Haines Hitchup RV Park, AK, USA

Friday, 5 August 2011
Haines Hitchup RV Park, Haines, AK, USA

Hi all,

This morning, it is coudy, but clearing. We are taking our time after breakfast to work on the blog and pack sandwiches for our lunch. We'll leave shortly for Kluane Lake, YT. It is an easy drive up the Haines Highway to Haines Junction, and then north on the Alcan Highway. We expect to take some time to explore a bit in Haines Junction and then set up at Congdon Creek Provincial Park on Kluane Lake.

This is our second morning in Haines, AK. Our campground is nicely done and everything on our trailer seems to be working as expected. So far, so good.

We are enjoying our road trip and all is well.

Thursday, 4 August 2011
Haines Hitchup RV Park, Haines, AK, USA

Today, we took the Fast Ferry (persons only, catamaran) to Skagway, planning to spend the day there. The morning worked out very nicely as we rode the White Pass & Yukon narrow gauge railroad up to the Canadian / US border at White Pass. The scenery along the way was well worth seeing, and the feat of the RR builders astonishing, the route was built in the late 1800's with 10,000 laborers and two years of effort. The only downside was the layer of clouds at the top of the route, which prevented us from seeing as much as we wanted; still a good time and worth doing. The town of Skagway was a disappointment for us, wall-to-wall tourist shops, and little else to be seen. We cut our time short and returned to Haines on the 2:00 PM ferry, rather than staying until 6:00. The trip back was exciting; the host, Mike, pointed out numerous bald eagles along the way, and we also saw a small pod of harbor seals sunning themeselves on an exposed rock. The rest of the afternoon, we wandered through "downtown" Haines, and then returned to our trailer. Lin took a nap, and I worked on a couple of maintenance issues (success!).

Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Spruce Meadow CG, Juneau, AK, USA

The ferry trip from Juneau to Haines was smooth though the weather wasn't great; more clouds and rain. We were about 4.5 hours enroute and passed some more spectacular scenery -- steep moutain sides raising up out of the water, with waterfalls cascading down through rocky crevices past verdant conifer forests. Beautiful sights. Even better, we got a good look at a pod of bubble feeding whales north of Juneau.

We did the usual tourist activities in Juneau, walking the old town, visting the Capitol (very good tour), and driving the north on the main highway, visiting the Shrine of St. Theresa (patron saint of Juneau, where we saw a pod of orcas feeding), out to the north end (with a nice picnic overlooking Echo Cove), visiting the NOAA Laboratory (well positioned for the fisheries and ocean research they do), visiting the DIPAC salmon hatchery (awesome number of salmon in the run), and then driving to the south end of the road and finding a good salmon bake nearby. On Wednesday morning we explored Douglas Island a bit, and then packed up to load aboard the ferry at 1:00 PM. We departed from Juneau at 3:00 PM, and arrived in Haines at 7:30 PM. By 8:00 we were all set at the RV Park, and called it a day.

Here are a few pictures from the past several days...