The Salmon Glacier near Hyder

The Salmon Glacier near Hyder

Black Bear near Stewart

At the foot of a glacier

Grizzly Bears on the rocks near our camp

Potential campsite near the Salmon Glacier

The road to the Salmon Glacier

Marmot on the road to the salmon glacier

The view from out campsite

The Gand Duc mine

Once one turns west to Stewart almost immediately you enter the tight valley. Steep mountains rise up sharply from the road. You are stricken by the sight of small water falls that cut down from the mountain tops, fed by glaciers. You find snow dotting the mountain side and piles of snow left over from last years avalanches sitting on the valley floor. Two kilometers after the turn off we came across a black bear feeding on the grass right on the edge of the highway. We stopped and took a picture over the top of the hood of the Toyota. We got very close, so close in fact we couldn’t see him because the truck door was in the way. We continued on until we reached the Bear Glacier. Even though it has receded quite a bit in the past few years it is still a spectacular sight. The amount of water running out from underneath the ice is impressive if not a little sad. From what I have watched on documentaries of the worlds glaciers, the Bear Glacier doesn’t have long to live. We took some pictures, some of which turned out really good, with the family in the fore ground.
We drove through Stewart and Hyder quickly. I was expecting a border guard and possibly some trouble crossing as I don’t have a passport for me or the kids. There wasn’t even a booth going to the US side let alone a border guard. We continued through Hyder, there wasn’t much there and we didn’t stop. It is pretty hard to get Hyderized when you have kids waiting for you in the truck. We did stop quickly at the bear viewing boardwalk and paid our $5 to look at the creek with about 5 salmon in it. I had to laugh at the Us’s version of protecting the people by putting up a 3.5 foot fence. From what I could tell it would have been extremely easy for any bear to get on to the boardwalk. We didn't see any bears until we got back to the truck and far in the distance we saw a young grizzly on the road. I shot some video and then moved on to the Salmon Glacier road. The road was narrow and twisty at this point. It had a few pot holes, but otherwise it didn’t tip off what was to come. So away we went, happy travelers, fifth wheel and all. We met quite a few vehicles, most were cars but some were trucks, none were carrying or pulling a RV. I realized why about 5 miles in. The road started to incline quickly and got narrower and more twisty. We traveled up steeply for quite a few kilometers. I stopped to let the transmission cool off part way up and to take some pictures. (did I mention I have taken 958 pictures to date?) The view was breath taking but was nothing of what was to come. A few corners and many feet higher in elevation we get our first sight of a Salomon Glacier. Holy f@ck, one can’t describe what there is to see there. The pictures I have will help but really you will have to see it for your self if you really want to fully understand what is there. The Glacier on this side is roughly (very roughly) 10 miles long. I say roughly because it is really hard to judge the size of something this massive. It fills the whole valley and covers most of the mountain of the other side of the valley. The glacier has what looks like a curved dirt road on it from the rock it has ground off the side of the mountain. On the bottom of the valley the ice is broken up and is full of crevasses ending in a large glacier lake. The lake has huge icebergs in it more than likely bigger than semi truck with its trailer, but in reality it was hard to tell. They were probably bigger as any trees I could see near the bottom of the valley looked like dots. The road we are on you can see in the distance, it looks like a thin ribbon wrapped around and stretched out half way up the mountain. It goes on for as far as we can see. We continue on even though we see many tracks that turn around. We come across a huge opening in the rock. At first I think it is a mine shaft but it seems much too large. We stop there and we have lunch. MMMM kraft dinner the orange death once again. Once finished we ventured into the would be mine shaft. The floor was flat and it was huge! The ceiling was probably 12-15 feet high and the shaft was probably 20 feet wide. About 50 feet in there was a  water fall coming out of the ceiling that Zach and Rylan wanted to run through. The water was very cold so I said no, the claustaphobia already setting in. I like the idea of caves and mine shafts but they scare the crap out of me, it is really irritating. I guess watching the movie “The descent” didn’t help me much. As I was in there that was the only thing I could think of. Anyway, looking down the shaft you could see a small pin prick of light. We ventured in about 200-300 feet before I told Zach I had enough. There was still lots of light, we had a headlamp, but when you have to worry about not only your safety but the safety of your kids one gets pretty conservative… at least that is my excuse.  We walk back out with Zach and Rylan protesting. Only Ryker and I were glad to be out in the open light. We keep driving and reach the highest point of the road. We couldn’t see much as the clouds were covering us. They were so thick the road was starting to be obscured slightly. It was time for headlights. The road from here started to go down again, many roads started appearing going up the mountain, steeper than hell. There I was wishing once again for my jeep. The area was mined quite heavily and still is. There are roads all over the place. The kind of roads the four wheel drive club would love to explore. We have been passing tons of creeks and water falls coming down from the side of the mountain. It is starting to get late. Before I saw the area I was toying with the idea for staying the night at the foot of the glacier near the abandoned Grand Duke Mine site. Now we have to as there was no way I was going to