Whitehorse Part Duex

Whitehorse Part Duex !

Just before sunset we headed up on Grey Mountain for a few pictures. Sadly I had my non SLR camera with me and the low light performance is sub par. But it was such a beautiful evening but cold near the top as I quickly snapped some pictures. This is looking to the northwest towards Whitehorse.

I didn't organize these too well in sequence due to the fact you can only upload 4 pictures at a time in Picasa....we have canceled the IFR and just are about to join a right base for Runway 31L. The airport is just under the cloud on the plateau with the City of Whitehorse down along the Yukon River bank.

The office building of the Whitehorse Tower staff...very friendly service here in Whitehorse. Mid morning and already the TCU's are building around the hills.

For a fairly northern city everything up here is so well done, clean and maintained. Probably due to the fact there are lots of travelers passing through on the Alaska Highway but still I really love the cleanliness of Whitehorse.

Overlooking downtown Whitehorse from the trail that circles the airport. So many trails in this town too which is perfect for someone who currently doesn't have a car ! What started out as just a walk to downtown for lunch turned into 3 hours of touring and a bit of a sun burn. I was pretty sweaty after I climbed up the hill to the airport as I couldn't seem to find the damn return trail. I knew the stairs was farther north but I decided to "save time" and go direct.

Big sink hole which nearly runs right up to the perimeter fence of the airport. Eventually they will have to deal with this.

Miles Canyon from atop the bridge..now much more tame since the hydro dam was put in but back in the day it was apparently one hell of a challenge to get through.

Miles Canyon bridge....apparently if you come here at the right time this place is covered with hundreds of German tourists. In this case it's just me...

Basically read the following picture to describe this one...we drove up beside the summit and took some more pictures but there are bike trails all over this mountain and at the top the walking is easy going (once you get there of course).

Turbine Otter being difficult and I wanted to post the next picture I took after this one where the guy with the rope was leaning back almost 60 degrees trying to hold the plane. That is one reason I kinds stayed away from float flying...I don't have sea legs and I figured I would be in the water more then in the plane. This is just south of Whitehorse on Schwatka Lake, a great place to visit with quite a few float planes.

On the way to the top of some mountain close to town which I can't remember or find (click here for the Google Map location) we noticed something that almost looked like people in trench coats from a far. But with all my 500 mm lens to it's fullest extent we ended up spotting two bald eagles. There were some babies close by and after trying to get some low light photo's this is all that turned out. It just amazes me that this is only 10 minutes from downtown Whitehorse.

Lake Laberge made famous from the Robert Service poem...."The Cremation of Sam McGee". This is atop the mountain just to the northwest of Whitehorse which we drove up a pretty crappy washed out back woods road. But it sure beat walking up the mountain considering I only had one night to see all the sights. This is looking north east towards Lake Laberge which essentially a widening of the Yukon River. Lots of farmland in that area which seems odd being North of 60.
 The climate in this area is dry and fairly warm considering it's latitude so spring comes sooner and winter isn't as cold as similar places in Canada at this latitude.

On top of the same mountain from the previous photo, looking south/east towards Whitehorse and grey mountain is to the left under the shadow of the cloud. Whitehorse only has around 21,000 people but the new subdivisions aren't made on cleared land like they are in places like Calgary, Toronto...etc. They seem to cut out neighborhoods in the trees so you don't really see it at all when you are driving by.

Fish lake also about 15 minutes from Whitehorse taken again from the same mountain top. Just a beautiful spot to see from a distance I can only imagine what it's like to be on the shore...

Looking off to the south towards Alaska...it isn't very far away from here but to go direct from here you would need a plane.

Man do I have a huge shadow....actually that would be the monster wind generator on top...looking east towards Grey mountain and Whitehorse.

For those of you considering going to Whitehorse but are worried where you will find your precious Latte's....you're in luck ! There are also many bakeries and cafe's that will suit your fancy with excellent food abound.

Looking down main street....not a high quality photo but to give a general idea. The airport is just at the end of the street up about 100 feet on the bank...

Mammatus clouds....not really but this is two developing Cumulonimbus clouds growing about 20 miles away and this picture is taken from Grey mountain. We seemed to avoid the rain everywhere we went and those close were sitting on top of the first mountain we went to visit and eventually a down pour could be seen when they started to die out.

To keep with the airplane theme here is an Eva Airways 747-400 probably out of Anchorage heading to somewhere in the USA. This was taken on top of Grey Mountain.

The Beringia tourist info parking lot. Basically talking about when the Bering Strait was emptied of water due to more water being locked in glaciers and when wooly mammoths roamed around these parts. Also when most of the first peeps came across to inhabit North America. Lots of cool pictures and maps including many fossils to look at. Also a full size mammoth skeleton too.

This is a family blog but I just couldn't resist.....

What things would have looked like for people back in the day...you can see them just in the bottom right hand of the picture.

Whitehorse is an amazing place to go visit with lots of outdoor activities and a good starting point to venture out into the Yukon. It reminds me of a Vancouver North but with a lot less people and no traffic to deal with...or HST :) Also a good spot to go to start a trip similar to going to Banff but again it is more rugged and less populated and I think you would get more from the experience. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully I will have something to blog about in the near future.

Cheers,