Haines Alaska

You can take a one hour ferry to get from Skagway to Haines, but that service doesn't get into full swing until June, next week. OR, you can drive to Haines. Skagway and Haines are only 15 miles apart, but its a 350 mile drive. Turns out the cost is the same either way. I decided to drive. That way I could also visit Whitehorse and see some of the scenery going the other direction. I was not disappointed with the scenery. Whitehorse was not impressive though, so I didn't take any pictures there.

Did you know that in all of the Yukon Territory there are only about thirty thousand year round residents and almost all live in Whitehorse?

I did discover that my motor home house batteries were not charging properly on this drive. The problem was a couple of bad connections and a device that switches the alternator to the house batteries. While the cell service isn't the greatest along the Alcan Highway, I was able to order a newer, higher capacity replacement and have it shipped to Tok Alaska where I'll be passing through in a few days.

The road leading to Haines is another of those drives not to be missed. I'm really glad I drove.

What is with me and moose who like to jump into the road in front of me. This has happened to me several times since I've moved to moose country in Idaho, And now here!!!

This is Haines. This is so completely different than Skagway. Only one cruise ship a week, so they don't have all the tourist things. What they do have is hiking, kayaking, sight seeing and lots of wildlife. My original intent was to stay maybe a night or two. I ended up staying six! Needless to say, I liked it.

One day I hiked out to Seduction Point, just south of Haines at the end of the peninsula that Haines is on. Across the inlet from the trail is the Davidson Glacier.

Chilkoot Lake is where I camped. My campsite was just down the shore from here. Kayaking around the lake is really something as the spring thaw was on and there were more waterfalls than you could count. Also saw some mountain goats up in the mountains. Way too far away for pictures.

The outlet for the lake is a river that runs less than a mile to the sound. One day lots of eagles arrive in anticipation of a salmon migration up the river. They loved to perch on the rocks in the river. It as surprising how many young eagles there were. Way more than half were young.

While taking picture of eagles, this grizzly sow came down to the river with her three cubs.

As you can tell, I liked Haines.