Day 21 - Three Weeks On The Road & My 1st Day Of R&R

The port in Stewart, BC is the most northern ice free port.

There was an Iron Butt rally earlier in June for motorcyclist that like to put more miles than smiles into their travels.

This was named Moose Pond. It looks like a beautiful moose habitat but sadly, no moose were to be seen!

The only bear that I saw at the Fish Creek Wildlife Observation platform were doing hand stands.

If you enlarge this picture, you might see traces of blue ice in the crevices.

Today I made no forward progress. I decided it was going to be a Rest & Recuperation Day.

My first morning surprise was that the King Edward Hotel in Stewart, BC does not have a coffee maker in the room and the restaurant doesn't open until 7. Of course I awoke at 5 so I had to do all my computer stuff without the benefit of caffeine.

As I was sitting in the restaurant waiting for my poached eggs and corned beef hash to be served, the power went out. This was around 8:30 and it didn't come back on until around 2:30 in the afternoon. (This prevented me from making any VOIP calls from my room after breakfast.) The cook did manage to get my order finished, except for toast, and the meal was quite good. The corned beef hash was homemade.

A gentleman (Harley rider from the look of his apparel.) sat down at the table next to mine. Turns out that he and his wife are from Roanoke and are out doing a trip on their motorcycles similar to mine. It was really nice talking with him. He has a Harley and his wife has a Gold Wing trike that is pulling a camping trailer. They were heading on northward today and I wanted to visit Salmon Glacier so there was no way we could travel together at this point. They travel slow so I might catch up with them in a few days.

My ride out through Hyder, Alaska turned into dirt and gravel road that was full of potholes. So the 50 miles I traveled was not relaxing but by paying attention and making the appropiate manuvers, I didn't have any problem negotiating the road. Even in the rain.

My first stop was the bear observation platform run by the US Forest Service. It is normally a fee area but they were letting folks in free because the salmon weren't running yet and there were no bears to be seen. Too bad as it is really a nice setup that allows you to get very close to the bears. (I checked on my return from the glacier and there were still no fish or bears to be seen.)

It started raining before I left the observation platform, I had donned my riding apparel before leaving Stewart so I was OK with the rain. At least it wasn't foggy and I was able to take pictures. Shortly after leaving the platform you go back into British Columbia. No security checkpoint for either country out in this wilderness. The dirt road climbs upward for many miles, climbing through the snow line and eventually you begin looking down on fresh snow fields. There was evidence of many avalanches along the way, some waterfalls and again, many potholes.

Salmon glacier is hugh. The literature said that it is the largest glacier that is accessable by road. I'm not sure what that means because the road doesn't actually come close to the glacier. The glacier also didn't have a well defined edge to it where the blue ice was visible so that was kind of disappointing. The road continues much higher than the glacier. I ran into fog well before the top of the mountain. There was a wide spot at the top so I turned around and headed back to Stewart. I think that there was an old gold mine further on but don't imagine that I missed a whole lot. Besides I was beginning to feel a tad fatigued manuvering between potholes and was ready for a break from riding. For the 56 miles I road that day my GPS said that I had a moving average of 18 mph. That is slow!

Tomorrow I pack up and head north.