We considered staying one more night at Cottonwood R.V. Park if the weather was nice, but it was very cloudy. So yesterday became our day 11 on the Alaska Highway.
We stopped in Burwash Landing to visit the Kluane Natural History Museum – yes, more wildlife displays and also artifacts depicting the life of the Southern Tutchone.
This was one of the best wildlife displays we have seen, they are all beautifully done dioramas. Unfortunately the lighting used in the dioramas was not very good for photography.
We spent part of this day on a hunt for a mouse. Yes, we seem to have another mouse. Yikes! We found a nest and have put out “humane” traps. And we are heading out on day 10 on the Alaska Highway.
Day 10 driving recap:
Road Name (s): Yukon Highway 1
Road Type: 2-lane
Road Conditions: Starts out pretty smooth with some dips, bumps and patches. Overall not bad.
Miles Today: 84
Miles driven from Canadian border: 1838
Miles on the Alaska Highway: 1034
Driving Time: 2:15
The above includes an extra 30 miles from our campground back to Haines Junction. The Haines Highway is an excellent road. Back on the Alaska Highway there are more views of the spectacular Kluane Range.
The morning was really windy, no chance of taking the kayaks out on Dezadeash Lake. And so we hung out inside the RV in the morning.
Then we headed for a very short hike out by Kathleen Lake with Angel. It really is quite a beautiful lake, but there are lots of warnings about the wind picking up rather quickly. The hike is just a ½ mile mostly on a boardwalk but you can continue around the lake at the end of the boardwalk.
We were hoping to publish a blog post, so we had a plan A and a plan B. Plan A was to stop at the nearby Kathleen Lake Lodge and ask if we could use their WiFi, plan B was to continue another fifteen miles to the Visitor Center in Haines Junction and use theirs.Continue reading →
It was raining when we left Whitehorse on day 9 on the Alaska Highway. Our 9th day driving out of 14 on the Alaska Highway, and our 19th day in Canada.
Day 9 driving recap:
Road Name (s): Yukon Highway 1
Road Type: 2-lane
Road Conditions: a few frost heaves and patches, becoming more frequent frost heaves just a few miles past Whitehorse, then several long gravel breaks due to road construction, smoothing out a bit just before Haines Junction
Miles Today: 130
Miles driven from Canadian border: 1754
Miles on the Alaska Highway: 985
Driving Time: 3:15
The beginning of the drive was not especially scenic, but of course we are pretty spoiled by now. And we soon had to slow down due to the road conditions. Continue reading →
This day we had a really short drive into Whitehorse, Yukon so we took it pretty easy in the morning. We really liked the Marsh Lake Yukon Government Campground, although there were quite a few mosquitoes there. Fortunately, we were able to get by with some natural mosquito repellent, and the campfire helped. We have several levels of repellent, from natural to frighteningly chemical.
Day 8 driving recap:
Road Name (s): Yukon Highway 1
Road Type: 2-lane
Road Conditions: Excellent as this was mostly in “suburban” Whitehorse
Miles Today: 31
Miles driven from Canadian border: 1624
Miles on the Alaska Highway: 887.4
Driving Time: :50
Whitehorse is the largest town in these parts. It is both the capital of the Yukon and home to over two thirds of Yukon’s 35k human residents. In the Yukon Territory there are significantly more moose than there are people!
It is a great place to refuel and restock. On the way in, we stopped at Integra Tire, which provides free sani-dump service with a fill-up. We got gas, dumped, got a water fill, a propane fill and a free bag of ice. All in one place, very convenient. But they are a very busy operation so it took quite a while.
Then we headed to Walmart, where we were clearly not the first to think about overnighting. It was pretty jam packed with RV’s. I honestly have never seen so many in one parking lot.
But we found a good spot and settled in. It is a great location right in town and once again, they had WiFi and it was working pretty well when we arrived in the middle of the afternoon. This Walmart actually has a sign outside indicating where RVs are allowed to park overnight – amazing.
Next stop was the Visitor Center, a beautifully decorated building with lots of great information. There are quite a few museums and other activities in town, and this is the place to get the details on all of them. They also have really good WiFi.
We returned to the Rancheria Restaurant for breakfast. When we arrived, we heard that “we had gotten up too late and missed two moose in the pond”. Shucks. But we had a good breakfast and used their WiFi again. We had an ambitious plan on driving day 7 on the Alaska Highway, with a couple of town and museum stops along the way.
We took a quick walk over to the pond behind the restaurant after breakfast and after a few minutes, a cow moose came out on the opposite shore. She was a bit far but we got a nice long look at her as she walked around feeding by the shore. A great start to our morning.
Next, we did more doubling back in the car to take one last look at the road we saw just before reaching Rancheria as it was quite pretty.
This led us to a detour and across an old wooden bridge, but the road was impassable after that point.Continue reading →
Our campground in Watson Lake had an area to wash cars and RVs so we washed the car in the morning. Then we blogged some more and headed to the visitor center museum and the signpost forest.
The signpost forest is pretty amazing. Thousands of signs from all over the United States, Canada and many other countries on countless posts. Continue reading →
We considered staying one more night at Cottonwood R.V. Park if the weather was nice, but it was very cloudy. So yesterday became our day 11 on the Alaska Highway.
This was one of the best wildlife displays we have seen, they are all beautifully done dioramas. Unfortunately the lighting used in the dioramas was not very good for photography.
