Mash and Miranda's journal

Cowarch Valley

Mon, 04 May 2009 15:32:09 GMT

Won't say much about this except to annotate the pictures

Bank Holiday weekend - fine weather - off to the Cowarch Valley

we climbed to the top of the Butterpass

and could look back toward The Peat Road, Aran and the Airman's Cairn

then breathless scramble to the top of Glasgywm

and Lyn y Fign (see Cader in the distance), The we kept heading SW and away from the crags

toward that distant forest - proved pretty thick.

Then we sort of bushbashed until we came back to the valley and could look down across the butresses above Cae Peris

strange views as we've never been here before

In the far distance a glimpse of the Shepherd's hut . . .

more views from odd angles

cars parked on the moor

and a map if you want to see where

CLICK (750kb !)

Snowdonia Holiday 27th March 2009

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:06:14 GMT

We decided to take a long weekend away around Miranda’s birthday. We had found an ideal tiny place to stay just in the hills East of Betwys y Coed near a village called Capel Garmon and on a West-facing slope looking across the mountains around Snowdon.

Neither of us has ever had a burning desire to climb Snowdon; too many people do. It sounds crowded and who the hell wants a Café on top spoiling it. (rant over but more to come later).

Thursday 27th found us making a leisurely start as we headed up country using routes 3b and 4. First stop was a cup of tea at Lake Vrynwy in a rainy morning which didn’t bode too well for the main aim of the trip; exercise Miranda by walking her lots!

Next stop was to have a bit of a wander around the small, Conwy Valley town of Llanrwst and pick up some supplies. We then had a small and uneventful walk in the nearby forests above Gwydir Castle. The walk was just a muscle warmer for the next few days. Walking in forestry is always frustrating as the buggers ignore the rights of way that exist, drive their own paths and roads through the place and expect you to follow the blue of the red route around their domain. This implies that one knows where the blue route goes and the only way to do this is to start at the Forest Car Park where the signs will tell you. Heaven help the poor traveller who wants to walk across a forest using footpaths.

Anyway we found our sweet little cottage which does indeed have lovely views into the setting sun across the mountains. Lots of low cloud about but we did see some pretty large and impressive mountains.

Friday dawned as the weather man had said – wet and prolonged. We decided to take a low-level walk around a couple of lakes, over a couple of ridges and through some woods and forests near to Llanrwst. It was a goodly walk with lots of variety but we were anxious for mountains. Once the walk was over we drove North to Conwy and wandered around the tiny town and along it’s superbly fortified walls. Then on to the seaside town of Llandudno and a short and very windy beach walk.

Saturday was forecast to be wet in the morning but drying up a bit in the afternoon but with strong Northerly winds which would drop the temperature significantly. We decided to head to a spot North of Capel Curig and walk into the mountains from there. We had all the necessary technology, maps, descriptions and a GPS. Our first ascent was to be a rocky ridge called Tryfan – we knew little about it and when we arrived we couldn’t see the top anyway. Off we went, straight up into the clouds where we shortly met other younger (very younger) and also (probably) fitter people with fancier looking uniforms and knick-knackery. We spend some time getting past a group of schoolkids with their macho leader-man. Anyhow, Tryfan is notoriously steep and just rock – it’s probably the most strenuous climb you could make in Snowdonia without it being called rock-climbing. It just got steeper and rockier and spikier and more and more vertical. The wind blew hard, the sky threw hail and snow at us and the path (hah – it’s so steep that there is no path) became a piece of well-worked improvisation. At about 850m and still some 150 from the summit of this rocky spike into the sky we started to find ice on the vertiginous rocks. We couldn’t see the top for hail and I wasn’t too happy about going on. We had the company of about 6 other people who were also debating the wisdom of continuing when around the corner came our school trip with macho-man.

We enquired if he thought he was going to carry on and were quickly rebuffed. He had a rope and a little bit of ice wasn’t going to stop him or the 11 kids he had in his care (oops I forgot the other member of staff who wasn’t being consulted on this). Miranda and I decided that we would turn back and descend about 400m to a lower path which would skirt the rocks of Tryfan. We still don’t know whether the school party made it over the mountain but we did later see some of the other people who had been with us descending as well. Going down was as hairy as going up but at least we knew where we were headed.

We eventually hit the lower path, skirted Tryfan and came up over a pass and down to our destination of two small lakes where, by early afternoon there was little or no evidence of the strong winds and hail that we had witnessed earlier in the day.

(we learned after we got back home that someone had fallen off Tryfan and been killed a few days after we had retreated - just goes to show that you can't brave-out everything)

Back Betwys y Coed for a well-earned cup of tea and an extended wander around their very well-stocked outdoor shops where we saw all sorts of people. Betwys y Coed is a small town very near right in the mountains of Snowdonia and it’s extremely well-placed to pick up the passing outdoors trade from walkers, climbers, cyclists and what, quite a horde of outdoor fashionistas – both women and men dressed immaculately in waterproof this and windproof that and super-dooper walking boots that are clean and unscuffed. They spend most of the day driving to various view-points and car-parks, never too far from a place to have lunch and, when bored, they head into B y C to cruise the shops and Cafés. Ah well, I suppose they are getting some exercise.

Despite gloomy weather forecasts at the beginning of the week, Sunday was to be sunny. It was, the day dawned clear and from our cottage we could see Tryfan, the mountain that had shrugged us off the day before.

Even from a distance and in the morning sun it looked pretty foreboding. However, another day and this was to be sunny and windless. We headed for exactly the same parking spot but this time headed North, away from Tryfan and into the Carnedd mountains. What a fantastic walk we had, the skies were clear, the wind was light but chill and we could see where we were going. It being Sunday we met quite a few people but most of our walk was alone as we climbed up a steep rocky ridge and onto a flat topped summit. The drifted snow of the previous night and the early morning frost transformed the long ridge into a beautiful easy walk. We then climbed again to the second peak and then down a steep sided ridge where we stumbled on a track that slanted steeply to the lake in a valley.

On Miranda’s birthday the weather was not so good. We chose to tackle not only a Mountain called Garn but also both peaks of the Glyders. All of these peaks are new to us and we really didn’t know what to expect. All three were very different and the ascents were very demanding. Arriving at a mountain peak in the mist is difficult but it’s most unnerving leaving one when you know there are cliffs, ridges and comfortingly smooth slopes that lead you away from your destination.

We climbed up muddy, slate strewn screes, rock fields and hugely spiky piles to get to our mountain tops and then hoped that our compass bearings would take us to places where we could see boot prints or even cairns. The 3rd peak, Glyder Fawr was stumbled upon when we heard voices in the mist – this was fortunate as we then knew we had found the cantilever stone.

Our final day was spent on a very enjoyable climb out of Capel Curig and a scramble up to the peak of Moel Siabod in sunlight/bright mist and then a long descent down a stegosaurus backed ridge.

We’re home again and feel very fit and well having walked around 50 miles and climbed 6,000 metres of mountains. Hooray for holidays!

And and and - here's Miranda's birthday present sitting in the tree in our front garden - Jean commented that it was a long way from home.

I did a trade with Roj and made him a website (still needs some fine-tuning) and he made Miranda . . . . a bird.
look at Roj's other work it's very good.

leaving from Juneau

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:37:01 GMT

Our last day in Skagway was Monday 6th October. The uncertainty of transport in this part of the world often requires a compromise. We were due to fly from Juneau on the Wednesday morning; flying from Skagway on the Tuesday evening would only work if the weather were good enough for a light aircraft and, at this time of year it's a risky proposition.
Ferry is the most reliable but this meant a Monday night journey on the venerable Malaspina; taking 8 hours, double the time for our previous ferry journey.

Saying goodbye is always horrid so I won't dwell on that but we had had an utterly stonking 3 weeks only made possible by both Sam & Jacq being incredibly accommodating and handing 3 weeks of their lives over to us. So it's true to say that we boarded the ferry with not a little sadness.

The ferry took us down the Lyn Canal to Haines which we approached at moonrise and left well after dark.

The Malaspina is a much larger ferry than the Fairweather but was pretty empty and really just carrying people on local trips to Juneau to do business. We sat in the 100 seat dining room with maybe 6 others and eat a hearty plate of fish & chips with a droopy looking salad. Then into the bar for a couple of beers (with 4 other people) and then, as all the lights in the lounges seemed to have been dimmed we sat in an aft (down the back end) lounge and watched a film on my iPod. We were due to arrive at the Juneau ferry terminal at about 1pm on Tuesday morning so we did what everyone else seemed to be doing and dozed for the last couple of hours of the trip.

Out into the cold night air and within 5 minutes we were reunited with our bags as about the only foot passengers (everyone else had their car or truck). Fortunately the hotel had sent a driver to bring us the last 7 miles to our beds.

Early the next morning found us running to catch the bus into Juneau City Centre. We had expected to catch the Express bus but managed to get the one that meandered it's way from the airport in and out of all the suburbs that thread themselves between Glacier Highway and the mountains. It was an interesting drive as we mostly passed through the less affluent areas of the City. Juneau has a population of 30k (Anchorage 260k Fairbanks 80k) and it's the capital of Alaska – it also is without a road connection to anywhere. Many of Juneau's residents work for the State Administration or, I suppose Federal Offices.

The City Centre is tiny and lives, like Skagway, for tourism. We arrived well into the 'shoulder season' and many of the shops were either closed or closing for the winter. Our aim was to see if we could find a few small presents but mostly to take a look at Juneau and visit the state museum.

The City is delightful; it's compact, has a wonderful mix of residential, commercial and administrative building. Lots of interesting views down streets of shops, offices and homes. We even stumbled upon the residence of the Governor of Alaska set in an ordinary residential area overlooking the Gastineau Channel.

The message from Alaska, a pretty Republican state, is that they may be quite proud of Mrs Palin but they can't quite bring themselves to think that she'd make a good (vice) President. News this week from Alaska shows that she doesn't have it all her own way there as the State has placed beluga whales on the protected list despite her opposition (whales may have to be considered carefully when Alaska starts to look for oil in one of their most common haunts – the Cook Inlet (see our Seward posting).

The museum is fascinating with a great mix of Russian/Alaska history, Gold Rush history and a great deal of information on the indigenous peoples of this vast state. When the lower 48 states had to come to terms with their native peoples they just gave them reservations, Alaska did nothing like this and gave them corporations many of which have proved very successful – the boat that we travelled on around the Keanai Fjords is owned by a native Alaskan corporation.

