Fun at Summit Lake, and an aurora borealis night
The weather during our RV boondocking week was erratic, to say the least. We got everything from fog to heavy rain to glorious hot sun. That’s not at all what the weather forecasts had led me to believe. Yes, shocking 🙂
Sunday morning started off dark, with a thick, low cloud. The first photo was shot at 08:40 as I did a reconnoiter to the south.
Cathy had a terrible night with her neck, and decided to go back to Whitehorse, to the Emergency clinic at the hospital. If not for being able to keep in touch with my Garmin InReach, I would have had to leave, too. Within minutes of her leaving just after noon, her brother texted me on the InReach to say that their mother had fallen and was having xrays done. Shortly after, news arrived that she has a fractured pelvis and elbow. I texted Cathy each time, and when she got to Whitehorse she phoned Mike for more news. What a day. What a summer 🙁
I needed to stay close to the motorhome in case I needed to go home, so the dogs and I spent some time that afternoon wandering the granite around our parking spot, and then went to the beach for some play time.
My berrypicking friend returned from Skagway, and pointed to somebody kiteboarding (kitesurfing) on the lake, so the dogs and I went back up to a low ridge and I shot a bunch of pics. Looks like a lot of fun!
The kids were ready for a good run by mid-afternoon, so I drove a few hundred meters to the north side of the Summit Creek bridge and we walked down to the beach. The company that operates the Alpine Lake Canoe Adventure for cruise ship passengers created a nice route to the beach about 4 years ago.
They’ve added another canoe this year, so it must be working out for them. These 12-person voyageur canoes are paddled or motored at various times. On a day like this, they’d be motoring against the wind, for sure – though I didn’t see them go out this day.
The kids love this beach. Tucker is the first small dog I’ve ever had join my family (18 lbs). I probably wouldn’t have even adopted him if I knew how small he was going to be, but he has turned out to be so perfect in every way. He’s so fast that I’ve had to learn new photography techniques to capture him. He was launching at Bella in the next photo.
Tucker and Bella are such fun to watch – he has infinite enthusiasm and energy and she has a bit less enthusiasm but almost-infinite patience. 🙂
When Bella pooped out, I had a ball to keep Tucker going for a while.
When it was time to leave, Tucker wanted to carry his ball back to the car himself.
The next photo shows part of the trail back to the highway.
When we got back to the RV, my berrypicking friend arrived with a fine load of Mother Nature’s finest products, including these berries that look like blueberries but taste like the cranberries we used to pick in southwestern BC.
The kids and I had a quite night. As is so often the case, the evening light was gorgeous. The next photo taken during our final walk was shot at 8:25 pm, looking north to the beach we’d been playing on.
I was well into a good sleep when all of a sudden my eyes popped open just before 03:00. I looked out the south-facing window at the head of the bed, and it took my brain a few seconds to comprehend what I was seeing. Amazingly bright and large aurora arcs! I got my gear together and went out dressed in pyjamas. I hadn’t brought my special aurora shooting lens, and couldn’t get either of my wide-angle lens to focus – they were simply nothing to focus on. So I put the 14mm on Manual Focus and hoped for the best. What I got isn’t very sharp, but captures the idea of what the show was like.
I spent about half an hour out shooting. It was quite a remarkable show, particularly for August 5th.
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