Haines Junction to Alaska

Saturday, June 19 - This morning we headed out to cover the last segment of the Al-Can Highway through Canada.  At the campground in Haines Junction where we stayed last night were 2 old Fords, a '29 and a '31, that had been completely restored and were pulling little trailers.  The travelers were from Kentucky and were headed for the Arctic Circle.  They had been on the road for 17 days, and were hoping to make the round trip in 2 1/2 months.

It was an interesting, scenic drive, but the road deteriorated greatly the last half of the day.  We drove for miles past Kluane Lake, the largest lake in the Yukon Territory, covering approximately 154 square miles.  It is another beautiful lake.

We stopped at Sheep Mountain Visitor Information Center across from this lake where there is a primary winter and spring range and lambing area of a dall sheep population of approximately 300. The entire mountain range supports 3000-4000 dall sheep. It was a nice center, and it had spotting scopes and high-powered binoculars set out to view the sheep if they chose to appear at the top.  While we were there, a helicopter landed and then took off to go count the sheep.  No sheep were visible when we first got there, but eventually 3 little white spots appears on the ridge of the mountain, and we got to see three sheep.

And Cody and Kaylee, look what we came upon next -- a mama grizzly bear with her cub, grazing right next to the road.  That was sooo cool!  That baby bear was adorable.

Brenda and Jeff, we found you another Tin Cup, actually it is Tin Cup Lake.  It's about 95 miles northwest of Haines Junction, Yukon, so you might need more than 2 weeks of vacation for this trip.

Bumping along the road, we came upon some stopped traffic and lo and behold, there was a huge moose in a pond.  It was a little ways off the road, so we only got long-range pictures.  But in the same pond, on the other side, a mama moose and two calves were coming down the bank to get in the water.  Then a few miles further, we spotted a huge bull moose, in another pond.  My pictures of this one are all a little blurry because I use the telephoto, but I did get some pictures.

Then we continued on our rough road, often slowing down to 20 mph, trying to find the smoothest spot in the road.  Parts of this section were just gravel, so dust was pretty thick.  We have had several days of sunshine so that weather front must have finally passed on.  We crossed into Alaska about 2:20 Alaska time (we are now an hour behind Arizona time) and found a campground for the night.  As soon as we got parked, Joe and I hosed off the car and RV, then settled in for the night. We are heading for Tok in the morning.