To Haines, AK - #52-18

August 13, 2005 (Sat)
Westmark Inn Campground, Beaver Creek, YT #44 dry $17.12c B+

Copper Center, AK to Beaver Creek, YT (285/7919 miles) Q020229

Jeff's birthday. Up at 6:00 (53°) off at 7:15 (58°) Sunny - but hazy. (The temperature is 83° as I write this.) The mountains, as we drove up the Glenn Highway, had a beauty of their own. The haze made them look like flat paper cutouts in various shades of blue. As we approached Tok the haze became heavier and and we began to to smell a hint of smoke in the air. Apparently there are forest fires in the Eagle, AK area and we were down wind.

Through the luck of timing Chip and Kim ended up on the road ahead of us into Tok so joined us for lunch at Fast Eddy's. Great burgers! Don Marshall (the campground host from West Fork Campground near Chicken) was there eating lunch too. (Small world up here!) He said the smoke up there was unbearable. We had planned to camp in Tok tonight but we - all 8 of us - decided to get gas ($2.64/gal) and go on to a less smoky place.

The frost heaves and construction along the Tok Cutoff (from the Glenn Highway to Tok) were bad but nothing compared to those on the Alaska Highway south of Tok. There were times when we had to slow down to 20 MPH to keep from going airborne! We are told that the road will be even worse tomorrow! Going through Canadian customs (into Yukon Territory) was a breeze. The young woman was friendly and talkative. She seemed very interested in our "new" NJ licenses. She never asked if we had any fruit on board. We had carefully cut up the three apples we had into a fruit salad so we wouldn't have to dump them like we did coming into Canada the first time.

A sign at the customs booth read "Those who don't like speeding tickets, raise your right foot."

Westmark Inn Campground is a nice little campground. There are a few trees which spreads the spaces out a little so we don't feel as much like we are in a parking lot. There is water and electric at the site but we chose not to hook up, thus saving a few dollars.
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August 14, 2005 (Sun)
Cottonwood Campground, Destruction Bay, YT #N dry $22.00c A+

Beaver Creek, YT to Destruction Bay, YT (132/8051 miles) Q020361

Up at 5:45 (57°) Off at 7:01 (57°) The sun is a big red ball, it's still smoky. The Alaska Highway south of Beaver Creek is, in deed, worse than the the road from the north. We have discovered that we can identify the really bad frost heaves by the skid marks beyond them. Sometime in the past someone found themselves airborne, slammed on their brakes and hit the road with wheels locked. It didn't seem to slow some people down though. We were glad to let them pass us. It would have been a bonus to see a 40 foot motor home fly. We never did though. We followed a bicyclist through one bridge construction area. Her support van with yellow lights flashing and extra bicycles on the back displayed the lettering "PAN AMERICANA". We saw another support van, no bicyclist, parked several miles on down the road.

Fall is coming to the north country. The leaves of some trees (willows?) are turning yellow and the wild flowers and grasses along the road are displaying the softness of fluffy seed carriers.

The woman who took our money at this campground said that there is a grizzly bear around but they haven't seen him for a couple of days. We're not sure if this is comforting information or not. It's a nice little campground though. It's clean and obviously cared for. We are parked right on the shore of Kluane Lake facing the water. There is supposed to be quite a view from here but it's hard to tell because of the smoke in the air.
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August 15, 2005 (Mon)
Cottonwood Campground, Destruction Bay, YT (2)

The haze (smoke?) lifted a bit last light and this morning we could see hazy mountains close behind us and the mountains across the lake are in silhouette. It looked like it might be a nice day so we decided to take a break in our traveling and "re-up" for another night here.

It's hard to think, as we sit here in this well maintained campground with RVs parked here and there, that we are really out in the boonies. The nearest villages, very small, are 18 to 20 miles away. There may be homes between but not many. For electricity, the campground generates its own and until 6 weeks ago they had no conventional phone service - they relied on radio contact with the outside world. We can pick up only one radio station (not worth listening to), no TV station, no cell phone service, and no internet. We are parked overlooking a beautiful lake but there are no boats - although Ed reported that a couple of kayaks went by as Mark snoozed in his chair on the bluff. Except for an occasional car (RV?) on the road and some rather bad country music coming from a rented RV last evening, the only sounds are natural. A good place to relax and we took advantage of it.
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August 16, 2005 (Tue)
Hitch-Up RV Park, Haines, AK #49 w/e/s $26.90 A+

Destruction Bay, YT to Haines, AK (204/8255 miles) Q020565

Off at 7:20 (56.7°) Hazy. The road by the campground is under construction so the going was very slow for a while. But once through it the road was fine. The mountains were beautiful, as usual, in a hazy kind of way. Kluane Lake stayed out our port window for several miles. After leaving the lake we entered a spruce forest that has been heavily damaged by the spruce beetle, a pest that attacks only spruce trees. Some scientists are saying that the recent increase in beetle populations is due to increased global warming. The lady in a Haines Junction gas station told us that Hillary Clinton had been in town yesterday to see the damage. She's in the area to learn about the effects of global warming.

The wild flowers along the road are beautiful. Some, and there were thousands of them, looked very much like dandelion fluff balls. Some hill sides looked almost snow covered with them.

Bob and Pat commented (via walki talki) that they were feeling a shimmy in the wheel of their motor home. When they stopped to take a look, they found the left front tire in very bad shape and ready to go flat. After some discussion about whether to drive it that way the rest of the way into Haines (30 miles), change it there (difficult for 3 old men), or get help somehow (no cell phone signal there). We all decided getting help was the best option. We and Ed & Kathy came on into Haines and called their road service provider from here. We are camped at one of the more expensive (and better looking) campgrounds in Haines because it was the best located for Bob and Pat to find us when they got here. We may move to a less expensive place for tomorrow night.

After dinner, we piled into toads and headed out to the Chilkoot River north of Haines. We had been told that sometimes grizzly bears will come to the river to catch fish. After waiting for an hour or so one did - right across the river from us. He caught at least two (maybe more) and ate them while we watched with binoculars.