Hyder, Alaska, August 26th, 2009

Hyder is known as a great place to see brown grizzly bears, while they catch fish in Fish Creek. We probably drove about 300 miles just to go to Hyder, when you consider it was 150 miles off our route home.

This building is on the corner of the Rt 37, the Cassiar Highway, and 37A, the Hyder-Stewart Highway. Hyder is just over the line from Canada in Alaska & Stewart is just over the line in British Columbia. I think they are about 2-4 miles apart. The kids in Hyder (USA), go to school in Stewart (Canada). Most of the people in Hyder deal in Canadian money but they do have a US Post Office. Small place.

The road to Hyder was spectacularly beautiful and worth the trip even if we don't see any bears! We saw lots of mountains and glaciers.

This is Hyder with the welcome sign. There is a customs stop here returning into Canada but not going into Alaska and the USA. Interesting... There is no pavement in Hyder and most of it is run-down buildings.

This beautiful blue pond was right next to the boardwalk-observation platform for watching for bears. Since we did not see bears at 2:30 pm when we arrived, we decided to drive on to Salmon Glacier and return later in the afternoon.

Here is a view of Fish Creek as we drove up a forest service road another 18 miles to see the summit of the Salmon Glacier. This is the creek where the bears eat the Salmon, but this is much further up the mountain from where they normally fish.

On the 18 mile long dirt road from Hyder to the top of the Salmon Glacier, we found this truck that had gone off the edge of the road and "High Centered". Here Jim is in the Jeep pulling it back on the road using a chain the other driver had in his truck. The other side of the road is a steep and long drop off. We were relieved he didn't go over the edge on the other side of the road. We were also relieved that the rescue went smoothly.

This is the toe of the glacier as we proceed up the mountain. It generates a lake in front of the toe as it melts.

This is the bottom section of Salmon Glacier. From here it goes about another 7 miles up the mountain and then makes a 90 degree left hand turn and continues up.

Our daughter, Tracy, helped Jim, the photographer, put three shots of the glacier to give this panoramic view of the Salmon Glacier Summit. It makes a Y at this point with part of it going to the left and part to the right. It was an amazing view! This is taken from the top of the mountain at the end of the 18 miles of dirt road. This 18 miles took us one hour!

These are the tree views of the above panorama, starting at the top and coming toward us.

You can see that it resembles a river as it turns 90 degrees and continues down the mountain. How much do you think this ice weighs as it slowly slides down the mountain over the rock? This is the middle shot of the panorama.

This is the right hand side of the panorama. The glacier splits in the middle and some of it flows to the right.

Here we are in front of the top half of Salmon Glacier, at the summit. You can see the glacier turning 90 degrees to the left behind us.

This is the river generated by the glacier as it melts.

This is Jim's shot of the blue pond as we return to try to see bears eating at Fish Creek. It is now 6:30 pm. Guess what...no bears!

I thought this old dead tree with the orange fungus on the sides, on the side of the blue pond was pretty.

There were several of these ducks in that pond but I have not identified it yet. The duck seems grey with a dark head that has a purple-dark color.

We call this camper a "Schwarzenegger mobile"! It is so unusual and rugged looking! This is one view.

This is the other view of the "Schwarzenegger-mobile"! It was in the parking lot after we left the viewing area after seeing no bears!

Guess what? On the way back to the RV we saw these two bears on the side of the road eating blueberries and grasses. These are black grizzly bears, as you can tell in later photos by the hump on their backs behind their heads.

These bears were about 20 feet away and I stood behind a pick-up truck to shoot the photos.

Here is a fierce shot of the grizzly. He is actually looking at us on the road! Thankfully, he never decided to come after us! As Jim says, he would get the old & feeble first and guess who that would be...me!

See, here he decides to go after the blueberries instead!...Good choice. What a thrill to see these two bears on the side of the road!

US Army Corps of Engineers built this stone storehouse in 1896., while doing surveying of boundaries. It is the oldest masonry building in Alaska. It has been used as a cobbler shop and a jail. To the left of it is the marker for the boundary of Alaska, USA & British Columbia, Canada. It is located right at the edge of Hyder.

Jim is standing by the boundary marker I mentioned earlier.

Jim is sadly holding the dying fireweed. This means that summer is about over. He heard this saying in Alaska, "When the fireweed turns to cotton, summer is soon forgotten."

I am standing by another humorous Alaska sign. I wish the store was still open but it was after hours and I could not reward their sense of humor by buying some fudge. (That is probably a good thing!)

This is a street scene of Stewart, which was non-remarkable, I thought. I was grateful, though, that they had a gas station, since we were on empty! :-)

This is a close-up of the toe of another glacier we saw when driving back to the RV. It might be Bear Glacier.

This is a distant shot of that glacier toe of above.

This is the most distant shot of the glacier mentioned above.

This is the Seven Sisters Mountain. You could try counting the peaks to see if you can find seven.

This is another view of the mountains and glaciers along this Stewart-Hyder road.

I think these are Coho Salmon spawning, and therefore very colorful. This is just before they die after depositing their eggs. This is just down from our campsite in Meziadin Lake Provincial Park on Rt 37. We stopped here on our way back to the RV.

This last photo of fireweed is as it "turns to cotton" and that means that "summer is soon forgotten", sadly!