Thursday, June 27, 2019

We had a nice morning passage over the last ten miles of the lake. It was Pleasant weather with no wind. Perhaps it was about 55 degrees and by the end of the day maybe it reached 70. We spent a half hour looking for the entrance to the river from the lake. This gave us the opportunity to look back at the shore from the opposite side. There were round knobbed hills reaching down to the shoreline peeking through the smoke from a fire that began about 11:00 am yesterday. Now through the haze, the river looked like a beautiful picture of a river in China.

We reconnected with Jennifer who was eating at the picnic table in a park at the entrance to the river. This park was the second check point for the Yukon River Quest. All the racers were supposed to check in by midnight, but they extended the time because of the storm on the lake. So every racer made it this far.

The river was so much faster than the lake. There were riffles and eddies and other features of interest such as the disintegrating gills of salmon carcasses. They twirled and danced mysteriously winding down to the deep. We bought a 5 liter container of water and we’re almost out. So sometime tomorrow we’ll be filtering this carcass-laced water.

Before beginning this journey, I anticipated having sore arms, and I do. But along with that I have excruciating sciatica, as well as overall leg and finger pain. We stopped paddling today at 4:30. Both of us were totally exhausted. If we’re going to make the Husky Bus from Dawson to Whitehorse on one of the three days it runs, we’ll need to pick up our pace to 40 miles per day. Hope we make it.

We camped alone at a real campsite with two picnic tables and a pit toilet.

Wednesday, June 26, 2919

We debated how seriously we were going to take the warnings about this lake. It’s thirty miles long and we have to cross it. Dark clouds with rain shadows cap the hills in the distance. Wind conditions and directions change constantly. The map book stinks. We want to enjoy the beauty without worry.

We find that there are frequent sandy or rocky stretches to pull into and we need the breaks. So it turns into a pleasant day with incredible scenery and several stops.

We had white caps and one to two foot chop but no standing waves. However we kept a wary eye on the left shore. In the late afternoon dark skies and thunder led us to a beach. There was a couple from Sept-lles Quebec. The woman was Canadian but the man was originally from France. We watched the weather and talked. When the thunder stopped the four of us made an attempt to paddle farther. The water and waves got bigger and we quickly landed again and set up camp.

The Yukon River Quest had started at noon. This race includes canoes, kayaks and stand up paddle boards. They race the 460 miles from Whitehorse to Dawson. They have one mandatory seven hour break at the halfway point in Carmacks. Other than that, they paddle continuously. The winners do it in about 44 hours the last paddlers come in at about 58 hours.

We were heating our dinners when we spotted a boat on the horizon. With binoculars we could make out two power boats and the first canoe. At 6:30 our food was almost ready and the forerunners, two men in a canoe, flew by. Their cadence, form and precision was amazing. We were eating by the time the second canoe passed. The show continued until 10:00. The final three were paddle boarders. One of them had a prosthetic leg. It was really fun to watch. And the end to a super day.

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

We left the Kanoe People canoe rental store at 10:30 after hauling our stuffed food canister and our gigantic dry bag from our motel room to the canoe. Both of these items were rented from the shop. They didn’t open until 9:00 am of course time is irrelevant when it’s light all day and night. Our orientation included Jennifer a thirty something women who is paddling solo.

The paddling seemed easy. Our Kanoe person warned us about Lake Laberge, five finger rapid followed by another rapid. The lake would come up today. Kanoe man said the 30 mile lake could go from dead calm to a six foot wave is 45 seconds. I mean why even tell us this? What could you possibly change in 45 seconds?

Kanoe man is from France and the whole scene reminded me of Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther movies speaking in an exaggerated accent and the inspector echoing Sellers words and accent, but ending the sentence with a question mark. You exit the dock at a ninety degree angle. A ninety degree angle? Yes, like this he holds up his paddle. We all look confused. You head up river. Up river? Yes, yes up river. And so on.

His briefing on our 16 day trip basically explained leaving their dock and arriving at their dock in Dawson at the end of the trip. All three of us were confused about how we were even supposed to push off in our canoes. He walked away and let us move on. We were happy he wasn’t watching. Jenifer shoved off first going straight downriver with no ninety degree angle, and we did the same.

