Mountains Beyond Mountains

Haines Junction, YT. We're sitting at a picnic table on the deck outside the Village Bakery across a dusty lane from the Kluane National Park Visitors' Center. Tomto is finishing his ricotta and spinich quiche and I'm eating a slice if greek pizza. We'll top this with a fresh apple and cinnimon fritter and gormet coffee... typical biker fare.
The day began at the Whitehorse Public Library where we had only 20 minutes to dash off a post (BTW, I've updated that one and finished with more Wild Things).

Haines Junction is only 97 miles from Whitehorse but here we are IN the mountains. For a couple of days there have been rumors of mountains, even a few really big rock things with streaks of snow on the north slopes but now we are IN the mountains. Somewhere along the AK Highway today I notice that the mountains ahead had more snow on top and that there were mountains to the right and to the left. Then there were mountains in the mirrors. We were IN the mountains.

............................ Later Wednesday...................
We loved Haines Junction so much and we lingered so long at the Village Bakery we decided to buy a piece of the town, well rent a piece for the night. We are within 150 mile of Haines, AK and there are no inside overnight facilities between here and there. By 3 PM we were settled in the modest (read slightly seedy) Kluane Park Inn. Another trifecta of moteldom: relatively cheap, has a restaurant with a bar, and is within easy walking distance of the Village Bakery (bonus kicker of wireless internet).

The road to Haines Junction was remarkable in ways other than the mountains. It's relatively straight and there few discernable hills. Yet it feels like we are higher than Whitehorse, it's cooler and when the sun is out the rays are intense. Woody Guthrie sang of "that ribbon of highway..." and that imge surely fits this stretch of the Alaska Highway. At a few places along the way there are glimpses of 'the old road', parts of the highway that have been abandoned in favor of straighter smoother new road. I was able to see, at one point, a piece of old road that was several hundred meters long. It was paved but crumbling and resembled a length of discarded Christmas ribbon lying on the living room floor... really wavy. Then I noticed that the new road was wavy too, not to the same degree as the old but by watching the white edge lines I could predict the dips and rises in the highway. The road is shouldered at intervals by sandy dunes and it appears that this section of the highway is built on sandy valley soil. At many places dips in the road have been filled by road crews, the old road's dips and rises are so pronounced that a motorcycle or car would go airborne at the peak and crash into the dip. It seems that this ribbon of highway, left to nature would fit the contours of wind driven sand. Road crews are in a perpetual struggle to fight nature, nature that also varies from 40 degrees below zero in winter to 80 in the summer. At the end of our day it was a short fine ride to a surprisingly beautiful location. Film at 11.