Another night without rain, always a great way to start the day. After breakfast Lyon, Ken, Wayne and I headed out of town. We took a right on the Dayville Road so we could see if the bears were feeding down by the fish hatchery.
No bears today, just seals
No, that is not the oil pipeline. Here is where they pump in freshwater for the hatchery
Dumb seagulls. They make a mess of everything
There were a whole bunch of seals playing in the water around the hatchery.
After the hatchery we headed up and over Thompson Pass. The views were awesome. On the other side of the pass you can walk up to the Worthington Glacier. We spent some time learning about glaciers in general and Worthington in particular.
We continued on the Richardson Highway to Highway 10 where we turned east to head out to Chitina. We had hoped to continue through town and go out to the old Kennicott mine near McCarthy, but the weather reports all indicate a huge storm with mass quantities of rain and flooding was due that day. We have heard about how bad the dirt roads are when wet, so we are not interested.
Instead we had lunch at the hotel. While we were there our new friends Charlie and Dale from Arkansas arrived. They had already been up to McCarthy and are now headed north. As we had almost finished lunch when they arrived, we headed out before them.
Chitina is located at the confluence of the Chitina and Copper Rivers. When the fish are running hard they say you can practically walk across the river on the fish's backs. It is a popular place for bears, First-Nation and locals to fish. This is a fish wheel. They are allowed on both the Yukon and Copper Rivers. They operate like a mill wheel. The current moves the wheel around and the baskets scoop up the fish coming upstream. As the wheel turns fish slide out of the basket into a holding tank on one side. The fisherman only needs to come by several times a day to process his catch. Effective, if you are a sustenance fisher, not too much sport in it though.
Wayne, checking out the possible storm clouds over the Copper River
On our way in to Chitina we noticed a Yak Farm, but didn't know what it was. While at the hotel Wayne ordered a Yak burger, made from the yaks at this farm. We had to stop and find out how Yaks had ended up in Alaska. It turns out that the owners feel that Yaks are ideally suited for Alaska's harsh winters and are easier to care for than cattle. We had noticed the complete lack of cows on this whole trip, chocking it up to the -40 degree winters. To learn more about these interesting animals check out www.alaskayaks.com. Really nice people and cool animals!
Photo thanks to Lyon
On the way back out the highway we
saw this momma moose. Her shy baby is behind her.
Once we joined the Richardson
Highway we continued north under very cloudy skies. We are due in Tok to meet
up with the rest of the group tomorrow so we don't want to go too far tonight.
We stopped at the junction with the Glenn Highway at the new Tesaro Station,
only to find Charlie and Dale in line for gas. Now this really is
becoming a small world!! After a brief "Hi/bye" we continued on to
Gakona where we got tent spots for the night.
We barely on the tents up when the
sky opened up and began to dump on us. Dinner was cooked under the eaves
of the shed. Lyon and I did laundry because not only did we need to, but
it was dry in there!!
Critter Count: about 15 seals
2 moose
herd of Yak
Little sprinkles of rain as we
rode, more as we camped
216 miles
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