The Spell of the Yukon

 

It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,

It’s the forests where silence has lease;

It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

--The Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service

Post by Corrine

Despite being “next door” to Alaska, the Yukon is not a place Eric and I had spent much time. It had always been just a stop as we passed through on our way to or from another destination like Skagway or Haines or the Lower 48. But I just had a week off in early July. We had no Lower 48 trips planned and the weather on the Alaska road system was lousy. The weather forecast in the Yukon, however, looked good, especially down by Whitehorse. 

We started doing some research. Then we talked to friends who have a place in Whitehorse, and they started telling us about all the places we could explore. It all sounded intriguing. Eric and I decided it was time to find out about our neighbor to the east. Robert Service fell under its spell. Maybe we would, too.

We put together an ambitious itinerary including hiking, biking, and camping. There was no way we could do all the things we wanted to do in a week, but we could try. 

Exploring by Foot

Kluane National Park was on our definite to-do list. It’s the one place we have stopped for a hike or bike on our way to and from Alaska. We wanted to do something new, so we settled on the King’s Throne out of Kathleen Lake. It’s a 3-mile hike with a one-mile steep uphill to the “seat” of the “throne”, a chair-like cirque. The hike has an option to hike up a consistently steeper ridge all the way to the summit on the back of the “throne.” Trail guides said to plan 7-10 hours for that full round-trip hike. The weather was good, so of course we decided to go for the summit! 

Headed towards the King's Throne. We ended up hiking to the bowl then up the ridge on the left and across part of higher ridge line

This is one of the most popular day hikes in Kluane and there were dozens of people making the trek. We leap-frogged with a group of three hikers from Ontario in their early 30’s and they seemed impressed that we stayed ahead of them on the steep climb. I guess we are doing okay for a couple of gray-haired hikers. 

This challenging hike has rocky sections of trail as you approach the base of the cirque. While it has some switchbacks, there are several steep sections with loose rock. We were surprised so many people were willing to hike all the way to the base of the cirque.

Eric is almost at the cirque

Most people stop there. It’s a nice place for a snack or lunch break with great views and grassy patches. But the trail continues up, getting even steeper, with lots of loose rock, as it climbs the back of the rising edge of the cirque. We stopped only briefly at the cirque base before heading up. 

The going got harder and the wind got stronger. Once we got to a plateau on the ridge, the wind that had been brisk became fierce with gusts up to 50 mph that almost knocked me off my feet. And it was cold. We had layers but not enough. We went about another half-mile but turned back due to the wind and cold. Plus, clouds up top obscured the summit. We decided to leave that for another day.

The descent took longer than the ascent due to the steep and rocky trail. We were glad we had our trekking poles. Our quads were burning. And despite taking great care, we slipped several times, both of us falling at least once. Amazingly, quite a few people were climbing this part of the trail. Those Canadians are tough! We were glad to get to the relatively level couple miles of trail along Kathleen Lake back to the trailhead. 

The nine-mile roundtrip hike with 4000 feet of vertical elevation made for a longer than expected day. And we felt our quads for the next couple of days. But the views made up for it. This is a hike worth doing. 

Luckily, before the hike we had bought locally made cinnamon rolls in Haines Junction as a treat for after. (A bunch of places in the Yukon advertise their “world famous” cinnamon rolls. Who knew the Yukon was known for them! We tried two places, and they were great!) 

Back at Kathleen Lake, cinnamon rolls in hand, wind still blowing hard

A challenging hike with outstanding views, friendly people, and delicious cinnamon rolls afterward? The Yukon was already casting its spell on us!

Other Hikes

We didn’t end up doing any other big hikes, but we did do a couple of smaller hikes on our trip up the South Canol Road. We did a short hike on an overgrown path through bug-infested woods to reach the small but nice Ian Thomson Falls. At the northern end of South Canol Road we did another short hike for better views of the Lapie River Canyon. Neither is a destination hike, but both were worth doing since they were on our route.

Buggy hike to the falls

Ian Thomson Falls

Lapie River Canyon

Adventuring by Car – Part 1

Our big car adventure was to drive the South Canol Road, which was built by the U.S. military during WWII to build a pipeline (Canol = Canadian Oil) to help protect Alaska and the North American west coast. After the pipeline shut down the road gradually deteriorated. But it was reopened by the Canadian government to connect communities, encourage mining, and provide a place for outdoor adventures. 

The road connects Ross River and Johnson Crossing. Like the Denali Highway, the South Canol is open only in the summer, but unlike the Denali Highway, it is much rougher and narrower with no services along its 140-mile length. I had wanted to bike a portion of it, but my legs were tired from our big hike, and I had another big adventure planned for us along the route. 

