Thursday, August 17, 2017
We set our alarm for 6 am so we could go watch bears early this morning. It is lightly raining, but we head out anyway.
This picture is to show the viewing platform which goes a good ways down Fish Creek. Also notice that you can see some gravel/rocks on the left side of the creek and that this is early in the morning.
This is the only bear we saw this morning. It is a large black bear. He mostly ate carcasses found on the shore. After 2 hours and the rain coming down fairly hard now we decided to go home.
It rained steadily all day. After dinner, even though it was raining, we decided we needed to go see if we could see more bears.
Boy are we surprised! Look how high the water is. The ranger agreed with us that it was probably up at least a foot. You can't even see the fish in the creek. Also it is raining pretty good.
We did see this pretty crane or heron. We had not seen any sign of any bears. The rangers said that the bears can't see the fish in the creek either and no bears had been seen all afternoon. We decided not to stand in the rain any longer.
This is a pretty grassy marsh area we drove past everyday. We decided we needed a picture of it. We never saw any wildlife of any kind here. It looked to us that we should. Oh well.
We drove past this house in Stewart every day and this evening noticed the person on the second floor looked a little under nourished. See below.
Even though we didn't see many bears today, we have enjoyed our stay here in Stewart/Hyder. It is time to move on. We are starting our journey back to the lower 48.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Most of this post will be about our bear watching today. We went to watch the bears both early this morning and late this evening.
Before we headed out for the day we noticed the fog was not as thick as it had been so we could see a mountain behind our coach this morning.
This is looking just past our coach. You can see the fog is high on the mountain.
We also got a picture of Stewart's welcoming sign. Cute!
This is a map of the bear viewing area in Hyder, AK. The bears frequent fish creek and the lagoon at the top left of the picture.
This is the view of Fish Creek from one end looking back at the beginning of the viewing platform. Below is the lagoon (as seen from the viewing platform) where bears are also seen.
It started raining steadily not long after we arrived. The bears don't care what the weather is like unless it is hot then they lay low until the day cools off.
Early this morning we saw this pretty good sized black bear. We were told that the brown/grizzly bears do NOT like the black bears so we will likely not see both kinds of bears at the same time.
Look at those eyes. It looks like he is eyeing us.
He ended up eating a salmon carcass left by the gulls or another bear. The rangers told us that a brown bear might pull several salmon out of the creek and throw them on the shore before they stop to eat one of them.
Here goes the black bear trying to catch a live fish. Wish I could post videos but blogger does not accept them at this time.
A very wet bald eagle showed up eating the scraps left by the bear.
The black bear came out again. He went into the bushes without another catch.
A little bit later near the lagoon, this mother black bear and her twin cubs appeared. There were lots of people on the viewing platform and making so much noise that the mother left her cubs (to distract us from the cubs). The ranger was trying to get everyone to be still and quiet.
Here are the twin cubs hiding in the tall grass.
We left early this morning without breakfast so after a couple of hours we went home to have breakfast.
It rained almost all day so we stayed home and I worked on the blog. I was able to catch up on my posts. We went back to view the bears after dinner.
A big brown bear/grizzly fishing for dinner. Below...success!
He took a break from eating to look around. This is a BIG brown bear/grizzly.
We got to watch a couple of brown bears catch fish several times each.
We had a truly blessed evening. It finally got too dark to take pictures but we stayed a little longer. What a wonderful way to end another truly blessed day!
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
We were able to get the reservations we wanted, so today we head to Bear River RV Park in Stewart, BC.
This beautifully carved stone greeted us at the Bear River RV Park. Below is our new home for the next 3 nights.
Even though it is lightly raining and foggy we decided we would drive to Hyder, AK have lunch and drive to Salmon Glacier to see what we might see. Many people call this location Stewart/Hyder because most people come to Stewart to go to Hyder to see the bears.
We had lunch at Glacier Inn. I had a halibut hoagie and it was filled with fish. It was delicious. Tic had a Philly wrap and it was full of Philly steak. Great place for lunch. Not much atmosphere but good food.
Off we go to see where to view the bears and go see Salmon lacier.
The road towards the glacier followed this stream for a short distance.
We came across some construction and this was the way they stopped traffic.
The further we went up the road, the higher from the river we got.
The fog kept getting thicker. Before we got to the Salmon Glacier the fog was so thick that we could hardly see the road. We decided to turn around since we would not be able to see anything anyway.
This is the confluence of 2 rivers just outside of Hyder, AK.
In Hyder we found a road that went out to the harbor. The Hyder harbor is much shallower than the Stewart harbor. You can see the fog was very thick. This huge tree roots was sitting in the parking lot. Below these pilings were just off the shore of the parking lot where we were.
I wanted to get this picture of the mountains with the fog all around.
This is a walkway that starts in Hyder near the Visitors Center and runs out to the harbor. Maybe I'll take it on a day when it is not raining.
Moss was growing on the trees along side the drive by the harbor.
This river runs a little ways behind the RV park we are staying at.
Tomorrow we plan to get up early and go to the bear viewing area. We learned that it costs $5 per person but your ticket is good all day. You can come and go as much as you want. So we plan to go early tomorrow.
Thursday, August 10, 2917
This post is going to be the pictures from our round-trip train ride from Skagway to White Pass and back.
This is the back of the train station and a couple other buildings.
The White Pass steam engine driven train.
This is the inside of the train we rode.
There are several trains that run on these tracks. This caboose is a stop for hikers to rest while they are waiting for the train to pick them up. Our train was not the train that stopped for the hikers.
As we crossed on a trestle, this waterfall was to the left. I think is was part of the top of the Pitchfork Waterfall.
Look carefully in the middle of this gorgeous mountain and you will see the train track and 2 train trestles we will cross.
This is the first trestle we crossed.
Glacial water flowing off the mountain. Boy is it rushing.
A look at the train cars behind us, crossing the trestle.
The second trestle leads straight into a tunnel. I only got a picture of one of the 2 tunnels we went through.
Beautiful glacial flows. Awesome!
We are at the top of the line. The engine has disconnected and is backing up. It will pass the passenger cars and re-connect at the other end. We were at the front of the train and returned at the end of the train.
We are close to the Skagway River at the top here.
This was the old trestle no longer used. Notice that the middle is metal and the end is wooden. Below is the close-up of the wooden part.
On the way back, we could see one of the cruise ships in the harbor and the highway into town.
I love the way the sun rays shine in this picture.
Wooden trestle as we exit the tunnel. Remember we are at the back of the train now.
Gorgeous glacier view.
The mountains look scarred and the clouds add to the pictures both above and below. See the saw-tooth looking area of the mountain peak?
Above and below are 2 more trestles the train crosses.
The Buchanan Brothers ran a guiding service to lead the stampeders to the Klondike trail in 1898.
This is part of the 1898 trail.
It was a beautiful and interesting ride. We were glad we took the train. It is about dinner time so we plan to eat in Skagway.
We decided to eat at the Skagway Fish Company. We had crab cakes and crab bisque. All was good.
This was the view from the porch of the restaurant. That is the Disney Cruise ship docked here.
Fun day. Now we head back to Carcross. Great day!
