July 27--Stewart, BC and Hyder, Alaska

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July 27, 2011 Wednesday. 55 degrees and raining. Starting mileage 13226. Left out of camp with Jim and Diane’s rig leading the way.

Left camp at 9:30 to drive down route 37A to Stewart and Hyder. These two communities sit six miles apart, on the 90 mile long Portland Canal that leads directly to the Pacific Ocean. Stewart in BC and Hyder in Alaska. You have to drive through Stewart and then around a rocky point to get to Hyder. The US has no customs/border agent here, but Canada does. So residents go through customs to get into town to do any business or shop as most everything is in Stewart.

Almost immediately, from the junction off the Cassiar Highway we started down a deep canyon with very steep mountain walls. Glaciers hang on the mountain sides, but come down almost to the road. Water tumbles off the mountains forming waterfalls, that fall into streams, and then into lakes. Foggy out so nothing is very clear, but what we can see is really lovely.

Stopped at the visitors’ center in Stewart and then walked from there out on a board walk into the tidal flats. Out in the water you can see logs are being formed into “rafts” to be towed down the canal by barges.

Drove through Stewart and Hyder and then on into the Tongass National Forest. At the border, the US road into Hyder deteriorated into potholed gravel—with all the potholes filled with rainwater.

At Fish Creek, the forest service has built a platform/boardwalk with locked gates at the ends so that people can safely watch the bears fish the stream for salmon. Both black and brown or grizzlies fish this stream and when the fish are running, they apparently line the banks. Unfortunately, the salmon are running late, which is what we have heard since we started this trip. The ranger said prime time would be in about the middle of August. We all felt that was too long to hang around here—a few days maybe, but not two weeks!

Just as we had decided to head back to the RT’s, a small black bear came wandering out from under the road bridge and walked along the far side of the stream. He repeatedly sniffed the air, but didn’t get in the water at all, even though we could see two or three large salmon in the middle of the creek. He was slow enough that Valerie was able to get several good pictures of him. He then just walked on off out of sight.

We decided to continue to climb up this dirt potholed road to view the very large Salmon glacier. About half way up this narrow road we came to a place that had a huge mud puddle completely covering the road from side to side with good size rocks scattered around it from where they had slid down off the mountain/cliffside. We were leading this time, so Valerie stopped and Jim got out of their RT and put a stick into the puddle to see how deep it was. It made us all unsure of what might be ahead of us.

About the time Jim walked back to where we had stopped, a truck came barreling through toward us and stopped and told us that this was the only bad spot. We then watched another truck charge through, so guessed it was ok, and proceeded to drive up the mountain again.

It was so foggy we could look down, but could barely see the humongous Salmon Glacier. We drove along one side of it from the toe and then for 10 km to the summit. That was still not the top of the glacier, but the road, we were warned, got very bad from that point on. Since the road we had traveled was in poor shape we thought it best not to go further. Copper, gold, silver are mined or have been mined in this area. There is a lot of evidence of the mines and some of their equipment and buildings are still around. It looked to us, from the traffic up and down the road that mining is still being carried out off this road.

Since I watched the right side of the road, as we went up, I saw a lot of different wildflowers---bright orange and yellow columbine, pussy toes, and then near the top some new, to me, alpine flowers were in bloom. Valerie got some pictures of some of them but this road was not at all a place where you stopped, unless there was a pull-out. I don’t know what is with animals and flowers; they never seem to be where there is a place to pull out and take their pictures---are they camera shy, you think???

As we came back down the road, we stopped again at Fish Creek to see if the bears would have come out at “dinner” time. No luck with the bears. Did see a number of small birds---warblers, tree creepers, and a grey/brown bird I need to ID.
After the day we have had, we all decided to go out to dinner and have some seafood. Valerie had asked around and was told of a good place to eat in Hyder. Went by the place, after getting a campsite at Run-a-Muck Campground---all plug ins and wifi for $28.

The place in Hyder looked good and the prices posted outside looked reasonable, but was closed. The fish market located next door was also closed. So, if we wanted dinner out our option was to drive to Stewart—of course through Customs---even though the only road in and out is a dead end way up the mountain at a mine.

We were really low on gas so went to one of the gas stations listed on the visitor’s map to fill up. They were now the ONLY gas station, as others looked to have gone out of business, and it was closed. The ONLY gas station in town and they close at 5:00! Jim and Diane needed to get some Canadian money from the ATM, but it was in the gas station. Apparently, the powers that be had closed the only bank in town last year.

As we drove back down Main Street, we saw quite a crowd around the local hotel and could see a dining area through the front windows. Parked in front and found out that a nice dining room was located toward the back of the hotel. The three of us had really good salmon dinners and Valerie had a small steak.

We drove back to camp. Settled in after trying to check our e-mail and being frustrated with the wifi. Too much activity going on for the line, I guess, as we could get on, but it wouldn’t open any of our e-mails. Both of us woke up for some reason at 3:30 am and got into our e-mail then.

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