Arctic the Blue Whale

We took a very late ferry from Haines to Juneau, grabbing a little sleep on the ferry and a little more when we arrived in Juneau. We wanted to do a little more caching in Juneau before we had to catch our flight home, so we set our sights on some of the easier caches in town. this one was found behind the medical center that is located somewhat north of downtown Juneau.

Battery Point was the only cache in Haines; it was to be archived after we found it, so we packed out the container.

The hiking opportunities in Haines are wonderful; the trails are well maintained, and cover diverse terrain from ocean beaches to mountain tops.

We spent the day climbing Mt Decoli, and had a lot of fun doing it. One of the advantages of being this far north is that you have unlimited hiking light this time of year. One of the disadvantages is that there's no mechanism short of exhaustion to get you off the mountain!

We found the renagades cache while traveling from Snag Junction Campground to Congdon Creek Campground. Yukon Territory is beautiful, but southwestern Yukon Territory has a special allure. The geology is spectacular -- snow and ice encrusted, craggy peaks on one side of the road, and ancient, weathered mountains on the other. The road itself has its own special excitement -- I'm amazed those large and heavy RVs don't need more chassis and suspension repair, with the way the tourists drive. And, there's no wonder nearly all the locals have chipped and cracked windshields. The temperature was down a bit, and there were intermittent showers. Something was keeping the mosquitos in check, which was great!

We camped at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's West Fork Campground. The mosquitos were light, and the scenery is terrific. I'm not into fishing, but I suspect the fly fishing in the West Fork is nice.

The Moose Meat cache is located quite a ways above the road leading from Chicken to the junction with the Alaska Highway. Hiking up the hill on a jeep road leads to several areas where folks have camped, presumably while hunting in the area. The area in which is the cache is located is covered by tundra, which is interesting to walk on. It's like trying to gently walk across a foot-thick foam rubber carpet.