Day Thirteen

Day Thirteen

We started out with breakfast and coffee at the Village Bakery in Haines Junction where we had spent the night.  We loaded up the bikes and headed south to Haines Ak about 160 miles away.  The ride into Haines was the most beautiful yet.  We stopped several times for photos, with David riding back and forth at time with his GoPro.   There aren’t enough adjectives to describe how beautiful it is riding into Haines.  Towering mountains, glaciers, flowers with bees, buzzing from blossom to blossom, lakes, rivers, and more glaciers.  It was sunny and simply stunning!

Marcus had booked a room at the Chilkoot Lodge which sits above the ChilKoot River six miles past Haines.  The river has a glacial silty look to it, wide and shallow before it meets the ocean a short distance away.

After we dropped our gear at the lodge and headed back into town to get a bite to eat.  Afterwards we stopped to buy some a fishing license for Marcus and lures for David and myself.  The lure of choice is a spoon called a pixie and it seems to work pretty well.

As soon as we got back to the lodge we headed down to the river to fish for pink salmon, generally called “Pinks” or humpback salmon.  David caught one first on his lucky 1/8 oz roostertail, the same one he had used for Artic Grayling last week.  I caught a Dolly Varden, and David caught another larger salmon.  Marcus caught a rock, then caught three salmon, the last one we kept to eat for dinner.

There are also lots of bears in the area, a brown bear and her cub walked up and down the river twice while we were here this afternoon.  They draw quite a crowd when they’re in the area.  I got some nice images of them this evening.

After photographing the bears I headed back to the lodge to grill the salmon filets with a little salt and pepper, they were really good.  The owner of the lodge, Sue, also gave us a few Halibut filets to grill as well.  Add a little salad and you have a great meal as you watch the bald eagle flying across the river.  There is also a bald eagle nest directly across the river and sue has a spotting scope set up to watch the fledgling who looks like it will be flying in the next week or so.

Today is our last in Alaska, tomorrow we catch the ferry to Prince Rupert.  We’ll arrive there on Saturday.