K2inCanada's Blog

May 8, 2019

March Magic

Filed under: Animals, Canada, Ski, Travel, Yukon — K2 in Canada @ 10:56 PM

One more time back to March. Sorry, it took a long time to finish this!

Mar 23 was the day of the Buckwheat Loppet, a new loppet for us this year since we missed out on the Birkie in Edmonton due to the extreme cold in Feb (-31C). The Buckwheat is being organized by the Skagway Nordic Club in Alaska, is being held in Northern BC near Chilkoot Pass and the majority of the attendees are driving in from Whitehorse, Yukon Territories. I would have been really looking forward to this event but my right knee had flared up yet again the week after the Sun Peaks Loppet and I was on pain killers for 3 days. I was just starting to feel better the Thursday before the race but far from perfect. Anyhow, I figures I’d be in good enough shape to ski if not race.

We had our flight to Whitehorse booked for 8:30AM Friday morning. I was still in the bathroom trying to wake myself up with a splash of cold water in the face at 6:30AM when I heard Jeff laugh out loud from the living room. What now? All he said was, check your email. And there it was, the Buckwheat Loppet was canceled due to melting snow conditions. It has not only been above seasonal warm in Vancouver obviously. The email said it was unsafe to put in their usual 25km course but that they would still have a 10km loop ready to be skied on and all the festivities would still be happening. Just no timing. One could ski as long as one wanted and then stop in for a burger at the ice castle. The Buckwheat always has a theme for people to dress up – this year it was Alice in Wonderland. We could have tried to cancel the flight, hotel and car but I figured why not go and check it out anyhow. May still be a fun weekend, even without a race (secretly I was relieved to not have to race on my weak knee). I figured there are plenty of things to do in Whitehorse when it is +10C vs -31C in Edmonton.

And so we were off to the airport shortly after. Fate almost struck again. As we were waiting to board the plane they called for volunteers to stay behind as they had overbooked the flight. 2nd chance to stay home? Nope, I was now intend on going – get out of town for 3 days. It actually is a less than 2hr flight to Whitehorse which makes the total travel time about the same or less as our usual winter getaways by car into the interior and by far more relaxing. Beautiful views along the way for the most part. Once in Whitehorse we had to wait in line for the rental car company since half the plane had rented from the same outfit. But eventually it was our turn and the friendly guy behind the desk tried to save us money by talking us out of paying extra for unlimited kms. But we did the math and knew we would easily be over the limit since it is about 180km one way from Whitehorse Yukon via Chilkoot Pass to Skagway Alaska. Daily limit was 300km. So we finally got the key to the rental car which was supposed to be just in the lot outside. But we looked everywhere, there was no grey Ford Fusion. Hitting the panic button also resulted in complete silence. The poor guy behind the counter was a bit flustered but that had us end up with a bigger car than we had originally paid for for no extra charge, a black Toyota Corolla. Ironically this car had winter tires on while the car we rented in Ottawa just after the biggest snow storm in a long time had none. We were able to check into out hotel early. It was situated in downtown right across the road from the mighty Yukon River. It wasn’t the most luxurious place and the neighbourhood looked a bit sketchy but it was clean and in walking distance of food and beer! We had a late lunch/breakfast at Tonimoes, as suggested by the car rental guy, just a couple blocks away. The food was good, the beer even better and the server very friendly and chatty. We were the only customers.

It was a beautiful sunny and warm day in town and we decided to take a drive up to Chilkoot Pass and take in the sights along the way since we would not have the time in the morning of the race to stop for pictures. And what a drive it was – incredible scenery all the way. I let the pictures below tell the story. We stopped in at Carcross to hike the desert. Carcross Desert isn’t a real desert but a pretty sizable windblow from the glacial sediment collecting along the shores of Bennett Lake. It was warm enough for T-shirt and the shoes came right off as well. I never expected it to be this warm in the Yukon in March – +13C. I sure fell in love with the place. We made it to the “Log Cabin” Provincial Park where the non-race would be hosted the other day. There seemed to be enough snow still to ski, even though it was a bit soft. We saw a couple of skiers come off the trail and they confirmed the 10km loop should be in good shape. We again took our time driving back, stopping again in Carcross to explore the shores of Bennett Lake as the sun was playing with some clouds. The view was absolutely stunning.

Back in Whitehorse we decided to just go back to Tonimoes for dinner but for some unexplained reason they were closed at 7pm on a Friday night. We kept wandering around the downtown area and looking for another place to eat and ended up at “The Burned Toast Cafe“. It sounded more like a breakfast place but they were open for dinner. And we really lucked out here. The food was very good and way above your normal pub food. They used a lot of local stuff. We had Wild Game Potato Skins filled with elk salami and bison pepperoni as appetizers and I followed it up with locally made Elk and Blueberry Sausage. Yummy!!! We had planned to go and see if we can be so lucky to watch the Aurora Borealis that night and the super friendly server told us about THE place to go to. “Just past Kopper King, you know” Well, we did not know where or what Kopper King was/is but I could find Fish Lake Road on my tourist map. “Just 10km up a good gravel road a couple kilometers out of town”. We were able to find the turn off and drove for quite a while. Jeff was ready to stop after 3 km at a lookout over Whitehorse but I insisted to continue. No way it was dark enough there. Jeff was grumbling about it but we drove on and eventually made it to Fish Lake. It was the perfect place for watching the Aurora – if there was one happening. We waited for a good 90min for the show to start. It didn’t. There was a bit of high cloud cover around as well and we figured that might be the reason we saw nothing but darkness ( it wasn’t). Still it was a cool place to be – so quiet and peaceful and not at all that cold either. But we were late to get to bed – past midnight which hasn’t happened in a LONG time.

It was a bit of a noisy night and 6:30AM came way to early. Non-Race Day – we had to be at the start line by 9:30AM. It was a pretty nice morning and the drive in the early morning light was just as beautiful as the day before. I was sooo sure we would see a moose on the drive but nothing. No deer, either. Nothing! We made it up to the Log Cabin PP with plenty of time to spare. But as the start time came near the parking lot was still fairly empty. Maybe most people decided to stay home? Not so, we were an hour EARLY!!! Apparently the race start time was on Alaskan time, even though we were still in BC, and Alaska is an hour behind BC. I could have slept for another hour?! Oh well, it was not a bad day and we had a bit of a walk and admired all the costume of the people getting ready for the ski. Most of the participants had a costume. From Grinsekatze = Cheshire Cat to card soldiers and nasty queen, everyone and some were showing up. Very cool. I felt out of place in my “race” suit even though it’s a perfect costume for me.  Eventually we got near the start time. They still had staggered start times by 15min for the 50km (which Jeff had signed up for) and 25km (which I had signed up for) and the 10km even though there was no race. Jeff start did have a few young guys line up, all in race suits and Jeff realized there may still be someone to race with. And off they go… racing :-). My start, 15min later, was a lot more civilized and almost everyone wore a costume. Initially the trails were in decent shape but fairly narrow. It was flat. I was going fine mid pack. But it did not take long until we hit the first obstacle. We literally hit a wall of sticks sticking out of the trail right in the middle of a short steep section with a 90degree turn at the bottom that looked like trouble. I stopped dead, bit the snow and off course my bad knee did not like that one bit. While I tried to get onto my feet again, I saw a few skiers almost kiss the tree at the 90degree turn below hardly making the corner. No way I could do that on my bad knee. I waited until most people passed me and then actually took my skis off to walk down. I sunk in up to my hips – so much about not enough snow. It was NOT fun. The trail continued to be challenging. If I had been in better physical or psychological conditions, meaning not afraid of hurting my knee yet again, this could have been a fun course but it was narrow with some really steep, although short turny and twisty downhills. Mind you it never seemed to go up ever. I was terrified by the time I made it to the ice castle for the first time, about 4km into the “race”. But the ice castle was cool – the shape of a big grinning cat big enough to walk into – and I was able to take a deep breath and get myself together again. If they can build an ice sculpture like this for us I can finish this damn ski! So I continued on thinking I want to at least finish the 10km. I did end up walking a few more hills even though the first one was the worst. On top of all that, it started to drizzle a bit but I hardly noticed that and it did not last all that long. The last stretch had a lot of debris on the trail and I put another nice gash into my base. Overall the skins worked fine though.  Jeff passed me while I was still on my first lap. It was tough skiing for me and I can’t really say I enjoyed it but I managed to almost finish a 2nd lap secretly hoping Jeff would happen to catch up again when I was near the ice castle – you get to see it three times during the 10km loop actually – but he did not catch me until after I passed the ice castle for the last time with about 2-3kms to go. He also thought conditions were tricky but of course he raced on, intend on finishing his 50km. He was on his last lap. So we decided to meet up at the ice castle. In stead of doing another full 10km I decided to just turn around which was a bit tricky on the narrow trail with lots of people coming towards me. But I made it back to the castle, nobody complained about me going the wrong way, everyone smiled. Luckily the drizzle had stopped. There were tons of people at the ice castle and many amazing costumes to look at. The ice castle had more carvings in it than I originally saw – absolutely amazing! And they had the BBQ going as well – how they got all this to this place in the middle of the ski trail system is a mystery to me. Pretty committed volunteers, almost puts all of our local races to shame. Although I always admire all and every volunteers out there in the freezing cold waiting for the slow skiers like me to finish. Here nobody waited, everyone was partying since the ice castle was also the food station. Once Jeff finally finished, we quickly grabbed a burger and then skied back the last 3km to the car without any further incident.