Later we wandered around the City still looking for half-decent presents. Not much luck but in several shops people worked out that we were not local, not cruise ship people and, therefore might be interesting; they were too and we had some very interesting discussions. We also met the ubiquitous ravens; every building seems to have a raven sat upon it and sometimes they gather in small groups on street corners to 'cronk' at each other.

On our 2006 trip we had visited the Russian Cathedral in Sitka and, although Juneau is significantly further East of the one-time capital of Russian Alaska, it also has an Orthodox foothold – unfortunately this tiny church was locked up but compare the Sitka bigger brother.

Oh and this is the Governor’s residence and also evidence of her support or otherwise.

And just an idea of what living here looks like.

Cartier Bresson never came here . . .

This time we catch the Express bus back to the Hotel, arrive in fresh rain which is notable in that I couldn't remember the last time it had rained here – the weather had been extremely, unseasonably, luckily good for the whole of our trip.

A last night meal in the restaurant, an early night, an early rise and the long journey begins. No hitches as we find that we have 2 hours between each leg of the journey. Juneau to Seattle, 2 hour wait, Seattle to Schipol, 2 hour wait, Schipol to Birmingham, 2 hour wait, Birmingham to Shrewsbury, 2 hour wait, bus to Bishop's Castle where we computed that our day had lasted 36 hours. We held off until about 8pm and woke the next day at 10am feeling confused.

I can't put into words how amazing it is to travel and return. I love the journey and I love arriving and I can't wait for another one like this . . . . . . . . .

Seward Sea Life Center & back in Dyea

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:43:08 GMT

Jacq was keen that while we were in Seward we should visit the Sea Life Center. Lest we labour under the misunderstanding that this was some sort of watery disneyesque aquarium affair she convinced us that a visit was worthwhile by relating the history of the place: it’s a serious marine research and rehabilitation centre.
It was established following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, the largest in US history which had a devastating effect on the marine life in the Gulf of Alaska. 11 million gallons crude oil and contaminated about 1,300 miles of coastline. Around 250,000 seabirds, nearly 3,000 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles and up to 22 killer whales died as a result of the spill.
Exxon never coughed up full damages, but were ordered by court to pay damages, some of which were used to build the centre. It wasn’t built until ten years later but now sits overlooking Resurrection Bay in Seward. Although they didn’t have baseline data for many species they know that many marine populations have yet to recovery to their pre-oil spill levels: the centre contains a wealth of detail about the impact of the oilspill.
Anyhoo, Mash and I were really impressed by all we saw, had lots of lovely learning and a thoroughly fascinating time.
Fantastic displays, all of which were very difficult to photograph, but here’s a few;

We were very impressed with halibut: the blighters start life swimming in the standard way, but on reaching a certain age decide that life is better swimming on the bottom of the seabed on one side. Their bodies then flatten out, and it changes into a flat fish. Most bizarrely, the eye on the undersides migrates to the upper side; wonderfully weird. They grow enormous (and are a regular feature on menus in Alaska!)

There were some huge tanks for sea mammals: the centre takes in sea otters, harbour seals, sea lions, any critters that have been injured or abandoned. You can see details of recent individual patients and their recovery and release on their website: http://www.alaskasealife.org

They had a mighty stellar sea lion, who eyed us beadily as he swam majestically past, with such strength and grace; his fluid power was awesome. We watched him for ages, and couldn’t drag ourselves away –he was mesmerising. Shame we couldn’t get any photos that convey what a beautifully impressive animal he was.

Mightily impressed by all we had seen, we hightailed in back to Anchorage, and a quiet night. The following morning we had brief city time, discovering the delights of Title Wave (great book shop) and the heady pleasures of REI (excellent outdoor equipment shop), before hitting the road again, nipping back north back to Palmer before taking the beautiful Alaska Highway from Anchorage to Whitehorse. The reason for the brief diversion was to visit one of Jacq’s favourite animals, musk oxen. I had a completely wrong idea of musk ox; their name fooling simple me into assuming they are bovine; I knew they are amazing at surviving in sub-zero conditions and protect themselves from predation by wolves by huddling together in circles, heavy horned heads outer most.

What I didn’t realise it that they aren’t true oxen, but related to goats- and therefore much smaller than I’d appreciated until I met them face to face. Very hairy, very strong and tough –but quite diddy. They were extinct in Alaska until re-introduced by a forward thinking Canadian enthusiasts. Musk ox now live wild successfully, but also on specialist farms; in this instance for their quiviut; the wool they shed in their annual moult which is incredible light, durable and warm. The Palmer farm is a not-for profit that provides the wool to native Alaskan (Eskimos) women in remote coastal villages, who make a living knitting it into items for sale. As the wool is very rare, these hats & scarves are very expensive. Regardless, we all liked the characterful musk ox very much and pleased to find such a philanthropic enterprise; you can find out more about the musk ox farm
http://www.muskoxfarm.org

Back on the road again: climbing high as we drove, with stonking views as ever.

Saw moose, caribou and elk towards the end of the day, and deciding it was too dark, too snowy and too cold for camping, hauled into a comfortably tatty hotel in snowy Glennallen for the night. Next morning we hit the road again, for a full long day’s travel into snowy Canada and the Yukon, stopping only briefly in the early evening in Whitehorse for an Indian curry (a rare treat). Thick fog crossing over the White Pass back into USA meant slow driving at night –but we got home safely after covering over 2,500 miles of driving in a week. Terrific stuff!

Only one full day left at home in Dyea with Sam and Jacq, which was sad. Mash set to work assembling all sorts of bits and pieces, most of which we’d brought out from UK, to build a new faster, slicker computer for them.

Beloved Sam took the opportunity to exercise his restless mother, and took me up to Lost Lake, a three hour hike up, much of which is a steep clamber over slippy roots and mossy boulders. We decided on this jaunt at the last minute and travelled light by taking only the three essentials: water( to drink, obviously) groovy granola bars (to revive flagging energy levels or, alternatively, an enjoyable scoff) and bear spray(for naughty bear encounters)

Occasionally the trail opened out to give views, both towards the mountains behind Sam and Jacq’s house, and towards Skagway. This is looking towards Upper Dewey, an old friend from our previous trip.

We kept a wary eye open for bears, especially when picking and scoffing the blueberries we found as we climbed higher. Wild blueberries taste best went eaten as soon as picked.

Lost Lake is a darkly beautiful lake: small and secret. I was sad it was the last hike of the trip but really happy that I’d had the opportunity; special to spend time chatting and sharing it with Sam -

Our last morning: it’s always sad when holidays are over, a good time is coming to a close, back to work we must go. That’s the ordinary melancholy of a holiday moving towards its conclusion, as all holidays must. The true sadness is in saying goodbye to those you love, which is always hard, but especially when the distances apart are so very great: it will be a long time until we see Sam and Jacq again. So we went for an end of holiday stroll along the bank of the River Taiya, which had been in full spate on our arrival, and just enjoyed ponking about in each other’s company while we could.

It’s always thrilling to realise that bears have been mucking about where you are- he’d not been here much before us.

Here’s some beautiful autumn trees outside Sam and Jacq’s house: such trees are everywhere but you always appreciate things more when you are about to leave.

The Harding Icefield

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:47:52 GMT

The Harding Icefield

We'd chosen to camp just outside Seward in the Kenai Fiords National Park at a campsite just below Exit Glacier. This, initially appears to be a rather small glacier as it's toe is only about 100 metres across and it looks a lot less impressive than the tidewater glacier (Aialik) which we'd visited the day before.

However, these are both fed by the Harding Icefield which sits in the mountains behind. The Harding Icefield feeds about 40 glaciers in the Seward area and this was our destination. It covers an area of 400 sqaure miles (1,100 if you include the glaciers too). It's also the largest icefield in the US.

An icefield is just a huge reservoir of ice and the glaciers are the outlets. Snow falls in the winter in large quantities and compresses into ice by it's own sheer mass - there might be 40 feet of snowfall in one season up there. The ice moves very slowly and huge cracks and pressure ridges appear as it forces over rocks and into narrow valleys. We weren't about to traverse this world but we could follow a trail that led up the side of Exit Glacier and take us to a point about 3,500 feet above sea level to the icefield edge where we could look down and across part of the icefield.

First, get out of bed. There's a film of ice over the inside and outside of the tent; last night the temperature got down to -7C. We pull on freezing walking boots and pace the campsite in a futile attempt to warm both toes and fingers.

The trail starts at the large, empty car park next to the toe of the glacier. It's large because the glacier gets a lot of visitors in the summer months. Most just walk the half mile path to the glacier toe, take photos and leave. Our path takes us through woodland of cottonwood and small spruce but we quickly start to zig-zag our way up steep brush-covered rocky slopes to a point above the glacier where we catch glimpses of the distant peaks within the icefield. We can also look down onto the lip of the glacier where it cracks it's way over a hidden rock ledge down to Exit.

As usual, Miranda walks at her high-speed pace and we move away from Sam & Jacq. We find a rocky outlook alongside what looks like a grassy plateau (the map refers to this as Marmot Fields but we don't see any). We can now look down and see the valley formed by the retreating glacier with it's sinuous river bed of grey glacial outwash and camping area. From below we hear distant cries - we are carrying all the food for the day and Jacq has become anxious that she and Sam will starve and fall into the glacier.

As we climb higher Miranda spots two black bears on the scree slopes above us. It looks like a mother and a cub. Below them we can also see our path as it traverses the slope. We keep a careful eye on them as they slowly descend out of sight. We are anxious as if they turn up on our path we may need to turn back rather than annoy or provoke them

As we climb higher we can see that they have both found warm spots in the weak sunshine and are sleeping off the large meal of roots and berries that they have just harvested from the mountainside. We also spot big white mountain goats on a snowfield - normally very shy, they seem pretty unconcerned by our presence.

The icefield just goes on and on into the distance with huge cloud-wrapped peaks behind.

There's no way to estimate distances but I guess that we are looking at a small arm of the icefield maybe 5 miles across. The ascent gets more difficult as the trail crosses snowfields on steep slopes. One part of the trail proves impassable as the snow opens up before us having been undercut by a hidden stream. We backtrack and kick our own path above and around the hole.

