Boots, Bikes, Boats and a Beaver

View overlooking country around Whitehorse, Yukon

Ken with his first ever lake trout, caught at Muncho Lake

Overlooking valley at Altin Lake looking down toward Lewellyn Glacier

Lewellyn Glacier from the flight of the Beaver

The North, Alaska, Yukon and Northern B.C. really is an enormous piece of realestate. It is a vastness you really have to see and experience to totally comprehend. The few highways that stretch the 1000's of kms barely access any of it. The Alaska Highway itself stretches from Dawson Creek to Delta Juntion, depending on who you ask some say it ends at Fairbanks, and it is on this 2286 km stretch of highway that Ken I saw more R.V.'s that than we have seen on any other. We saw so many R.V.'s that we sometimes wondered "Does anyone really lives up north or are they all visiting?".
The KTM has not been getting as much use as we had hoped, so far. There is lack of access roads that are navigatable on such a big bike, most are boggy or gracier and river beds much too rocky to ride on, a quad would be much better in the bush up here. In the last month the only trips on the bike have been to the Arctic Circle, a fouled trip to Skagway ( it was the weather that was foul, really) and on the local roads around towns we have been visiting.
With the lack of roads to bike we have put on our hiking boots and headed for the hills. Why is it hikers always want to go uphill? The sweat from the climb always awards a fantastic view, miles of glaciers moutians, rivers and a enourmous amount of lakes varing in size from a no names puddle to the 130 km long Altin Lake. We tried our hand at canoeing another of the great northern rivers, the Peace River, on a sunny northern B.C. day we paddled our way from the mouth of the Halfway river downstream 58 km to Taylor B.C., a 6.5 hour trip that well worth the time and effort.
Ken has tried his hand at fishing in the few lakes we could find a way into, catching anything from whitefish to northern pike to greyling. some bigger than other but always enough to suppliment our diet nicely. He has a good time fishing and I enjoy the outing paddling the canoe, especially when the scenery is as awsome as the mountains and the touquiose coloured water of Muncho Lake.
The best way to see "The Great North" is definately by plane. While at Atlin Lake Ken and I decided to go up in a 1950's single engine Beaver float plane, it can take you places that you just can't reach by bike, boat or on foot. Atlin Lake is at the foot of the Lewellyn Glacier, claiming to be the 7th largest glacier in the world. Lewellyn stretches from Atlin Lake over to Skagway and down to Juneau, Alaska. Fying over the ice flows was like flying over a range of mountains that are covered by clouds that never move, and only have the peaks sticking out. Miles and miles (km and km) of ice really make you think about global warming and where we would all be if all this ice melted and talking to the locals this ice is melting fast. Back on the flight add a few mountain goats to the scenery around the mountains and you have a once in a lifetime experience.
When Ken and I started this trip we thought it would be a once in a lifetime thing but now we are vowing to come back and continue an adventure here where time and fasination are your only limits.

Canoeing

One of the many spectacular vistasof Mt.Wrangell on the road to Valdez.

Mother Nature really did not create all places equal.

Worthington Glacier on Thompson Pass, Alaska.

Hiking to Gold Creek, Valdez, Alaska

Fireweed

We have left Valdez minus the iceburg kayak ride, we opted for a hike in the rain and a mountain bike ride, but we are on to bigger and better things. A nice afternoon at Kluane Lake, it was even a little sunny, then on to Kusawa Lake and Takhine River, Yukon Terr. to try our hand at river canoeing. This attempt being our first before our canoe trip on the Bowron Lakes, it turned out to be too much fun..... really! We traversed 3 km. across the lake to find ourselves faced with 6 km down river. With Ken at the helm we made the voyage with high commands such as "hard to the left", "stay right of the white water" and "steady as she goes". I obeyed the commands with unfaltering accuracy and we put-out of the river with big smiles and a readiness to do it again the next morning. Today Takhini River, just another step in the training for Bowron. Next Atlin Lake, B.C.

Seward

Ken on a hike in the mountians to Fuller Lake
Launching a fishing boat at Anchor Point on the Kenai Penninsula on Cook Inlet
Homers Spit
Icebergs in-front of the Portage Glacier

A small sea-side town nesseled in the mountains amidst the Harding Glacier, a population of 3000 on a good day. Add the fourth of July and an event called the Mt. Marathon mountain race and the population explodes to 30,000 overnight. Alaskans are tough, this race is up a shale and rock mountain with an elevation gain of more than 3000 ft in less than 2 miles, with a grade of 30 to 60 percent. The winner of the mens race clocked a time of less than 45 minutes. Ken and I figure we will start training today for our next trip to Alaska, if we are lucky we will survive the training. When we were watching the race the name Randy Davies came to mind, this race is definately his style.
Our trip lately has been glacier upon glacier, mountian upon mountian, misquito upon misquito, unfortunately the weather has gotten a little cooler the average temperature for up here for the month of July is 70 degrees, I have yet to put on a pair of shorts. We are heading at Valdez next and we are hopeing to kayak in the Prince William Sound amist the glaciers it should be too COOL!