McDole's Alaska Trip: Leg 5 Destruction Bay to Tok, Alaska

We left Whitehorse Wednesday June 9 headed for Destruction Bay on knock-down-dead beautiful Lake Kluane. Unfortunately the weather turned for the worse and we couldn’t fully see and appreciated the magnificent Kluane Mountain Range and Ice Field. We saw enough to feel and see the grandeur. Always ice and snow, forever. The campground is Congdon Bay and is a government CG, no amenities, but awesome. There are about 7 or 8 sites that back up to the lake and we all were able to get one, good score.

Entering Haines Junction, Kluane Mountains in background.

First view of the lake, of course in bad weather but this will change, in fact it cleared up shortly after we arrived.

Roxy snoozing in the back seat. “Are we there yet Dad?”

Some views around camp.

Mike and Sally’s spot, lake in background.

One of the views out one of our windows!

We did try our hand at fishing, especially after Mike caught a Lake Trout on his first cast. Fishing slowed down quite a bit but with a little perseverance (and stubbornness) I finally landed a nice, big lake trout. Here is an example of perseverance (note the lone fisher person in the water).

I was all by myself and hooked into this really nice lake trout and was able to beach land it. I let out a real loud whoop and a big yahoo. It was 31” long and we estimated 10 to 12 pounds (my de-liar tool only goes to 8 pounds and it was bottomed out even after removing the entrails – nice fish). We filleted it out, Joan took some of the fish to do her beer batter magic again and I took the rest and marinated it (used some of Ruth’s home made salsa) and barbequed it in foil. We didn’t eat until about 8 but what a meal.

The remains, the orts, not much left. But a bunch of happy campers.

Here are some folks fishing.

Shelle working it, what a view. We never got used to the fantastic scenery.

Me looking for anther one.

Jeff holding up his big prize keeper. At this point he had been skunked but he will soon change that.

Big lake, little dog. Water was too cold to go swimming, but just right for lake trout.

Nobody was anxious to leave this paradise, but Friday morning was very cool – 40 degrees – and very windy. I fished a few hours in the am, managed another lakie and then we all decided to move on, maybe get some better weather. Next stop per “shed ule” is another Yukon Government camp, Lake Creek CG. Only 75 miles today so late departure is no issue. Driving was. We started to get a feel for the “real” Alaskan Highway. Lots of frost heaves (like speed bumps), carved up ground with miniature canyons to navigate, and the perpetual construction. Some of the highway now is gravel, like the old highway that some folks remember.

What a great CG this Lake Creek CG is. And it is right along side a great little river (or real big creek!). We were told there was no fish in the river but it just looked too good, so we had to try. I suspected grayling and remember one of my big goals is to catch a grayling and to do so on a fly outfit. When I was a young kid my Dad taught me how to fly fish and I remember reading about Grayling and what cool fish they were. I vowed someday to catch one and it only took me about 55 years but by damn, I did it. Got a hit almost right away, missed it – went back and nailed that beautiful fish! Wowee! Grayling are related to trout, they are a char and they are super fun to catch on a light rig. They average 8” to 14”, fight well for their size and are incredibly wonderful to eat. Probably the best fresh water fish I have ever eaten, including my old favorite – walleye. Very tender, very moist, and absolutely no fishiness at all. The downside is that they do not keep, you have to eat them right away (which of course we did!). My first one was a very nice sample, well above average, a 17-incher. And I caught it with my childhood split bamboo rod, over 50 years old, and an old Royal Coachman fly, over 45 years old. How cool is that?!

Excuse the messy hands, I had just cleaned this little beauty. Wish I had a better picture, this was self taken while holding the fish in the other hand. It is like a trout mated with a sail fish and stayed small. I am stoked, to say the least. We all caught fish here, even Jeff who broke his being skunked jinx. Many of us limited out, which was 5 a person. And of course we did have a big fish fry and tons of fun doing it. We cooked them different ways. The easiest way was to cook them whole (cleaned, of course) one of many different ways. Our favorite was wrapped in foil with seasoning (thyme, oregano, lots of garlic) and a bit of beer (darker beer preferred). It is also possible to fillet these guys and cook in oil or do the beer batter thing.

Joannie coaching me on the fine art of beer batter cooking (we even used some real sourdough starter, worked very well). One night we had a major fish fry, another feast, how are we ever going to go back to the real world?

One night it rained for a bit and then a super rainbow, excellent.

Some shots around camp.

These are Prickly Roses, basically your wild rose, and are everywhere and are really very pretty. Actually there are tons of wild flowers everywhere, really a big part of the beauty of the trip.

This is part of the river we walked and fished.

Shelle working the river. The grayling would rise to a fly or a spinner like a Mepps. We were truly in the right place at the right time. Our last night we had a big camp fire. We had accumulated plenty of fire wood as many of the government parks provide free fire wood (you have to split it yourself) but could not take it into Alaska so we burned a whole bunch and enjoyed a great fire. Tomorrow it is off to Alaska, first stop Tok.

The drive to Tok was probably the worst so far. We have been averaging around 50 mph or a little more, this leg we averaged 38 mph and accumulated several pounds of mud. We all washed our rigs in Tok, you could have built an adobe house from the mud that came off our trucks and rigs!

Part of the road on the trip to Tok. It wasn’t all like this but actually the gravel road parts were almost better than the asphalt because the gravel doesn’t get the big frost heaves as bad as the asphalt.

And finally we re-enter the U.S. and drive into Alaska.

Below another construction delay, all the HitchHikers lined up. If you look close you can see some of the mud on the trucks.

It is interesting, you often run into many of the same people along the way, all generally going in the same direction. We gained notoriety due to our uniqueness of 4 rigs, all the same brand so people started to referring to us as the HitchHiker group (which of course we are :-))

A couple of flower shots to close this posting: