A 6-day RV outing to Kluane Lake: Part 2

Posted On September 16, 2020

When I left off Part 1 of this journal, I was watching a bulldozer groom the banks of Silver Creek, on Friday, September 4th. In a few hours Cathy would be arriving from Whitehorse, but I had more exploring to do at the head of Kluane Lake.

I was pleased to see a new handmade sign calling a long-abandoned section of the Alaska Highway just west of the ghost town of Silver City “Old Highway Road”.

Looking east, a Gulf sign is all that remains of the gas station that was there before the highway was relocated.

The old road is shorter after the heavy rains of two weeks ago – it was badly damaged by creek overflows at both ends. About 1.4 km is still driveable. The Sheep Mountain Motel is in rough shape.

At 5:40 pm we were back at Congdon Creek Campground for dinner. Storms were all around us (this view was looking across Kluane Lake from our campsite) but the sun stayed with us.

On Saturday morning, it was obvious that the snow level had dropped a lot overnight.

Tucker knows how to deal with the sight of snow – a fleece blanket in a warm RV 🙂

We had a quiet morning, then at 1:00 drove to Bella and Tucker’s favourite beach at the head of the lake. There was nobody else there, so it was perfect for fetching sticks and running just for the sake of doing it.

There were again impressive storms all around us.

“Play hard and sleep long” is their motto 🙂

I took a few photos of the spectacular Fall colours along our beach before heading back to the campground.

Sunday morning was gorgeous. It was -3°C so the lake was “steaming.” This sunrise shot was taken at 07:53 from the beach in front of the motorhome.

Just before 10:30 we headed out for a wander in the Jeep, with no particular plan or destination in mind. It sure looked like Winter in the high country.

With not a cloud in the sky, Cathy and I decided to repeat an incredible flight we made to Mountain Logan by skiplane four years ago. But when we got to the Silver City airport, Icefield Discovery was just closing for a week. Oh well…

We next drove over to the ghost town of Silver City, where Fall colours and old buildings might provide good photo ops. The drive in on an old section of the highway was sure pretty.

It seemed to me that the main building at Silver City is greatly deteriorated since the last time I saw it. The community was the service centre for the Kluane gold rush of 1904-1906.

I could have spent a long time at Silver City, but I don’t spend nearly as much time looking through a lens when Cathy is with us.

Next we returned to “the dog beach” for more play time.

A grizzly bear had been on the beach not long before we arrived. I had seen a small, very dark grizzly about a mile away on Thursday – I expect this was the same bear.

We decided to go to Destruction Bay for burgers for lunch. On the way, we stopped to watch Dall sheep on Sheep Mountain.

It’s a pretty drive to “D Bay” along the Alaska Highway – a brushing crew was working along the road, making it look like a park.

The final photo of Sunday, shot at the campground.

Monday morning was wild – much warmer, but extremely windy. The 1-minute video below gives a bit of an idea.

The wind was so strong the campground cleared out early – by noon pretty much everyone had left. We drove the motorhome back to our favourite beach, where the wind is normal much gentler. My plan was to move there in any case once Cathy returned home – for me the view is what wins. I didn’t take any photos until that evening, though – the next one was shot at 7:10 pm.

It was a spectacular evening. At this point I wasn’t sure how long I’d stay – 3 days perhaps.

Tuesday was a dreary morning, not at all what had been forecast, so I decided to take the Tracker back to Destruction Bay just for cell access so I could check the weather. The forecast was much worse, with snow flurries by Thursday 🙁