There is a serious lack of RVing music available. Cliff Rodman has done his best to rectify this with twenty-one songs for the open road. For a short time, you can download all the songs at no charge (donations are welcome, however!). His songs are catchy, funny, sentimental, and often set to familiar tunes. My favourite is ‘In My RV Again.’
Author: Rae
Bareloon Lake to Bennett and Out
The meanest miles didn’t give up once. The final stretch of the trail is uphill through sand. Never was I so happy to see a church steeple as I did when we reached Lake Bennett, our final campground!
We stopped just before the campground to look out over the lake. There were two floatplanes there. Flying out is another option when finishing up the Chilkoot and the one chosen by a family of 8 (including two young children) who had paralleled our trip, but pushed on to Bareloon when we stopped at Lindeman. We took a moment to wave them off as they flew into the wild blue yonder. Clichéd, I know, but the pictures will prove the cliché true.
We were met just before Bennett by another Sea to Sky guide who kindly brought in our last dinner, breakfast, and lunch so we’d have less to carry. Dinner that night at Bennett was an event, with caesar salad, mini-pizzas (assembled on site), pasta, wine, and cheesecake!
There is a lot to see in the Bennett area, so I explored a bit during the evening. What struck me the most was the amount of debris, mostly glass and rusted cans, which cover the site. They are all that remain of the hotels and saloons which covered this site during the gold rush.
Bennett is a strikingly beautiful location, a turquoise lake resting against grey mountains and rimmed with purple fireweed. Lake Louise doesn’t hold a candle to it! Mark was right when he said that hikers who take the shortcut from Bareloon miss out on something extraordinary.
We had another leisurely morning the next day and the guys made us pancakes for breakfast, a real treat after almost a full week of oatmeal and breakfast bars! We then went for a walk, sans pack, to check out the Bennett cemetery and also to look over the rapids that separate Lindeman and Bennett Lakes.
Lunch was veggie quesadillas and then it was time to start getting serious about packing up as more hikers were coming off the trail and in need of our sandy tent sites.
We left Bennett at 3PM on a train headed for Skagway that would drop us off in Fraser, where we’d left our van. It was strange to move forward without effort and I actually felt a bit queasy on the hour or so ride!
En route back to Whitehorse, we stopped briefly in Carcross to pick up our trail completion certificates and to poke around the tiny community. Our day, and our journey together, ended in Whitehorse, at the High Country Inn, where we had dinner without even changing or showering first. We ate out on the patio. 😀
My journey over the Chilkoot Pass is one I will carry in my heart forever. It was a week that blended history, ecology, and exercise; one that took me from lush Alaskan rainforest to British Columbian desert in the footsteps of men and women who shaped the modern Yukon territory. It was the trip of a lifetime.
I was happy to top up my water bottle from this beautiful stream.
A trapper’s cabin just before Bennett, with Victor for scale. In case it’s not clear, it’s the cabin, not Victor, that’s short. 🙂
the meanest miles now throw sand at us
Lake Bennett, with a floatplane in the foreground.
Lake Bennett
waving goodbye to stranger-friends from the trail
I made it!
last camp
gold rush cans
St Andrews church
close up of the steeple
this washing machine was only one of several interesting artifacts found near the beach
a gold rush bottle depot (don’t walk barefoot around Bennett!)
ah, the taste of civilization. 🙂
Lake Bennett
gold rush marker indicating that rapids are coming up (on the stretch of river between lakes Lindeman and Bennett)
the rapids just before Lake Bennett
the end of the trail, or the beginning if you’re crazy enough to hike it backwards
waiting for the train out
coming full circle as the train passes Log Cabin (former site of a NWMP outpost), our first stop on the way to Fraser
the is the oldest continuously operating store in the Yukon (Carcross)
Lindeman to Bareloon Lake
I didn’t feel very good during our last morning of hiking, so the climb to Bareloon Lake is remembered as being very harsh. It probably wasn’t that bad, but it was a climb and a half over one ridge after another. We arrived at Bareloon at about 11 and decided to have an early lunch that stretched into a two hour break complete with a siesta.
Bareloon Lake was an incredibly beautiful spot on the only swimmable (ie. not freezing) lake on the trail. The campground is built on a granite cliff and has an open sided lunch shelter. It is the only campground without bear lockers.