We decided to drive down into Skagway for the actual apres-ski party which was supposed to be amazing. Not sure though how anything could beat the ice castle thing. It did not take long until we hit the Canadian customs booth but then there was no US booth anywhere near it. We continued on driving through the high mountain pass. It was raining again and visibility was about 5m when we drove into the low hanging clouds. All of a sudden, Jeff hit the breaks complaining why they would reduce the speed from 90 to 40 without a warning. Then it dawned on us – that sign was in miles/hr. We were no longer in Canada. Somewhere in the clouds we must have crossed the border. We still had not seen a US customs booth. It probably took another 10min already going down towards the coast until we finally reached US customs. Off course I had to go in to get my Visa and it took quite some time. Not because of me getting the visa but because all the custom officers, all 2 of them, were busy checking the many cars coming down from the ski race :-).  Getting the actual visa was painless. We finally made it into Skagway. It was overcast and windy and pretty much deserted. We had a quick look at the ocean but it just look uninviting. The town lives by the cruise ships that stop here all summer long. In March there aren’t many people around but everything looked in very good shape. The “downtown” area was kinda neat with it’s “gold rush” style architecture. It turned out that the apres-ski party wouldn’t start for a couple more hours. Too late for Jeff and I who had to drive the 2hrs back to Whitehorse that evening and neither of us was looking forward to drive the foggy pass in the dark with dropping temperatures turning the wet road to a sheet of ice. Hence we ended up in the only open pub, a local brewhouse and had some beer and food. Both were very good. Next time we plan a bit better and stay the night.

The drive back was actually much nicer than expected. The clouds had cleared up and we had some beautiful views over the white emptiness along the pass. That’s the reason both border stations are so far apart from each other – the area is so remote it was too expensive to get power up there. So if you ever want to set your foot on US soil without having to go though border control – knock yourself out at Chilkoot pass :-).

Back in town we had a quick rest and then drove out to the Takhini Hot Springs about 10min out of town. These hot springs aren’t huge or luxurious but they also were not busy at all and are nice and warm. It was awesome, exactly what we needed, and we soaked our sore bodies for quite some time. Last stop for the day was Lake Laberge to see the apparently even stronger Aurora that evening, sometime within 3 hours of midnight – or so we were told. We stopped at a gas bar to pick up some chips and beers for our evening on the Lake. The drive to the Lake Laberge campsite took some time but we were the first ones there – other than a family camping. It was so quiet and dark – until someone crossed the still frozen lake in their ATV. Then again it turned quiet and peaceful. Stars started to come out – a million stars. Wow! The sky was almost white with stars. Then more people showed up and it got “noisy” again. We stuck it out till about 11:30PM. No hint of an Aurora yet but we were both too tired to stay any longer. As we left there, we saw at least 3 actual tour busses coming down the road to the lake. But at that time I wasn’t sad we would miss it. I wasn’t looking forward to experience it with all those noisy people around. Funny how quickly the Far North makes you feel 3 people are a crowd :-). Anyhow, turned out we missed nothing. But we had a great night sleep.

Day 3 of our mini trip. So far it had been just short of amazing and very relaxing (yesterdays anxiety attack during the ski long forgotten). Another blue bird day and still not too cold. We had 45min to kill before The Burnt Toast Cafe would open for breakfast and hence did a walk along the mighty Yukon River. Not much was left of the ice that had still covered the river only 2 days ago. Amazing how quickly the snow and ice was disappearing everywhere. And off course we paid a visit to the SS Klondike Paddle-wheeler who was running the Yukon River from 1929 to 1955 between Whitehorse and Dawson City. We paddled that stretch many years ago in a double sea kayak as participants of the Yukon Quest Race – 740km in length. The race still runs every year….but we never had the ambitions to do it again.

We made it to the cafe just in time before the crowds and got a window seat. Apparently this is a popular place with the locals. Breakfast did not disappoint. More awesome sausages for me and pulled pork hash for Jeff. No wonder they ran out of pulled pork for dinner the previous night, given the amount they serve for breakfast. The rest of the day before our flight out at 5pm was spent at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve near Takhini Hot Springs. You can visit the park by foot or bike or buss. Obviously we decided to walk. It’s quite a big park and sometimes animals are far away but it was fantastic! From deer to moose to sheep to goat to caribou to muskox. All my favourite hoofed animals were there. The two moose of course were the highlight – we got so close. Unfortunately the friendly park people had specifically warned us about NOT touching or feeding the moose and it took all my willpower not to. As for all fenced in animals, the grass always looks greener on the other side. Except, these two moose were not trying to get at the grass but the small still leave-less bushes along the fence. Pretty tough diet if you ask me but they moved the whole fence around to get at it. The predators of the North were not quite as well represented – all for the better since they are always kept in too small of an area. So no bears or wolf but they did have foxes and a couple of lynx. The lynx were circling their habitat for quite a while seemingly looking for a way out which made me a bit sad but also offered quite nice views of the animals themselves and we got to see them quite close. It’s not quite the same as seeing these animals in the wild but this park did a great job in trying to provide enough space for the animals to roam. We spent many hours walking the ~5km trails system of the park and I took many pictures of course, until my battery died :-). Time to go home, sigh!

A most magical trip – amazing, scary, fun & relaxing at at the same time! For a week or two after Jeff and I looked into buying a property up there. I am sure the weather may not always be this cooperative, especially in March :-).

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Takhini River

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