The morning we left the Wrangell-St. Elias NP, it wasn’t quite as cold as the previous morning, but it was raining, so we bagged our plan to walk the Caribou Creek Trail and headed out towards Tok. We stopped at the visitor center, and then made it to Tok by lunchtime, where we filled with fuel, filled with water at the gas station, then had lunch in the town visitor center parking lot before taking the dogs on a 4 mile plus walk on the walking trails through the town. The highlight of the walk was seeing a trailer pulling three decapitated bull moose heads, obviously heading for a taxidermist. We weren’t sure whether to be disgusted or impressed, but opted for impressed since right now moose hunting is THE THING in Alaska and as tourists, we need to accept it. We drove about 60 miles southeast of Tok on the Alaska Highway towards the Canadian border and stopped at a small, nice, and free campground on Yarger Lake. With us, 8 of 10 sites were full for the night, but it was very quiet with nary a generator to be heard.
The next morning, we left Lakeview Campground and drove through lots of construction with pilot trucks to the small Seaton Recreational Area about 15 miles from the Alaska/Yukon border. There, we went for a short but pleasant hike through an area that has been reclaimed from being a construction staging area for the Alaska Highway and the Alaska Pipeline. We then drove on into Canada and drove on the very frost heaved Alaska Highway as far as Burwash Landing, which is about midway down Kluane Lake. We found another free campground on iOverlander, which was the weirdest so far since somebody is obviously doing a lot of work to make it nice, but it is totally abandoned and we were the only ones there. It’s right on a very large lake, and if it were summer and we had had kayaks and paddle boards we would have planned to spend a week there. Instead, we took the dogs for a couple of mile walk on a really nice trail along the lake shore, and settled in for a very quiet night.
We left the free campground without seeing a single soul there, on the way in, or on the way out, and drove to the visitor center at Sheep Mountain. It was cold and windy, and we spent a couple of hours talking to people in the parking lot and trying to get excited about hiking the Sheep Mountain trail, which had been recommended by some people we met who live in Juneau. By the time we got done talking to people, the clouds had cleared, the wind had died, and we took a six mile walk around the base of the mountain to the river in our shirtsleeves. We saw lots of Dall sheep on the mountain, had some beautiful views, and while we didn’t see any bears, we saw a lot of bear tracks at the end of the trail (for us) by the river.
We drove from Sheep Mountain through Haines Junction towards Kathleen Lake. We stopped at an iOverlander recommended pull off which is signed by the Yukon road department, and while we were right on the highway, we had a beautiful view up the creek through the valley. Traffic was less than a car every 10 minutes on the dead end road between Haines Junction and Haines, so we had a quiet night. We shared the space with one other truck camper, but we never even saw them.
In the morning, it was raining, but we pulled on our new rain gear and drove to Kathleen Lake, where we hiked parts of a few trails before lunch, then drove to Haines. The weather was cloudy and cool, but the scenery was still stunning, both on the hikes and on the drive to Haines. With the hour setback coming from Canada into Alaska, we got to Haines a little before 6 and found a pull off just north of the ferry terminal. We were right on the water, and it was still cold and windy and rainy, but we were cozy in our camper.
In the morning, we drove into Chilkoot SP to look for bears, but we only saw bald eagles. Then we went into Haines, where we walked around and saw the town and Ft. Seward. We went to a restaurant where I had the normal halibut fish fry, which was delicious, although Tom had it grilled instead of fried and he said it was dry. We stopped and talked to a gift shop owner, then went and checked in for the ferry to Juneau. We got all the paperwork done and had an hour to kill, so we went back to the park to look for bears, but there still weren’t any. We went back and got in line to load on the ferry, which went very smoothly and we left early. The ferry was very comfortable, and we spent the four and a half hour ride looking at scenery while it was still light and not too foggy, and then catching up on computer stuff.