try and traverse that mountain road with a fifth wheel at night. I was starting to think I missed the mine sire somehow as we had been driving for some time and we past the second toe of the Salmon Glacier quite some time ago. Eventually we see yet another part of the Glacier on the other side of the mountain and the Grand Duke Mine site started to come into view. Bloody hell is it ever a huge structure. The entire height is probably 5 stories high, and a few hundred feet wide. We see a little Knoll (more on this knoll later)that over looks the mine site and the glacier. We pass it up as Zach wants to be closer to the mine and the glacier. Since he is on the trip too and I am letting him make some decisions, we head down. It was windier down there but it was a large open, flat area the boys could run around and ride their bikes. We found a spot, then moved quickly when I saw an existing fire pit even closer to the mine. We are so close now one can almost feel its presence as you sit around the fire. It gave me the willies anyway. You sure feel small in that valley. One thing that worried me as I was setting up, was a hole I found in the middle of the road. This hole had a railroad tie across it. I walked over to have a look down it to see how deep it was. Wow, it was a good 20-30 feet deep and had water in the bottom. It was a concrete shaft 2.5 feet in diameter that led to god knows where. There were about three steel rungs at the top and nothing but smooth concrete to the water. If someone fell down there they were not getting out. I called Zach over and told him to look down then told him that if he fell down there was no way to get him out and he would die down there. STAY AWAY! I walked a short distance up the road and picked up a palette and placed it over the hole then put the rail tie on top of it. That will keep Rylan’s curiosity at bay. Zach and I walked over closer to the mine, keeping Rylan in sight (he was busy on his trike). I turned my back for about 20 seconds, turned around and there was Rylan in the nearest creek sitting in the water. “Great” I say to myself, “one crisis after another.” I walked over to fish him out of yet another water hazard and find him quite happy to be soaked with ice cold glacier water… KIDS! I get him stripped down and put the PJs on and put him down to sleep. He dropped off right away. Zach and I started a fire. Then Zach asked to get closer look at the glacier.  The sun was setting but it didn’t look like that far or difficult of walk, so I agree and off we went. Well as I was saying before things are so huge in this area they look closer. The glacier was about 500 meteres to a kilometer away but the terrain wasn’t that great. It took a while for Zach to get though it. There were about three largish creeks to cross so that took a little time to find a good place for Zach to cross. We end up within a 100 feet of the toe and find that it is about 4-5 stories high. We are in the danger zone and there was a rather large piece of ice ready to fall into the lake below. If this happened we would be swept off the rock we were standing on. We take a couple picture then take off quickly. It was really starting to get dark now and was getting difficult to see our path back. I end up finding a not so great place to cross the creeks, and get wet carrying Zach across. When we get back the fire is still going, we stoke it up and take off our shoes to dry then out. It is really dark now but you can still make out the mine not too far off.  It is really giving me the creeps (I don’t get creeps) so as it was late anyway we go to bed.
We wake up late as usual and start a fire to burn some garbage and warm up. The first truck I see comes down about 10am and the older couple stops to say hello. We says, “just so you know there are three grizzly bears about 100 yards up on that knoll up there.” I say “really!?” and he shows me some pictures. They were huge! I take my binoculars out and sure enough I can see one of them laying on his back sunning himself of a large boulder. That boulder would have been 30 feet away from the campsite I wanted to stay at last night. I thank Zach for picking the site he did and we quickly pack up. All that bacon and burning paper plates has probably got them rather interested in us.  We say good bye to our campsite and leave. I get the video camera out and take some footage of the bears as we leave. The way back was the same, awesome and we stop for more pictures. We saw a marmot and I got a few close up shots of him. We managed to get the truck and trailer down the mountain with out incident. The truck has a button you can push to select low gear, it worked great slowing the truck down those long grades. We get to the border crossing and talk to the Canadian border guard. He is quite relaxed. He asked me if these were my kids and I say “yes”. He asks me if I have any fire arms I say “yes”. He asked me if I have my Pal, I say yes… but when I got to get it I can’t find my wallet. He didn’t seem to worry too much about it which kind of shocked me. But I did let him into the trailer to let him check if it was loaded. I guess they have been having problems with US citizens driving around with loaded shot guns in their trucks. He checks it, and tells me not to worry about the Pal and I was free to go. “Cool” I think to myself, “This is the way a crossing should be.” We stop for gas, lunch and wash the truck then head out. Our plan was to take the Cranberry Connector to New Ayinsh, then head south to Terrace. We wanted to camp at Lava Lake but there were no places to camp that we found. We passed though a valley that was a provincial park (I can’t remember the name at the moment) that had a recent volcanic event (geologically speaking). 255 years ago a volcano erupted just north of Terrace (the most recent in Canada I read somewhere). The entire valley has little vegetation left and is covered in volcanic rock. The trip from there consisted of a winding narrow well paved road. Along the side of the road were “lava pools” in amongst trees (some have survived or grew back here).