Day 19 Redux: Whitehorse to Almost Beaver Creek

A Second Try at the Day 19 Post --With Pictures
(Slightly better bandwidth)

Alaska or Bust

This is the post that was supposed to go up for Day 19.  I have a bit betrer bandwidth today (still not enough for video), so here is the full commentary with pictures.

Day 19 was a driving day with a few stops thrown in along the way.  As you can see from the main picture, the roads were gravel laden, dusty, and under construction for the last leg of the trip.

We took some great video along the road, but unfortunately our stop tonight—the Discovery Yukon Lodgings—had only very weak wi-fi, and we have no cell signal at all—nothing, nada, dead. 

We began our day at our little cabin, and then hit the Alaska Highway again bound for the border.  We hit our first sign for Fairbanks this morning (though we won’t actually be heading there until the end of our Alaska time) and knew we were firmly on our way.

945 Kilometers (that’s just under 600 miles) to Fairbanks

Driving this leg of the Alaska Highway still provided some great scenery.  Here are a few snips:

The Alaska Highway beyond Whitehorse but before Kluane.

Slightly Photoshop Adjusted Shot of the Mountains

 

Our first stop was at Kluane lake. It was huge and went on for miles.

We had to stop and pull over to walk down to the water itself.  We were amazed at how dry it seemed—large portions of the lakebed were dry.

Here is M in the pull-off. (You’ll notice she is still nice and clean, as we have not hit the bad stretch yet.)

M with a Mountain Backdrop

Lisa with M in front of the Lake

We took a small make-shift path down to the water’s edge.  There were flowers like these growing everywhere on the dry lakebed:

Wild flowers growing in the lake bed

Here is the lake from the shore—and as you can see, it looks like a very dry season.

Klaune Lake

And, just in case you thought we forgot—even with a slow internet connection we couldn’t leave out the shot of Bob touching water.

Bob Touching Kluane Lake (Bob Touching Water #6)

While we were at the lake we ran into two guys traveling from Anchorage to, of all places, Colorado Springs.  And, to make matters more coincidental they had a connection to both Virginia Tech (again brought out by Bob’s VT apparel) and New Jersey.  Very small world!

Moving on, we headed back on the roads to more lovely mountain views like this one:

Snowcapped Mountain Views

Our next stop was the small, in the middle of nowhere, Kluane Heritage Center—our very favorite type of museum.  It was largely made up of taxidermy—with examples of all the animals we have encountered on our journey so far, and some we have yet to see.  Bob & I are still arguing about which ones we are seeing as frequent road-kill.

The lighting in the museum was a bit strange, so we don’t have any pictures from inside.  But we do have this one of the tractor (? )with tracks—special for Uncle Denny.

Caterpillar Tractor (?) with Dummy on Board

After the museum is when the road began to deteriorate, and M started to get quite annoyed with us, and began longing for her nice clean dry garage. 

The problems began when we hit our first Pilot navigated construction zone.  As we approached we saw the last car in line drifting off into the distance, and we got caught at the stoplight for what seemed like forever.  We then got to follow the Pilot Car from Hell—who took to the road like a bat out of hell and could seemingly care less whether those behind her could keep up or not.

Worst Pilot Car Ever

This was a long, dusty, completely unpaved stretch (It looked like they were replacing the entire road at once) that also seemed to go on forever.  We finally emerged, and hoped for better roads ahead.

They weren’t too bad, but Bob (who gallantly volunteered to drive this stretch) had to be on constant lookout for frost heaves (large bumps in the road).  Mostly they were marked by bumpy road signs and red flags—but not always.

We all gave a small sigh of relief when our resting place for the night came into sight.

Coming into Discovery Yukon Lodgings

Our cabin was located just along the White River (see below):

 Info on the White River

We pulled into our little cabin at Discovery  Yukon Lodgings late in the afternoon. (The cabin is smaller, but the door is taller than the Fuzzy Crocus.)  Here is M parked outside our door:

 Dusty M parked in front of our cabin at Discovery Yukon Lodgings (she is praying for rain).

The campground is filled with leftover construction equipment from building the Alaska Highway.  Here are some of Bob’s favorites.

 6 Wheeled Jeep

 A Classic Ambulance

Pickup Truck Ready for Restoration (Ron—this is for you!)

Two Steam Shovels (Because you can’t make due with just one)

And that's what you should have seen yesterday.  Day 20 going up shortly.

--Lisa