June 25, 2014

This our second day in Stewart, BC. We just cannot say how magnificently beautiful this area of BC is.

We had a bit of a slow start this AM and left the RV park at 11:00. Our sightseeing today was to the Salmon River Glacier. This glacier is located approximately 30 miles north of the towns of Stewart/Hyder

The road to the glacier started as a 2-lane paved road (30 mph), the to a 1½ lane gravel surfaced road, to a one lane semi-surfaced road with periodic turnouts. Since we are early in the tourist season the traffic was very light.

Our first stop was at the Fish Creek wildlife viewing area. This area is actually in Alaska and is a USFS facility. This is the place where visitors can safely watch black and grizzly bears catch salmon. Unfortunately for us, the salmon run doesn't start until the 3^rd week of July. Oh well!! There was a creek on each side of of the walkway. Very pretty!!

From the viewing area we traveled on to the Salmon River Glacier. I previously mentioned that
the road had turned into a one lane with turnouts. Well...the further we climbed in elevation the more snow we found. In places, the road was only one lane with a huge snow drift towards the inside of the lane.

Not only was there the enormous Salmon glacier (1/2 mile wide by 6 miles long), there was also the Berdon Glacier about 5 miles north of the Salmon. We were not only impressed with the larger glaciers, we were astonished by the number of smaller glaciers tucked away in the upper snow chutes. We have no idea how many glaciers we were able to see, perhaps 15-20. We took over 50 photos today.

Tomorrow, we will continue our journey north towards the Yukon Territory with an over night stop at Dease Lake, BC.

All is well here, we hope it is the same for you!!

June 24, 2014 – Tuesday

We left Hazelton for Stewart at 9:20. It was raining lightly and the temp was about 54. The drive was a bit mundane as we saw about the same types of scenery as yesterday. The road was in much better shape than we expected and we were able to roll right along.

The road from the Ksan Campground crossed a 300' deep river ravine. The bridge was a one-lane suspension bridge. Traffic was to yield to the oncoming cars. Gayle wasn't too sure of taking the pickup/trailer across it – but we made it.

As I said, the trip north was mundane. In ways, the scenery reminded us a bit of the N Idaho area, except more birch trees and large lakes and rivers. This was true until we got to the Mezladin Junction and headed west towards Stewart.

In a matter of minutes, we went from N Idaho to the Swiss Alps. Glaciers, water falls, lakes, etc, etc, etc. The valley walls were extremely steep. Avalanche chutes were evident everywhere and huge mounds of snow laid at the bottoms of the chutes. With the warmer weather, the avalanche chutes have been transformed into water ways and water falls. Words cannot describe the views and our photos certainly do not do justice to the actual views.

We arrived at the Bear River RV Park at about 2:30. The campground is very nice and very well maintained. The view in every direction is supreme.

We set up the trailer and then took a short drive to Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK. These communities are located at the confluence of the Bear and Salmon Rivers. This is also the location of the Portland Canal which connects these communities to the Pacific Ocean. The main exports are logs and mining ore (copper maybe??).

While we were at the confluence dock, we got to see our first of real wildlife of our trip – 2 black bears. We suspect that is why they call it the “Bear” river.

We returned to the campground, had dinner, and had a relaxing evening.