Aug 4 Hiking with bears Kluane National Park

Fri. Aug. 2, Kathleen Lake, Kluane National Park, Yukon

I see we've been out of touch for a week now, and I haven't been able to access the internet since I wrote my last post, so I'll post both together once we return to civilization.  We've spent a delightfully lazy week in Kluane Park, hiking, fishing, reading, doing not much of anything.  We haven't been through anything resembling a town for a week, and haven't missed it at all!  We're almost out of water and fresh food - down to canned peaches and pancakes, sardines on crackers, and spagetti.  May have to shop soon.  

The park is enormous in scale as well as elevation, but is almost entirely inaccessible except by mountaineering or flying.  It is adjacent to Wrangell -St. Elias Nat. Park in Alaska, Tatshenshini-Alsek Wilderness Provincial Park in BC, and Glacier Bay Nat. Park in the Alaska panhandle, covering millions of miles of mountains and icefields.  Together they form the largest protected area in the world.  The St. Elias Mountains are relatively young, still very geologically active, and undiminished by the erosion of eons of time, so the peaks are massive, jagged, and snow-covered.  We were hoping to get a view of Mount Logan, Canada's highest peak at 19,545 ft (just barely less than Denali), but it's position in the far south eastern corner of Yukon puts it 110 km from the nearest road.  We even drove 40 km back one day because it was clearer than the previous day, in order to try to catch a glimpse, but no such luck.  

Norbert is proud to have done one of the toughest day hikes in the park - 18 km return up an enormous bowl onto a ridge to the peak above the lake. His photos are fantastic, but of course not downloaded yet!  We both did another trail to a viewpoint at 1400 ft, which I found arduous enough!  And we had a much too close encounter with a grizzly on a piddly little hike just off the highway!  We always sing and talk to make noise on the trail, but we came around a bend and were suddenly 20 feet from him.  Luckily he seemed as frightened as we were, and we all leaped backwards at once.  He watched us warily as we slowly backed away, and continued to eye us as we made our short descent back to the truck.  It doesn't make it any easier for me to go off into the bush!

We've spent a lot of time fishing all week, with very little to show for it I'm afraid.  The lakes are closed to rainbow and kokanee and the lake trout seem to be down too deep to find.  The rivers are full of grayling, which even I've been catching, but they're barely big enough to make a McNugget.  But I've had a chance to improve my casting, so hopefully the practice will pay off later.  

Kathleen Lake is a beautiful turquoise glacial lake, picturesque, but pretty brisk for swimming.  The scenery has been beautiful, the weather perfect, and the relaxation very satisfying.  A perfect summer holiday week.  

Posted Aug 4, Haines, Alaska

The view from 1400 feet above the Kluane River.  Looking deeper into the park, the peaks get more impressive.

The mountain that Norbert hiked.  The trail begins by the campsite just to the left on the lake, goes up through the trees to the tongue of gravel, on to the lip of the hanging valley.  Then it heads up the left side of the bowl to the ridge, across the top, to the peak on the right upper corner.  Wow!

Kathleen Lake on a perfect summer day.

The scenery everywhere you look is spectacular.

Fishing for grayling.  This is the loveliest river - turquoise glacial water, sparkling ripples, but few fish.

The highways are lined with summer flowers.  These are mountain avens - the flower symbol of the Yukon.  In early spring they have a pretty white daisy-like flower, then by summer they have this fluffy white seed head.  Looks great with the pink fireweed.

Million Dollar Falls - a lovely view.

The road to Haines goes through this high alpine meadow for 20 km.  Just beautiful.  This is the start of the Tatshenshini River.

Fish trap on the Chilkat River in Haines.  Fisheries uses these to count the salmon going upstream to spawn, currently sockeye.