TWOLOST: Southeast Alaska; July, 2013

[gnty]

I got all excited when i saw that you had posted another trip report! I look forward to them. Can't wait to see more.

The pictures so far remind me a bit of a trip my wife and i did a few years ago that included Bella Coola BC, some amazing back roads there that led to Odegaard Falls, jumped on a small ferry that winded through the fiords during the day, stopping at Ocean Falls and Bella Bella (isolated coastal towns). The ferry cruised open ocean during the night and ended up on the north tip of Vancouver Island (Port Hardy), visiting Tofino as well.
You may have already done this route in your travels as your not to far from them.

[bill1929]

thanks for the pics!!

[mossbeachpaul]

Thanks for sharing. Just began some planning / dreaming about a 4 week-er I'd like to pull off in 2015?

Love to hear if you we're camping by permitorboondocking or both. How much per-planning a out where you ent the night vs "making it up as you went"

Admire the roof rack and the bike rack (as in MOTORbike / is there any other kind?). If you feel like sharing about either, would love tosee details about how you use.

[rustypayne]

Subscribed. Very cool trip, our daughter lives in Anchorage and we want to drive up there next summer but I wasn't keen in going up and back on the same route. This looks like it would be a lot of fun.

Rusty...

[Spenard]

Hi you have some great photos of SE AK! We brought our van up to Anchorage from SMB West on the Matanuska Ferry last spring. We especially enjoyed seeing the photo of the shelter at Outlook Point. The craftsman who designed and built it is named David McFadden, who now lives in Anchorage, AK. He showed me his drawings for the shelter when I hired him to design and build us a new front gate for our former home in Anchorage. That gate was also very cool with carved arches. I have put a picture of it in our gallery.

[Kelso]

Great photos! Can't wait to see more!

[Pschitt]

Thanks for sharing these great pictures! I plan to travel to Alaska next summer, thus I suscribe your thread... ;-)

[twolost]

Date (day): July, 05 (Day 6)
Source: Petersburg, Alaska (USA)
Destination: Same
Travel Miles: N/A
Resources: Inter-Island Ferry Authority; Rainforest Islands Ferry

Daily Note(s):
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• Jean cooked up another great breakfast and brought it down to our room.[/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• This was our last morning at the Sea Level B&B, so we checked-out and then headed to the southern part of Mitkof Island for more FS road exploration.[/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• I stopped at one of the local hardware stores (the Trading Union) and picked up a two week fishing license for $80.00, just in case I wanted to try my hand at salmon fishing again. I should note that I would have also needed to pay for a Salmon Tag if I wanted to keep any salmon. I was only catch and release this trip, so I opted out of the extra expense.[/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• It took a couple of tries but I finally remembered where the Twin Creek Shelter was located (it is on an unmarked dirt road off of the Mitkof Highway). I had used this shelter a number of times in the past to get out of the rain and to start a fire and get warm and dry. It was a real life saver. PM me if you want the GPS coordinates.[/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• After eating lunch at the shelter, we drove further south.[/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• Part of our exploration lead us to Dry Straits Road. At the end of Dry Straits Road is a nice overlook and remote camping spot that looks out over Dry Island, Dry Straight, the Stikine River, and the LeConte Glacier. There is also an old, hidden, and remote trail here that leads down to a stream where garnets were once collected. There is still evidence of some minor, manual, and primitive garnet extraction. The garnets found here have always been very small and did not have any real monetary value. The trail down to the garnet site is short but steep as the hillside keeps collapsing. [/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• We checked out the "now defunct" Inter-Island Ferry Authority terminal that is trying to regain funding in order to re-open. It is intended to re-open under the Rainforest Islands Ferry name and have a smaller more cost effective boat. The larger IFA boat(s) still successfully run daily between Ketchikan and Hollis (on Prince of Wales Island).[/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• We drove all of the way 'out the road' to the end of the road. As memory served, this was called Banana Point (so named as it was part of a 'banana belt', weather wise).[/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• We also checked out Greens Camp campground. This no fee primitive campground has 20+ campsites, pit toilets, and great access to rugged beaches and the ocean. Most of the mollusk life here died some time ago (millions of empty muscle, clam, and scallop shells are everywhere. These seem to have fallen victim to some sort of heavy silt deposit. You will really get the sense that you are within a costal rain forest here as the vegetation in the campground is huge.[/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• While at Greens Camp, we found that the Nats here were small and hungry. Out of our entire trip, this is where the bug problem peaked (which was still not really all that bad).[/*:m:5k14ibpx]
• We camped overnight in site #20. There were only three other campsites occupied during our one night stay here.[/*:m:5k14ibpx]

Alaska Airlines fly over.

