Day 46 - Thursday, May 16 - Milepost
4874 - Birdcount 220 - Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory
(SF's Journal). "Potholes!" That
is the official greeting of those in the Yukon. And we see a lot of them. They
are in the company of frost heaves, breaks in pavement and rough road. If they are
not traveling with us, road construction is there to take their place.
We have three stops all told and line up like cars
going to slaughter. And slaughter is what happened to our Pathfinder’s
headlight. It is shreaded to smitherins and our nice clean vehicles look like they
have 100 layers of dirt. It is not all bad, for at the stops we hop out of our vehicle and
talk to those before and after us in line. Plus we see some Dall sheep at sheep mountain.
At Takhini Burn we take a rest and the only sound we hear is that of two woodpeckers
tapping on trees on either end of an Aspen regrowth with a background of snow capped
mountains warmed by a summer sun that gets little rest. However after that rough road
ordeal, we decide to stop at Beaver Creek, noted for being 301 miles from nowhere where
East meets West, a town I would have looked down my nose at a few days ago. We park for
the evening in a RV lot next to the Westmark motel. It is clean, has a nice grocery
store and water and electricity. Plus next door at the motel, they have a rip roaring
dinner musical called "Rendevoux". It includes a little of 1942 nostalgia,
romance, and loads of laughter, good songs and a surprise or two, plus a buffet dinner of
ribs, chicken, salmon and apple pie. The best part of all, it is all free because they are
doing a dress rehearsal and need an audience. What a treat for us. The show is so good I
would easily pay to see it again. It takes place in a rather new round log building.
Tables with red checkered cloths are set around a central fireplace, the atmosphere being
extremely cozy and the staff making everyone welcome. 301 miles from nowhere is not so bad
after all.
(BF's Journal). Although we are on the
road for 10½ hours, we only travel 281 miles. The morning delays are planned, the
afternoon’s are not. This morning we stop at roadside pullouts to read signs, view
scenery and take pictures. The pictures we had developed in Whitehorse turned out better
than we expected, especially those taken through the telescope, so now we are encouraged
to take more. Near Haines Junction we view towering snow covered mountains, some capped
with glaciers.
For 60 miles the road skirts
the northern perimeter of Kluane National Park, famous for the largest non-Arctic glaciers
in the world. With a warm day and a clear blue sky we can see the peaks distinctly on our
left and soon get a gorgeous view of Kluane Lake on our right. The enormous lake is snow
covered and we travel a narrow road edged between the shoreline and steep barren rock
mountains. At one stop we see white specs contrast against the gray rocks a half-mile up
the slope. With binoculars and telescope the specs transform into Dall Sheep. I set up my
tripod and attach our Canon camera to the telescope to take pictures of the distant sheep,
hoping to capture a close view. The drive along Kluane Bay toward Destruction Bay is
beautiful in white and we are anxious to see it in blue on our return trip after the snow
melts. Shortly after a late 1:30 lunch we encounter the first of a series of heavy
construction sections that turn the nicely paved highway this far into rocky, bumpy
single-lane gravel roads. Three times we are flagged to a stop to wait 15-20 minutes for
the lead pickup truck to escort a procession of vehicles across the jarring construction
zone at 10-20 mph. Since we are not on a time schedule, the waiting time is happily filled
talking to fellow travelers and the flag ladies. From one flag lady, about Missy’s
age, I learn that construction continues throughout the winter except for a brief
Christmas break. She lives with the others in a construction camp built in the wilderness
six miles from where we are standing. The camp moves with the construction and last August
it was transported 20 miles further south. Another flag lady talked about the bitter cold
in winter when the wind from the glaciers sweeps down the mountains to hit her face as she
stands in the highway directing traffic. By 5:30 we finally reach Beaver Creek, having
traveled the last 70 miles in 3½ hours, an average of 20 mph. We now have a broken
headlamp on the Pathfinder added to the other damage we previously sustained: our left
windshield on the Pace Arrow has a hole we picked up from a thrown rock in Jackson, WY and
our right windshield has a 14 inch semicircle crack at its base. A fellow traveler from
Colorado (graduate of University of Texas, Austin) got a large hole in his RV windshield
today. The tires also took a beating today on the ragged rocky roads and the dust throw
from the motor home coats the towed Pathfinder inside and out. Ah, the perils and joys of
traveling the Alaska Highway!
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