Some hikers choose to go straight from Happy Camp to Bareloon and then take a shortcut from Bareloon to ‘Log Cabin’ where there is a parking lot. Others will race from Bareloon to Bennett to catch the 2PM train back to ‘civilization.’ Sea to Sky opts instead for an extra night on the trail at Bennett, meaning that there is no rush to get there, which explains our leisurely lunch at Bareloon.
Bareloon Lake
Bareloon Lake (and proof that I was there)
overview of Bareloon Lake campground
Deep Lake to Lindeman City
The afternoon’s hike was super easy. In fact, this day was the only one that I would qualify as being effortless. It was a real treat!
Shortly after leaving Deep Lake, we came upon the remains of an old canvas boat as well as a sled. It was here that we began to leave the alpine terrain behind and began to head down into boreal forest.
We arrived mid-afternoon at Lindeman City, the largest campground of the Chilkoot Trail. There are two tenting areas, we stayed at the upper near the warden’s cabin. Lindeman City is a lovely spot on a turquoise lake and it’s flat, something not very common on the Chilkoot Trail!
Lindeman City felt like ‘civilization.’ There is a warden’s cabin on site as well as a museum. Moreover, we arrived on the eve of Parks Canada Day, so we were treated to a Robert Service recital after dinner! The warden also served up treats of cookies and fruit salad. We had had fresh vegetables every day, but no fresh fruit. Canned fruit mixed with fresh apples was quite possibly the yummiest thing I have ever eaten!
After the ‘show’, several of us went for a walk to see the cemetery above Lindeman City and also to visit the lower campground. We saw a family of ptarmigans en route. They are silly birds who are not afraid of people, hence why they were such a popular food source during the gold rush.
old canvas boat and a sled
big country
first glimpse of Lake Lindeman
cabin at the upper campground
picnic table with view over the lake
a cute little new friend of mine
soaking my sore feet in icy water (I twisted the left one going over the pass and it was pretty big by this point!)
the river, the lake, the fireweed, the mountains, the majesty of it all…
I asked Victor if he needed help whipping the mousse. No, no, thanks! But a minute and a half later, he handed me the bowl. So much work, but such yumminess!
the interpretive tent at Lake Lindeman
this guy knew his Robert Service and also had no inhibitions…
a slightly less traumatizing costume
bury me here…
a grave at the cemetery overlooking Lake Lindeman
early morning at Lindeman
Mark started each day with a Robert Service poem. He saved the best for last and is here reading ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’
Happy Camp to Deep Lake
Oy. My knees were sore when I woke up at Sheep Camp! I inherited ‘bad knees’ from my dad (who had a knee replacement in his mid-50s). If you want to get technical, the condition is called ‘chondromalacia of the patella’, which means the softening and degeneration of the cartilage under the knee cap. I try to mitigate my knee pain by watching my weight and keeping my legs strong, but there’s only so much I can do. There was no way to hide the fact that every knee bend that morning was excruciating. Otherwise, I felt surprisingly good and raring to go even though I had slept poorly.
We had a fairly leisurely morning at Happy Camp as we were allowed to sleep in until 8 or so. I was up around 7 and journaled as I waited for hot water to be ready for coffee, enjoying the beautiful landscapes.
Just out of Happy Camp we were treated to an extraordinary sighting: a grizzly bear! Mark declared it his best sighting of a grizzly for this trail and possibly of his career. The bear crossed a ridge we were just about to climb, so we waited for several minutes to give it time to get out of the area, then Mark led us up the ridge yelling ‘Hey, bear!’ every few feet. He was obviously tense, but I was relaxed behind him figuring that he would get eaten first. 😀
When we got to the top of the ridge, we were able to look down to the valley below and there stood the grizzly! It was a National Geographic moment, with the grizzly moving about on grass by a stream with a snowy glacier as a backdrop. I’m disappointed that I didn’t get better pictures of the bear, so you’ll just have to trust me that the brown spot in the relevant pictures are of a bear about the size of a small elephant!
The rest of the morning was pleasant and leisurely hiking that felt like a real treat after the previous day! Lunch was had at Deep Lake, a picturesque spot by a fast moving creek.
spot the grizzly on the ridge 🙂
I swear there’s a grizzly down there!
These pictures really don’t do justice to the landscape…
Where the trail wasn’t clearly defined, there were cairns to mark the way.
Long Lake
That’s a bone in the water, possibly from a horse or an ox.
arriving at Deep Lake
arriving at Deep Lake
a boot
Deep Lake
Bear cache at Deep Lake
Deep Lake