Day 39

We woke up this morning to sunshine and blue skies. Jan and I walked down to the lake to take pictures and discovered there was a snow covered mountain range behind the mountains across from the RV park. We also got to see how incredibly beautiful the lake was. It’s amazing what a difference a little sunshine makes! But the beauty of Kluane Lake was equaled or maybe even surpassed by the gorgeous scenery along the way to Haines. I was really struck by the colors. Most of the route went through alpine tundra and the varied shades of green just “popped”. It was all accented by pink and purple wild flowers growing along the highway. Amazing! Haines was not part of our original plan; we were just going to Skagway. Jan looked at the map and thought it would be fun to go to Haines and take the ferry to Skagway. That way we could do both towns. We’re so glad we included the Haines Highway – we would have missed out on the awesome sights.

We crossed the border back into Alaska and dropped down into thick forest as we got closer to Haines. The Haines Highway follows along the Chilkat River which is the home of the Chilkat Eagle Preserve. When we took our cruise, the Eagle Preserve was one of our excursions. I think we saw more eagles just driving by than we did when we paid to go through it.

We lucked out again with a great RV park. The Haines Hitch-Up RV Park is grassy with wide spaces – very nice. After we got the trailer set up, we drove around and checked out the town, bought groceries, and made reservations to take the ferry across to Skagway on Saturday. That should be a real hoot.