The Road to Valdez (06-27-14)

It took us a few days to get from Haines, Alaska to Valdez, Alaska, and we had to go through Canada  again to get there. We took our time and enjoyed some sights along the way.

Our first day out took us through the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve just outside of Haines. This 48,000 acre preserve is critical habitat for the Bald Eagle. They come here by the thousands late in the fall when most other rivers are freezing over.  The waters of the Chilkat River stay warmer longer, so it’s the last of the spawning areas for Salmon, a staple of an eagle diet. 

There’s a Bald Eagle Festival in November when the eagle population is at its highest.  This is someone else’s picture, not mine. I didn’t get any pictures of eagles, because we only saw two. 

We saw some great scenery, and several glaciers, but only two eagles.  I was a little disappointed, but we saw tons of eagles in Juneau and I spent a fair amount of time enjoying them, so I am not feeling like I missed out.  I just thought that they’d be more of them on the preserve, even though its summer.

Our first night was spent at a campground on Kluane Lake in the Yukon.  I’ll remember this area most for the beating our truck and our bodies took on this section of road. One of the things that’s drilled into you when you plan this trip is that the roads can be AWFUL. We’ve had pretty good luck so far, but this part of the highway had places where we were going only about 30 mph and even that seemed too fast.

After another full day of driving and crossing back into the U.S., we spent the night at Mosquito Lake Recreation Area in Alaska.  Mosquitoes are another big topic for discussion.  Paul and I  have bug spray, of course, plus we have sprayed some of our clothes and jackets with a special repellent. If we get desperate, we have nets to put over our heads. We are well prepared!

I have only been bitten once this whole trip.  That may have something to do with the fact that its been cold and rainy most of the time, but still,  maybe our precautions are helping. There weren’t really any mosquitoes at Mosquito Lake-just a great view at a free campground.

 

All roads lead to Tok- or at least, most major routes through Alaska go through the town of Tok. We stopped here overnight to get groceries and rinse some of the grime off the truck.

  We stayed at the Sourdough Campground. This place is full of friendly people and every night they have live music.  They also have a Sourdough Pancake tossing contest.  Anyone camper who wants to play gets two tries to toss a pancake into a bucket.  The emcee did a great job of teasing people and keeping the crowd laughing. 

The prize for succeeding is a free, all you can eat, sourdough pancake breakfast the next morning.  About 40 people played, and much to my surprise, I was one of the few who actually got the pancake in the bucket. Paul followed after me and he got it in too!

When everyone was done, the winners were called up and offered the chance to trade their breakfast for whatever was in mystery bucket number 1, 2 or 3. No one was interested in trading, so for the heck of it I traded for whatever was under bucket number 3.

I am very happy with my new prize, a small container of Chicken Shit.  It will be our new Christmas tree ornament :)

Haines, Alaska (06-24-14)

Haines was our last stop in Southeastern Alaska for this trip.  We sort of wanted to check out Sitka and Ketchikan, but decided not to attempt it this year. Ketchikan is significantly south of where we were-in the wrong direction. Once we left Haines, we were going north through Canada again to get to the other parts of Alaska.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  We did spend two full days in Haines. After checking in at the RV park we took a drive along Chilkoot River.  With the rain and the fog, it was really eerie looking.  I didn’t get great pictures of it for some reason though.  Haines also has a lot of Totem Poles around town, and this was one of them.

The next day we hit the ground running so we’d have time to visit all three museums in town. The Sheldon Museum details the history of the town- the movie White Fang was filmed here- this is the sled from that movie.

More of interest to Paul is the Hammer Museum.

There are a couple of thousand hammers on display at this place. 

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This was my favorite one, although I think it would have been cool if he signed it “Tim, the tool man, Taylor”.

After all that learning we had to take a lunch break.  We chose a restaurant with a view.

By the way, my initial intent was that we would stay outside of town at the state park that only charges $10 a night instead of the going rate of $40, but it turns out that the town of Haines is very walkable, so we were able to park the truck and leave it there by staying in town.  Plus, we met fellow Escapees Pam and Red and got to spend some time with them.

After lunch we headed to the the Bald Eagle Foundation museum.  Obviously they have other birds there besides Bald Eagles.  They have 11 birds that have lost their ability to fly for a variety of reasons.

This Horned Owl looked like he wanted to bite my nose off.

This owl looked like she was playing coy with me.

The hawk was very nervous  and easily startled. 

At 2:30 every day they do a presentation about Bald Eagles, which includes feeding one.  This is a female, about 4 years old.  The feathers on her head are not completely white, but are getting close- that’s how they estimate the age.  The volunteer shared some interesting information.  Raptors are named for their feet-(rapt is Latin for “to grab”). Their talons use a ratchet system, so once a raptor grabs it’s prey, basically there is no way to force the talon open to release it. The talons exert 500 lbs of pressure per square inch.







The volunteer also made it clear that if he wasn't offering her food, she would not want anything to do with him.  In fact, she tried to stay as far away as possible and still get the food. I could joke and say I guess they don’t make good pets, but it’s illegal to even own the feather of an eagle (unless you are Native American). Actually, the presentation was very good, but then, I am an eagle enthusiast.


After a quick two day visit, we headed out of town…..