A 6-day RV outing to Kluane Lake: Part 1

Posted On September 13, 2020

First, if you came to read anything on the blog in the past 12 days, my apologies for the blank pages. My tech support has been very good the past several years I’ve been with them, but sure dropped the ball on this one. I still don’t really understand what happened.

Anyway, now that I’m visible again, I can tell you about our last outing. On Thursday, September 3rd, the dogs and I drove out to Congdon Creek Campground on Kluane Lake, returning home on the 8th.

The dogs and I got away from home just before 11:30 – Cathy had to work and would come out Friday night. We had a lot of road construction to deal with on the way out, starting with a major rebuild of a couple of kilometers of the Alaska Highway at the Whitehorse airport.

A few minutes later, we slowly drove through another major project at the junction of the Alaska Highway and the North Klondike Highway. I was very surprised by the amount of rock that’s had to be blasted for this one.

At 1:10 I was stopped waiting for a pilot car to get through a very long section of resurfacing. The two vehicles ahead of me, with Kansas licence plates, had apparently never seen a traffic light in the middle of nowhere, and I guess thought someone had done it as a joke, because after stopping for a second, they continued on, though slowly.

I guess when they saw me stop at the light, they re-thought their decision and backed up to where I was 🙂

At 3:15 we arrived at Congdon Creek Campground and was soon set up in one of the lakefront sites, #8. I had expected the campground to be busy with people there early for the Labour Day long weekend, but it was extremely quiet. I unhooked the Tracker from the motohome and the dogs and I went wandering, looking for Fall colours, grizzlies and whatever else showed up.

Back up the lake, Cottonwood RV Park was closed due to COVID-19 – no surprise there.

I noticed, though, that “RV Park” is no longer on the sign, but “The Golden Club” has been added, and there were some RVs there. It seems to be a private club now.

The Alex Fisher cabin at Sheep Mountain often stops me for more photos. Mr. Fisher was buried above the cabin when he died in 1941.

The next photo, shot from the beach at Congdon Creek Campground, was shot looking up Kluane Lake at 8:30 Thursday night. The depth of the snow on the peaks was a surprise.

Friday was a lazy morning, as these sort of mornings should be – I didn’t make myself breakfast until 10:00, 3 hours after Bella and Tucker ate.

At noon we were out wandering in the Tracker again. Tucker approved 🙂

A few days before, one of the members of my Yukon History and Abandoned Places group asked about a memorial along the highway. I had never seen it so went looking for it. I didn’t find it, but at the same location I did find this very old dugout that I had also never seen before.

Although very old, I don’t know just how old the dugout is, or why it was built at what I find to be an odd location. It was just a rudimentary shelter, though – there had never been a fire in it for either warmth or cooking.

The next photo is a recreation of an event that actually happened about 18 years ago – leaving the long-abandoned Bayshore Inn on the also-long-abandoned section of Alaska Highway that goes by it.

Further up that section of abandoned highway, driving back towards the Bayshore.

I stopped along the old road at a rocky little peninsula and we went for a little walk to spend time there.

Glacier-scoured rocks there give a glimpse of what this place used to look like.

The view down Kluane Lake from that spot.

I couldn’t figure out this interesting area of bedrock – at first glance I thought it was a chunk of pavement with the yellow lines, but no, it’s all rock.

At 4 pm we were still wandering and I decided to focus on getting some Fall colour photos.

The poplar and aspen trees in some areas were right at their peak colours, but most were not at peak yet.

The weather forecast had been great, but by 4:30 it was looking like Mother Nature had come up with a different idea.

A new memorial “milepost” has been installed at the Kluane Lake viewpoint at Km 1650.8 – it honours highway engineer Bill Stanley, “for his 50 years of service dedicated to highway design and construction in Canada’s North.”

Heavy but very localized rain 2 weeks ago resulted in floods and mudslides that closed the highway at the head of the lake for a while. I’d not seen the water level in the lake this high for years.

Looking back at Sheep Mountain – the green Km 1648 milepost can be seen on the right. Yes, we still call them mileposts even though they no longer show the distance in miles.