CHARRO'S BIT

The boss got the fat one to stay here an other day. It is real grass and the people who empty the dustbins have english accents. It is a bit like I remember.

It was good to lie out in the sun but I was glad of my blankie. In fact when I got up it stayed on. The boss brought out dinner and fed me by hand which was nice. I like it when I get proper food like the fat one eats, not the rabbit droppings she keeps trying to feed me. She has a new food which I get last thing at night and I get a good nights sleep and really really good dreams.

The fat one says we are going to a place called Cranbrook which he says will be warmer. What does he know he is rubbish at telling what the weather will be. My nose says SNOW and I want to be HOT.

I am still a bit shaky and seem to get tired easily so I am going back to sleep for a while.

Oh, by the way, the fat one is complaining that he never gets fed by hand. He says he wants peeled grapes, UGH.

Stewart to McBride via the Cassiar and Yellowhead Highways

We are beating feet south to get away from the damp and mist.


It is raining and has been for the last few days so we want somewhere warmer and lots dryer.

As we left Stewart we stopped at the site of an


enormous avalanche which had lasted through the summer. It is on a couloir and so the locals know when one is due and the road gets closed until it comes down.




A little further up the road but still pretty near sea level we stopped at Bear Glacier. Sometimes this Glacier advances and forms an ice dam producing a temporary lake. Five times between 1958 and 1962 the lake emptied underneath its ice dam in a catastrophic tumult of muddy water, rock and ice.

The glacier is in retreat but is still within feet of the river. It also has a torrent flowing underneath it.




Staying at McBride we woke up to dusting of snow on the tops of the hill behind us.
The forecast gives a mix of snow and rain for tomorrow.

WE NEED TO GET SOUTH.

ONE BIG BOY GRIZZLY AT HYDER New video clip added

We had a surprisingly good meal out at the Bitter Creek Cafe. Gourmet food in the back of beyond where the locals dress for Dennys is a not usual. Then we headed back to the bear viewing at Fish Creek Hyder, more in hope than expectation as we had heard people say that they had come back and the bears were not there today.

We walked onto the viewing platform

and within 5 minutes a big male grizzly came bounding upstream. He made one unsuccessful hunt then on his second he got a good sized chum salmon.



The pictures speak for themselves.






BROADBAND NEEDED

FISHING BEARS and BRIDGES TO NOWHERE

We are in a really odd place just now. Stewart is a little town
well down in British Columbia but when the borders were drawn for Alaska, Alaska kept a strip of land down the coast reaching to Stewart. Thus there is a border with Alaska. I think this might have been something to do with it being the most northerly ice free port and vested mining interests when the borders were agreed.

Yesterday we drove across the border into Alaska, expecting the usual rigmarole and inquisition from US customs and Immigration only to find they were not there. You can drive in Hyder Alaska with no checks, no customs, no immigration! [OK the road does dead end after 30 miles.]

Hyder is a bit of a ghost town,
decaying wooden houses are mixed with a few new log houses built by people who want to get away from it all. We wondered about this vehicle
until we heard that the area gets about 20 feet of snow most winters and 34 feet two years ago. In winter wolves are heard howling in town most nights and pets have to be kept indoors.




We are here to see the famous fishing bears. The US Forest Service has built a wooden platform and walkway from the car park. As we walked in we were prepared to be disappointed,
but within minutes a black bear appeared and made several splashy but unsuccessful forays into the creek after the spawning salmon. We stayed there until dusk hoping to see a grizzly and were partially rewarded by a distant sighting well down stream of a large grizzly who probably caught a salmon and retreated to the bushes to eat in peace. We could not identify the bear but we had a local forest ranger who was supervising the crowds and he said it was a grizzly but he was not sure what one. Most of the bears are regulars and the rangers have named them. For instance Monika is a large grizzly sow who is an accomplished fishing bear with a high strike rate.

