Alaskan Musk (Day 5)

If there were such a thing, I think Alaskan Musk would be a blend of deet (bug repellent), sunscreen, fish, and the butter that went with my Dungeness Crab at the Seafood Bus here in Hyder.  Today we left our tents up at the campground and thought we would take it easy.  It was far from a day of lounging around though.

Paul and I explored this pier/boat launch early this morning.  There's a gravel road from the campground that leads to the pier.  It was a narrow rickety bridge that takes you to an island in the middle of the river where people launch their boats.  After the island, the pier goes out a little further, but dead ends and appears to be warping into the water.

We crossed the border into Stewart for some breakfast, but crossing this border is a breeze in comparison to the main border.  There's one customs officer that checks ID and makes sure you don't have  bear spray.  She asked how long I was going to be in Canada, but it was much more casual than the other crossing.

The toast is thick.  Not sure if it's a normal thing here, but the toast was thick, like French toast.  This was the critical thinking of the morning.

We road back up the 37a, this time at a very slow speed.  As trucks with trailers approached, we just slowed down, lined up on the right, and let them pass.  We were in search of side roads and wild life, both which we found.

The first side road we found looked like an old logging yard.  There were stumps here and there, but other than that, it was pretty desolate.  It was still pretty fun to be riding the road bikes in the gravel though.  We have lots of that in store for the upcoming weeks.

Next, Steve was up front and found a nice one.  It was a damp dirt road that was lined on both sides with trees.  After a few turns, we ended up at a lake that had picnic tables and free firewood.  Paul was pretty excited that this was probably his next free camping spot.  Steve and I are probably staying in Hyder though since all our gear is still setup.

We rode further up the path and it started getting a little muddy.  Paul was out front on the big yellow wing, and when I saw him turning around, I knew that I better too.  Paul would be the last one to give in to the road on his wing.

After getting back on 37a, we were crossing "Bear River" and on the right over the rail was a black bear munching on some yummy leaves.  I had to turn around because I'm not that quick on the draw with the camera.  He hung around long enough for a couple pictures, but eventually got spooked and went back into the trees.

Our turn-around point was Bear Glacier, that we saw coming in, but we found one more side road before making it to the glacier.  This was another gravel road which looked well traveled.  At one point I stopped and we talked about how we should be careful because it's probably a haul road.  Last thing we need is to be a bug splat on a speedy logging truck.

We ended up riding till we found this bridge that had two raised wooden tracks in the middle.  Naturally we straddled the planks and parked the bikes in the middle of the bridge for pictures.  After pictures, it was unanimous that we've seen enough of this road and it was time to turn around.




When we got to the glacier, we ran into Glenn, a rider who lives in Fairbanks and was on his way to the Florida Keys.  We had seen him earlier when he pulled over and asked us how far the next fuel south was.  He forgot to fill up before he left Stewart and realized he needs to go back (10 miles) and fill up.  He actually helped us out a lot as he filled us in on the roads we will be traveling.  It was the details like how far exactly is that road we're planning on riding unpaved that helped out a lot.

The main 'todo' for today was to ride up the 20 mile unpaved road from Hyder, into Canada, and check out another glacier.  We got back at a little after 1pm though and it was time for lunch. Paul and I scouted out the fish bus yesterday and wanted to show Steve before he decided to go eat at the pub.  We pulled up and weren't sure at first if it was even open.  A woman's voice piped up from inside the bus, "How you guys doing?"   Great, they're at least open right?  So all together we ordered a couple bowls of chowder, Halibut fish and chips, and I ordered the fresh Dungeness crab the owner was recommending as the most fresh of the meat.

I didn't get any pictures of the food, but you might see some in Steve's gallery.  The food was great, and the crab was a lot of work to eat.  Very fresh for sure.

We continued up the dirt road (all the roads in Hyder are dirt) for our 25 mile trip to the summit of the Salmon Glacier viewpoint.  The wing with the car tire did great on the dirt.  The whole way up there were waterfalls on the side of the road that soon enough you just stop looking at them.

In the thick gravel it feels more like a boat and I wonder if I'm really in as much control as I really think.  The glacier itself was pretty nice.  Nothing I can type here will say it better than the pictures, which hardly do it justice, so why bother right?  On with the riding ...

Coming down the mountain 25-30 was a good speed.  When it flattened out, 40 felt pretty good except for when I hit ruts.  It felt very abusive on the suspension of a 900 pound bike to be hitting ruts like that, but I was having an incredible time.  I was pretty sure I figured out what the next bike would be.

Oh wow, ... I'm writing this at the campground in the saloon where we get internet and Steve just got up to sing Kareoke, Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash.  He's the first person besides the DJ to sing, so he just broke the ice.. I'll post pictures.

So here we are at the Sealaska Inn where you meet exactly the type of folk who would have to be that much  different to be able to spend their entire summers or year round here in Hyder Alaska.  One example is an older gentleman here named Jimmy Drum, aka "Watermelon Jim".

Jim is a short older man with a southern accent in what I would guess is his late 60s.  Jimmy has spent his summers here for the last 25 years.  His sister is up visiting from Portland right now with him.  As I was talking to them his sister prompts him proudly to give me his card.  Reluctantly he hands he his card, loudly titled "Alaska Watermelon Man", in green and red text with three bitten watermelons above it.  His title is "Originator & Creator of Alaska's First Watermelon Festival".

Jim is a semi-retired truck driver that lives in Tennessee, and each year he brings up a truck load of watermelons to Hyder Alaska.  He doesn't sell them, he gives them away.   The way he explained it was "do you know what a hobby is?" ... I questioned "something you spend lots of money ..."  "Exactly! while having fun.".  Ok, now that is one hobby that is truly his own.  He could be the subject of his own post here, but back to the trip.

We'll be leaving tomorrow with much more dirty bikes as we arrived with and it's going to be back to a couple long days of riding till we reach the "interior" of Alaska, as Glenn the rider we met earlier referred to it as.

It's 10 pm and there's still direct sunlight on the mountains outside.  Keep checking the Picasa gallery for the latest pictures.  I really enjoy seeing the comments, but sorry if I don't reply right away.  Keeping this thing up to date is using a lot of internet and battery time as it is.  Hopefully it's as fun to read as it is to write.  Here's a picture I just took from outside the Inn.