It's difficult to describe the scale of all this as snow and rock don't give one much of a guide.

The air is clear and cold as we arrive at a little emergency shelter, high up at the end of the trail. We don't hang around for too long and retrace our steps back toward the valley.

We see evidence of bears even at this altitude with apparently little food around.

As we descend we see the smaller bear back in exactly the same place grazing on the grass, leaves and other stuff just 30 feet above us. It's totally absorbed by the delicious meal and pays us no attention whatever, on the other hand, we spend a lot of time watching it whilst keeping wary eye open for the larger bear.

Much further down the trail we spot her heading away from us across the marmot fields.

Finally we are back on the valley floor and pay a brief visit to the toe of the glacier which we find a bit of an anticlimax as it comes to a rather grubby ending melting away into a small stream surrounded by grey, smashed up rocks, gravel and sand that have emerged from under this shrinking mass.

There are markers in the valley showing the positions of the end of the glacier in years gone by. In 1914 it was a good mile further down the valley and the recession seems to have been going on for at least the last 100 years.

We decide that it's a good idea to pile into the truck and head for Seward town centre where we sit in the window of Christo's Restaurant, drink beers, eat pizzas and play cards in the warmth. Later we will return to the cold, cold campsite and spend a great deal of time arranging ourselves carefully inside our sleeping bags with our clothes and coats draped over us taking great care to ensure that the toes stay warm.

Next morning we pull our boots inside our bags and wait for half-an-hour while they warm up!

Next post – The Seward Sealife Centre

Seward and the Kenai Fjords National Park

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:36:40 GMT

Seward and the Kenai Fjords National Park

In continued unexpected sunshine we drove on down past Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula, a beautiful journey along the Seward highway as the road hugs the edge of the Cook Inlet (after Cap’n Cook who explored there) and climbing up the Turnagain Pass. We looked out for beluga whales as these rare chaps are known to frequent the inlet, but no joy – wrong time of year me thinks.

Surrounded by Chugach and Kenai mountain ranges Seward, a small port in Resurrection Bay in the Gulf of Alaska immediately appealed,. Not many tourists when we arrived, hooray, but the boats evidence the maritime life of Seward: commercial and leisure fishing, cruise and excursion boats, sailing and kayaking –lots of local and overseas tourism.

We camped out of town at the foot of a glacier (more of this in a following post), with morning temperatures of about minus 7 we broke the frost on tent, dug our boots out from within the sleeping bags where we kept them to avoid frozen foot syndrome and zoomed into Seward for a warm up and breakfast. Found a converted railway carriage diner where I discovered the stodgy delights of ‘Jonny Cakes’ with maple syrup and Mash had some enormous hash-brown-easy-over-on-the-side concoction.

We took a day tour on the last boat still going out before winter – the weather was just fantastic for such a trip. We weren’t sure what wildlife we could expect to see but were aware that at this time of year of migratory summer critters like grey whales may have left and some of the winter ones have not yet arrived.

Whatever our chances, we didn’t mind- the views alone were enough, but a passing black bear on the shoreline was an unexpected treat.

The boat took us up surprisingly close up to a mighty impressive tidewater glacier, the Aialik, skilfully negotiating a sea of ‘bergies’ (small icebergs that result from the calving of the glacier. Hard to show the scale of the brute- about a kilometre wide and 100ft or so high. It creaked and groaned eerily, at times sending ice crashing down into the sea with great thuwump much to the delight of all. We spent time speculating where the next calving might occur, seeking out any growing cracks or fissures – we saw many, but they happen so fast it was hard to capture. Mighty lovely.

I was so excited by the glacier that I took a mass of glorious photos – which would have been a triumphant demonstration of my photographic skill if I had any. Instead it showed my talent at getting my glove well over on the lens. Luckily Mash was more successful.

Yomped out into deeper waters in search of whales. There are strict rules regulating boats regarding wildlife watching; boats aren’t allowed to get too close or doing anything that might distress the animals. Once they have spotted whales or dolphins they have to wait until they approach the boat; if the animals feel like approaching the boats, you are in luck – if they have better things to do, so be it. Several times porpoises were spotted but they were clearly too busy chasing fish or contemplating the meaning of life to be bothered with a boatful of tourists. But then, huzzah, our luck was in when a pair of Dall’s Porpoises decided we were worth a look- they kept zigzagging in front of the boat so standing at the prow we got amazing views of the black and white torpedoes – wonderful! No photos- too quick so you’ll have to look them up in your picture book of sea mammals.

Lots of trolling about, finding birds such as common murres and further sighting of porpoises who weren’t interested and then, wow, Stellar Sea lions. There has been a dramatic drop in recent times in the Stellar population –reasons not yet clear. Impressive great beasties.

Then our luck really zoomed up beyond any expectations – crikey ikey, orcas! First spotted were enormous fins scything through the water, but the more we looked, the more killer whales we saw, and even better they were happy to mass around the boat. The longer we watched the more appeared until the boat was surrounded; at times you didn’t know where to look for orcas because they were everywhere; we estimated the pod was about a dozen individuals and included some young ones who swam in unison. Everything happened really fast so we focused on watching and enjoying rather than worrying about snapping pictures, so our photos don’t show the wondrousness of it all, but we were treated to amazing stuff; full breaches and crossing in front of the boat and much orca mucking about to take our breath away. What a privilege –truly stonking.

Phew. By now it was time to head towards harbour; we’d spent so much fantastic time with the orcas, but it was getting late. However, a final treat to behold - gorgeous sea otters. Hunted by the Russians and others almost to extinction for their thick pelts they have now made something of a recovery. They spend a lot of time floating on their backs with toes and feet raised out of the water to keep them warm, chomping on abalones which they open with a favourite stone they carry, and tying themselves in place with sea kelp. Utterly enchanting. These fellows were totally unperturbed by our presence, merely concentrated on blithely bobbing about being cute.

Back in harbour for tasty grub and Alaskan ale at a waterside bar. It was the final evening before winter shut down so meals were half price. Hah, there are definitely benefits to travel in the shoulder season. And so back to camp for a second nippy night at the campsite at the foot of the glacier. More of our glacier adventures on the next post.

Skagway to Fairbanks

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:25:59 GMT

The Road Trip Begins

Skagway to Fairbanks – distance 750 miles – driving time 15 hours.

The long day starts with us all getting up at 6am and throwing our packs into the back of Jacq's truck; it's a GMC 4x4 with 5 seats and a large pickup back with a big bear-proof metal box into which we put the sleeping bags, cooking stuff and tents. Our packs go into plastic bags and will get moved into the cab when we need to secure them in towns.

This being the US, the first stop is to a Cafe in Skagway for Sam & Jacq to get breakfast "to go" and all of us to get our coffee mugs filled up. Cafes tend to open up early to enable people to get coffee on their way to work or even breakfast. There was a nice atmosphere as Sam & Jacq were known by the staff - a discussion about the trip ensued and by the time we left everyone in the place knew where we were going.

Today was to be a long one; not only the miles but we'd also be passing out of the US into Canada in 40 miles but then, after another 500 miles, back into the US. Our first border crossing was an amiable affair. These remote borders in North America work in a very sensible way; as you leave one country you simply drive slowly past their Customs & Immigration building and then stop at the building of the country you wish to enter. At this border between Skagway and Whitehorse the 2 buildings are about 35 miles apart and, somewhere between you actually cross the border. So the first officials that we dealt with were Canadian Immigration. Jacq knew the lady on duty as she'd recently helped to evacuate her from the Chilkoot Train where she'd damaged her knee. Canadian immigration people have a presence on the Trail as most of the people who walk it are going from the US into Canada. So, after a fair amount of teasing about the knee, we moved on.

We'd driven the road to Whitehorse on our previous trip but it was, nevertheless a delight to drive again through the early morning. I was driving and Jacq was giving a running commentary on the places we passed and the flora and faunae ( mountain goats, who ho, a rare treat). She and Sam drive to Whitehorse fairly often but she'd never been a passenger.

In Whitehorse I experienced my first roundabout the wrong way round. Fortunately it was hardly bigger than a mini UK one so I was not too tempted to drive round the left-hand side.

We stopped briefly for Jacq to nip into the Photo shop and buy some batteries for her camera - the manager was a real know-all and got up both Jacq & my noses. He was especially pleased to tell her about the new high power batteries that he'd just got in until I told hime that I had some that were even more powerful (he needed a bit of deflating!)

The next part of the journey was quite a blur of me and Jacq taking stints at the wheel - each with our own specially trained and briefed navigator. However, whoever was driving always got futher advice from the back seats! Keep to the right! Look a the loveliness! Watch for those ravens!

We stopped at Haines Junction in Canada for lunch about 300 miles into the journey. This is the road junction that either takes one South to Haines (the town near Skagway but on the other side of the channel) or West and North toward Anchorage and Fairbanks. The Cafe was new and the food pretty fair. In the car park was an appalling installation made of, I guess fibreglass. Standing about 20 feet high in what looked like a huge wicker basket was a snow-capped mountain with emerging goats, bears and people! America is reownned for bizarre roadside non-attractions: Sam and Jacq took a detour on their mega-trip from Tennesse to Dyea to visit the World's Biggest Twineball, an understandable highlight of their honeymoon which we couldn't possibly hope to emulate.

The next stage of the journey would take us back into the US at a place called Tok and then onto Tok Junction where the road splits to Fairbanks or Aanchorage. We wanted to head North to Fairbanks for 2 reasons - it was nearer by 100 miles and would give us a round trip to Denali rather than driving Anchorage-Denali-Anchorage we would drive Fairbanks-Denali-Anchorage. At this time of the year Denali shuts down due to snow so Jacq phoned ahead to the Park to ask whether it was still open. If the answer had been 'closed' we would then head toward Anchorage. The message was that, although there was snow predicted none had yet fallen and we would press on North.

We got mixed up in a huge roadwork scheme around Lake Kluane which involved waiting for a convoy truck to process us slowly along a 5 mile stretch as new bridges are built and whole new sections of road are carved out of the mountainside.

As dusk approached we were treated to a pretty lovely sunset across this uninhabited land with it's snow-capped mountains and wide, glacial rivers. After dark the snow started to fall but the roadblock kept us waiting for 30 minutes to join a convoy which drove slowly for the next 5 miles round the Southern edge of the lake dry and safe. We finally drove into Fairbanks at around 10.30pm, found the Holiday Inn at the Northern limits of the City and fell into bed. The good thing about travelling here is that all hotel rooms have 2 double beds, every time we luxuriorated in a hotel night, all 4 just shared a room, the cost of which is usually about half of that in the UK.

Update

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:33:19 GMT

Just a quick note for all you voracious journal readers.
We are currently in Anchorage having travelled about 1500 miles.
Last Saturday we drove for hours and hours through sun, snow and frost and finally arrived in Fairbanks where we spent the night. The Sunday intention was to then drive South to Denali National Park and stay there for a while. However, the roads in were closed by snow so we moved on South and camped near a lovely lake in -9°C frosty conditions (coldddddd feeet).
Sam and Jacq fished and we just made supper. Beautiful views in the sunshine of Denali (Mount McKinley) at something like 20,000 feet high.
Next day - South via Anchorage to Seward on the coast where we spent several days looking at amazing sea-life, glaciers, ice fields and some more cold cold camping! Good seafood but an extraordinary lack of vegetables (or muesli for breakfast and proper hot water for tea!).

Back in Anchorage and we intend to head back towards Whitehorse and then Skagway either late Saturday night or Sunday morning. We'll post some more details then.
Bye - Mash

The Chilkoot Trail

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 03:19:20 GMT

What an amazing walk (hike) . . .

After our last trip I'd yearned to walk more of the Chilkoot- so off we jolly well did.The

previous day had been dampish, but we lucked out with the weather which was dry,if with a

distinct nip in the air; good for walking. The trailhead is just the other side of the Taiya

river, minutes from Sam and Jacq's house, so an easy start.

First Jacq had to tie a few loose ends together - mostly concerning work reports on her recent

rescue mission, which entailed finding and walking out a hypothermic alcoholic with OCD who'd

taken a misguided fancy for a prolonged stroll up the trail. So we called by Jacq's
Dyea office first, just opposite the start of the trail.Jacq had had new information boards-

including much sound advice about staying safe around bears

The Chilkoot trail starts off with a clamber over Saintly Hill, so called because if you can

climb over it without cussing and profaning you are a saint. If you are a gold prospector in 1889

lugging a year's worth of provisions and equipment its tough start, but as a taste of the trail

ahead it's beautiful; lots of huge moss-covered boulders to clamber over gets the heart pumping

and the blood flowing nicely. This is Devils Claw which turns a transculent yellow as it dies

back in autumn. It grows very tall and has very nasty spines so take care not to brush against

it.

The beaver ponds are just great; the walk boards flex down into the water as you tread which is

fun.The beaver dams are very evident with big diferences in water levels. The ponds stretch on

for a long way, surrounded by dead- drowned silvery pines and cottonwoods.

The path levels out as we head towards Finnegan's Camp and pass some tumbledown remnants of the

gold rush prettily a-mouldering and a-rotting in the woods. Saw bear actvity a-plenty as we

walked; lots of footprints, various mangled fish corpses by a few of the larger river

crossings,and a fair amount of fishy bear poo too (and some revolting sick!). Also spotted moose

prints which is pretty unusual as they don't really live in this area.

Lots of walking through gorgeous forest. Its quite dark as the hemlock trees are huge, so not

great for photos, but beautiful. This is in a section of birch which is smaller and lighter

Much clambering through the woods to Canyon City, another resting place for the prospectors. Jacq

needed to drop off a piece of equipment at a hidden trial maintenance cabin, which was a way off

the trail. We did some nifty rock climbing by way of a shortcut to reach it and found ourselves

at the wooden helicpopter landing pad which gave great views back towards Dyea from whence we'd

treked.

Lots of waterfalls - some small, others huge; this is a little one.

Took us most of the day to get to Sheep Camp, which is pretty close to the tree line. This is the

hiker's shelter which has a woodstove for warmth.

We stayed at the national park ranger's station, a priviledge not afforded to the average walker,

but as part of Jacq's domain we basked in ranger-style comfort;it has its own long-drop and

everything! The station had been pretty much closed down for the season (it gets 20 foot of snow

here in the winter) with lots of stuff flown out by helicopter recently, but Jacq wanted to do

some final closing-down stuff like turning off the propane and giving the place a clean.

We had a luxury stay - no electricity or running water, so we had a great excuse for staying

happily dirty - but warm and dry. Mash and I slept in the attic, very cosy.

We spent the following day here resting up and fooling around. In the evening while we were

playing a long, long game of American Trivial Pursuits (so many questions revealing my deep

ignorance of yankee trivia) Mash spotted movement outside the cabin. Lawks a-mercy me, it was

only the flipping moose! We'd followed its footprints for much of the trail, but never expected

to see it. Moose aren't exactly rare in Alaska, but they are on the Chilkoot; Jacq says that none

of the park rangers, herself included has ever seen one on the trail before.The lumbering beast

ambled happliy right by the cabin towards the river, only spooking when we tried taking photos:

this is blurry because Mash didn't want to alarm it by using flash in the low evening light. But

once it was aware of us it moved impressively fast to gallumph across the river and melt away

into the forest. We were all most gleeful and surprised - it was a very impressive critter, but

Jacq and Sam will be very selctive about who they tell about our stroke of bizarre fortune.

Apparently once word got out the hunters would be up here in a trice; the opportunity to find it

outside the park boundaries and gain bragging rights to bagging a moose on the Chilkoot would be

very attractive to the shootin' fraternity of Skagway.

The following day Mash and I took on the really tough bit of the trail; the climb over the pass

into Canada. Jacq's feet were a bit mushed (mostly a result of her previous rescue mission which

had involved guiding the miscreant through waist-high flood water) and Sam didn't feel in the

mood, so just we two headed up beyond the tree line. You get some great views back to the

surrounding mountain range

Climbing steeply we headed towards the Scales, the spot before the really steep clamber over the

pass. It was much colder now, with a biting wind but we were heartened that a) it wasn't raining,

a distinct possiblity on most days in Alaska and b) the sun could be seen burning off the fog.

The Scales was a forboding place in the gloom, with lots of artifacts from the gold rush strewn

over the rocks; bits of leather shoe, sections of pots,pans and equipment all reminders of when

this place was the last stop before the final haul over the pass. Its called the Scales because

that's where the prospectors weighed their crates to see if they'd finally hefted the amount

required by the Canadian Mounties waiting for them at the top of the pass. If they didn't, they

weren't allowed to enter into British Columbia and futher on to the Klondike.

This is a picture from the Scales looking about 1000 feet up the Golden Stairs, one of two routes

over the pass. Further to the right is the Petterson pass, slightly less steep but longer and

prone to avalanche (about 70 people were killed during one avalanche during the gold rush and are

buried in the Slide cemetery in Dyea. You can see photos in posts from our pevious trip). It

looks daunting and it is: there isn't a route as such, although markers help, but most of these

had been taken out for winter so we pretty much chose our own way. Luckily Jacq has lent us some

soft leather climbing gloves, which were really useful, as it was hand-over-hand climbing. The

photo doesn't give much sense of scale - but these boulders are big. So it was a stiff climb, but

I thoroughly enjoyed it. What looks like the top from below is actualy a false summit- you hit a

small snow field, and then there's another steep boulder field to climb.

This photo is taken close to the False Summit looking back to the Scales. The fog was begining to

lift and the small patches of snow really stand out, but can't see the monutains beyond well

After another further fierce but fun boulder climb beyond the false summit, huzzah, we reached

the top of pass. Still shrouded in fog, we trekked across a snow field to reach evidence that

we'd reached Canada: this here is the long- drop at the Canndian mountain station. Tra la!

The snow fields are what's left of the previous winter's snow, and are beautifuly sculpted by

thawing and re-freezing at night. The mountain peaks are getting their first dusting of snow as

winter approaches, so a drift like this will persist throughout the seasons.

We didn't linger long at the top. We had a bit of a ponk around and debated the climb down to

the Crater Lake, the first in the series that takes you right into the Klondike where the gold

used to be. It wasn't far down, but as we weren't going further we decided against it. So after

an energy-giving snack of trusty trail mix, we made the descent down the Stairs. Uses a whole

different set of muscles to the ascent, but it was just as much fun, especially now as the sun

had finally penetrated the gloom and the views were great. This is Mash about to start the climb

down from the False Summit.

These are the Golden Stairs again- in sunshine now we've been up and down the blighter.

As we followed the trail back down and away from the Scales we spent some time footling about by

the stream that ultimately becomes the Taiya River. In the winter the stream freezes, and snow

settles and freezes on the frozen water. In the spring as the stream thaws and begins to flow

again the snow above remains and forms these gorgeous overhangs.Great shapes.

We all headed for home the next day. This chain-link bridge is enjoyably shaky. The moose must

have crossed the river elsewhere- we found its tracks on both sides - as I cannot imagine a moose

would enjoy bridge-crossing wobbliness.

The trail rises and dips, sometimes making you clamber over boulders and tree roots on the hills,

and other times it drops down to follow the river which at this point is wide and glacial. The

forest by the river here is quite open so good light for photos

Back at Finnegans we noticed how low the river had droppped; amazing when a week back it had

flooded the trail. We stopped to enjoy the shingle bank in the sunshine and spotted this

impressively large chap . Not sure what he'll do when the snow sets in, but don't suppose

dragonflies hiberate awfully well.

Sam and Jacq in the river at Finnegans. It's flowing quite strongly beyond them so much

discussion was had about the possiblity of rafting home: we need to investigate the option of a

packraft; you carry it in and float itout: very tempting.

Close to Saintly Hill, the final slog before home, Jacq and Sam mused over the prospect of

crossing the river. We took a side track off the trail to reach this section to assess its depth

and flow .The beauty of this wheeze was that a river-crossing here would take us out close to

Sam and Jacq's house on the other side. Most importantly it would mean that our wearisome feet

wouldn't have to drag ourselves over the last section of Saintly. Alas and alack, despite being

extremely low, the river was just too deep and fast to make a safe freeze-your-parts- off wade

across.

So we clambered back over Saintly and home. Into Skagway to the Brew Company for much-deserved

beer and grub.
I'd happily do that all over again tomorrow: the Chilkoot is Awesome.

