186 Hazelton and into Hyder, Alaska

Monday 17th June 2013 Miles Today 225 Total  8743

Our usual 11am set off and after a relatively short 25 mile hop we arrived at Kitwanga, the start of the Cassier Highway. We had considerd stopping here last night but glad we did not there were only a couple of houses and a church here.

The church and some sort of wooden thing !

We then se off up the Cassier and were actually quite dissapointed with the first 100 miles. All we could see was tarmac and 2 lines of trees. It was not all bad though and we did see a lemming running across the road, as lemmings do !

We like raw nature scenes.

We did stop for a break and met these guys.

The firefighter crew and vehicles.

They are bush Fire Fighters. and have been fighting a fire, set by lightning for 4 days. The poor guys were completely knackered and covered in soot. Thank God for the good guys, eh ?

We then turned off the Cassier onto a smaller side road towards the small towns of Stewart and Hyder,
The two towns straddle the border between British Columbia and Alaska.

This route was much more spectacular so we took some piccys.

An Anise Swallowtail butterfly

Scenery improving

Karen, Raymond, Wallace and a Glacier.

 

The result of an Avalanche

Stewart is a lumberjack (logging) town and caters for some hard core residents. Despite the tough existence these people have they are very pleasant and amenable but no nonsense types. I suppose you have to be when most of your neighbors are bears.

The main street in Stewart

Home, work, everything.

 We drove through Stewart and 2kms further up the road we entered Alaska. There were no border controls, just a sign.

Alaska at last.

We found a small motel that was bike friendly. The place doubled up as the local bar, laundry, disco and mile marker for the start of the Alaska - Yukon Highway.

The motel, bar, and everything else. Simple but adequate, as is most of this place.

The only thing here is a jetty that leads to the Pacific.

The jetty and looking out onto a Pacific inlet.

We have just crossed North America from the Atlantic to the pacific. Wohoo!





The landlady in the motel asked if we had seen the glacier and we replied no. As we have seen a few lately we opted not to go up a 25mile dirt road to see it.

We later went back into Stewart to get some food and this time we had to stop at the border control to get back into Canada. There are no roads leading from Hyder except back into Canada so the border control is a bit over the top, however, there is a gun shop in Hyder and as they are banned in Canada, like the UK I suppose it is logical.

Anyway, whilst looking for some food we ran into a couple on a BMW bike. They were from High Wycombe, about 10 miles from Hertford UK. THey had just come back from the glacier and recommended we go up there. So we did.

The dirt road took us to a high point overlooking the whole glacier. It was awesome (as they say here).