Monday morning we awoke to sunshine and patches of blue sky. Mountain Shadow campground is in such a pretty location that I just had to take one picture before leaving in the morning. Sunday night just as we were getting ready for bed I looked outside and was amazed by the beauty of sun shining brightly on the peaks of the taller mountains in the area and this was at 10:30pm.
We returned to the Cassiar Highway and continued on south. This highway like all the highways in this part of the world had very pretty views. We turned onto the Stewart-Hyder Road to the west which is about 40 miles and also very scenic. Warnings about the danger of Avalanches are common but at this time of the year the possibility of an avalanche is very slim. Most of the snow on the mountains is at the very top and usually in the form of a glacier- hanging glaciers. Bear Glacier, not a hanging glacier, at one time was where the present road is located. It has receded away from the road and a lake is between the glacier and the road.
We came through the town of Stewart, B. C. and the into the town of Hyder, Alaska. There are no customs to pass through into the USA. After getting our RV’s situated in Camp Run-A-Muck we rode up to the area that bears can be viewed catching salmon but the salmon have not made it this far up so the bears were not along the creek, but the mosquitoes sure were.
Tom and I went to a general store, got a loaf of bread and a bag of potato chips for $11.00. Food is costly in Alaska and Canada. Later we returned back to the bear viewing area but still no fish, no bears. A mink was seen on the creek bank, though.
Tuesday we took the twenty mile ride up to the Salmon Glacier. The road is a gravel road, a little rough in places. As we ascended up to the glacier it became foggy and when we reached the summit the glacier was real foggy. A man selling postcards, DVD’s and “stuff” at the summit told us that if we continued on the road in about a mile we would be out of the fog and would be able to see other glaciers and about noon the fog would be gone from this summit. We did continue on and sure enough the fog cleared about a mile down. The sun was brightly shining and the scenery was spectacular. Glaciers were hanging onto the tops of mountains, waterfalls were gushing with glacial water and mountain lakes were various shades of blue.
Copper mining is being done in this area so there were lakes of the brightest blue due to the mining run off. Wildflowers were along the roadsides and some growing out of rocks.
This route took us back into British Columbia but we did not have to go through customs- we could only go to a bridge that had a locked gate across it. As we returned we passed by the bear viewing area to find that there still was no fish coming this far, yet. The fish are expected to start being in this area at any time now. We plan to return later tonight and again early tomorrow morning before moving east from Hyder.
