Sunday, November 24, 2013

The Swell Season





I've written this before (notably, here), but Autumn is just the most incredible season in the Yukon. It was my first taste of the North when I came up on a whim for a 11 day visit. Yes, it lasts for approximately two-and-a-half weeks, yes I hardly have time to keep my leather jacket on before colder temperatures leads me to dig out my winter puffy-- but it is yellowglorious. One day, when we move away from this beautiful country, that brief window in September will be among the top things that I sorely miss about our time here.

A couple months ago (I am finally 'catching up' to the backlog of photos and thoughts rattling around in my head post-wedding, oi), we reached for sleeping bags and camping pots, and spent a weekend tromping around Haines, Alaska. We've been to Haines a zillion times now (read, 6), but never in the Fall. Usually, as we go through the Pass, it is winterwonderlandwhite, and outrageously beautiful, and stark, and void of colour. Mountains jut out against the grey sky, and everything is various tones of the underbelly of a Magpie.



So. A piece of advice. If you ever come visit up North, you should make it in September. You should drive from Haines Junction to Haines. You should stop off on your first night at Kelsall Lake, to camp. Your reward will be a landscape of willow, showing off their Grand Canyon-like hues. The colours will be so complex and nuanced, that you will wish that you had a merino sweater made with the same gradient. The rust, and olives, and marigolds, and stonewheat. The alpine tundra. You will never really see anything like it.

This may very well be our last year in the Yukon, and already I am nostalgic for this trip that we casually took. How easy it was to pack up the truck and head through an Autumnal Rainbow, to drive along a highway so beautiful, that you almost get jaded to its elegance near the end. The things you take for granted.

When we move away, and you decide to roadtrip North, invite us along? If it's during September, and we're firmly encased in the rainy, coastal living of BC, I swear to you that we will drop what we're doing to tag along.







Not a bad living room view for the night.




Full moon camping.


Best almond flour shortbread cookies, ever.

The view in the morning.





Thanks, Mike Evans, for telling us to stay at Kelsall Lake!



B fulfills one of his life ambitions: to skate the Alaska Hwy.


Rainbow Glacier, our view from Chilkat State Campground


Lush Alaskan rainforest




Fungi Extravaganza, 2013













Love you, trees, roadtrips, Alaska, Fall. See you when.




6 comments:

  1. Yeah. Again. Let's go again.

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  2. did you eat any of those bad boys?

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  3. thanks a lot....lots of great pictures of you and Bryan and all the amanitas!

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  4. holy your landscape pics are so Group of Seven

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