The river in Whitehorse is swift about 6 to 10 mph. It didn’t take long to get out of Whitehorse, a town of 30,000. We had a map book of the river which was printed in the early 80s. Things have changed. Ten minutes into the paddle my forearms ached. I decided to study the map book but couldn’t find any of the landmarks. Ten minutes later my right deltoid was killing me. I took off my jacket. Then my fingers ached and I took some pictures. And so it went. I felt like a child trying to delay doing her chores.

The river was easy, the weather was warm and sunny and the views were gorgeous, despite aches and pains all was right.

About 3:30 we were approaching Lake Laberge. Yes, this is the Lake Laberge made famous by the Robert Service poem The Cremation of Sam McGee. Black clouds were building ahead. There was one camp spot before we hit the lake. The next suitable camp was reported, in the map book to be three miles ahead. We saw a canoe, a tent and a couple already on shore. We decided to chance the lake. We paddled about half an hour when the weather got more iffy. We paddled into a sandy beach with a grassy spot before a wooded area. We made lunch and Jennifer, our partner from orientation pulled up. We chatted until it started to spit rain. She decided to head for Indian Village and we threw up the tent.

We napped until the rain stopped and we packed up for the lake. It was fairly calm, but dark clouds were building and thunder was in the distance. We paddled for almost two more hours when we saw a red house peeking out from behind trees. We paddled closer and thought we saw a red canoe on the beach. It was Jennifer’s. This was Indian village. It appear to have nothing to do with Native people. It was s series of boarded up cabins. Jennifer had strung her hammock tent on the porch of a cabin, so we set up our tent on the porch of another one. There we signs of bears prints and scat, but it turned out that the only thing aggressive were the mosquitoes.

June 24, 2019

We spent the day in Whitehorse shopping, organizing, and filling our food barrel and dry bag.

We’re leaving tomorrow in our rented, red canoe paddling up the Yukon River with thunderstorms in the forecast. We excited and nervous.

June 23, 2019

Bear Loon Lake to Bennet Lake

We woke to light rain and Loons and gulls calling. At 5:00 AM no one was up save me. It had rained off and on most of the night. Before we fell asleep Terry mentioned that the tent might have a leak he had ignored. Thankfully he was wrong. However in a small tent there are always wet spots. As soon as the rain stopped, he suggested that we should start packing up. I had been awake for hours, so I was ready. Inside the tent, only one of us has room to pack up at a time.

We were catching the train at noon. It was an easy walk down to the station. When the train arrived the conductor jumped off. It was Jeremy a friend from our Skagway days. The hour and a half ride to Carcross was beautiful.

We had a super lunch at the town’s bistro. At the gas station we met two guys who had pushed their helicopters from the landing strip over to the gas pumps. They were heading around the world in their tiny copters.

It rained on the bus trip into Whitehorse. We dined on a camp meal in our motel room.

June 22, 2019

Happy Camp to Bear Loon Lake

This was the morning of recovery. It was foggy, but it seemed that the sun was trying was trying to peek out. We ate and visited with others. We were ready to leave but we told the Debs we’d wait for them. We weren’t in a hurry because this was going to be an easy day. However it seemed like everyone was leaving and this made us impatient.

Finally Debra appeared and shortly Deb joined us in the hut. We visited as they broke camp. When they were almost ready, they told us to go ahead. They’d catch up.

There was a family group of seven, eight counting their dog, from Anchorage, Washington and Sweden. They passed us shortly but no Debs. They said the Debs were right behind them. We were getting closer to Lindeman Camp the bear zone. We could see the Debs coming down the hill. It started to drizzle and Terry said to move on. They’d catch us.

We saw a lot of moose droppings and then a pile of bear scat. I said again we should wait for them, but Terry said they’d catch up soon. At Lindeman they were still behind. We went down to the camp’s log structure. It was chilly and we wanted to warm up. I worried they’d walk on without us, so I walked back to the trail and was happy to see them heading in. We had a nice lunch and walked together to Bear Loon Lake with no bear or moose sightings just gulls chattering over the lake.

June 21, 2019, summit on the Summer Solstice

Sheep Camp to Happy Camp

This is the ascent and pass day. It starts with rolling your shoes (feet and ankles worst for the wear) over medium sized rocks. Then as the ascent sharpens the rocks get bigger and sharper and angry. Then we reach the scales, and it’s straight up a face of boulders.

