Passing through Stewart and Hyder before Alaska

[arctictraveller]

Well, I've been at base camp for about three weeks, and all my van maintenance and inspections are up to date, so where to next? First off, I've been invited to spend some time near 100 mile house just off the Alcan highway in British Columbia around August 20th. From there, I've wanted to visit Stuart and Hyder forever. Stuart is located in Canada, but Hyder is located in Alaska, they share a border and they are on the inside passage. It's an adventurous dirt road that gets you there, but once you arrive, there are plenty of things to keep you busy like a ghost town, an abandoned mine, the largest drive up glacier in North America, spectacular scenery, river and lake side wilderness camping, the list just goes on and on. From there I'll drive to Skagway and catch a ferry to Juneau Ak. Once the snow flys, I'll probably head South again. Anyone want to join up?
Aventure awaits........

[vandiesel]

Dang if I didn’t have a remodel going on I’m in.

[REF]

^^^Ha, us too!

Nice Jeff!! Just to clarify, it’s not a dirt road between Stewart and Hyder, it’s all paved, lots of logging trucks. It is however a dirt road up to Salmon Glacier, highly recommended, you can park it up at the top for the night, but might be a bit windy. There’s a campground in Stewart with showers and Laundry.
One of our greatest discoveries was driving all the way in on Telegraph Creek Rd, north of Stewart/Hyder. There’s a couple of spots to camp along the Stikine river, at the very end you will come to the little village of Telegraph Creek, there’s a guy that runs a small museum filled with local artifacts, many from his in laws that ran the supply store there from the gold rush era, or something like that, he’s got some great stories and lives in the house just next door with the big front porch, well worth poking around.
You might see some bears out by now in Hyder along the river, there’s viewing platforms, you can’t miss it, not much else going on in Hyder, pretty trippy place that is all but abandoned, except for a few holdouts.
One word of caution when going down white pass into Skagway, it is a spectacularly long, steep grade into town, watch your brakes, we literally toasted our front brakes towing our travel trailer, I failed to crank up the brake controller.
Head out of Skagway to the old ghost town of Dyea, out at Dyea Flats, the Chilkoot trail dried up once the white pass rail line was built, there’s a nice open campground out there that has plenty of space and cheap, no amenities, there’s great spots furthest in along the open field, we sat and watched a large male grizzly lumbering around for hours. There’s an old gold rush era cemetery up one of the roads from there, great areas to explore.
Recommend the rail trip up White Pass out of Skagway. There’s a great little Indian restaurant in town that transitioned from a little import clothing boutique. The campground in town was a bit expensive, but has showers and laundry.
Wish we could join, we’ll head up there again for sure.

[BrianW]

+1 on the Dyea campground. Really pretty!

[arctictraveller]

Thanks Rick, the video I just watched lead me to think the road in was dirt but now I see that it’s just the part to the glacier. That’s ok though, there will be plenty of off roading on this trip. I lived and worked in Skagway for a bit but wasn’t able to explore much. I’ve done the train ride before, it’s well worth doing for sure, and I’ve motorcycle camped in Dyea, the entire area is spectacular. So, hurry up and finish your house so we can plan another trip.

[REF]

Did you make it up there? I just happened to have a photo memory of our trip up there of the Stikine museum down in Telegraph Creek, here’s a few….

[arctictraveller]

Yes I did, actually I got here yesterday and drove up to the glacier. Interestingly, there were quite a few adventure campers, most of which had European license plates. Lots of ADV motorcycles too that I felt sorry for since it started raining buckets in the evening as they seemed to be looking for a spot to camp. I came back to Stewart the same day and had a bit of an issue at the border because I hadn’t t gone on line and filled out the “Arrive Canada” forms. I did fill one out for the crossing at Vancouver last week, it was a real pain and I was using my laptop, using my phone would have been a exercise in frustration. Truthfully though I did forget, and after some back and forth they finally let me pass, but I’m sure they wouldn’t do it twice. Anyway, the glacier views were spectacular and the drive down 37A was pretty spectacular too. Last night I boondocked behind the hotel rather than pay $35 at the campground and had a quiet night. After breakfast I’ll head back up the Cassiar towards Telegraph creek and then Skagway

[arctictraveller]

I’m not sure the name of this glacier, is it the Salmon?

[REF]

Nice, yes Salmon glacier. Any bears out yet at fish creek observation decks? We were there late in the season and the stench of rotting salmon was overwhelming, we watched some fat lazy bears rummaging around the carnage.

[arctictraveller]

I didn’t stop at the bear viewing spot, it was crowded and I didn’t buy a pass, but there must have been some bears based on the crowds