The ranger was a pleasant change from the recent ranger contacts in Denali who were very inexperienced and sketchily trained. This was a local with a wealth of knowledge on bears and other local wildlife. He patiently answered all questions from the dumb to the arcane while watching at all times for people who wanted a closer encounter with a bear. Apparently people regularly get out of there cars and try and get closer to the bears at the side of the road. There is a special web site for people like this who try to remove themselves from the human


Why build this bridge?

We got Charro
out for a trolly push and encountered one of the famous northern bridges to nowhere.

Camp site Fox and the Cassiar Highway

We had a lazy morning in Teslin watching the camp site clearing out. Some heading North, others, like us, scurrying South before the first snows of winter. We were the last to leave but as we prepared to pull out another
local put in an appearance. I am not sure where he had been or what mischief he had wrought but from his nose to the white tip on his tail this fox was master of all he surveyed as he trotted across the lake front camp sites.



Cassiar Highway

The first few miles were very slow going and our hearts sank as more and more pot holed gravel surfaced sections appeared. Averaging 20 mph for the next 500 miles was not at all appealing. But after 50 miles things got better and we were bolwing along again.

We have been finding the state camp sites to be very quiet but got a shock on the Cassiar. It may have been that it was a major holiday weekend commemorating the anniversary of the discovery of gold in Bonanza Creek in the 19th century but for whatever reason we squeaked in to one of the last spots at lake Boya.

But it was green gold at our next stop and Carol was soon checking out the carvings on offer. Jade City has 12 inhabitants and we drove very carefully as one accident could cause a population crash.

Oh, buy the way, anyone want to buy a ton or two of jade?

Back in the Yukon and heading SOUTH!

We are heading back down the Alcan Highway. The first part near Tok reminded us that winter is not to far away here.
The leaves on the trees by the roadside were already wearing their autumn colours.

We stayed lastnight at Teslin overlooking a lake and should make it down to the start of Cassiar Highway today. We will leave the Alcan and follow this to the side road leading to Hyder where we hope to see the fishing bears and maybe even a grizzly!

CHARROS BIT

I have had a few shaky days recently but the sun has come back and the boss and the fat one are sitting outside with me on my bed. I really like my bed
but the boss keeps stealing it if I am a little wet. I don't see why. I mean I will get the carpet wet or my bed wet. She gave me this bit of foam rubber instead of a proper bed and I am hanging on to it in case she nicks it.

I am also getting the boss a little better trained. She has learned that I don't need to stand up to get brushed. She can keep me looking good while I lie down.

WE GET OUT OF ANCHORAGE

The volcanic ash has died down, cargo flights are in the air again and the part arrived so we are mobile again. We were able to get out of the worst RV park we have stayed at and headed back into the mountains.

On the way here we drove up the Matanuska-Susitna Valley home of the Matanuska Colony which was part of Roosevelt's New Deal, his plan to help Americans recover from the Depression, A survey which was made in June 1934 started it off, three weeks later 240,000 acres were set aside by April 23, the first construction workers and freight were on their way north.
Three days later 203 families started moving north and the land was divided up and allocated by drawing lots. The buildings were standardised design log cabins some of which still lived in today.


Further up the valley we found the source of the river we had been following or to be precise the point at which the river of water became a river of ice 24 miles long.




The Matanuska Glacier is a large valley ice flow, 4 miles wide at the end and moving at about one foot every day as it winds it way down the valley. They say it takes approximately 250 years for the ice to form upglacier and flow just like a slow river to its melting zone.


The rather soggy looking slushy ice still pushes the moraine along and sideways creating a hummocky surface which looks unreal.

We are staying tonight in a RV Park on the Glen Highway called Grandview and the view is just that. There are mountains all around us, Dall sheep play on the hillside behind us and an eagle was working the lift off the crags.

ASH MURDER and BEARS

A volcanic island called Kasatochi
blew it’s top and ashes were thrown up to 40000 feet in the air. At least 44 flights to and from Anchorage were cancelled including the one carrying our vital spare part. So we are stuck in a truly dreadful RV park in Anchorage. The other RV park we could stay in had a murder last night.

