Monday, August 30, 2010

Deese Lake to South Hazelton

This was one of my favorite days. Today we went to Hyder, Alaska. For about the past week we've been in Canada. Hyder, AK is on a little spit of land that is Alaska but it is only accessible from Canada. From Hyder you can't get to another US town, you can only get to Canada. That's pretty weird to me. I would think that the currency would be a pain.


This was a random horse standing in the road. There were signs about free range horses. You don't every day see a horse standing in the middle of the road.


This takend when we stopped at a little rest stop.

As you get close to Hyder, you can see glaciers along the roadside.



Once we got to Hyder (and crossed the border, yes there were guards and the whole works) we were starving. The only place open was The Bus. They cook inside a converted school bus. They had the best food!!! I had a shrimp sandwich. That was a neat place.

We really were low on gas but we didn't get gas before we got into Hyder. Gas was back across the border in Canada. We didn't want to go to the hassle of going back across the border so we decided to brave it. While eating we talked to a fella that vacations there every year and he said we needed to drive along this dirt road and climb up into the mountains to see the Toe of the Salmon Glacier. It was about a 20 mile ride. We figured we could make it.

We hadn't got very far from our lunch stop and right on the road, just around a corner, was a bear walking right toward us!!! Mike stopped the bike and we didn't know what to do. The bear growled at us, turned around, and finally walked off the road into the woods. Thank goodness because bikes don't go in reverse!!

This is the only picture I got of it. But I think it's kind of cool because you can see the pad on the bottom of it's foot.

So, we drove on up this road. It was a gravel road that went up a mountain. It was a slow go but it was worth it. It was so beautiful!!

We finally made it to our destination and it was a spectacular view. We were told that we could go farther along the road and get a look at the glacier from the back side. We would have, but we had no gas.


We made it back down the mountain. Mike turned the bike off and coasted as much as possible. I'm still not sure if he did that because he thought he needed to or if he just thought it was fun.

Hyder is known for it's bear watching. When the fish start to swim upstream, the bears flock to the stream. They've built an overlook just along the stream. Apparently, at the right time of the year, you're guaranteed to see a bear fishing. We were a few weeks early.

This is the sign leading into Hyder. I took this picture as we were leaving.


This is a picture of one of the glaciers on the road leading into Hyder. I took this as we left. WE just picked a town and found a hotel and stayed for the night. We've learned to not make reservations on these trips because you just never know how the trip will go. Our friends we'd met the day before saw us at the hotel and stopped too. Apparently we'd gotten the last room. That was the last we saw of them as they were headed back to Idaho. I hope they made it home safe.


This was a really good day!!

2 comments:

Annette said...

I haven't been leaving so many comments lately, but I look forward to each posting and am totally fascinated by your photography and courage!

hahasomuch said...

wow u have beautiful family :)
I am living in the US alone because I am an international student^^ anyway
I think it's very beautiful and I envy you so much! Wish u r good day today and see u next time ^^