Day 18 - Kathleen Lake

Today, after popping down to the Village Bakery to pick up some sandwiches and drinks for our lunch, we headed out along the Haines Highway towards our first of two planned excursions.  This road, had we continued to follow it, would have brought us back to the US border once more, but instead, having stopped only once to photograph the pretty Quill Creek, after a little more than thirty miles we pulled into the car park for the Rock Glacier trailhead.  There, brooding and silent, a Holland America coach: they'd beaten us once again.

We said hello to the only other person in the car park - a girl sitting in the open trunk of her vehicle and reading a book - and walked up to the trailhead (even just saying "trailhead" makes me feel like a real hiker).  There we saw a sign advising of sturdy footwear because of the rocky terrain, so we returned to Arthur and replaced our sandals with trainers.  By now Trunk Girl had stopped reading, and was instead eating cereal out of a bowl.  She wished us a good walk.

The trail was mostly covered in a boardwalk until we got to the edge of the rock glacier itself.  No one - not even wikipedia - quite knows how a rock glacier forms.  As I could best understand it from the interpretive boards along the trail, it's like an ice glacier with rocks in from which all the ice has melted and left the rocks in the formation of the original glacier.  A glacial skeleton, if you will.  Not far up the trail we met a man coming down (Trunk Girl's companion?), and then as we started to climb the stairs to the rock glacier we met the Holland America people on their way back to the coach.  There weren't so many of them as we'd seen before, and they seemed quite an enthusiastic bunch, so maybe I'm guilty of misjudging them.

On our own now, we climbed off the wooden staircase and onto the stone path through the terminal moraine (i.e. very end) of the glacier.  It was a weird sight, almost like someone had built the whole thing out of millions upon millions of bricks.  I've never seen anything quite like it before.  At the end of the constructed path is an invitation to go further on up the mountainside, but there's no trail visible, and it was very steep, so we politely declined.  Instead, we looked back over the way we had come: we had a terrific view of Dezadeash (pronounced DEZ-dee-ash) Lake, whence flows the river along which we walked yesterday.

Heading back down was harder on the ankles than coming up, but it wasn't too bad, and soon we were back in Arthur and retracing our steps to Kathleen Lake, our second destination of the day.  The Holland America people were already there, being given a lesson on the edge of the lake by two enthusiastic girls about the difference between black bears and grizzly bears (me: "Ears, snout, claws, hump on the back, and a grizzly bear will kill you before it eats you"... the girls only mentioned the first four).

Kathleen Lake is spectacular.  There is a small board-covered walk set up around the first quarter mile or so of the lake's edge, but you are invited to walk further if you would like and are able.  We were both, and, taking note of the "you are in bear country" warning signs, we walked some way further around.  And were glad that we had.  Though the lake view when you arrive is indeed beautiful, it's only when you round the first corner at the end of the boardwalk that the lake's true character is revealed.  To the left is the enormous King's Throne peak, and to the right of that is a mountain which I believe is called Kathleen Peak.  Between the two is a gap giving a glimpse into the enormous expanse beyond, wherein lie glaciers, ice fields, and the St. Elias Mountains.  My camera's telephoto lens barely picked up the detail; through binoculars the view was spectacular, great white peaks, angular and harsh, stretching out from the edge of the Yukon and into Alaska.

We ambled back to the boardwalk area, the odd fish throwing itself out of the lake to catch mosquitoes, and sat down on a bench, soaking up the warmth of the day.  There we ate our lunch in the most picturesque and peaceful of locations.  According to my guide book, some people (I've no idea which "some people" they are, but I suspect we all know people like them) are objecting that Kathleen Lake is becoming too well known, and therefore overpopulated with visitors.  Including the Holland America coach load, I would say that no more than thirty people visited the lake while we were there.  Given that Lake Louise in Alberta (and believe it or not there is a Louise Lake at the far end of Kathleen Lake) entertains 10,000 people per day during the peak season, and also given the fact that Kathleen Lake doesn't even have its own wiki page, and also given that I can't find out who Kathleen is or was and why she should have had a lake named after her, I think those "some people" need to re-evaluate things.

Sandra wanted to sit there all afternoon, and if we'd had books with us we might have.  Instead we drove a little further down the Haines Highway looking for (but failing to find) a trailhead for another walk we have planned for tomorrow.  After that, the temperature climbing, we drove back to Haines Junction, for we wanted to have a pastry on the deck of the Village Bakery.  Arthur's external temperature sensor registered 30°C at one point, and by the time we got back the air was heavy and some dark clouds had gathered.  I thought there was going to be a major storm, but only about 15 spots of rain fell, then the dark clouds moved on and it was baking hot and dry once more.

We had delicious pastries and a drink at the Bakery, then came back in the late afternoon sun, wishing life could be like this all the time.

It's so quiet.  It's half past ten at night, still light, as I sit here on the decking of our Suite typing this, only the odd car engine in the distance a reminder that there are other people around.  The noisiest things are the wind in the trees and the crazy howling birds they have around here.

I wonder where Holland America will beat us to tomorrow.