That's all for a while 'cause we're off to Fairbanks, Anchorage & Seward tomorrow and will most

likely be offline for the next 7-8 days. Byeeeeee

offline

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:34:29 GMT

Tomorrow is Monday and we will head off onto the Chilkoot Trail. Don't know how long we'll be away as it depends on the weather. It's unlikely that we'll walk the whole trail as the only sensible way out at the Canadian end is to take the seasonal train from Lindemann back to Skagway and this stopped running about 2 weeks ago. The only other way out is a 7 mile walk along the railway lines and if you've ever walked tracks you'll know how demoralising it can be - 7 miles is a long way; think of a 7 mile journey that you regularly make and imagine walking it with one step on a sleeper and the next step on some gravel x 12,000

BUT we'll walk the exciting bits and we'll take loads of photos and we'll probably do our next post in about 5 days time.

Just noticed on our drive back from a supplies trip to Skagway that people here are getting out their PALIN posters from 2 years ago when she was running for Governor. They are so proud of . . . . not sure what.

Friday & Saturday

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:11:03 GMT

Rain is an essential feature of Alaska but sometimes it shines . . .

Friday

Anyhoo, we chose a typically Alaskan-weather day for our trip:

low light, low cloud, mist-shrouded views and lots and lots and

lots of rain. This means that although we had a thoroughly

lovely time, especially riding on the back -plate, damp but

happy, the photographic opportunities were limited. Here's a few

anyway; doesn't show the full splendour, nor can you see the

stunning views. Mind you, quite a few of those were lost to us,

mist-bestrewn as they were, but, hey we are in Alaska so that's

part of the fun. Mist-bestrewn views are spectacular in their

own way, but our photographic skills -especially on the back

plate of a jiggly ol'train, didn't do them any sort of justice.

Yesterday (Saturday?) was sunny,and dry,but with a cold wind.

Sam had decided to show Mash the world of Alaskan trout-fishing,

so after the neccesary purchase of a fishing licence at the

hardware store, we happily trotted up to Lower Dewey lake. Mash

and Sam did the manly father and son bonding over a fishing rod

malarky, flinging their lines deftly across the water and

frankly demonstrating so much skill and prowess that I just

don't understand why the fish weren't knocking themselves out in

their enthusiam to leap for the bait.

But alas, they weren't, and they didn't. Not a single whiff of a

fish. Different locations were considered, discussed and tried

in the true style of seasoned fisher folk, but ultimately all

were found wanting. The stiff wind rippling up the water, cloudy

water caused by recent heavy rains, the time of day, the uncanny

knack of the lure to become inexplicably entangled in overhead

branches and the sheer reluctance of the fish themselves to be

good sports, all were agreed factors of the total haul of

diddly-squat.

I can absolve myself of all responsibilty in this matter,

because as Mash and Sam were the only ones with fishing

licences; I was not allowed to even touch the rod, lest I comit

some henious violation so I amused myself by peering at lichen

and mosses and beautuful tree bark; it's wonderful stuff and can

keep me happily amused for a long time.

Probably longer then it took Sam and Mash to decided that the

prospects of catching anything were sufficently negligible to be

able to give up without any loss of pride. So we munched on

faithful granola bars and handfuls of trail mix and happily

tramped back into town. I can heartily recommend this form of

fishing: a good giggle, grand walk and the fish still there to

be caught another day.

And on another but more topical note, if you want to see a rather humourous (ficticious) exchange between Hilary Clinton & Sarah Palin take a look at:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/34465/saturday-night-live-palin--hillary-open

(needs broadband methinks)

Arrival Part 2

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:09:51 GMT

We have arrived in Skagway and it's just lovely . . .

Wednesday (the rest of it)

We did have a long wait in Seattle for our connecting flight to Juneau but it's a pretty pleasant

airport and Miranda took the opportunity to lie on the floor for a long time. This is to improve her

vigour - I just sit in a chair and look at the planes passing by and watch the antics of the

passengers.

If you take off at sunset you get to see at least two more suns. First it rises again as you climb up

and then finally it sets. The journey up the West Coast of America takes you over the Inside Passage; a

navigable sea lane that's protected from the Pacific by lots of islands. By following the Passage you

can get to Juneau without really being in the open seas. It's still pretty treacherous as the tidal

ranges are extreme and water can rip through the gaps between islands.

The plane briefly touched down at Ketchican where it pretty well emptied out and we were left with about

20 others to complete the flight to Juneau.

We arrived at Juneau at around 10pm their time, picked up our bags, walked across the car-park to the

hotel and fell into bed after a very long day which I suppose had lasted 34 hours. Sleep . . .

Thursday
Body clock knackered and we both woke up at 5am, lay around and waited 'til we felt like going down to

the lobby to have "breakfast". Never expect much from a true American hotel breakfast. I think it's

what they would call "to go" and they just pour black coffee into a cardboard cup, screw on a cap and

go. We wanted tea and things - there was no milk (I think children drink milk here), no cereal but here

was a tea-bag - the resulting mix with lukewarm water produced something that wasn't tea and we toasted

some bagels and squeezed jello onto them straight from the bottle - yuk.

We were due to take the ferry at 1.30 so we had some time to walk around the Juneau Airport area. It's

about 8 miles from Juneau proper but it does have filling stations, a hardware store, a Macdonald's (I

will never go into them) and a Donna's Restaurant (she means cafe). Donna's looked more interesting and

earthy but Miranda wouldn't go in there so we walked along the 4 lane highway that connects Juneau to the

airport and mused that we only saw one person walking and one bike - distances are much greater here

and getting to work means one thing only.

The hotel bus took us to the ferry and the driver told us all about Mrs Palin and what they all think

of her - it does seem that Alaskans are most proud of their Hockey Mum. Watching TV earlier in the day

one got the most serious impression that she's the Candidate and he (McCain) will be the running mate.

The ferry trip to Skagway is delightful whatever the weather. Today was misty and drizzly but we saw

hump-back whales briefly in about 3 spots on the 100 mile journey and, of course all those amazing

mountains and glaciers.

Not sure which vessel this is but it's one of the older Alaskan Marine Highway ferries - just pulling

out of Haines bound for Juneau.

This is a tug that's got, way behind on a long rope a barge full of supplies for either Haines or

Skagway. See the glacier on the mountainside and the big waterfall at the bottom. These melt waters

make the whole of the Lynn Canal a pale green color during the summer months. These freeze up again in

the winter and more snow falls onto the glacier every winter - snow depth up there can get to as much as

70 feet.

At this time of year Skagway is besieged by cruise ships - sometimes as many as 5 a day. This means

that the Town will expand and contract from 1500 to sometimes 6,000 occupants on a daily basis. The

ships come in at night at leave the next evening. New ships every day: it's the lifeblood of the Town.

Massive amounts of money are spent in these brief summer months and very little for the rest of the

year but everyone seems to live off the fat until next time.

Keep you interested

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:19:40 GMT

Posted from Seattle Airport on a balmy evening @ around 5pm. We've done the big bit of the journey and are just waiting for the flight to Juneau later this evening. It's a hell of a long day this 17th September; we left Birminham @ 8pm this morning and will finally hit the sack in Juneau at the equivalent of 7am on Thursday - then I will go to sleep finally.
More interesting stuff soon.
Mash

getting ready

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:06:45 GMT

A weekend of planning, experimental packing and bountifying.

This is the August Bank Holiday weekend = traditionally the warm, balmy, pre-autumn weekend where everyone in the UK rushes off to the seaside or just rushes off to spend some time in a long line of cars.

Me and Miranda stayed at home and did some Alaska plotting and scheming. We also went for a long walk up around Blakeridge Woods and experienced the bounty of mother nature. Because we left home without either a camera or a plastic bag we found big field mushrooms, a giant puffball and a large boletus (penny bun) as well as a very torpid slow worm. All the fungiidge was transported home and we are drying the boletus to add to cooking later, frying the puffball in egg and keeping the mushrooms for tomorrow.

We followed some unsigned tracks in Blakeridge Wood and found a lovely walk and also a very cold slow-worm which had to spend 10 minutes being warmed up in Miranda's hand before it felt like moving off.

Planning involves working out how much stuff we can take to Alaska with us. We plan to walk most of the Chilkoot Trail with Sam & Jacq and also drive up to Anchorage and then down to Seward on the Pacific Coast. So we ned lots of hiking and camping equipment. Flying to the US gives us the benefit of the "2 piece" system which means we can each check in 2 bags of 22kg - it's a lot of stuff. What we have to work out is what we can actually mange between here and Birmingham International and also trundle across the northern suburbs of Juneau late at night when we arrive.

For those of you that are interested our travel to Alaska looks like this:

Tuesday 16th September we will travel by bus and train to Birmingham Airport and stay overnight.

Wednesday 17th September:
Flight KL 1422 BHX to Amsterdam (Schipol) 0755 - 1010 (the only real KLM plane with a lot of blokes in briefcases)

Flight KL 6033 AMX to Seattle 1305 - 1415 (North Western Airlines) (hmm short journey of about 12 hours)

You can track both of these flights via:
http://www.klm.com/travel/gb_en/travel_tools/arrivals_departures/index.htm
(search by origin/destination)

Flight KL 7210 SEA to Juneau 1857 - 2139 (Alaska Airlines)
http://www.alaskaair.com/airport/flightstatus/FlightStatus.aspx

Walk across the car park and into the hotel ---- sleep . . . . . .

Thursday 18th September
Ferry from Juneau to Skagway 1330 - 1600

Hooray!

Webcams to look at:

Me not at work!
http://www.bishopscastle.co.uk/IT/livepic.htm

Skagway web cams:

http://www.wpyr.com/multimedia/webcam.html

Up North

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 20:04:50 GMT

We finally got a holiday. this was a second best because we had half planned to take another trip to Alaska to see Sam & Jacq but dates got a bit tight and ..... well we got sensible and postponed 'til next year. Anyway the upside was that we were able to take both Xander & meri with us to the Northumberland coast.

This is Birdoswald on Hadrian's Wall - foreground Hadrian, background C16th fortified farmhouse full of German tourists.

All present for roll call

The interesting thing is how those Roman stonemasons did bespoke block tailoring.

This is Alnmouth - on the mouth of the River Aln and deep into the NE coastlands.