Many signs along the road were overgrown by trees and brush

The drive was much slower than we expected, and it took us most of the day to get to our campsite at Lapie Lakes, very close to where our bike adventure would start. Just as we were getting to the lakes, we had a flat tire. Our Toyota RAV4 doesn’t have a full-size spare, so it would be another 30 miles of rough road to get to the small community of Ross River, with no guarantee of a fix there. But that was a problem for another day. We parked the car at a great lakeside campsite and prepared for our adventure the next day.

Oh no!

Not a bad campsite

Adventuring by Bike – Part 1

I had read about a couple who had done a hike off Ground Hog Creek mining road, which branches off South Canol Road near Lapie Lakes. The photos made it look enticing, so I planned for us to bike the mining road, which starts a mile or so from the campground, and possibly go for a hike at the high point. 

Smoke from nearby wildfires smudged the sky as we started biking, but otherwise the weather was great. We planned to bike to the mining road’s high point, maybe do a hike, then head down to Seagull Lake. The road started good but deteriorated the farther we got. We had to cross a couple of streams, which weren’t difficult, but I still got wet feet. 

We gradually climbed and kept thinking we were at the pass but then the road would climb some more. And some more. And some more. We finally got to the true summit above treeline with magnificent views of the surrounding mountains. By this time, the wildfire smoke was mostly gone. We could see old mining roads headed off in every direction that called for us to explore, but we decided to stick to the main road to Seagull Lake. We also decided to put off the hike until our return.

Yes, this truly is finally the high point!

Past the summit, the road headed down and got rockier and more rutted before plunging steeply for the last two miles to valley floor. The road keeps going for many miles, but a short side road  12 miles in took us to Seagull Lake. 

The going got steeper and steeper

We had a nice little lunch at the lake and then had a hot, hard grunt to push and ride our bikes back to the summit. It was totally worth the effort, and we had outstanding views to keep us motivated. But by the time we got back to the pass neither of us was motivated to hike up one of the surrounding peaks. It would be great to bikepack in here and then explore for several days. Another time. Instead, we bombed downhill back to the road and our campsite – after a quick detour for the hike to Ian Thomson Falls just off the South Canol. Another great day in the Yukon!

Seagull Lake

2 mile steep uphill push 

And a nice descent back to South Canol Rd.

Adventuring by Car – Part 2

The next day we packed up and limped north, hoping our spare tire would survive the rough road. Fortunately, our tire held up and we got it repaired in Faro. Then we headed back to Whitehorse.

That little trip ended up being a 460-mile driving loop: Whitehorse, east to Johnson’s Crossing (another place with “world famous” cinnamon rolls), north up the South Canol to Ross River, west to Carmacks, and back south to Whitehorse.

Whitehorse to Johnson's Crossing to Ross River to Carmacks and back.  Our campsite at Lapie Lakes was about 3/4 of the way up the S.Canol Road

Checking out the South Canol and Ground Hog Creek mining road added to the spell of the Yukon. It was a truly remote experience. If you go, I recommend either driving just the northern part of the road – which has better views and is in better shape – or, alternatively, biking some or all of it. And I would like to come back and bike the North Canol Road from Ross River to the border of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. That section is even more remote. Anybody interested?

Adventuring by Bike – Part 2

We spent a couple of days biking around Whitehorse. So many varied routes: gravel roads, ski trails, bike paths through town, and singletrack mountain biking of all levels. (Eric called the Trail Forks map of trails “fun spaghetti.”) We needed several more days to check it all out. 

Our first day in town before the South Canol trip, we explored singletrack trails along the Yukon River and up to lower Grey Mountain. Eric enjoyed the technical challenges, but I got tired of the narrow, rooty trails with steep drop-offs to rivers or lakes. We finally popped out onto the Grey Mountain Road. 

Yep, the trail goes up this rocky part

Eric suggested that we bike the gravel road up to a set of towers high on the mountain. I was a little surprised as he normally doesn’t like long uphill grinds on gravel roads, but I love those kinds of rides. It was a warm day, and Eric started regretting his suggestion as the road climbed steeper and steeper, but we eventually both made it to the towers and were glad we did it as the views down to the Yukon River and Whitehorse were outstanding. And the descent was fun and nontechnical. I even managed to get second overall on Strava for the descent. Those of you that know how much of a weenie I am on descending will be as surprised as I am about that!

We make it to the top of Grey Mountain!

Super fun descent!

