Sunday, March 16th
2014
(Watson Lake, YT –
Haines Junction, YT : 367 miles)
We were up early, called the bank about the credit card
(should be solved), packed the car, and went to the “house-office”
to drop the keys and possibly to have breakfast. It was Sunday and we
were not sure if they would get up for their only guests. Cold.
Cloudy. Gray. Snow. The owner (Peter, originally from Switzerland)
had a breakfast ready for us (really nice). We had nice meal and
talked to him for an hour. He was very interesting man. It is hard to
imagine better start of the day than talking to nice and interesting
person. Back on the road – first of the snow showers. Again, there
was not much to do along the road, mostly everything was closed for
the season. It is interesting to see the area with snow (end of
winter) but there is a price to pay for that: no parks and
attractions (or very limited). Oh well … we will have to drive back
this way anyway. It was supposed to be about 5 hours to Yukon capitol
Whitehorse (population 25000, more less). Initially the road was
great, speed limit 100 kilometers per hour and incredibly majestic
sights around us (forest, mountains, snow). However, the weather felt
playful (I guess) and we experienced broad variety of it: dark sky,
snow, flurries, and sun. There was several stops along the way where
we could get out of the car and soak the natural beauty of the land
and take some pictures. But again, it is very hard to capture all
what we could see with our eyes. Nothing else open in the close
proximity of the road. There are pluses and minuses to our trip:
almost no tourists and almost nothing open, beautiful views with
plenty of snow and possibility of horrible driving (so far we were
very lucky). Teslin Lake (apparently about 80 miles long) –
mountains around, completely frozen.
Again, great sights to see, not much to do: get closer,
walk, or hike. Three or four times we hit part of the road that had
some ice and snow on it. It was not too bad but we had to slow down
and the driving was less pleasant. On the top of that we got two or
three snow showers – very light but enough to dust the road so we
could not see how the road looked like. Whitehorse. The town was two
miles off the Alaska highway. J. found in the Milepost a restaurant
with Smoked salmon and Yukon BBQ. Small town, dirty snow, few people.
We parked almost next to the restaurant just to find the sign “closed
until spring”. Quick walk along the main street – bookstore.
Museum-interpretative center about Yukon, history, and animals. Kind
of interesting (off Alaska highway). Gasoline, free popcorn, and
about two more hours on the road to get to Haines Junction for the
night. We are kind of tired of this super long trip. We left Phoenix
two weeks ago and we still did not arrive to our destination. The
drive to Haines Junction (apparently the starting point for Kluane
National Park known for its pristine wilderness) was quite boring and
long. Tiny settlement (with municipal swimming pool) of Haines
Junction. Really nice motel and done for the day. Tomorrow we will
cross the border to Alaska.