When we go for a walk we worry about bears as there have been many sightings with one brown bear being hunted by troopers after attacking a runner and a black bear being shot in a garage after eating the garbage.

On a lighter note Anchorage has an amazing network of hard surfaced walking cycling trails. Most cross roads using underpasses and the ones we have used with Charro seem to lead from one outdoor park to another. So while we are stuck in the RV park as Charro does not fit on the motorbike we can move around along wooded trails with Charro in his trolley but worrying about being eaten by bears.


[ However not this one ]

There are bears then there is our bear.

We are looking forward to seeing our first grizzly bear but we are also going to be a bit more careful about where we camp and where we walk Charro. Yesterday we went for a walk in fairly dense woodland in Anchorage Botanical gardens where we saw a kind of peonie









which was new to us and an even stranger animal browsing by the flowerbeds.











It was only later we found out that a woman in another part of the forest adjacent to the gardens had been attacked by a grizzly, a sow with two cubs.
sample pic.




She had fought it off and was able to walk to the road and get help. This only the latest in a series of bear attacks in or near Anchorage.

This was an account of another reported attack.

“An Eagle River teenager who fought off a bear during an attack says he got his licks in on the animal, too.
Eighteen-year-old Devon Rees tells the Anchorage Daily News that he's certainly earned bragging rights by boxing a bear.
He says the bear got him a couple of times, but he got the bear a few times, too We had been told that if attacked by a grizzly then we should play dead but according to the survivors of many of these attacks that we should fight back
Experts say the ‘average’ brown bear encounter is 13 times more dangerous than the average polar bear encounter and 22 times more dangerous than the black bear”
However we are still planning to get up close to some grizzlies when we visit Hyder but we should be safe as we get to stand on a raised boardwalk.







MUSHROOMS
Picking wild mushrooms is a growing multi-million-dollar industry up here with Japan being the main market although more and more Americans are looking outside Macdonalds so there is a local market.

Pickers sell their mushrooms directly to buyers at mobile buying stations or established mushroom depots. A pound of Number 1 grade mushrooms can get the picker up to $100. People up here are reluctant to talk because most do not declare their incomes. A good day of picking mushrooms may earn several hundred dollars.
This what they are after.


The pine mushroom is a large, robust, white or light brown mushroom with white flesh which smells good.



We have seen lots of mushrooms while walking around out here



Carol won’t let me pick any for her though. I suppose if I get it wrong we might finish up with some fly agaric which is poisonous and hallucinogenic. Like the pine mushroom it grows in pine and spruce forests and is quite similar in its’ early growth.
The next bit is what happens after you breakfast on the wrong kind of ‘shrooms’.
BROADBAND NEEDED

TRANSPORT, OLD AND NEW, IN ANCHORAGE

Anchorage is the seaplane capital of USA, Lake Hood has 800 plus takeoffs or landings on a typical summers day.
We dropped by and as you can see there is a stunning number of floatplanes parked around the lake. We drove to the shore and had to share the road with taxying aircraft. They have right of way. It was amazing to watch all the little Cubs, Beavers etc. pootling around right next to a major international airport. Yes that is the control tower terminal in the background right next to the lake.





The locals are quite unconcerned by the takeoffs and landings.






We also saw aircraft set up for rough field landings. Alaskans will call for a plane the way I might have called a cab back in Luton.






Here is an Alaskan cabbie delivering a patient to the dental clinic in Wasilla.






MORE DOGS AT WORK AND LOVING IT!
We visited the home of the Iditarod sled dog race. The race commemorates an epic effort by teams of sled dogs and their mushers to deliver serum in mid winter 1925 to a small community suffering an outbreak of diphtheria. It is our third visit to sled dogs and each have been very different. Here we learned how carefully the race organisers help the entrants prepare for the race while ensuring that the dogs are neither mistreated or overworked. During the race 20 volunteer vets have the absolute right to withdraw any single dog or entire teams.










