Day 10: Haines Junction, YT, to Delta Junction, AK

432 miles

8:40 AM – 4:30 PM Alaska time (which is 5:30 by the time we got up)

Thank you, Lord, list:

We reached Alaska safely!

The privilege of making this trip

Morning light

Breakfast in the woods

No bears on the trail

Today was a low mileage day, so by 6:30 AM I was on the trail by Dezadeash River on the edge of Haines Junction, YT. By the cobwebs in my face, I was the first person through. It was not a very demanding trail—level along the river—but a great chance to stretch my legs. A little more than one and a half hours including devotions and a leisurely breakfast of granola bars and dried fruit with my thermos of tea on the steps of an overlook. This was my view.

The lady at the visitors’ center said that you just need to be noisy so bears hear a human coming and get out of the way.

“Especially when you come around a bend,” she said.

So I called out “Here I come ready or not!” a few times. That seemed a bit boring, so I sang a couple praise songs. I even tried the “Hallelujah Chorus,” but that doesn’t work real well solo when you are out of breath from walking. I did see a couple footprints that I have not yet identified.

It was a glorious morning, and even if it wasn’t a taxing climb like the ones in Korea, I WAS HIKING IN THE YUKON!

We were on the road a little after 8:30. The valley was wide; the mountains distant; foliage was mostly scrubby black spruce. Not a remarkable day after yesterday’s road to Skagway, except for the stretch around Kluane Lake.

The road on the Canadian side was not fun. The freezing and thawing of winter had made the same mess as Highway 70 in Minnesota—some really crazy dippsydoodles. Somewhat better in the US. Lots of this fireweed along the road sides, so called because it is the first vegetation to return after a fire.

Border crossings have all been simple. They want to know about drugs, alcohol and firearms. Canada wanted to know about fruit, but apples with stickers on them are fine. Mom could have gotten through with a birth certificate, but she didn’t have that with her either.

“Facilities” along the road are mostly long drops, but generally not bad smelling. Sometimes there is graffiti. Once Steve saw where someone had written “Never again.” That makes me sad. We are fantasizing out army family being stationed here, giving us an excuse to come at least once a year!

And we continued our tradition of one bear per day. This one was brown--a grizzly, I'm told--and much less quick to escape into the brush at the side of the road. As a matter of fact, when we looked back, he was cavorting in the middle of the asphalt.

After last night’s simple but comfortable accommodation, tonight is a luxury cabin outside Delta Junction when the Alaska Hwy officially ends. Tomorrow is on to Fairbanks to pick up Mom.

Afghan update: Not as much progress because of the bad road, but it felt good on my cold hands this morning. BTW, this picture was taken at 8PM. It won’t get dark here tonight at all.

Lodging: Garden B&B

Day 9: Watson Lake to Haines Junction, YT, via Skagway, Alaska

The plan for the day was the Alaska Highway, route 1 through the Yukon. It could be Minnesota Iron Range except for the mountains up ahead. And the lack of roadkill. Whether the lack of roadkill is because there are not enough cars to hit anything or that there isn’t anything to hit (our game sightings today consisted of one bear), I couldn’t say.

We stopped at Rancheria Falls to stretch our legs and play with the pano feature on my phone.

The highway dipped back into British Columbia (Super Natural!) and then returned to Yukon (Larger than Life).

About then Steve got this super idea. He accuses me of always wanting to know what is around the next corner, but today he was the one eager to leave the main road. Route 8 led south to a town called Carcross (short for Cariboo Crossing, but we didn’t see any). Here's their hundred-year-old Anglican church.

Another road angles back toward Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon, but the road that interested us was the one to Skagway, Alaska.

At the suggestion of the woman in the tourist information office, we picnicked at the boat launch at Tutshi Lake (pronounced Too Shy).

We thought that was fabulous and then we climbed to the snowfields and water meadows at the top of the pass, passing tour buses from Skagway as we did.

If any of you have cruised Alaska, you have no doubt been to Skagway, a tourist town if there ever was one, lined with 19^th century-style shops with a gold rush theme. When we were last here, I did the nine-hour hike to a glacier and back while Steve and Mom took the train we had taken the first time we were here. Today we drove and (while our brakes cooled!) looked across the valley at the train we had ridden before.

When brakes are smoking, they take about fifteen minutes to cool so there was plenty of time to explore.

My daughters will remember that feeling when you mingle with the clean and neat tourists who have taken the cable car to the top of Table Mountain while you have sweated your way up the trail. The feeling was very similar as we parked our dusty car on a street with a couple hundred pedestrians for every vehicle and went in for ice cream. (I have not mastered the art of the selfie or you would see my chocolate cone as well as Steve’s butter brickle.)

We oo-ed and ah-ed our way back over the mountains The scenes we had enjoyed on the way in looked pretty blah on the way out. The day could not have been more perfect, and we made sure the Lord knew how much we appreciated it.

Tonight we are in a simple but clean motel in Haines Junction. It would have been neat to take the ferry from Skagway to Haines and come over the Coastal Range at ta different point, but the next ferry didn’t leave until 2:30 tomorrow. Next time …

Afghan update: No ripping out! Just a few … um … adjustments.