Last Post from Alaska Adventure

We left Whitehorse, Yukon and headed east on the Alaska highway, spending 1 night at a provential park before heading south just west of Watson Lake on the Cassiar Highway.  Beautiful drive but the road leaves much to be desired.

Three days after leaving Whitehorse, we got to Stewart, BC...just 2.5 miles east of Hyder, Alaska.  We decided to stay at the City park in Stewart, since it looked like there was more to do in Stewart.  We were right.  This picture was our first view of Hyder.

According to the locals there is between 50-100 people who call Hyder home...I guess that all depends on what season they were talking about.  Last year this area got over 20 feet of snow.
We decided to eat the the "Bus" since we were told that was the place to eat in Hyder.

Steve & Nancy had the Johnnie, I had the 2pc cod & chips and Ed had the Grilled burger.  The food was OK.  Had their ice cream after dinner and that was NOT OK.  Icy ice cream and stale cones. Then we headed north to see if we could find the bears that Hyder is famous for.  The salmon are spawning in the streams and the bears...black and grizzlies like to snack on the easy prey.

We found the salmon...but no bears.  We went back 2 more times in the next couple of days...still did not see the bears.  But I did get a great picture of a Blue Heron.

We also made the 20+ mile drive up a rutted gravel road to see the Salmon Glacier.  It is suppose to be the 5th largest glacier in North America.

There are lots of glaciers and fantastic water falls in the area.  Even though we didn't see any bears here, it was worth the trip to see the beautiful landscape.

 This is Bear Glacier.  This one is really close to the road on the drive in to Stewart.

Just three on the many..many water falls in the area.
We left Stewart a couple days ago and are now headed south.  We should cross the border into the lower 48 with the week.  We are sorry the trip is coming to an end, but it is time to head south since fall is here and the weather is getting cooler.  We are not ready for summer to end just yet!  We had a great time traveling in Alaska with the Loosey Goosey group.  Thank you Dennis & Carol Hill for planning a great trip.

Kennecott Mine National Historic Landmark

Today we traveled 59 miles back a dirt/gravel road to the mining towns of McCarthy and Kennicott. We saw a moose on the way there, but it was too fast for us to get our cameras out and to take its picture...oh well, I have more pictures of moose!  McCarthy is a very small town that we had to walk across a foot bridge and hike 3/4 miles to get to. (Later we found out that locals pay a $300 annual toll to a private party to cross the car bridge that we didn't see when we got there)  Pictures of McCarthy.

 Then we took a shuttle 5 miles to the Historic mill town of Kennicott to see the Kennecott Mine buildings.

 Here is Cody looking out at the tailings on the glacier ice and all the rusty barrels and trash at the bottom on the hill.

Here is a picture of more  mine tailings and in the far background you can see the Kennicott Glacier.

Ed & Steve discussing what they want for lunch. Below are pictures of the copper concentration mill.

A few more pictures of buildings in the town.

Then we headed back the 3 hour...59 mile road to our camping spot just outside Chitina.  We saw this old railroad bridge and had to stop to take a picture of two.

Tomorrow we head to Tok. The weather is changing and it is time to head south!

Prince William Sound

Yesterday we took a very crowded cruise on the Prince William Sound, out of Valdez.  We thought that the boat would be half empty when we changed our cruising date on Monday.  Since it was very foggy and raininy on Monday we decided to change the date to yesterday.  The cruise line said, no problem, we have plenty of room. On well, we had a beautiful day on the water.  We saw Dall's Porpoise, lots of Sea Otters, Steller Sea Lions, Bald Eagles and Puffins.  We also saw several glaciers and water falls.

 We saw over 30 Sea Otters in the group..here are a few up close.

Next was the Anderson Glacier and falls.  You can't see the glacier at the top of the falls from this picture.

 Then we started to see ice burgs in the water as we approached the Columbia Bay and the Columbia Glacier.

We saw this guy playing in that very cold water.  Then the lady captain, Karen, weaved her way through all the large and small pieced of ice to get us as close as she could to the Columbia Glacier.  This first picture shows a wall of ice 200 ft high...she said there was 400 ft below the water.

 Nancy O'Bosky and Shelia Mix smiling despite the very cold air.

 I took a panarama of the glacier...This one of the largest glaciers in North America.

Some of the pieces of ice were so blue.

Sea Otters like to lay on the ice burgs.  We saw several groups on different pieces of flat ice.

 Then we saw Puffins in the water, flying and nesting.

This was a large group of Stellar Sea Lions, sunning themselves.  

Here is a picture of the Anderson Glacier...you can see it at the top of the mountain with the falls under it.
Today we leave Valdez heading north.  Fall is fast approaching here in Alaska.  The temp outside in the morning has been in the 40's and the fireweed is getting close to the top.  Alaskan's say when the fireweed blooms to the top, summer is over...it is getting close.

This picture was taken several weeks ago.  Here around Valdez the blooms are almost to the top. Just a couple more stops and we should be back over the border into Canada in about a week.  I should have internet when we are in Tok, before heading across the border...if not this may be the last post for a few weeks.

More pictures of mountains, snow, glaciers, water falls

I took these pictures on our drive to Valdez.

This is the Matanuska glacier

The next two pictures are of the Worthington Glacier.

Notice those poles that look like lights....they are NOT lights...they help the road plows know where the edge of the road is.