kennecott Glacier, with Mt. Blackburn in the background.

We landed uneventfully and our ground transportation showed up a few minutes later. Unfortunately, the driver, David, didn’t have the program right, so took us directly to the Kennecott Mine site rather than to McCarthy where we were supposed to have some time to look through the old mining village. After a short discussion, he took us back down the road and let us out, right in the middle of beautiful downtown McCarthy:

Beautiful downtown McCarthy, AK, with derelict aircraft fuselage.

Community Center, McCarthy, AK.

Inn and Pub, McCarthy, AK.

"The Potato" serves a good pulled pork sandwich.

We spent about 15 minutes looking around the town-site, and then wandered over to “The Potato” -- the only restaurant in town that hadn’t shut down for the season. We ordered a pulled-pork sandwich and fries, split them both and were very satisfied. Then we walked through a bit more of the town, spotting some street art along the way:

A "safe" wine cellar and tasting room...

The mine is no longer in production.

A short time later, David picked us up, on schedule, and took us up to the Kennecott mine site. There we met our guide, Larry, who gave us some background on the mine and the immense ore processing plant building that is still there.

In front of the Visitors' Center our guide, Larry, tells
us about the the Park and the Kennecott Mine.

Here are some scenes along the way to the entrance of the processing building.

View from the Visitors' Center towards Mt. Blackburn and the Kennecott Glacier.

The ore processing plant and bridge over Kennecott Creek.  We entered
the ore processing plant at the top, just above the trees to the right in the picture. 

The Chitina Auto Railer, used for passenger transport
and railway inspection in the 1930s.

Buildings damaged in a major flood of Kennecott Creek.

Hospital building on right, assay office on left.
Kennecott Creek flooded several years ago, with
major damage to buildings and structures.

Looking back toward the Visitors' Center.

Then we walked an outside trail up to the top of the ore processing plant (it is built up the side of the mountain), and at the entrance, received a safety lecture and our hard-hats (which were indeed needed and useful). We saw the remains of the overhead bucket lines that brought the copper ore down from the mountain tops where it was mined to the crushers and separation tables where the copper ore was crushed and then separated from the limestone matrix in which it had been embedded. It is quite a process, and much of the necessary machinery is still in place in this huge old building. The most valuable bits (wiring, electric motors, controls, etc.) have been removed, but much of the heavy machinery is still in place.  These pictures give a sense of the site, but the best way to see it is to visit in person:

Owner's home at the right, ore processing plant behind.  We
walked up and toured the home, and then took a path
to the right of the home up to the plant entrance.

A reflection in one of the windows in the owner's house.
This is very old glass.

View from the plant entrance, looking towards Mt. Blackburn.

The top floor of the ore processing plant.  The copper ore
arrived here by tram buckets running on cables that went up the
mountain to the mine sites located much
higher on the mountain.

View of the leaching plant, down below the crushing, sorting and
initial separation area of the plant.

Gearing and roller mill, ore was crushed in this
machine, and then sent down chutes by
gravity to the sorting tables.

The tour group inspects sorting tables that automatically separated
copper ore from limestone waste.  The tables were flooded with
ground ore suspended in water, vibration and a tilt in the table
caused the ore (heavy) and the waste (light) to separate along
grooves in the table.  Larry (left) is explaining to us how
it all worked, back in the day.

Well, maybe it isn't all in such good shape.
The foundation is rotting and about to
collapse in some places.  The National
Park Service is working to shore up
such places and limit the damage.

The National Park Service owns the property now, and is committed to maintaining it in a (reasonably) safe condition. There is restoration of some of the buildings planned and in progress and also basic shoring up of structures to insure they remain intact. So, it is an active place.

A new foundation is being placed below one of the bunk-houses.  It will
become NPS staff housing and additional display space.

We spent a very quick four hours peering into all sorts of dark corners, discussing the purpose of the various bits of heavy machinery, and walking down many steep flights of stairs to get from the top floor to the base of the plant building. When we came out, there was more to see (leaching vats and piping for the final chemical separation of copper salts from base material), but we elected to see a movie at the NPS Visitors’ Center instead. It was a good choice; the movie filled in numerous details and showed interesting shots of the mine in action.

In all, a very interesting afternoon, but the best was yet to come. David took us back to the airstrip, and Anna was waiting for us. We loaded into the plane again, and this time I got to sit up front in the co-pilot’s seat. Anna took us up and then, since the cloud deck had broken up quite a bit, she proceeded to give us a spectacular look at the mountains and glaciers in the Mt. Wrangell range. We flew up to the peaks, across high ridges, and down glaciers for 45 minutes as she described what we were seeing; a glorious time, indeed. I just wish my pictures could do it justice. I’ve included a selection that come as close as I can, enjoy:

Mt. Blackburn (background) and terminus of the Kennecott Glacier in front
of the Kennecott town-site (just after take-off from the airstrip).

Kennecott Mine site, Kennecott, AK.

Kennecott Glacier.

Mt. Blackburn & Kennecott Glacier.

Excellent view of lateral moraines on top of Kennecott Glacier.

Mt. Blackburn Summit.

Summit & glacier.

At the top.

Awesome!

Up close and headed for the next valley to the west.

Summit from another angle.

At work in the office (and what an office).

With a view!

More glaciers.

And a beautiful lake.

Summit of Mt. Drum.

Glacier, below Mt. Drum.

Now we are on the way back to Glennallen and Gulkana Airstrip.

Rugged country.

But not totally empty of life; the small white dots are Dall sheep.

A mud volcano and mud flows around it, enroute to Gulkana Airstrip.

Finally, we arrived at Gulkana Airstrip and landed; the end of a real Alaskan adventure.

Anna, beside the Piper 206 she flew into McCarthy and return.

Wrangell Range from Gulkana Airstrip.

That evening, back at our trailer, I called up Stan Steven’s Cruises in Valdez to see what our options might be for a glacier cruise. We signed up for the 10:00 AM - 7:00 PM cruise to the Muir Glacier. Next, I checked with a couple of RV Parks and got space at the Eagle’s Rest, so we knew where we were going next. Then we called it a day.