Sourdough Creek BLM Campground to Valdez, Alaska

This is our campsite at Sourdough Creek BLM Campground where we spent last night and started our travels from today.  The trip would be just under 150 miles to Valdez.

We stopped at the Wrangell – St Elias National Park Visitor Center to get a photo of the Wrangell Mountains in the distance.  We had a beautiful day for the photo.

How’s this for a close-up of a bald eagle?

After spending some time at the visitor center, we continued on our way and stopped at a turn out by Willow Lake for lunch.  What a fantastic view!

Before getting to Valdez, we took a left on Dayville Rd to Allison Point Campground.  From where we’re parked we can view the ending point of the Alaska Pipeline.

Apparently, the fishing isn’t good at this time, so we seem to have the entire campground to ourselves so far.  We took advantage of that, and parked sideways along the bay.

This is our view across the bay.

Tomorrow we’ll probably be checking into the glacier and wildlife cruise that is available here through our Alaska Toursaver Coupon Book.

Wildlife sightings for today included:  2 trumpeter swans, 1 caribou, 2 bald eagles (in addition to the photo above), and 2 (roadkill) porcupines.

A Day Trip Exploring the Dempster Highway

We packed our lunch and got off to an early start as we planned to be on the road most of the day exploring the Dempster Highway.  This sign is at the start of the highway at the junction with the Yukon Highway.

 

There were a lot of mountains to see along the road.

 

This ptarmigan patiently waited for it’s photo to be taken.

And a couple more scenery photos.

 

 

This memorial on a rock beside the highway was something we saw as we headed back down the road.  Joe Henry took part in the planning and construction of the Dempster Highway.  His wife is also memorialized on the plaque.

 

More scenery…the snow topped mountains are beautiful up this highway.

This is an outfitter’s cabins along the side of the highway.

We saw this moose on the way back and the following photo shows her year old calf that was behind her.

 

We saw caribou on our way up the highway, but these caribou with antlers and the young caribou were closer to the road as we headed back to the motorhome.

There was a porcupine sighting.

And I had to get the Welcome to Dawson City sign that I didn’t get a photo of when we arrived the other day.

It was a very long (for us) day today.  We left around 9 in the morning and didn’t get back until about 6pm.  We drove 290 miles and we had numerous wildlife sightings:

1 snowshoe rabbit, 15 dall sheep, 6 ptarmigan, 11 caribou, 2 bald eagle (in their nest), 2 moose (cow and yearling), and 3 porcupines.

We just might deserve some rest tomorrow!

 

Atlin–Tagish–Carcross Scenic Loop

After packing a lunch, we packed what we needed into the truck and started out on our trip for the day on what is called the Atlin – Tagish – Carcross Scenic Loop.  This is a side trip off the Alaska Highway starting at Jake’s Corner and is a 59 mile drive to Atlin.  We returned to the Alaska Highway via the Carcross Loop, a 66 mile drive via Tagish Road to Cross then back to the Alaska Highway.  As we started down the road to Atlin, we followed Little Atlin Lake with some picturesque  mountain views.

 

 

There was a side road with a sign showing binoculars that led us a few hundred feet up a road to a parking area and hiking trail that indicated there were mountain goats in the area.  The sign asked that hikers avoid the area in early May – June.  So, we continued on up the road and looked up to see these 6 mountain goats on the hillside.

 

We arrived at Atlin around noon and drove around a bit to see what was there.  The town was quite a bit larger than what I expected.

 

We saw a couple of interesting houses in town:

 

 

In the middle of town and on the lakeshore, the MV (motor vessel) Tarahne is on display.  It was built in 1916 in Atlin by the White Pass & Yukon Route and carried passengers and freight from Atlin to Scotia Bay until 1936.

 

After leaving Atlin, we continued back to the Carcross Loop.  We were hoping to see some of the Carcross caribou herd, but that didn’t happen.  Ken did notice something in a tree, so we turned around and found this porcupine climbing a tree branch:

 

After watching the porcupine for a few minutes, we continued on and crossed the Tagish River.

 

In our prior trip to Alaska in 2009, we had been through this same route as we drove to Skagway.  However, we had never taken the time to go into the town of Carcross.  This caribou is at the turn off the main road into town.

 

And this is one of the more unique houses we saw in town.

 

This is the historic White Pass & Yukon Route train station.

 

 

It was already a full day of touring, but there was one more thing I wanted to see and that was Caribou Crossing.  Milepost indicates that it is the premier wildlife museum and attractions center.  The displays are to include over 100 Yukon and Ice Age mammals including a life-size woolly mammoth and world’s largest bear.  As we’re finding out, we’re getting to the north country way too early, and it wasn’t open yet.

 

It was a good day with over 240 miles logged onto our pickup.  Wildlife sightings included:  1 coyote, 6 mountain goats, and 1 porcupine.

 

Dease Lake, BC to Teslin, YT

It was cold this morning when we were ready to get going again.  There was ice on the slide covers.  Spring is getting off to a slow start in Canada.  But we finally get on the Cassiar and our travels further north.

 

Here’s a moose in the distance.

 

The distant mountains are snow covered.

 

We stop for a short break at Jade City.  They provide free RV parking and we took them up on that on our trip in 2009.

 

This is one of the saws they use to cut their jade.

 

And we saw some caribou today.

 

 

The north Cassiar has suffered from some severe forest fires destroying hundreds of acres of trees.  This show just a small section of the fire by the lake at the rest area where we stopped for lunch.

 

We leave British Columbia and are welcomed into Yukon Territory.

 

We turned onto the Alaska Highway and made a stop in Nugget City for fuel.  The cost per liter was $1.339.  This was best price in the area for fuel, but the pump stops at $100 and there was no way the office could set it for a higher amount.  They claimed it is the banks that set it up that way, but from what I have found in the past, it is the individual businesses that set the limits.  That chore completed, we headed north on the Alaskan Highway.

 

We did see another moose along the highway, but another vehicle scared it off the road and into the woods.  When we got to where it was, I could see it in the woods, but there was no way to get a decent photo.  Our wildlife sightings for today included:  2 moose and 4 caribou.  This is the bridge crossing the river to Teslin, Yukon Territory, our final destination for the evening.  We fueled up again before moving into the campground.  Their diesel was $1.389 per liter and their campground fee was $19.05 for a 30amp electric site.  The water is not on at the sites yet as it supposed to be below freezing again tonight.  We covered 295 miles today.  Will it ever warm up?

Bell I Crossing to Lake Dease, BC

We drove about 186 miles today which was much shorter than the last few days.  We traveled through some very scenic parts of the Cassiar Highway.  Here are a few photos from our day on the road:

 

 

 

We didn’t get to see very much wildlife today, but what we did see was outstanding!  In the distance, we can see something light colored in the road on the left side:

 

It’s a lynx!  Ken says it’s pretty rare to see one, so here are the 2 close up photos we got:

 

 

We also spotted 2 caribou.  Here are a couple of photos of one of them.

 

 

Not long after our second caribou sighting, we arrived at our destination of Dease Lake, BC.  We will be here for two nights to take time for a side trip to Telegraph Creek and to just relax a little before we continue on our journey.