The dunes pretty much back up to the edge of town

From a long way off (over the golf course) it still looks like a pretty nice place to live - a bit like Bishop's Castle-on-sea

This is Miranda explaining how lovely everything is on our first walk 26km to Craster and back.

This is supposedly the Boulmer (Boomer) RAF helicopter station although we reckon it's just a bit of early-warning stuff as we never saw a chopper take off from there. Actually Boulmer features heavily on the bit of the shipping forecast that does the inland stations.

En-route to Craster we found a very effective crow scarer.

This, I think is just a tad better than Fields Cottage but I reckon it would present Miranda with a few gardening challenges.

Mostly the land just slopes down to meet the sea around here but Dunstanborough Caslr has a pretty fair cliff to the seaward side and a pretty steep slope inland. You can't go far without seeing a coastal castle.

The Jolly Fisherman pub has featured in some TV drama (we later learnt) but whilst there we noticed a lot of flies rehearsing on the bar - it was a pretty shitty routine. Then we walked home across the beaches

Next day we headed off to Lindisfarne where there is a pretty sweet castle and an abbey (St Cuthbert was the man). The castle has been here for a long time too but was refurbished about 100 years ago by Edwin Lutyens and the, tiny windswept garden by Gertude Jeikyll.

This is the castle - it looks pretty impressive from whichever angle.

This is a view towards the abbey (we didn't go because the rain really came down and we were buying mead)

Next day we went to Alnwick which has a Castle and Gardens both owned by the Duke & Dutchess of Northumberland who are in the top 10 richest of the UK. The gardens a very very formal and only 7 years old - based a bit on the anal French Chateau layouts where if you can't tame it entirely it's not worthy of being there - I don't like it but the watery bits did nice reflections.

here too

there was a tree house but not really for kids as it was mostly restaurant.

Next day we were off on another big walk southwards this time to Warkworth - the beaches are always like this as the sea is cold and you have to walk to get to anything so there are never crowds of people.

. . . and only the odd bird

Xander

. . . and Mash

. . . again

This is the old bridge over the River Cocquett at Warkworth

This is what the underneath looks like - alongside the new bridge

This is the Castle

and the chimneys from the walls

the impressive bit

and a view from inside

Next day me and Miranda walked from where we had left off the previous day to the next few towns and villages scattered along the coast - I think we walked about 60 miles this week

the beach was empty as usual

the harbour at Beadnell was pretty empty too - Beadnell was a deserted holiday village and we saw not a soul there.

Dunstanborough Castle just pops up everywhere you walk

This is a really typical Northumberland Coast view.

I'm not sure if we were walking toward or away from the castle

Lots of seabirds on this beach but not a sign of a high tide mark nor a stone, seaweed or shell.

We twice went to this bookshop in Alnwick called Barter Books - an amazing bookshop rather like the Cinema Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye but a lot better organised and much more welcoming.

CLICK to take a look
Miranda spent about £100 on books (mostly about women and health and mostly published a long time ago). I only bought one book and I here's the first illustration - Sam, get to work!

time for a health-giving walk

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 18:27:02 GMT

We expected a rainy day but it turned out sunny, Jean came for lunch, Xander & Meri turned up too. When Jean took off for home Miranda said "what a lovely day" and then she said "I know" and then we all guessed that she'd say "let's go for a walk" but she said "lets go for a lovely walk" so we said "OK" and then she said "it'll do us all good to go for a health-giving walk" - so off we went although Xander complained that yesterday's tennis was making his bottom hurt.

First we found a field with a crow in it - we think he was trying to tell the other crows something.

Then we found a place where you can put your finger and someone will tell you "God bless my soul . . ."

I think that Meri wa doing something kind to a butterfly. At this point Miranda was trying to work out how much of this field would make a bowl of porridge.

Now this is where we got down to some really healthy raspberry and blackberry eating.

I just tried to occupy myself . .

If there's a fallen tree it needs to be sat on and told what a lovely tree it is.

I think that Xander's tennis wounds were playing up or was it the 63rd time we'd stopped for raspberries?

Up near Cefn Einion we probably bumped into a lot of Hairbells.

Finally, after all the rain we have had a pretty good harvest so there's lots of stubble and rolls of straw and hay around.

Miranda explaining about something over there . .

Xander was told to go and sit on that lovely seat

Miranda doing the stream thing

Mash doing the camera thing

Lovely walk - where halfway around both Xander I remarked on the irrepressability of Miranda and how much we both love her for it.

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:31:11 GMT

OK - we haven't posted for a while so there's a lot of pics behind the cut

	In May I took Xander and his mate Dunc on a photo-shoot to a worthy locattion on Offa's Dyke where he wanted to add an image to his rural myths series of images. This involved getting just the right shot of Dunc on a unicyle . . . . however Dunc had never ridden one (it's mine) and Offa wasn't about to be too helpful in presenting smooth surfaces and handy walls to lean against.
	This was just a fluke moment when neither of the pedals was touching the ground and the trench that we dug to hold the tyre was invisible (I'm sure that there was a resource violation here somewhere!). The final xander version of this can be seen on his deviant art gallery >>HERE<< (I also appear in a cameo role in the same series >>HERE<<
	Harris looking picturesque.
	Firecat off to kill or maim.
	Xander just resting in the daffodils.
	I think that this was for another series of surreal pictures - anyway Miranda and I were off for a walk and X&M came along with a dolly.
	This is on Hopesay Hill on a balmy but hazy May evening.
	True to form, small furry creatures sneaked up but were too big to sit on the hamster's lap so they just grazed on her knees.
	There is a story here . . .
	Aww
	Ummm
	We did have a glorious May and farmers grew stuff - I think that this field (they had just combed it for some reason) is still waiting to be turned into hay or, more likely silage. We learned today that the Bishops Castle Agricultural Show has been cancelled due to expected awful weather from today (downpouring all the time) thro' to next weekend.
	This is Roy's 80th birthday celebration held in early May in Kew. Pictured are Trevor (my only Brother-in-Law), Roy himself, Tilo (my God!Father) and his wife Audrey neither of whom I had seen for 30 years.
	Miranda, Rosalind, Trevor, Ann & me Uncle Bob watching Roy.
	Jean & Yvonne looking at old pics.
	More of Jean & Yvonne - they communicated in some way.
	Jean, Ann. Kathy, Roy & Trevor debating.
	The next day we took a health-giving walk in Kew gardens. This is my mate the Palm House built by Thomas Paxton as one of the first iron & glass modular constructions in 1860something and still going well. They have to cut the tops out of some of the trees inside so that they don't poke through.
	Wherever you go in Kew there are always wonderful juxtaposions between the natural and the man-made.
	This is the new Alpine House - very recently opened and it's just amazing.
	So are the plants.
	inside the Alpine House.
	Again - Roy put a wheel chair in the car as we left for Kew as he thought that Jean might need it . . . ? We thought that he might but in the end it was Ann with a damged knee (from over exuberant gardening somewhere) that ended up being pushed around much to Roy's glee (and attentiveness).
	Alpine and Airline
	In late May our chum Jim Gaffney got made Mayor and this was the Mayor making ceremony aftermath - with beer and food in the Town Hall.
	Enterprise House on a tidy day - yo can always see it live >>HERE<<
	On Roy's official birthday we took Meri & Xander to London - put them in a hotel and then took Roy & Ann to supper. Next day up the Eye . .
	It's always exciting.
	The bit at the top is best.
	Xander & Meri chimping a shot.
	I nearly got shot for taking this photo inside the Antony Gormley Blind Light Exhibition. The heavy guy told me photos weren't allowed and then advanced in a threatening way.
	Heavy guards can't stop you outside!
	The Hayward is a lovely gallery for this stuff - take a look at their website NOW for previews of some of Gormley's work >>HERE<<
	You can see that man's tadger!
	On my birthday we went to Liverpool and the Tate Gallery there in the Albert Dock. You can see the Liver Building in the far distance. So interesting stuff at the Liverpool Tate all because . . .
	. . . Liverpool is to be the European City of Culture next year and so everywhere is getting a crane. Billy Fury still seems to enjoy it.
	The Mersea is a busy river and the tide belts along.
	Dock apartments - wall - pavement - benches - railing - river
	Odd little image of a Japanese family having their picture taken in front of the War Memorial - they didn't know - the real reason is that the v.impressive Walker Gallery is behind.
	Back in Shropshire and we do get sun sometimes this year!
	And we do get good road signs too.

What we did on our holidays

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 18:54:28 GMT

We went for a lovely walk today. From the Kemp Valley we walked up into forestry land just under Bury Ditches. On this part of the walk we only saw one person who drove his quad past us on a track in the middle of nowhere without even acknowledging us. He drove down again after a few minutes and did the same ignoring trick.

Self-herding sheep.

Little farms tucked up under the woods.

Still stubble around.

Dew pond

Dew pond detail.

Now - on a completely different day:

Two ladies on the beach on Christmas day.

Stop taking those ****** fotos!

Walking to heel.

And another day:

Xander & Meri off to a party.

Next day - dreadcut

Hair loss makes you mad!

The Shire

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 10:08:50 GMT

We've been home for a week or more and made all those adjustments so thaat we are now cranked into the daily routines. It's all fine and very lovely to be home.

We've not had a major excursion since we came home from Botswana in 1994. In that year we did a major excursion around Namibia and spent 2 weeks in Mauritius. Alaska rekindled the traveller in both of us so that when people say "I'll bet that was the trip of a lifetime" our response is "No - 'cause we'll be going back".

We are both a hell of a lot fitter. We were pretty fit before the trip. We've both lost weight, I needed to but I don't think that the hamster did!

It's good to know that Sam & Jacq are well and happy.

I'm just itching to get back so that I can do my "Now that's what I call a real man's truck" photo documentary.
Mash

Home the Long Way (3) Juneau - Sitka - Juneau

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 13:32:14 GMT

Off at Sparrow Fart to board our friend the Fairweather for 4 hour trip to Sitka, a town on Baranof Island south-west of Juneau beyond the Inside Passage and on the Pacific Coast. It was originally called New Archangel when the colonial capital during Imperial Russian control of Alaska in the early 1800s. Ferry travel is enjoyable, and this journey to Sitka was wonderful - although the channels between islands is mighty deep, the passage is very tight in places, so the boat follows marker buoys closely.

