Harvey, 40 nights is a short trip with half the cost being on the road. We would have stayed longer, but JoLee’s arthritis & inner ear troubles were taking much of the fun out of it for her.
6-22-18. Following showers & a restful night at the dock, we started late morning, the boat pull out & clean-up process. The Skagway Marina has excellent facilities for doing this & the process went quick & well. As mentioned the facilities at the Skagway Small Boat Harbor are excellent & the docking fees for us at $12.50 for the night, the lowest of any marina we visited. The Harbor Master does a great job here & is also very pleasant in making arrangements for what ever is needed. By 3pm Alaska time we were on the beautiful 150 mile drive out of Skagway to Atlin with only a quick stop at the Yukon Border & ice cream at Carcross. The 150 miles total, includes the little over 60 mile drive from the Yukon & Alaska HY directly south into British Columbia to the small isolated town of Atlin on the edge of beautiful Atlin Lake. We found big changes since our last visit with with the cost of launching & storing of truck & trailer going from $20 Canadian a week to a day. With the the shock of this still on my mind & the launching facilities primitive, we forgot to put in the plug. Anyway that’s our not so good excuse. By the time it was noticed & the boat lined the 30 feet to the side to the unloading dock, water was close to a foot deep in the cockpit & several inches in the cabin with much of our stuff soaked. By the time all was back shipshape except for the drying out process, it was getting fairly late, so off into the normal stiff down from the glaciers wind to the entry of Torres Chanel & into the first protected bite on the side to anchor for the night. Here while sorting out all the soaked stuff, we had the enjoyment of a huge lynx walk along the shore close to our anchorage. It’s only the 2nd one, we have ever seen & the other was on our way home from here by Watson Lake in 2010. The first was not more than a quick glance, this was several minutes. What a wonderful way to end our first day back on Atlin Lake. It’s been 8 years since our last visit here with our first in 2001, when we explored the lake for several days in a inflatable boat, then back again in 2003, our first trip north with the Hunkydory & the last with the Hunkydory & Mokai in 2010. This lake looks similar to Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park, which is a world class beauty, except Atlin Lake is much larger at 70 miles long & close to 14 miles wide if including the channels from Williston Inlet to the widest part of the Lake & it’s Islands. I would rank Atlin Lake & I think most others would too as the most remote & beautiful mountain lake, perhaps even in the entire world, that a trailerable boat can be towed to & launched to explore. The best part to us is very few other boats or people here. 6 miles today
6-23-10 Our 2nd granddaughters 8th Birthday. Happy Birthday Bean.
Up & moving by 7am to make the 20 mile run up Torres Channel to Williston Inlet. The clear blue sky, mirror smooth turquoise waters, more than a hundred islands of all sizes & shapes, shore lines with more small nooks & bites than I’ve seen on any other lake, all with intriguing rock, tree & grass combinations, huge snow capped mountains with glaciers peeking out between & waterfalls throughout, made our memories from the past of the beauty here true, not fanciful. We spent the day exploring this wonderland & returning to & reminiscing over many of the special places & times shared here in the past, while enjoying every minute of the present.
A remarkable Change from past visits here is the out flow rivers of the Lewellyn Glacier. In 2010, I tried to go up one of its outlets at the head of Lewellyn Inlet, the official head of the Yukon River in our motorized kayak called a Mokai. I had a great time trying, but was unsuccessful in reaching the glacier calving lake at its head, due to the danger being to great to continue. That winter, I read the ice burst within the Lewellyn Glacier letting a inner lake flood down the river, I tried to go up. Today, I could see a huge volume of water still in this river & wondered why. Later today, I found out why, when we reached further around the lake, where the other rivers use to flow. The flood created huge sand & gravel bars, that now block these rivers or the glacier calving lake that once fed them is now lower than the old outlet so flowing into the Lewellyn Inlet, & all the water from the Lewellyn Glacier is now flowing out the one, I tried to go up in 2010. We are now anchored in a very small cove on the south east shore of the lake, directly across from where the glacier rivers once flowed. Now maybe a powerful jet boat could go up the outlet, but for sure not a Mokai. 63 miles today 69 total.
6-24-18. Up at 7 am to be greeted by a cloudy sky & a porcupine on the shore. We now started into one of the many Island groups on the southwest side of the lake & though much different than the rugged mountain edged side of the lake it has a more placid beauty with the intricate rocky shores mixed with accessible beaches & covered with a mix of pine, aspen & a tundra like grass with some of the inlets lined with a grass of similar look to sedge grass. Above this are large mountains more rounded than the ragged glacier side but still topped with patches of snow. We crisscrossed the lake to see the 1st narrows & on the way back in the middle of the lake spotted a caribo swimming across. We didn’t want to stress him, so just took one quick photo & a few seconds of video before turning away. With having now seen most of the lake, we had so completely explored in the past, we decided to make for Atlin pull the boat & move on to Teslin Lake & if weather cooperates, return to Nuslutin Bay, which we last explored in the Hunkydory in 2003 & prior to that in 2001 & 2002 in a inflatable boat, when we went several miles up the Nuslutin River & then 40 miles down Teslin lake’s out flow river, the Teslin River. During these trips, we also explored the complete 80 miles of Teslin Lake, so it will be wonderful to again be afloat on it tomarrow.
We are now in a Yukon Campground for the night on the edge of Teslin Lake, where sitting by a campfire with wood provided can look out on the lake. These Yukon Campgrounds are a really good deal at only $12 Canadian per night with campfire wood no charge. 49 miles today & a total of 119 miles, which is only 4 miles more than we did in just one day in our inflatable boat in 2001. It was gps shown mileage that day & though I never recorded the total for the 5 days, i’d estimate it was well over 300 miles.
6-27-18. We decided not to launch the boat on Teslin Lake, due to forecast being extended rain period & finding out the area of the lake we wanted to see again would be best done in the fall, when it’s a staging area for waterfowl. After a couple days of rain staying with us for a 1000 miles on the road in Canada, we crossed the border back into Montana & the good ole US of A. We made it home on the 28th, just in time for all the grandkids to make it here the following day.
On this trip of 40 days, we logged a total of 1349 miles on the water & 4802 miles towing the HunkyDory & that was without any mechanical or electrical problems with boat, trailer or truck, which is the least problems we’ve had since our first extended trip up north with the HunkDory in 2003. We feel really good about that, since the boat is a year 2000, the motors, year 1999 & they now have 2300 hours. The present trailer year 2007 with over 40,000 miles & the truck, year 2006 with 135,000 miles.
Colby
