October 9, 2025
After spending the night in Haines Junction I filled my car with gas and headed south towards Haines, Alaska. The drive is a little under 3 hours, and will involve another border crossing.
It started off as a beautiful sunny morning.
That is actually the sign looking back towards town. I don’t recall seeing a sign as I drove south into town yesterday but I may have just missed it.
I was surprised to see those low clouds in the distance. As I got closer I realized that I was approaching a lake and I thought perhaps it was just morning fog over the water. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Even after I had passed the lake, extremely low clouds persisted.
I could see well enough to spot this sign near the road:
That is the first time I have ever seen such a sign. Of course I wasn’t worried about snow plows this time of year, but I soon saw another sign which helped explain things a little better.
I was approaching a series of very tall mountains on both sides of the road which have a very high risk for experiencing avalanches during the winter. I never really felt that the elevation of the roadway was changing significantly, so apparently the road was weaving between the mountains. With the low clouds I couldn’t see ANY mountains, must less determining how close I was to them or how tall they were.
So the wrong-way snowplows are apparently employed to clear the roads quickly after an avalanche.
The low clouds did close in a little bit, but visibility was not a problem.
I admit I stopped and got out of the car to take the photo above. I saw the sign indicating a “photo op” 2 kilometers ahead, and walked over to get a shot of just the sign and the clouds.
I soon crossed the border and entered Alaska. The clouds were lifting enough that I could at least see a little ways off the road, but didn’t really see anything worth stopping for.
When I was a few miles away from Haines I came to this sign advising me that I was entering a Bald Eagle Preserve.
When I got to a place where there was a large parking area I stopped and got out of the car to walk up and down the road to see if I could spot any bald eagles. I did see a few, but they were flying pretty high up in the sky and perching up in the trees. Few things are as difficult for me than taking a photo of a bird in flight. I was content to just enjoy the solitude. I will have an opportunity to see some bald eagles on the ground later in the day.
These are views of the Chilkat River, looking north and south from where I had stopped.
After taking a break I drove into town to get my bearings. I will show you those photos in the next post, and will be showing some maps I found on a sign in town which better illustrate where I am.
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