Miles Canyon

 Good morning, my friends! I'm writing fast this morning. We're moving on down the road again. Our next stop will be Kluane Lake. We'll be staying at another Yukon Government campground. Some of the campgrounds are first come, first serve, but I have a reserved spot at this one. At $18 Canadian, it's a bargain.

So let's back up to Saturday's wanderings, shall we? We're going on a short hike today, so lace up those hiking boots, my friends. First of all, let's enjoy the blooming lupine right next to our door. I love lupine. This seems like a smaller variety from what we see at Mt. Rainier, but I could be wrong about that.

Okay...off we go. Just about ten minutes down the road is the turn-off to Miles Canyon. I forget how I heard about this place, but I'm so glad we went.

We turned down a road and traveled a short distance to a parking lot. This isn't a place for RV's. There's no turn-around. At the entrance to the trail, we read these two informational signs.

Looking past the signs, we could see this. Wow.

We walked down these steps...

And then we could see the bridge that would take us to the other side.

We read this informational sign. I really hoped we'd see some beavers, but we did not.

Okay, so let's just take a stroll across that bridge, shall we? And behave yourselves. Anyone caught jumping on or off the bridge will have to wait in the car. No exceptions.

It was surprisingly stable. I'll tell you why in just a minute.

Looking to the left, it looked like this:

Looking to the right, it looked like this:

Of course, there were love locks, but surprisingly few.

Now here's why the bridge is so stable. It is anchored to the sides of the cliff by cables. It was very windy there that day, and a strong wind would, no doubt, set the bridge swinging. These cables prevented that.

On the other side, we took a short trail. From this spot, one could go high or go low. We took the high road.

Along the way, we passed these blooming things. My phone tells me this is ranunculus.

And these are wild strawberries. It's a larger flower than the ones we have back home.

Looking back to the left side of the bridge, we could see a viewpoint above us. We promised ourselves we'd drive up there before we left.

Walking on...this is the Yukon River.

Here's another shot of the bridge.

There were boaters...

And canoes on the river. These are available as rentals somewhere locally.

We were nearly to another decision point when I took this shot.

A few steps on, we could continue on the upper trail, or we could make our way down a fairly steep embankment to get closer to the river. We took the latter option.

Closer to the water, it looked like this.

From there, we made our way back to the Jeep and drove to the viewpoint above. There, we read these informational signs:

Looking out across the landscape, we saw this:

Looking a little more to the right, we saw this:

And I took one more shot as we got back in the Jeep.

The road to Miles Canyon crosses over this narrow-gauge rail.

And I put my feet on both sides just to show you I'm not kidding about it being narrow. Unless you're some kind of gymnast, don't try doing this on a standard gauge rail

Here's what the Milepost says about this:

Okay, so that was Saturday. 

Yesterday, Sunday, I convinced Smitty to get out for a walk. We are backed onto a wooded area. When there's too much activity, I'll carry him to a less populated spot where woofies and Mans won't bother him. 

Looking back, we were within eyeshot of our camper (the one on the left). If something startles him and he slips his harness, he'll run back to the camper...unlike Miss Sadie who will run away. That's why she can't get out for walks any more.

Instead she cheers Smitty on and points out any vermin he could kill from the safety of her catio.

The walk was short. A man and his woofie walked by, fouling the air. We had to go back inside.

After that, we headed to the Yukon Transportation Museum. We enjoyed our visit. There was lots of interesting stuff to look at. We're not really museum people, but this one sounded interesting. You can see more about the exhibits at that link I've given you.

The one thing I really wanted you to see was this original Snowcat. Check out that logo on the front. It's Fluffy the Snow Cat.

Well. Doncha know I had to read more about Fluffy. Here's what I know:

Now you know it too. 

Okay, my friends. That's all I have time for this morning. We'll be moving on in an hour or so. We'll be crossing the border into Alaska on Thursday (I think). We're holding off filling our refrigerator with much until we're safely across. Our first stop in Alaska will be Tok, where we'll spend two nights and take care of some other "life" things. Between here and there, we're hoping for more eye-popping scenery and more wildlife. And good roads would be a bonus.