After our South Canol trip, Eric and I each did our own thing for a day in Whitehorse. Eric had a fabulous time exploring the singletrack trails on Mount McIntyre. He enjoyed the technical trails and the great views along many of them.

A rougher section of the Mount MacIntyre trails

A nicer section of the Mount MacIntyre trails

After all the technical riding around lower Grey Mountain, I wanted to bike some gravel roads. I did a 50-mile loop, climbing up to Fish Lake and then down to Jackson Lake before heading across Copper Haul Road back to town. I did make the mistake of trying to take a ski trail over to the trails where Eric was biking, only to end up in a swamp. Eric is the one who loves swamps, not me! After getting wet and muddy feet, I finally turned around to make my way back by roads. 

Fish Lake

On the trail before the swamp, I did have a fairly close encounter with a black bear. He was easily scared off, so I didn’t have to turn around. But come to think of it, if I had turned around, I would not have ended up in the swamp! 

Black bear on the trail

Eric thought most of the singletrack trails on Mount McIntyre were too technical for me, but he did feel that I would enjoy biking on the ski trails. So, on our final morning in Whitehorse we spent a couple of hours exploring them before heading home. The spell was working as we started talking about coming back in winter to ski the many kilometers of groomed trails. 

Ski hut along the ski trail. Such a great idea!

Camping

We car camped four of eight nights, spending time in national park and territorial park campgrounds. At Congdon Creek Campground on Kluane Lake, all tent campers had to be within an electric bear-deterrent fence. On our drive down the Alaska Highway, we saw five bears along the road before getting to this campground, so it was reassuring to have that protection. 

Close up bear seen from the safety of our car along the Alaska Highway

Our favorite campground was the minimalist Lapie Lakes along the South Canol Road. It was remote and had only two spots. When we arrived, the best spot was already taken, but the other was fine. We met the other campers, Dwayne and Glenda, who are from outside of Edmonton. They love this spot for its remoteness, lack of people, beauty, and good fishing (Dwayne is an avid fisherman). They invited us for a fresh trout dinner the next night after we told them about our plans of biking Ground Hog Creek mining road to Seagull Lake. Hmm, fresh trout or freeze-dried dinners. Decisions, decisions! 

Campsite at Lapie Lakes

We had an excellent dinner and the conversation flowed as we talked for hours. They told us about once having driven their truck camper, while towing their boat, down to Seagull Lake. Glenda told us she was terrified during the steeper parts of the drive. And after pushing our bikes up the steep, rutted road, we were amazed they had made it there and back without mishap! 

Dwayne and Glenda serve us an extremely tasty fresh lake trout dinner

They told us that their community outside of Edmonton holds the Canadian Birkebeiner in February. We are planning to ski the American Birkebeiner in 2025 (fourth time’s the charm?), but we had no idea there was a Canadian version, which attracts around 1,500 people yearly. We may have to put that on our bucket list to do in the future. 

The Spell of the Yukon

After seven days, we had to drive back home, camping one more time along the way. It was an amazing trip. We had great weather with sunny skies, minimal rain, only one day with a little smoke, and almost no mosquitoes. Everyone was super friendly. (And we even ran into several Fairbanksans on the trip!)

And there’s still so much to do. For example, we want to return and go backpacking in Tombstone Territorial Park northeast of Dawson. And we want to visit Whitehorse in winter to explore their ski trails. And there’s the Cottonwood Trail and North Canol Road and trails in Carcross and…. So, we will be back. We, too, have fallen under the spell of the Yukon.

The summer—no sweeter was ever;

The sunshiny woods all athrill;

The grayling aleap in the river,

The bighorn asleep on the hill.

The strong life that never knows harness;

The wilds where the caribou call;

The freshness, the freedom, the farness—

O God! how I’m stuck on it all.

A Successful Fail

 

Post by Corrine

The complaining started even before the trip started.

“What? You can’t change your plans! Now I want to go. But I’m on call. No fair!”

I whined as Eric told me about the adventure trip he and Nikki had planned for the weekend. 

Originally, they had planned to do a long exploration fast-hike from Eagle Summit on the Steese Highway to Ketchum Dome behind the old Circle Hot Springs Resort. I had no interest in a long fast-hike, and I was on call anyway. No big deal.

But then plans changed. Nikki’s husband, Mike, was interested in exploring a similar route that would follow mining roads and ATV trails. And Nikki wanted to introduce Mike to a bigger human-powered bike adventure. So, the plans changed to a 24-mile-or-so bike ride from Portage Creek, near Ketchum Dome, to Miller House, a mining area on the east side of Eagle Summit. That sounded fun! But I was on call and had to be available for possible phone calls and there was no cell service where they were headed. That’s when the whining started. I’d have to miss out on a fun adventure. 