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Twin Creek Shelter; great place to wait out a rain storm.

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Dry Straits; remote overlook

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Spoils from hidden garnet mine near Dry Straits overlook

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Greens Camp; primitive camping in coastal rain forest.

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Greens Camp; vegitation was massive.

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Greens Camp; more beachcombing.

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Greens Camp; view of our campsite.

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Greens Camp.

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Greens Camp; diverse beach geology.

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[twolost]

Date (day): July, 06 (Day 7)
Source: Petersburg, Alaska (USA)
Destination: Wrangell, Alaska (USA)
Travel Miles: Some FS roads plus travel via ferry.
Resources: Grand View Bed and Breakfast

Daily Note(s):
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• We spent the morning exploring Woodpecker Cove Road and the various spur roads out this side of this far southwest part of Mitkof Island. Other than some porcupines and black bear, we were alone.[/*:m:suraakq2]
• We then headed into the town of Petersburg for lunch (@ Coastal Cold Storage), we once again ran into one of my former co-workers. This co-worker graciously spent some time with us and even took us on a tour. What a wonderful and unexpected treat. Inside the plant, I met even more people that I used to work with, all gearing up for a very large fish run. Turned out that this was one of the highlights of our trip. Thanks for everything Mel!![/*:m:suraakq2]
• We had to cut our tour short as it was time for us to check-in at the ferry terminal for our very short trip south to Wrangell.[/*:m:suraakq2]
• Once again, our boat (the MV Taku) looked to be nearly empty.[/*:m:suraakq2]
• After a few hour scenic trip down the Wrangell Narrows on the MV Taku, we arrived in our next destination of Wrangell, Alaska.[/*:m:suraakq2]
• For the two nights we planned to stay in Wrangell, we arranged to stay overnight in the Grand View B&B (located right on the water).[/*:m:suraakq2]
• After checking into the B&B and getting the tour from our host Leslie... it was all we could do to just get cleaned up and crash out in our room. Day over.[/*:m:suraakq2]

A little more FS road exploring before we had to meet our evening ferry.

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Depart Petersburg via ferry (MV Taku) and head south to Wrangell.

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Proof we arrived in Wrangell.

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Grand View B&B for two nights acommodations.

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View of MV Taku leaving Wrangell from our B&B

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[twolost]

Date (day): July, 07 (Day 8)
Source: Wrangell, Alaska (USA)
Destination: Same
Travel Miles: N/A
Resources: Anan Wildlife Observatory

Daily Note(s):
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• Leslie, our host at the Grand View B&B prepared a wonderful hot breakfast. Breakfast was served in the common and well-appointed downstairs living/dining/kitchen area. We were the only guests at the time so we had the run of the downstairs to ourselves.[/*:mthd7cpy]
• After Breakfast, it was time to load up the van and go find some FS roads to explore.[/*:mthd7cpy]
• We ended up going south via the Zimovia Highway, entering gravel via McCormack Creek Road (FS 6265). We visited Long Lake (FS 6270) and the Highbush Lake Recreation Site. We then explored to the end of both Fools Inlet Road and Thoms Creek Road. The FS recreation site at Thoms Creek Crossing was isolated and amazing. Located right on the river, picnic table, fire column, grill, firewood shelter with dry firewood, pit toilet, wheelchair accessible, parking, and a flat clear space for a four person tent. Little did we know at the time, all of the FS sites we encountered on Wrangell Island would be very similar. Wrangell Island had, by far, the best FS campsites of any that we had encountered on our entire trip (and they rival anything I have seen in Washington State).[/*:mthd7cpy]
• After a long day of exploring, it was time to drive back to Wrangell and retire to our B&B for the evening. Once back at the B&B, we were able to do all of our laundry on-site in a coin operated washer/dryer. This was very convenient and came just at the right time.[/*:mthd7cpy]
• Something very popular to do when in Wrangell during this time of year is to charter a boat out to the Anan Wildlife Observatory. This is where you can see many brown and black bears feeding on the returning salmon. I had looked into booking a tour for us long in advance, but I was still not early enough and it was not recommended for young kids (because of a short half mile hike involved in getting to the site). Next time.[/*:mthd7cpy]

Out exploring FS roads

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Some tight roads with lots of bear sign.

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Thoms Creek Crossing Recreation Site.

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Awsome FS roads; zero traffic.

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