We also took the opportunity to have a wheeled ride behind a sled dog team. As you can see from the video clip the dogs look forward to pulling, no commands were necessary, they just wanted to go. BROADBAND NEEDED

TEKLANIKA

After 10 days of rain the sun shone as we drove to Teklanika in Denali National Park. Our campsite for the next 3 nights is the deepest one that can be used by a RV. The site is by the Teklanika river and we can hear the river as we sit outside in the sunshine with Charro getting some warmth into our joints.

So far instead of giant grizzlies and packs of wolves our wildlife viewing has been restricted to snowshoe hares and lots of squirrels. It is all a bit disappointing especially as we hear from others who had been hiking and had been charged by a grizzly or the wolf sightings from travellers on the buses. But we are getting worried about the desperation behind the willingness of the buses to stop, swinging across the road when anything alive is spotted. Even Charro in his trolley i
s the subject of these road blocking stops and we suspect there may be tales of a White Wolf Wheelchair and a program for aged pack members being transmitted back to far distant lands.

However the surroundings are magnificent with many coloured mountains, taiga and wide river beds, all built on a giant scale. The gravel bars on the river beds ar supposed to be used as highways by the animals but close examination of tracks spotted so far have greater flashy Nike trainer and the mud spotted mountain bike. However we will keep looking, after all with 6 million acres and only 98 wolves on this year’s census we have to cover a lot of ground.


THE TEKLANIKA CAMPGROUND TAP

There is only one source of water on our loop in the campground. This tap is just opposite or RV and I have been watching the comings and goings at the TAP.

Many tenters seem to have come unprepared to carry water back to their site. All sorts of receptacles are pressed into service, one lady has made at least 6 trips today with a 500ml bottle and a small jug.

Some, obviously expecting sinks and washing facilities, come holding plates and spoons and after a furtive scan for the campground ranger, give them a quick rinse before scurrying off. There are strict rules about the discharge of “grey” water as it contaminates the ground water and the smells attract a variety of wild animals, so they say.

At the moment we are cheering the contaminators on, why well any animal sightings would be great to relieve the boredom. Why are we bored, well the rain has returned and it is grey and miserable outside. At least we are warm and cosy in the Trek with a dog at our feet and a sink rather than a tap in the rain to wash up under.


Our disappointment extends to the staffing of the Park. We have attended two wolf talks, both were delivered by students on their first ever posting to a National Park who followed a set of notes given to them during the 4 hour training session. I felt quite sorry for the lad last night as it was clear that almost every member of the audience knew more about wolves than he did. We were misinformed about the time we could drive in despite the information officer checking with a superior. It is just as well we slept in as we would have been waiting 4 hours after getting up at 5 am in the hopes of seeing bears and wolves as we were the first along the road.

THE RAIN HAS STOPPED!

We took the bus up to the Polychrome Overlook with the some of the daily deluge of cruise ship tourists coming in to ‘DO’ Denali. I quickly got into the swing of things, at the first sight of movement I would rush across the bus to get an open window and snap away furiously. We did see Dall sheep,
Caribou
and a haunting sighting of a Golden Eagle working the lift of some small hillocks then catching a thermal and winding up into the sky, but no bears or wolves.


At the overlook
we could see the little glaciers frequented by the caribou who escape from the torment of the flies that plague them in the mountains.





We could also look back
on the road. I was chatting to one of the maintance rangers and was dismayed to here that this section frequently washed away. In fact he had only just managed to get is truck through a few days ago but " Not to worry. They dumped her up with some fill, and she is pretty solid." This was not comforting news but I suppose they have been keeping this the only real road into the park open for bus traffic for many years.





On our last morning we were determined to give ourselves the best chance of spotting wildife so got up at 5 am. and set off down the road. However it was to little avail as other than the ubiquitous snowshoe hare all we saw was one mother moose with calf and they were 3/4s hidden.

Like all visitors to the park we had hoped to see Denali, the tall one, but this was the best we got. The snow covered foothills leading to the peak itself shrouded in cloud like some exotic dancer tantalising but not showing herself to the watchers.








Hey Ho Next stop Anchorage.