Or would I? One of my partners, Nate, had just had surgery two weeks earlier. He wasn’t recovered enough to do anything fun, or even work, but he was feeling better. He was stuck at home, getting bored. Maybe he would cover my call so I could go on an adventure? I reached out to him, and with no hesitation, he agreed to cover for me. I could go!

Best Laid Plans

Mike, a pilot for the Alaska State Troopers, had flown over the area between Eagle Summit and Central many times and had been on some of the trails. He was pretty sure that we could bike from Portage to Miller House using mining roads and ATV trails, though he did warn that there would be some hike-a-bike. But in between the two ends, the route would be entirely on ridgelines. Nice!

On our GaiaGPS app, a gpx route showed that it would be about 24 miles with 6500 feet of elevation gain. The distance sounded fine, but we doubted the route had that much elevation gain. We like GaiaGPS, but it had given us screwy elevation numbers at least once before. We were confident the route would be easier than that.

Our proposed route

We thought those 24 miles would take 4-5 hours. Since we were going from point A to point B, we figured we would have to do a shuttle. But Eric measured the road distance between the two points at about 28 miles with not too much elevation gain. Eric and I decided we would bike back to our car and make it a loop. So, just over 50 miles of biking. And a good day of training for me.

After Mike got off work, he and Nikki headed out Saturday to camp off Miller House road with Mike’s sister Shelli, who was visiting from Washington. Eric and I talked about camping too but decided to get up super early Sunday morning and make a long day of it. That way Nate didn’t have to cover call any longer than necessary. 

We loaded our bikes on top of our RAV 4 and left home at 5:30 AM for the two-and-a-half-hour-drive out the Steese Highway. The air out the Steese was hazy from the wildfires, but conditions were much better than in smoke-choked Fairbanks.

AQI of 350 - hazardous conditions when we left Fairbanks.  Photo from a friend, taken in town last weekend

We stopped to pick up Nikki and Mike at their campsite and loaded their two bikes on our hitch rack. Then we drove the final 28 miles to our starting point, a high point on Portage Creek Road, a mining road behind now-defunct Circle Hot Springs resort. The high point is about 6 miles and 1500 feet of elevation past the old resort. On the way, we got the idea that we should have had Shelli come along and drive our car back to the beginning to save the ride back to the car. It’s a good thing we weren’t that smart.

A Bumpy Beginning

Just as we were ready to start our ride, Mike’s bike chain kept jumping off his rear gear cluster. A mechanical right away! It was a head scratcher. He had just ridden it a couple of days before with no problems. After much tinkering, we finally decided it was a bent derailleur. He bent it back and voile, problem solved. We were in business. Or mostly in business. The problem soon started again, so Mike had to bike without the use of his lowest gear. That turned out to be not as big of a deal as it might have been. You don’t need your gears when you are pushing your bike!

Mike works on his bike

At 10 AM we were finally ready to go. Now we had two options. Continue on Portage Creek Road down, down, down to where a trail exits the road and then heads uphill. Or follow the trail from our parking area and head uphill first. We would end up in the same spot after a couple of miles, and Mike thought the trail in front of us was shorter. We weren’t excited about losing elevation right away, so we chose the shorter route. Smart choice, right?

Starting towards the hill behind our parking spot.  How hard could it be?

The trail started fine, with a bikeable climb and then a short, relatively flat section followed by a descent. Then the pushing started. It was hike-a-bike on steroids. The ATV trail went up an extremely steep slope that was either rocky or had lots of vegetation (sometimes both!). What a grunt! In some places I had to take a couple of steps, get firm footing, shove my bike up a bit, grab the brakes, take a couple of steps up, then do the whole process again. Over and over and over. We teased Mike a bit about the route choice, but he reminded us he had warned us about some hike-a-bike. Fortunately, it wasn’t super-hot out and the bugs weren’t too bad. There was even a nice breeze, especially up higher. But my arms were aching already. All those upper body strength exercises I had been doing didn’t seem to have helped at all!

This was a lot steeper than it looks.  At times 40% grade according to Mike

We finally made it to the top, only to discover that the trail totally petered out. 

“Where is the trail?” I asked. 

“Off the back side,” Mike said.

Nope. No trail. But we could see the trail we wanted to be at the base of the small dome we had just climbed. All that elevation for nothing! And there was a brushy saddle between us and the trail! We shrugged and went kamikaze on the steep tundra-and-rock slope (sometimes on the bike, sometimes off). Fortunately, Nikki found a halfway decent trail that led through the brush over to the other trail. 