We wound through the channels, past intriguing islands - many no more than large boulders a-topped with miniature forests. We'd bought games in case we needed to pass time, but mostly we watched the view and chatted. Visibility was great as it was a bright sunny day, something which doesn't happen often in this neck of the woods. Ferry travel helps one to appreciate the vast extent of Alaska's rainforest and wilderness - it's big! Occasionally we'd pass a tug towing a HUGE barge laden with containers and, in this case, a whole house on the back.

I kept my eyes peeled for whales - although it was late in the season I'd been told to look for blow hole blasts, but didn't really expect to see one. But, to my absolute delight (as the whole boat who will have heard my gleeful but too loud squawks will testify) I spotted one and, deep joy, we witnessed a humpback whale diving - its big fluke breaching the water. Mash managed to nick a photo, but it doesn't do justice to the event - any more than the one showing my pleasure really conveys my true delight. Wonderful.

Using my eager eagley - eyes I also spotted a sea otter zipping through the kelp-beds. My delight didn't cause me to squeal quite so loudly this time, but I was just as euphoric. He was fair steaming along, undulating through the kelp, so didn't see him for long, so sorry, no photo.

Ferry travel provides a good opportunity for Alaskan-watching. Interesting to watch people. Footwear and beards are good; most Alaskan's seem to wear either wellies or walking boots, or variance thereof, while beards are mostly bushy. We were particularly fascinated by on eccentric lady, who tramped about the boat, wearing lots of baggily clothing, a large floppy felt hat - all of which topped off with a shiny space-helmet, complete with dashing flashing red light at the back. Excellent! Jacq and Mash took sneaky shots, and Jacq had a long conversation with her - she's a homeless globe-trotter who fancied a look at Sitka.

Arrived in Sitka, but had a wait for bus into the town. Staff at the ferry terminus had forgotten to let the bus people know that a ferry was coming in (times & days vary because of tides, and it seems, other eccentricities such as ferries catching on fire) We had to wait for phone calls to be made and bus to arrive. Jacq has booked us into a fine hotel right on the beach with great view, so we took in the atmosphere while Jacq sorted out car rental at the airport.

Sitka doesn't have a big harbour, but it had a real seaside feel, no doubt enhanced by the sunshine. Lots of little boats though, and harbour marina was full. Pootled around taking the place in, and visited the tiny onion-domed Russian Orthodox cathedral which was established during Russian period. Couldn't take photographs, but spent an absorbing time there-full of icons as you might expect. Talked to sweet lady who was busy dusting and brushing the place in preparation for a big service who genuflected before she clean each and every icon. It was a saint's day; St Innocent who had founded the church. We were shown his icon in pride of place - in fact lots of icons,including the Sitka Madonna. One Russian legacy is the number of Russian Orthodox people still in the area, so church is still very much in use. This cathedral had been burnt down, and rebuilt, but all the icons had been saved.

Russia's interest in the region was in sea otters - or rather their valuable pelts, and they were hunted almost to extinction. Not hunted now - except by native Indians who are allowed to do so as part of their cultural heritage.
The only other Russian building - in fact the only one to escape fire is the Russian Bishop's House, now in the safe hands of the National Park Service, who now own it as part of the Sitka Historical National Park As all the buildings were made of wood -as everywhere in Alaska, fires devastating towns seems commonplace in Alaska's history.

Jacq had used her park-rangerlyness to arrange an out-of season tour of the house for us ,which was a very informative treat. The House had been built with Finnish labour by and for Ivan Venniaminov, in 1843 who became Bishop Innocent (and hence St Innocent) who brought Russian Orthodoxy to the region. Appears to have been an interesting man - obviously a missionary converting Tlingit and Aleut native people, but spent alot of time traveling in the area, often away for months learning Tlingit and Aleut, and also wrote Russian - Aleut dictionary. Bit of a handyman too - his house had lot so things he'd made like a desk, bed, writing case.

The walls were insulated using sand and paper, with calico cloth pinned to ceilings to prevent dust trickling through. Paper, a valuable scarce commodity in those times was used to line cracks in the wooden walls, but only once that paper had been used, used again and used yet more, over-writing at all angles. Within the house was also a chapel (is that correct term for Russian Orthodox?) used by the Bish before cathedral was built and still used occasionally today. Listening to Alden, the interpreative park ranger I was struck by the many historical parallels with missionaries in Africa.

Walked on to Sitka National Historical Park centre where Jacq spent some time chatting to Park Service colleagues she hadn't seen in a while and the rest of us enjoyed the excellent museum, which contained lots of traditional artifacts: cloaks, rattles ,carvings,
furs, baskets at totem poles. It was good to see many items weren't there: good because they are still used for ceremonial purposes by Tlingits who are working hard to keep alive and revive their shattered culture. It also had lots of information about the "Battle of Sitka", a time when the Tlingit saw off, temporarily at least early Russian settlers on a small peninsula. Predictably Russian forces returned later, and the Tlingit retreated from their small fort.

The centre also has workshops where local traditional craftmen work, maintaining traditional skills such as totem carving, beading and basket-making. Mash was a pig in proverbial chatting to a fella carving a totem, being shown adze and other wood- choppy things, but wanting to make most of last light we walked around the wee park - on the site of the battle, and now home to a variety of totem poles. Many originals are safe and dry inside the centre, but copies are placed along the trail. Some are ceremonial, some are memorial, and others tell a story. Traditional designs adhere to set of rules for the colours and shapes. Raven and Eagles are very significant; clans belong to either one or other.

Walk took us onto the beach, with great view of Mount Edgecombe, an extinct volcano.

Off to bed after clazones (weird name for folded-pizza things) for an early start, but not before sauna together on the beach front decking overlooking the ocean, or rather, overlooking the darkness where the ocean was. Hot and lovely treat. Much confusion about the time for the ferry back to Juneau. Ferry people hadn't been clear about the times, but we'd arranged with bus people that they'd pick us up in time. It was going to be an early start; Jacq had to ring at 3.45 in the morning to check that the Taku ferry had arrived. Which she did, luckily because the times had changed, again. Hadn't managed to get hold of bus-people to let them know, but luckily ferry people did on our behalf, only to find the bus people, despite selling us tickets and promising faithfully to pick us up had no intention of doing so - owner was flying out of Sitka that morning. This transport incident had a very African feel to it - and felt distinctly familiar.
Anywhoo, early wake-up meant we had time to sort it, which Jacq did brilliantly & so a taxi took us in good time.
The Taku is a big ship with several decks. Bit ancient -1960's - and much slower than Fairweather. Journey took 16 hours this time, partly due to slower speed, but also a stop - off in Hoonah, a native village once flourishing on logging and fishing, both now declined, but hoping for new prosperity through tourism: they've just restored a defunct cannery, turning it into an opportunity to-flog-tourist-stuff to cruise ship passengers.

Entertained ourselves easily, reading, playing games, chatting and watching the very wet and misty-twisty loveliness that we passed. Crossed with the Kennicott, another ferry, and a number of Coast Guard boats - ferries are lifelines for these isolated communities, and are subsidised by the state and act as South-east Alaska's roads, - the routes they take are referred to as SEA Marine Highway. Saw porpoises zipping along -fast wee things.Hooray, more wildlife!

Back to Juneau for last meal together, before saying farewell to Sam and Jacq. Felt very sorry to have to leave, although aware that Sam and Jacq, who had generously shown us around and looked after us so well, needed to get back to their life.
Flew to Seattle via Ketchikan, where Mash was delighted to spot 3 ferries from the air, including the Fairweather which was scheduled to leave Juneau for Haines that morning, so something had gone awry somehow. Journey back became protracted because of a 3 hour delay sitting on the airplane in Seattle because of a mechanical problem, so missed our connecting flight from Amsterdam. Got the train from Birmingham, but hey hoo, work on the track meant a coach from Wolverhampton. Lovely Xander met us at in Shrewsbury and lovely Meri had supper waiting for us. I'm glad I live somewhere to which it is good to return but having had such a thoroughly lovely time with Sam and Jacq it is inevitably sad that our time in Alaksa is over. I console myself with the thought that unless you leave you cannot return.

"Sure is a beautiful canyon"

Editors Note:
Every time we found ourselves in a problematic situation Miranda would exercise her unflagging enthusiasm by noticing something lovely and so this quote was often fired off by either Jacq, Sam or Me. However, Miranda was always right and it was a beautiful canyon.

Home home home

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 19:34:14 GMT

Just to tell you that we are back after a bit of an overlong journey.
Now some new postings below this one as I've tried to keep them in the correct order.

All went well until we boarded the big flight at Seattle. We got pulled off the gate on time, the pilot started the engines and we were promtly pulled back to the gate, an error message had come up on their computer. 1 hour later we were pulled out again and exactly the same thing happened again. This time we learned that is was a heater that keeps the front of the engine rotors warm before the freezing cold air hits the hot part of the turbines - they would override the error and use one of two backup systems but this meant refuelling and the re-plotting a new but safer route to allow us to be within 60minutes of an airport at any time just in case system 2 failed and we needed to land quickly. This all took another 2 hours so we finally took off at 2pm Seattle time, over 3 hours late. 10 hours later we were in Amsterdam and being swiftly re-scheduled on a new flight to Birmingham. KLM are extraordinarily good at dealing with STUFF - the security woman on the x-ray inspection remarked of laptop belonging to the guy in front of us "I hev neffer seen such a large one" - we commented that he was American - her reply was "I should now say something but I will not" and the transfer lady was just amazingly nice - how can you be nice when dealing with people who are generally pissed off because there's a problem (that's what the transfer desk deals with all the time). Dutch people are just good.

Birmingham airport - shuttle to station - train to New Street - train to Wolverhampton - bus to Shrewsbury (railway closed for repairs) - Xander drove us home.

Will post shortly with the Haines - Juneau - Sitka story; it's full of other travel tales.

This bit is for Sam & Jacq . . . . .

We saw the Fairweather in Ketchekan ferry port on our flight back so we really hope you made your flight back to Skagway because we had thought that the Fairweather was due to go to Haines & Skagway on Thursday as your low-cloud backup but they'd obviously pulled it out of service so maybe the name they give it in Sitka is appropriate "The Whenever"

Radio Silence

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 02:13:58 GMT

We should go quiet for a few days as we'll be heading off tomorrow by ferry to Haines for one night, Juneau for the next, Sitka for the next and then back to Juneau for a final night before we catch our flights home on the 18th October. We should arrive back at Birmingham airport at about 10am on the 19th. Then we hit real transport problems because they seem to have closed the line between Wolverhampton & Shrewsbury - it'll be the bus then . .

