The Whitehorse airport is a great place for a walk
Bella and Tucker enjoyed our walk at the Lewes River Dam so much, I decided to take them on a longer walk on Wednesday, but one that was more warm-weather friendly for Bella. The trail around the Whitehorse airport was an easy choice. It’s always fun – level, lots of treed sections of trail to stay cooler, some great views… and airplanes 🙂
We got to the airport just after 10:00. I prefer to start at the south end because there are few people so the dogs can run free. The first photo was shot from the hill where I parked the car.
Right away, an Air Canada Express flight to Vancouver took off over us. This is C-FJGZ, a Bombardier CRJ-900LR (CL-600-2D24) built last year.
A couple of minutes into the walk, I heard a yelp and Tucker came out of some long grass on 3 legs. I told him to stop and I’d help. He held his paw up and I found a hard, sharp seed-head between his pads. It came out easily, but he walked away on 3 legs still, so I told him to stop and we went through that process twice more. Though I didn’t find anything else, a foot massage each time finally convinced him it was okay and we continued our walk. Especially the way we live, it is so important to have dogs who know that they can trust me completely.
The next photo shows the trail and airport fence from a little hill of sand.
From the southeast corner of the airport there’s a good view of the Whitehorse power dam and Schwatka Lake, which was created by the dam in 1958.
By 10:30 we were on my favourite part of the airport trail, along the top of the “clay cliffs.” Sometimes it’s in the trees, sometimes there are wonderful views.
Tucker isn’t interested in the cliff edges but Bella is unfortunately drawn to them. When they aren’t on leash, we stay away from the really steep parts.
The next 2 photos show the best viewing spots, at 10:40
Bald eagles are often seen here, and there’s a well-used human-enhanced nest beside the road along the river below.
I had heard that the trail was closed because of a landslide but expected it was the usual government lawyer-advised over-reaction.
Unfortunately the landslide reaches right to the fence. Without dogs I would have crossed it by hanging onto the fence, but I was happy with the walk to this point and was okay with turning back.
Wow! This took both luck and quick reactions. Though I only had my 24-105 lens on, a crop produced a decent photo of the Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star. Called “Ace Maker,” it does the air show circuit and has its own website, at www.acemaker33.com.
A few minutes later, a Stearman biplane also took off but the lighting was bad and the photos are poor.
Back at the car after the 4.4-km walk, I decided to go downtown to see the slide that had stopped us. On the way was a large one I’d seen before – it doesn’t affect the walking trail, but it brought a lot of trees down and buried the abandoned railway line under several feet of mud and debris.
The landslide that stopped us is marked by the red arrow.
I took a few more photos downtown, including some of the very tired Westmark hotel which, with new owners and now called the Sternwheeler Hotel, is undergoing a major renovation inside and out. It looks really cool with the tinfoil insulation – I know some people who could use that to make their hats from 🙂
About The Author
