Back to Whitehorse for Two Days - Day 1

Day 61, Sunday August 14, 2016            Whitehorse, YT               Pioneer RV Park, site 138

263 towing miles            11.5 mpg 

Our plan for the day was to make it to Kathleen Lake Campground in the Kluane National Park, about 20 miles south of Haines Junction on the Haines Highway.    We looked at it on the way to Haines and liked the lake and campground, but the lake was windy at the time with whitecaps.  We’ll check it out again and see if it is canoe-able.  If not, we will continue on the Whitehorse, Yukon.

We took a little time in the morning for a fire.  I needed to burn my wood bundle or leave it because we have border crossing into Canada to go through in 38 miles.

We left Chilkoot Lake campground at 08:25. Remarkably, it wasn’t raining but there were low clouds on the mountains.  We took some pictures of Haines and the Lutik Inlet on the way out.

The town of Haines, Alaska

This photo was taken in color!

 It was an uneventful ride up the Haines Highway.  We stopped a few times for pictures.  On the way is the Bald Eagle Wildlife Sanctuary.

I could put everything the sign says here, but I will let you read the sign in the photo.

Where are the thousands of Eagles?  (Wrong time of year)

We didn't see any eagles at the eagle sanctuary.

Here’s some scenery through British Columbia section.  A lot of it was above tree line and open alpine tundra.

There is a glacier between these mountains.

Glacier zoomed.

Up in the clouds.

Notice lack of trees.

High mountain road.

We've also seen guard rails with stickers on them.

British Columbia alpine scenery.

Then we entered Yukon and went up to Haines Junction, where we jumped on the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse.

Border between BC and YT.  Notice the pull off behind the

Yukon sign so people can take a picture of the sign.  Notice

the bear proof trash can there.  We took this picture on the fly.

Haines junction is a town where the Haines Highway and the Alaska Highway intersect.

The town of Haines Junction, Yukon Territory

Along the Alaska Highway, coming out of Haines Junction towards Whitehorse.

Along the Alaska Highway towards Whitehorse.  Note moose crossing sign on right.

We stopped at Kathleen Lake as planned and drove down to the boat launch, trailer in tow.  The lake was too windy to canoe so we decided to move on to Whitehorse.  No pictures.

Refueled at the same unmanned self- serve gas station in Haines Junction that we did on the way down.  We also had a cell signal there and called Pioneer RV Park to make sure we could get in.  And we could.  So now we didn’t have to worry about what time we arrived.  We got there during rush hour, at 4:15.  There was a line of RVs when we got there. We were given 3 sites to check out and didn’t like any of them.  But we picked the least  worse one.  They were nice sites, just not much privacy with the neighboring sites.  The ones we wanted were taken by the two people that showed up 15 minutes ahead of us.

Our camper and truck was filthy with the mud from the Alaska Highway construction from 3 days ago.  Pioneer RV Park has an RV wash station (coin operated) and we waited in line for about an hour while two truck/trailer combination wash the dirt from their rigs. 

We were staring at our neighbors while they made their evening meal.  That’s how close our sites were.  After they ate they came over to chatted with us for a while.  They were from Ontario.  They were not retired, but taking a four-week trip to Alaska.  We talked about places we had been and made some recommendations. 

We made some pork chops and Bush’s grillin’ beans for supper.

After we ate our neighbor called us over to their evening campfire.  We sat out until 10:00 which is late for us.  But we’re still used to Alaska time and Whitehorse is Pacific time, so we had a free hour.  They told us we were the first people they had talked to at any campground they stayed at.  They were amazed that no one talks to anyone.  That’s the second time this trip we heard that.

They were camping with a truck camper on a flatbed trailer, pulled by a Dodge Ram Cummins Diesel.  A rather unusual set-up.  But we’ve seen every kind of camping device made, commercially and home-made.  Before this, they had a 7,000 lb. trailer.  It was too big to fit in some of the camping places they like to go, so they downsized to their current set-up.  They are headed up the Klondike Highway to Dawson City, and then the Dempster to the Arctic Circle, like we did.

We are staying here another day to get my truck oil changed and some groceries in a real grocery store.