Thankfully Xander will be collecting us from Shrewsbury.

There may be a post on the journal between now and then because Jacq's taking her laptop and we may find a wireless hotspot somewhere.

Bye for now
Mash

Sturgill was drunk

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:15:03 GMT

After a pootling around morning in which Mash and I savoured the delights of English muffins with egg patties, and I read reams about the "soiled doves" women who serviced the goldrush men's non-gold-related needs, we went on another hike about 6-7 miles, to Sturgill's Landing, below the Devil's Punch Bowl and through the Tongass National Forest. Mr.Sturgill apparently had a sawmill on a cove here. Ranked as "moderate" we reckoned the walk would be a breeze. Certainly started out promisingly enough, following familiar climb towards Lower Dewey, then easy flat trail towards the lake.

The waters of the lake were really still, so good opportunity for reflection shots.

The lake was much longer than anticipated, and the trail hugged the shoreline for quite a way, which was lovely.

It has got milder in recent days, with some sunshine to boot, so noticeably less snow on the mountaintops.

The path wound its way through wonderful big trees, very dark because of the dense canopy, but blankets of moss covering the ground remarkable bright. As we got into rockier ground the tress thinned, dramatically so in places where their was a mass of broken and fallen trees, looking like a silver-trunked game of pick-up-sticks. with tress at all angles, fell-blown by a windstorm.
As the way became more rocky, so the path became more hard to pick out. Obviously not used much. It also became teasingly convoluted, to the point that you became almost convinced that you we going in circles. I was up front, fulfilling my role as unrestrainable hamster who should be on a wheel, and several times wondered if I was indeed on a track at all. At times it appeared we were mighty close -we could see the sea, and here the sound of the stream that must feed into the destination cove very close by. Then the trail would kink maddeningly, almost double back and head inland again, crossing another rise. However occasional tree markers proved all was well. We decided that Sturgill must have been much inebriated to set up his sawmill hereabouts.

Going got even sillier when trail decided to plunge down a steep scree slope in a fissure in the rocks. We followed it, taking care because we are sensible and grown up. "Sure is a beautiful canyon" is a sobriquet I appear to have acquired. Mash ,Sam and Jacq can explain why, but it bears no relation to where we had to traverse, although it was mighty pretty.

Reached the cove all of a sudden after that. It even has a long-drop and a couple of picnic tables - a clearly popular picnic spot in season. Popular with boaty-types who must sail here, rather than walk we decided. Pleasant wee cove, with good views out to Harding Glacier, and mostly covered with beautiful washed-ashore bleached timbers. Amused ourselves with scoffing restorative chocolate and granola bars, taking photos, and wondering what might persuade the passing boat to pick us up and return us to Skagway.

Return was swift and easy despite having to haul ourselves back up the tricky scree. I was all for taking what I hoped was a short cut back, which would entail picking our way across thin strip of scree, but given there was a naughty drop below, I was very properly out-voted. Back to the lake and more pretty views.

Getting close to Skagway, almost at the end of the trail we spotted the boat -that-didn't-not-give-us-a-lift in the harbour below. It seemed to have shed the lorry it was transporting.

Down into Skagway and off to fill faces with more pizza (Red Onion closed for the season, boo hoo so went to another joint) Almost experienced something called "calzones", which having led a sheltered life I have never before encountered.However, the calzone oven was kaput and awaiting shipment of a new part, so that delight eluded us. Another day.
Off with Jacq and Sam to Juneau, Haines Sitka tomorrow for the next five days.More fun and games. Will end in Juneau and start the long trip back to Blighty from there.

Jacq has done a lovely post too:
-->CLICK HERE<<--

Cemetery Day

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 18:10:28 GMT

Quiet day to allow tired feet & aches to subside. We decided to go into town and have a look at the small but very informative museum and take a second look at the Gold Rush Cemetery.

On the drive over we saw some bald eagles perched on logs on the Dyea flats but they were too far away to photograph. Eagles here are like buzzards to you Shropshire folk.
Just as we were driving away Miranda spotted another eagle really close to the road so we backed up again and crept out of the car like real birdwatchers. It was so laid back that it didn't fly off until I was about 10m away.

When we reached Skagway I decided that we should fill Jacqs car with petrol. The pumps in the US are different in that you can plug your Visa card into the machine and buy petrol even when the store is closed. I wasn't sure about how to do this so I pushed my card in a couple of times - nothing so I went inside and watched as the dear old lady phoned her son to tell him "it says on my display 'all pumps stopped'" and listened as he talked her through how to un-crash the pump computer system . . . . I got the petrol with cash. Hey, petrol here is $3 something a gallon - that's about 40p a litre. Take a look at the link to the electric car at the end of this post (you'll need broadband to download the video).
The light was better today so we drove out of town to the Gold Rush Cemetery again - here's a few more pictures in better light.

Then after lunch and just for a leg-stretch we walked to the Slide Cemetery in Dyea (again). We just had a cemetery day.

When we got back one of the guys from Parks Maintenance was doing some adjustments to Jacq's heating. He had driven over from Skagway in his electric workshop van. It's all kitted out as a small workshop in the back. The van has a range of about 40 miles - he had suggested to the Parks boss that this was a good idea and they invested about $50,000 in buying and kitting it out. He's a real enthusiast and I had a 30minute tour of the facilities.

He also told us to look at this website which certainly points the way forward with cars - people will always want performance, cachet and looks in a a car and the development model on this site is most impressive.
CLICK FOR MORE

Chilkoot Trail

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 03:08:31 GMT

Lit out early to hike as much of the Chilkoot Trail as we could in one day. It's a 3-5 day hike up through a steep, often snow clad pass into Canada to do the whole trail,but it is closed this time of year,so just a day yomp for us. Next time!
This is the route the gold rush stampeders took from Dyea to reach the Klondike gold fields. At various points on the route there remains the evidence of the stampeders, and the temporary settlements created that lasted only the few short years of the gold rush.

As part of her park rangerlyness Jacq does this route often, so she knew how much we could bite off in a day. First haul was over Saintly Hill, where we'd seen bears previously. So called because if you can climb over it without cussing, you are a saint.
Lots of lovely mossy boulders, with tress covered in moss, liverworts and fungi.

Once over Saintly, it's flat for quite a while as route follows the Taiya river, full and fast flowing with glacial melt waters. The water is an amazing colour:aqua-duck-egg green.

The trail becomes a board walk to take you over the beaver ponds created by naughty beavers who flood huge areas when they make their dams. Flooding slowly kills the trees providing food for the toothy little rodents. We were struck by how extensive the ponds were. The change in water levels either side of the dams were very evident and kinda purty with the autumn leaves.

Onwards to an old sawmill. I tend to think of sawmills as giantly big places, but all this was was a cabin, rotting in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

For fans of bears and their poo, let it be noted that this hike was not without its fair share of the latter. A singularly noteworthy aspect to this was evidence of bear's consumption but clearly not digestion, of high bush cranberries.Used by Tlingit and others for jellies and sauce, the high bush cranberry is still gathered by locals. Mash did suggest a quick and productive method of cranberry-gathering would be merely to gather and rinse bear poo. Being delicate souls, and not over-anxious for jelly or sauce at this time we refrained. So - this one's for you Gail - they taste lovely!

At Finnegan's Point got our first glimpse of Irene Glacier. Bit of a wimpy name for such a beast. Discussed feasibility of climbing up to it (there isn't any trail) but not easy to assess the size and scale of such an undertaking from this distance. Very tempting: glaciers are impressive monsters. The colour is beautiful, but difficult to photograph.

The trail hugged the river where the forest came right to the river's edge. easy walking.

As the trail takes you higher into the forest, which is dense and dark except for pools of light that make the green moss shine. Lots of fast flowing streams tumbling over rocks acrossed by little wooden bridges

Some bridges were across bigger tributaries.

Lots of huge silver-trunked trees with spirals of fat moss.

Got into Canyon City, these days something of a misnomer. Now a camping area for hikers to overnight before continuing on to Sheep Camp and the tough Scales and Golden Stairs, there isn't much to show it was once a settlement, a place where stampeders could replenish stores, or for those giving up, could sell their equipment before turning back. We ate the ever-welcome granola bars and sandwiches in the shelter of the park service cabin.

Jacq, Mash and I hiked a bit further on to where we could see evidence of an old steam boiler, which had run an aerial tramway up the toughest bare rock part of the pass. At 7.5 cents a pound - and given that everyone, by law had to carry a ton of goods to ensure they could sustain themselves- this would have been expensive, so most hauled it themselves. All this was short lived, as it was put in place towards the end of the goldrush.

To get to the steam boiler we had to go over a simple suspense bridge - very wobbly so best not to look down through swaying slats as the water flows under quite fast. Good fun though, and a good photo opportunity as those on the bridge are too busy concentrating on keeping balance to object to being photographed

Turned back and headed for home, confident that we were making enough ground to get back in daylight. This part of the trail isn't comfortable walking as your stride is broken by lots of rocks, meaning you have to break rhythm to pick your way. Lots of pretty lichen and mosses though ; this area was scoured of topsoil when a lake higher up burst out and flash flooded this area. Jacq says it is the same one that could end up flooding their house if it happens again. Talk was had of home contents insurance.

Walking back always seems quicker - and as we follow in the river it has to be slightly downhill too. I enjoyed this boulder first time round.

Yet more bear evidence, but this time with scale of my boot, so it can be seen that bears are BIG. As well as his big pads, check out the marks of his unretractable claws.
For those unconvinced by the power of bears Google Timothy Treadwell, a foolhardy and not fully-marbled fellow who got what he asked for.

Then home and so to bed. But not before we'd been footwearily to the Red Onion for more pizzas named after local prostitutes (19th century ones, that is). It is great to eat not-very-good-for-you-food in the full knowledge that for the entire rest of the day you've been indulging excessively in lots of very-good-for-you-indeed-things.

For more of the story take a look at Jacq's post: --->CLICK HERE<---