To Haines

Wrangell Mountains - This was taken on the road to Nabesna before we left Grizzly Lake. 

I guess we should be thankful that there was only 14 miles of this!

This is actually basically dust free - really. The construction crews have been keeping it wet. We drove through some dry areas where visibility was about 50'. This section was so rough and I drove so slow that the pilot car had to stop and wait several times.

Sign on the door of the Discovery Yukon campground.

This is our makeshift car cover made from yoga mats. We towed this car 60,000 miles without a scratch in the lower 48 with no cover. And then welcome to the Alaskan Highway. And now we need a new windshield, the paint will never be the same and radiator fins need to be straightened.

Since there was no hope of buying a custom cover in Yukon this was our first attempt make from indoor outdoor carpet. While it protected the car dirt accumulated under it and continued use would have rubbed our already damaged paint down to the metal. So it got cleaned and stored for the trip home where it will become shelf lining.

Kathleen Lake where we camped. Unfortunately the campsites were not on the lake.

Even boats will get rock damage.

Kathleen Lake south of Haines Junction

On the way to Haines. These are some of the Kluane National Park mountains.

Diane ran to the office to pay the camping fees for this place

In Tok we bought some groceries and supplies, visited a museum and some gift shops. We stuffed the fuel tank since Canadian prices are higher and we were off the next morning. The Alaskan Highway to the border is one of the worst roads that we were on in Alaska. But it’s a nice road compared to the section from the border to Destruction Bay, Yukon. We were driving slow but to fast maybe said Diane. We were on this road on the way up so we knew what to expect but I had chosen to bury the memory. The area has bad frost heaves and there is never a good year for this section of the road. We also hit a 14 mile stretch of construction in Yukon with construction meaning rip up the road and replace it with dirt and rock. Replace all of the culverts which sometimes mean interesting detours down the side through the creek bed. I drove so slow that the pilot car had to stop and wait several times as we were near the front of the line. Shortly after that was Canadian customs and it was very slow. Fortunately  we were near the beginning of the line.  The customs officer told us to wait and shut the window and left for 5 minutes. Well we certainly were not going to leave without our passports. But we were soon on our way so apparently we were not the cause of the delay.

The above correctly indicates that Canadian customs in about 20 miles past the border, actually just outside Beaver Creek, while the US customs is very near the border.

The rear camera shook loose and I was nervous about it hanging on the wire so we stopped and made a quick repair. It’s now bolted rather than glued in place and when I get some stainless bolts it will become permanent. Just another day bouncing down the road.

We stopped at a very nice campground – Discover Yukon. They have bear tours and the berries were ready but the bears haven’t been around. That was OK as I didn’t want to fight the bears for my share of the berries. I noticed that the voltage was 58 HZ so I knew we were on a generator. We’ve stayed at several campgrounds with generators. But this one had the office, cabins, campground, generator and yes even an airport!

Airports consist of uneven strips of land cleared of trees or perhaps they land on some water. And even a sandbar or glacier will do.

The next day we stopped at Haines Junction and bought 20 gallons of diesel. We couldn’t determine what if any fuel was available in Haines and if we had to come back to Haines Junction that would be about 580 miles from Tok which gets us in the uncomfortable zone and well below half a tank. The general northern wisdom is never go below half full as the next station may be closed. Or the internet is down and you need cash. Since we weren’t off the main highways we didn’t encounter these problems. It’s likely that fuel is available in Haines and certainly will be cheaper than Canada so we didn’t want to take that gamble so we paid $4.99/gallon and said thank you. And that is the lowest price we’ve seen in Yukon. And it was $3.46 in Sun Lakes. And for folks with small tanks that have to fill at small towns we’ve seen it as high as $6.50.

We stopped at Kathleen Lake for the night which is a very nice Canadian National park. We didn’t have hookups but we have a very nice fire. We’re about 20 km south of Haines Junction.

Oh yeah the Canadians have this funny metric system that keeps our brains going trying to convert  their metric speed, miles and temperature to something that only the English could invent.

And now that we're in Haines we know that diesel is only $4.76/gallon. What a bargain.

Small Yukon towns: Whitehorse is the largest town with 26,000 people and all of Yukon is about 38,000. So the population of Yukon is about three times the population of Sun Lakes...

BTW In Canada regular gasoline costs about $0.20/gallon more than diesel. You don't want to even think about premium...