Day 1 - Whitehorse 2011

Time for another Epic Adventure

Mike Laser Combing

‘You’re driving - I’m laser combing’. That was Mike’s greeting as he wheeled-in to our rendezvous location. Mike lives in Anchorage, and I live in Valdez. So we had agreed to meet at the intersections of two highways leading out of each, where I would then jump into Mike’s Honda Element.

Mike has MPB (don’t worry, it’s not contagious), and he uses a new technology of laser lights fitted into a hand held unit called a “Laser Comb”. Apparently, it’s all the rage. He rubs the diodes around his scalp for the prescribed amount of time, which as far as I can tell, may be half the trip! Mike’s into alternative medicine and such.

16,000' Mount Sanford with The Copper River in foreground

So I did drive. Our route took us north along the western edge of The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve – the largest in the nation. Later, in Canada we continued along the northern border of Kluane National Park, which geologically contains the same mountains as the St. Elias range. Putting those two contiguous areas together creates the largest national park system in the world. Majestic white peaks (some as high as 16,000 to 18,000 feet) projected skyward, usually just teasing us with glimpses of their grandeur, revealing different faces and character, as we traversed through the northern taiga covered landscapes below.

Mike with his new Magic Rocks

I asked Mike to step out for a photo in the mountains near Mentasta, a native village of the eastern Alaska Range. As I directed him to a location for composing the photo, Mike began sifting with great interest through the rocks below. He quickly acquired a handful and proudly began to inspect. These were his new prizes, unique objects holding some type of power and representative of his visit to a special place. Mike’s house and car are full of rocks. We’ll have these with us for the rest of the trip, and I’m sure I’ll see them for years to come during visits to Mike’s home.

Curious Little Bull Moose in Fireweed

We saw a pretty little bull moose crossing the road in front of us, just as the sun was setting, just on the Canadian side of the border. It showed no fear or regard – that is until I stepped out of the car. After that, he became a timid, curious creature – hiding in the colorful foliage, peering out into the exposed world, inspecting me.

Beautiful dark clouds had amassed over the Tanana Valley uplands just east of Tok, Alaska as we came motoring along. A brilliant double rainbow formed in front of our eyes.

Entered into Canada about 10 p.m. Alaska time (11 p.m. Yukon time).

Home for the Night; Shores of Kluane Lake, Yukon Territory

We pushed ourselves to arrive at our favorite sleeping area for this segment of the trip – the northwestern shore of Kluane Lake at Burwash Landing. This is a large, aqua-green, clean mountain lake. But tonight, it was a dark abyss, punctuated by the loud banging and slapping of waves on pebble stone beach. We quickly set up the Element (which sleeps two quite nicely) as we were ready for immediate sleep. Mike jumped in first while I set up the camera on a tripod 20 feet away. ‘Close the door, the wind is freezing!’, Mike shouted out. He was right, the onshore wind, skimming across the cool water, was in fact very chilly; especially so for those with MPB. ‘Just one more photo!’, I shouted back.

Epic Adventures of Erik and Mike

Day 1 – Whitehorse 2011

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