I was thankful I had seen Free Solo. It was much the same except we had boulders instead of a wall. But the fact the we were wearing packs, added to the difficulty. There were times I twisted and felt like the pack would pull me down. But as my fingers searched for any kind of a hand hold, I saw myself in the movie with the camera shooting my gloved fingers hanging on for dear life.

The snow obscured many bolder fields and actually made the hike easier. But I slipped and fell a couple of times and twisted my foot and knees. There are two false passes before the real summit. The trail ranger at Sheep Camp thankfully warned us about these fakes. Both of them seemed easy after the crawl. I was surprised to see the pass and the Canadian flag on the hut at the summit.

Five people passed us without packs. Making us look like we were standing still. Which we were. It dawned on us that they were doing the one day run through the trail. This is 38 miles. I thought OMG! Then I recalled we had attempted the same thing 17 years ago. Our dog Mukluk was so frightened, as was I. The difference was that Terry had to carry him, all 63 pounds, over the whole boulder field. When they reached the top, Mukluk had the nerve to strut, prance and howl like he did it himself.

Meanwhile I was so afraid that I repeated, “Don’t let me look down.” It was a good thing that Terry had to tend to the dog. Mukluk made me look good.

We lost so much time getting over the pass, we didn’t have enough time to run out to the road where we had parked the car. So we had to stay in the hut at Lake Lindemand. We had no food, no tent, and no sleeping bag. There were only wooden benches. This would be one of many times on a three dog night we only had one dog.

Seventeen years later, I realized I basically remembered nothing about this hike accept the climb. I can’t image how we ran as much if it as we did. The whole thing has it’s difficulties. But backpacks don’t help.

It was only about four miles of downhill from the summit to Happy Camp, but it took forever with sore legs. We stopped briefly for a lunch break, but the bright sunlight, an oddity which allowed us to fully appreciated the emerald and jade colors of Cater Lake, melts snow. This creates avalanches, snow bridges and serious post holing. To reduce these risks, rangers require that hikers summit before noon.

Happy Camp, like all other camping spots on the Chilkoot, offer pit toilets a cooking shelter, and raised wooden platforms to set your tent on. It rained much of the night, but we were out of the mud.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Having lived here we’ve made this flight many times but are still stirred by its magnificence and hair-raising closeness to the mountains.

We’re staying with our former neighbor, Betty Hather. We had a nice visit before we walked about navigating the throngs of people from the massive cruise ships invading and over-populating this tiny town.

We needed provisions and permits for our hike on the Chilkoot Trail. We also needed train tickets to get from trail’s end to Whitehorse. Unfortunately, the train doesn’t run on Monday the day we were schedule to end our hike. So we spent the rest of the day scurrying to get ready to leave tomorrow a day early.

June 18, 2019

We parked our car at Terry’s aunt and uncles’s in Sunnyvale, and they drove us to the airport. I went to the kiosk to print out our baggage tags, and realized I had left my phone charging in Terry’s car.

Terry flew into action, ordered a Uber, left me with our luggage and backpacks, and headed for his car. Fifty-eight minutes later and Fifty-eight dollars shorter he returned with my phone. I had checked our backpacks to Juneau, so we were on our way. From there on, it was smooth sailing.

Juneau was cool and raining. But we walked through town and visited the state Capital.

We’re looking forward to the short flight to Skagway tomorrow on a seaplane.

I made reservations to hike the Chilkoot Trail in November. On the Summer Solstice we’re returning to our wedding site to celebrate our 15th anniversary. I allowed all these months to plan. But now, in a half day’s time, our flight is leaving and loose-ends remain.

We spent a lot of our planning, thinking we should spend more time in Canada. So we added to our hike a four-hundred mile canoe paddle on the Yukon River from Whitehorse to Dawson.

We have no experience paddling on a river. We hope watching hours of YouTube videos will substitute for experience.

I’d rather sing one wild song

and burst my heart with it,

than live a thousand years

watching my digestion and

being afraid of the wet.

Jack London

Follow our romantic journey on the Klondike hiking and paddling from Skagway, Alaska to Dawson, Yukon Territory.