A brown bear family on the Chilkoot River, Alaska
(and other stuff from the final 36 hours in Haines, and the drive home 🙂 )
Although we had no solid plans for our week in Haines, we really wanted to see brown bears along the Chilkoot River, and made several drives out to the river and lake. The first photo looks down the Chilkoot River to Lutak Inlet.
Chilkoot Lake is different every time I see it, from moody to spectacular – this week, it tended to moody.
We had a good look at the Chilkoot Lake State Park campground. There are 32 sites, limited to 35-foot RVs, with a fee of $20 per night. They are all large forested sites, but a few have limited lake views.
A few of the sites are pull-through.
The weir where salmon are counted is the main attraction on the river, partly because most bear viewing is fairly close below it.
The salmon count for August 23rd was 59, bringing the total to 63,019.
The weir isn’t accessible to the public, and there are only half a dozen parking spots close by.
Counting salmon (at least once the peak of the run is past) looks like an extremely boring job. On some days, a cold, wet, boring job.
The weir attracts more than bears, though fisherpeople have to keep quite a distance from it.
It was the evening of our final night (Saturday, August 24th) that we got the brown bear experience we had been hoping for. It was tough shooting starting at 7:10 pm with heavy cloud, with my 100-400mm lens and ISO 6400 required to get these (and many more) shots. There were 3 cubs, though I wasn’t able to get all 3 in a single photo.
Two of the cubs, both with interesting “collars” in their colours.
When the sow started seriously fishing, all 3 cubs swam over to get close.
She very quickly caught a nice salmon, and started heading across the river, followed by the cubs and a raven.
She stopped on a rock mid-stream, perhaps waiting for the cubs, then continued on when they got close.
Before the bears, we had kept fairly busy on Saturday. The day began with a young Australian couple arriving at the RV park with their Hobie Cat. I went down to talk to them, and discovered that they were on about day 80 of a journey that had begun in Seattle on the last day of May!
A Haines friend posted on Facebook that she was at the farmer’s market. That prompted another visit to the fairgrounds, where we picked up some jam and syrup.
Judy and I had been Facebook friends for a long time, and when we got back, she and her husband came by. It was really nice to be able to finally connect.
Facebook prompted another drive, out to the Chilkat State Park campground to see how bad the access road is. It’s extremely bad, and Parks needs to either fix it, close the campground, or put up a very large sign at the start of the road saying that it’s not useable by RVs. As we were leaving I flagged down a mid-sized motorhome and told him that he really shouldn’t take his rig down.
The view down at the shore is wonderful, though. That’s the Rainbow Glacier.
Some editing of a telephoto shot gives a better idea on what the Rainbow Glacier looks like.
The final photo from Saturday was shot during our before-dinner dog walk.
Sunday – time to head home. The day started off cloudy and cool.
At about 09:00 monsoon rains arrived – OMG did it come down! I hoped for a break so I could do all the outside things that need to be done to leave, but it kept on an I finally had to suck it up and get soaked. Rain gear is not something we need in the Yukon! 🙂
The Cunard cruise ship Queen Elizabeth had arrived at 06:00. She carries 2,081 passengers and a crew of 911.
The view out the side window as I was about to go out to get my work done (empty the tanks and hook up the Tracker).
Leaving Haines at about 11:00, I had to make a stop for gas. I first stopped at the Bigfoot station just because it was on the correct side, but when I put my credit card in it demanded my Zip code and I couldn’t remember what the workaround for Canadian cards is. So I went back to the Tesoro station and the pumps had this sticker on them. That was a $250 win for Tesoro.
Crossing back into Canada at the Pleasant Camp station was indeed pleasant and quick. Reaching the summit, I needed a nap. When I woke up, the clouds had cleared enough to see that all the peaks now had snow on them.
Nearing Haines Junction at 3:30 the snow level was even lower.
We stopped for an early dinner at the Mile 1016 Pub in “the Junction” as we can always count of them for great food. The skies started clearing just east of the Junction and we had some sun all the way home.
The End. That was 8 days, with 6 blog posts using 190 of the photos I shot. It was an excellent trip, with just the right amount of activity to keep it interesting yet relaxing. I could easily go back to Haines today (if it isn’t raining there 🙂 ). As it is, Cathy is about to leave for 3 weeks on a girls’ vacation with friends. What I do will depend entirely on the weather, but I don’t expect to be home much.
This is blog post #1,616 since I started on April 25, 2006, and there are a total of 25,733 photos in them.
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Thanks for showing us another view of Haines besides from a cruise ship like we did. Great pictures of the bears.
Thanks, Barb. We love cruising, but it’s not the way to see communities well.