Day 109: Hiking in Haines

August 1, 2014

Today was another beautiful day in Haines, Alaska. The morning temperature was 49 with sun and blue skies all day. Another t-shirt day with no jacket or rain coat required!

We again started the day early going to the Chilkoot State Recreation Area looking for bears. Unfortunately, the fog this morning was considerably worse than yesterday and part of the time you couldn't even see opposite shore of the river.

There were a few fisherman out trying to catch the salmon but we never saw anyone catch anything today. We didn't stay long, but did drive through some other areas of Haines on the opposite shore from downtown and found some really beautiful scenery we hadn't seen before.

On the way back to the campground we spotted some juvenile eagles and had to stop and take some pictures.

By then we were pretty hungry and stopped at the local bakery and picked up some pastries for breakfast. Mmmm, good! An excellent cinnamon roll from Chilkat Bakery and Restaurant.

Later in the morning we drove out to Chilkat State Park which is the opposite way out from Haines as Chilkoot. This is another really pretty area. The scenery here is just awesome. We really like this area. We found a little hike out by the boat launch that leads to Skip Rock Beach. This was a beautiful ½ mile hike through lush forest.

We saw some really strange looking fungi on this hike. Well, we have seen some that are a lot different than the mushrooms at home in all parts of Alaska but today was several different ones in this little ½ mile area.

When we came out onto the beach the site was so pretty. Mountains, glaciers, blue ocean! By the way – yes, the beach is rock not sand and all the rocks were nice small, flat rocks perfect for skipping across the bay. Yep. We tried a few out ourselves just to be sure they were good skippers.

We then stopped at the camp host cabin and had a picnic on the back deck overlooking the ocean. Beautiful setting.

Pretty fireweed patch at Chilkat State Park

On the way back from Chilkat we stopped at Haines Packing Company. They buy the salmon, crab and halibut from the fishermen and process, package, sell and ship it around the world. You can actually watch them process the fish from taking it off the boat in ice slurries, to fileting, packaging, and shipping. This facility was actually an old cannery built in 1917 that now, rather than producing canned fish, produces frozen and smoked fish, salmon burgers, and fish jerky as well as frozen shrimp and crab. Interesting.

We then headed to the Battery Point Trail, one of the recommended hikes in Haines. The trail head is just about 2 miles from downtown. The hike is only about 2.5 miles through a beautiful lush rain forest to the beach. It is rated as a “gentle hike for people of all ages” but then also states you should allow at least 90 minutes for the hike and then whatever time you want to stay on the beach. Don't know that we would agree with the rating but is did take about 90 minutes due to all the ups and downs and arounds and to all the roots from the huge trees. Actually the first part of the trail is an excellent crushed stone path but then just like the Alaska roads it suddenly changes to a squishy tundra that has several small stream crossings as well as muddy areas. It was a fun hike with the reward of a nice beach to sit and enjoy the ocean. We would definitely recommend it but …. we did see some older folks that were struggling to make the hike so can't say it is gentle for all.

First part of trail

But it didn't last long

End of the trail

View worth the walk

After that we made a quick run back to Chilkoot to check for bears. Alas – no bear photos today. However, we did see two handsome bald eagles beside each other in a tall, tall spruce tree.

In our travels today we found the strangest outhouse we have seen so far.

That's it for today. A day we really enjoyed. Tomorrow we have another hike planned that will be a little more strenuous so don't know what else we might do.