Selfie at the top of the stupid hike-a-bike hill

We head cross country.  You can see the trail on the next ridge where we need to be

When we got to the well-developed trail we laughed at our earlier decision. Clearly, we should have ridden down the road to get to this trail. Oh well. We started biking and it was great. . . for maybe half-mile. Then we had another hike-a-bike up a steep rocky incline, though it wasn’t as bad as the first. Then a steep and rocky downhill that was mostly bikeable. Then a little riding before another push up another hill. 

We can actually ride our bikes!

Pushing up yet another hill!

And that’s how it went. Push up a steep hill, ride a bit, then ride or walk down a steep, rocky descent. Ride a bit, push up, ride down. Repeat. 

Decision Time

We finally got to a little plateau and realized it had taken us three hours to go just six miles. I can hike faster with less effort! We had spent more time pushing rather than riding our bikes. Mike was ready for lunch and sat down for a break.

We discussed our options. We weren’t even a third of the way done. The trail might get easier. Eric insisted it would, but he was basing that on his vague memory of the topo map and an overly developed sense of optimism. The rest of us decided not to believe in fantasies. We figured, at our current rate, we would need at least nine more hours to finish the route and then we still had to do the shuttle to pick up our car. (No way were Eric and I going to bike back to our car once we got to the road!) Even without the road biking, we wouldn’t get back home until after midnight. And I had to work the next day. 

But turning around is hard. At least for some of us. I think Mike was ready to turn around right there. We could see the trail ahead of us for a ways. After another steep descent, it climbed to a plateau and then climbed again to a high point. We couldn’t see the route beyond that. Eric, confident the trail would get better, thought we should head to that point before deciding what to do, but he was happy to take a little break and started to eat part of his lunch.

Lunch spot

But if we were going to that high point, I wanted to take my break there. Nikki seemed to feel the same. Unfortunately, our group didn’t do the best job about communicating with each other about what course of action to take. While Mike and Eric were eating lunch, Nikki and I took off, figuring they would soon be coming behind. Eric did follow and caught up to us, but the three of us got only partway to the high point (after another hike-a-bike) before deciding we should turn around. I guess we needed some time to process the fact that we weren’t going to be able to do what we had set out to do. Failure can be hard to digest.

Nikki and I head a little further out the trail

But turning around was the right decision. We probably had enough food, but we didn’t have enough water and finding it on ridge tops can be hard. We certainly didn’t have enough time to get back at a decent hour. Eric the Optimist decided that we just needed to reframe the outing. Instead of this being an adventure, it was a scouting mission. We were getting intel for next time. We started heading back, a little disappointed but full of good information. And now we were really glad that we hadn’t thought to ask Shelli to take our car back to the start.

Mike sat on the other knoll and watched us work our way back to him (including a hike-a-bike back up to the top of the knoll). He processed our failure without all the extra pushing. 

Heading back required one more big hike-a-bike, but the other uphills were smaller and the riding portions seemed longer. This is what we had signed up for! We followed the better-developed trail all the way to Portage Creek Road, which required a long, steep descent before intersecting with the road. Then it was a long climb to the high point, but at least it was bikeable. 

Fun cruising on the way back down

Cruising to the End

Eric offered to drive the car and give everyone else a chance to bomb down Portage Creek Road back toward Central. After changing his clothes and getting his bike on top of the car (not without some troubles), he slowly drove down the rough road, figuring he was losing time on the bikes. And he was right. It sure was fun bombing that hill and biking those fast road miles after all that rough trail.

Finally some faster miles on gravel road

Around the old Circle Hot Springs Resort the road got better, and Eric finally was able to driver faster, but he didn’t catch Mike until Ketchum Creek, where Mike had stopped for a little splash bath.

When they finally got to Central, Nikki and I had already had enough time to buy a cold drink from the restaurant, come back out to wait for them, and decide we all needed to eat dinner there since it was almost 5 PM. 

The distance out-and-back from the car was just under 14 miles but with 3600 feet of elevation gain. (So, maybe GaiaGPS had been right!) Nikki and I got another 14 miles or so on the road. 

Eating at Central restaurant was a great ending to a fun day. Even though our original plan failed, I would call it a success. Yes, we didn’t get to ride the entire route. But we did get to see some new trails (and get some important intel). The weather was great, the bugs minimal, and the company was fun. Plus, we were out of the smoke in town and got in a great workout. (Including an upper body strength workout!) And I got out of a day of call. 

I call that a win!

Celebrating our successful failure

Our actual route - 29 miles with 3900 feet of elevation gain of which 3600 feet was in the first 14 miles!