We slept in and had a nice morning at the Ripley Creek Inn. I found a bakery across the street and purchased some muffins and pastries for breakfast. They were good but not similar to European types. The pups got their morning walk and then we headed over to Hyder Alaska to drive to the Salmon glacier. We stopped by Fish Creek Viewing area to check to see if any bears were feasting, but the rangers suggested coming back after 5pm. So we made the drive to Salmon glacier.
we met a nice couple up there from Texas in a truck camper setup and we compared adventures. We’d seen them and they’d seen us at various points across Alaska. They had been traveling since early May and were staying a few days at each place. They had traveled both the Dalton and the Dempster this year and everything on the truck survived.
We continued up the road as I had heard there was a mine we could drive into. It turns out that it was blocked off, but you could definitely fit Howie in there. We drove to a big mining operation and decided to turn around since the road ended on the other side of the valley anyway. When we stopped for lunch we noticed a helicopter hauling something to a point across the valley. We used the binoculars and found three sites on the rock face below one of the glaciers where some new mining was taking place. These are huge platforms mounted to the rock face. We watched the helicopter for over an hour bring supplies and take baskets from those sites. Mining is different than 100 years ago when mining started here, but miners are still a hearty bunch.
We worked our way down the mountain and stopped at Fish Creek Viewing and the rangers said to go have dinner and try in a couple of hours. We drove to the end on the Hyder boat launch and Kathy made Albondigas and we watched the seals fish in the harbor. I took a cool picture of an old pier and looking back up the 90 mile Portland Fjords.
We finished and cleaned up around 7 and when we got to Fish Creek Viewing area the rangers said a mom and her cub were fishing. He was gracious to let us in without paying with a promise we’d hit them up on the way out. It was great to finally see some bears fishing and chomping on salmon.
it was growing dark and on the way out we met up with a nice guy and his wife who have been in the road in their 5th wheel for 4 years. They move every 1-3 weeks and work while on the road. We learned a lot from them and how to save costs, visit places, etc. We have not been doing tours because we have the pups and our budget doesn’t allow for it. They save on gas by parking for a while and then take tours occasionally. This Friday they were taking a fishing boat out and would get crabs, salmon, and halibut. The charter is $1200 but is split between fishermen, so it was costing them $400 each as another was joining them. They live to fish and have spent the summer in Homer, the Russian River, Valdez, etc filling their freezer. He said he had over 700 lbs they were taking back with them. Apparently personal use and labeled fish are ok to transport across borders. They told us stories about issues with cases of wine and the Canadians when they did not declare it. It was confiscated and to get it back they had to pay the import tax. It’s easier to just declare.
We got back to the hotel about 10 pm after a pretty amazing day. Here are some more pictures of the day.
