Our last stop in Alaska....Hyder, the tiny unguarded town with some of the best scenery and friendliest people in Alaska. We had spoken to many people along the way on this trip and the most excited tales that we heard were from people who had taken the time to go out of the way to visit Hyder. We just had to do it ourselves and boy are we glad we did!
We camped at Camp Run A Muck RV Park at the eastern edge of the few dozen buildings that make up Hyder. Entering Hyder from British Columbia from the small town of Stewart, BC we got out our passports expecting to go through US Customs as we had in all other border crossings into the USA...BUT... there is no US Customs on entering Hyder! Nope, the town is tiny and there is nothing after it but hundreds of miles of steep mountains, glaciers, raging rivers and lots of wildlife
so I guess that 
customs thinks there is no threat of illegal entry here! The streets are mud (they prefer to call them gravel or dirt) and the post office is in a trailer under a snow shed covering supported by substantive wooden poles. There is a rumor that they will pave the roads in 2006. There are several nice places to eat in town in tourist season and of course on visit would be complete without going to "The Bus" for great Halibut Fish and Chips. 
Just outside of Hyder the US Park Service has constructed a bear watching wooden walkway, well constructed and elevated from the salmon laden stream and alongside it are some absolutely
huge spruce trees (see photo). It is about a mile or so from town via the only road west and while we were there the first night we just missed seeing the bears...well almost.... we got into our car to drive back and as we rounded a bend there in the road directly ahead of us was a large grizzly bear walking straight toward us. We stopped and took many photos as it approached and then sniffed the car under Dick's window and went on by. A very neat experience!
Tuesday the 23rd we got out early to go visit the bear watching stand and to our most pleasant surprise ran into Roy & Linda Dean,
with their two dogs. 
They are a very nice couple from Texas who we had spent some time with in Fort Richardson. After watching a small bear 
and getting some nice photos we were off together to get breakfast but the restaurant had closed for breakfast so we made up some pancakes and eggs in our RV and had a nice chat. Dick looked out the window and who should pull in but Jim and Bonnie Larson in their Discovery. The two couples we had most enjoyed both in the same remote spot at the same time - a nice feeling of friendship! 
About 2 pm Pat and I took off to drive to Salmon Glacier which was an unexpected delight and again one of the highlights of our whole trip. The road to the glacier, dirt of course, is an active mining road of sorts with lots of very sharp turns and steep drop offs along the very edge of the road to the left when driving out to the glacier. We had been told not to try to go to the Salmon Glacier when the weather was bad but we had one of the most gorgeous days of the entire trip with blue sky and some nice puffy white clouds and temperatures in the upper 60's or above. We took lots of photos of this most beautiful unspoiled glacier. (See photos which really don't allow you to get the huge size of the place)
This is one of the very few if not only places 
in the world where one can drive along and 
be significantly above one beautiful big glacier that fills the lower valley and then further up turns and goes for several miles to its source in a large ice field. At the best viewing spot across from where the glacier turns into the valley to go toward the icefield we met "The Bear Man". He has published several books on bears and was selling them and DVDs of bears and the gracier. One book is on local bears here by Hyder and the other is on the bears of North America. We will let the photos of the glacier speak for themselves.
On our way back we had a Fisher cross the road in front of us.. a rare treat but not time to get a photo.
This was our last morning in Alaska and we were certainly sad to be leaving but we do have to head home eventually, although full timing again sounds enticing! We took the car to Stewart to check out where to get gas and stopped and had some
great pastries from a bakery in Stewart. Then back to the RV to pack it up for travel again.
The car and the RV were both very dirty and in Stewart there was a place that offered to wash them. Did the RV for $1CN per foot in length and $8CN for the car. I thought $50CN for the two was a good deal and what a difference in appearance!They did a very nice job using steam and pressure washers. We ran into Roy and Linda there doing the same thing. We joined Roy and Linda for lunch at the bakery in Stewart while they washed the units, Then it was good by to Roy and Linda and off down the rest of the Cassiar Highway. We saw three more bears along that stretch of road. At the end of the Cassiar at Kitwanga, BC, we turned East onto to "YellowHead Highway" headed toward Jasper and Banff in BC.
We camped at Camp Run A Muck RV Park at the eastern edge of the few dozen buildings that make up Hyder. Entering Hyder from British Columbia from the small town of Stewart, BC we got out our passports expecting to go through US Customs as we had in all other border crossings into the USA...BUT... there is no US Customs on entering Hyder! Nope, the town is tiny and there is nothing after it but hundreds of miles of steep mountains, glaciers, raging rivers and lots of wildlife
so I guess that 
customs thinks there is no threat of illegal entry here! The streets are mud (they prefer to call them gravel or dirt) and the post office is in a trailer under a snow shed covering supported by substantive wooden poles. There is a rumor that they will pave the roads in 2006. There are several nice places to eat in town in tourist season and of course on visit would be complete without going to "The Bus" for great Halibut Fish and Chips. Just outside of Hyder the US Park Service has constructed a bear watching wooden walkway, well constructed and elevated from the salmon laden stream and alongside it are some absolutely
huge spruce trees (see photo). It is about a mile or so from town via the only road west and while we were there the first night we just missed seeing the bears...well almost.... we got into our car to drive back and as we rounded a bend there in the road directly ahead of us was a large grizzly bear walking straight toward us. We stopped and took many photos as it approached and then sniffed the car under Dick's window and went on by. A very neat experience! Tuesday the 23rd we got out early to go visit the bear watching stand and to our most pleasant surprise ran into Roy & Linda Dean,
with their two dogs. 
They are a very nice couple from Texas who we had spent some time with in Fort Richardson. After watching a small bear 
and getting some nice photos we were off together to get breakfast but the restaurant had closed for breakfast so we made up some pancakes and eggs in our RV and had a nice chat. Dick looked out the window and who should pull in but Jim and Bonnie Larson in their Discovery. The two couples we had most enjoyed both in the same remote spot at the same time - a nice feeling of friendship! 
About 2 pm Pat and I took off to drive to Salmon Glacier which was an unexpected delight and again one of the highlights of our whole trip. The road to the glacier, dirt of course, is an active mining road of sorts with lots of very sharp turns and steep drop offs along the very edge of the road to the left when driving out to the glacier. We had been told not to try to go to the Salmon Glacier when the weather was bad but we had one of the most gorgeous days of the entire trip with blue sky and some nice puffy white clouds and temperatures in the upper 60's or above. We took lots of photos of this most beautiful unspoiled glacier. (See photos which really don't allow you to get the huge size of the place)
This is one of the very few if not only places 
in the world where one can drive along and 
be significantly above one beautiful big glacier that fills the lower valley and then further up turns and goes for several miles to its source in a large ice field. At the best viewing spot across from where the glacier turns into the valley to go toward the icefield we met "The Bear Man". He has published several books on bears and was selling them and DVDs of bears and the gracier. One book is on local bears here by Hyder and the other is on the bears of North America. We will let the photos of the glacier speak for themselves.On our way back we had a Fisher cross the road in front of us.. a rare treat but not time to get a photo.
This was our last morning in Alaska and we were certainly sad to be leaving but we do have to head home eventually, although full timing again sounds enticing! We took the car to Stewart to check out where to get gas and stopped and had some
great pastries from a bakery in Stewart. Then back to the RV to pack it up for travel again.The car and the RV were both very dirty and in Stewart there was a place that offered to wash them. Did the RV for $1CN per foot in length and $8CN for the car. I thought $50CN for the two was a good deal and what a difference in appearance!They did a very nice job using steam and pressure washers. We ran into Roy and Linda there doing the same thing. We joined Roy and Linda for lunch at the bakery in Stewart while they washed the units, Then it was good by to Roy and Linda and off down the rest of the Cassiar Highway. We saw three more bears along that stretch of road. At the end of the Cassiar at Kitwanga, BC, we turned East onto to "YellowHead Highway" headed toward Jasper and Banff in BC.
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