August 2, 2017: Gustavus to Point Carolus

It's been months now since the final, separate leg of my summer of kayaking, and unlike most of my entries from the Seattle to Juneau stretch, I did not type out log entries as I was paddling, so I'm only now getting to writing about the final legs of the trip.

"I thought they were a little intimidating until I started
to think of them as puppies."

The plans for this outer coast trip actually predated my plans to paddle from Seattle to Juneau; Jason Amundson and I began talking about an outer coast trip, most likely from Pelican to Sitka, around the time of our eight day paddle from Tenakee to Sitka in 2015.  We were both struck by the relatively unprotected waters of Salisbury Sound, North of Sitka, and we hoped to return someday.  This turned out to be the year.

After discussing several options, Jason and Christian and I settled on an August 2 departure (about three days after my arrival in Juneau from Petersburg and points South) which gave me time to get some work-related tasks out of the way, resupply, and do some boat maintenance (easier in my basement than on the beach).

On the 2nd, Jason and I boarded the ferry, enjoyed our ferry breakfast of pancakes and bacon, napped for a few hours, and unloaded our gear and boats in Gustavus, home of what must be the longest ferry ramp in the state.  There, we shot the breeze with some University friends while they waited to board the ferry for the return trip to Juneau  They had just completed a week in Glacier Bay doing forest ecology stuff; updating what I understand to be the longest time-series dataset of post-Glacial forest succession, now 101 years old.  Had a nice chat, and after they departed, we pushed off from the beach under the ferry ramp and started paddling down Icy Strait.


Our timing for the crossing of the mouth of Glacier Bay was fortuitous, right at slack.  Along the way, we got lots of attention from a dozen or two sea lions, who played around us like puppies--maybe they thought we might have some fish for them?  We got much less attention from the rafts of hundreds of sea otters, who dove before we could ever get very close.  I often wonder if sea otters have evolved to be especially afraid of sea kayaks, which decimated their numbers during the Russian Alaskan period.

After the crossing, we began looking for a campsite, shortly finding a comfortable spot on a bench above the beach about 1.4 miles (statute miles) Southwest of Point Carolus, just West of a notable creek.  Some bear sign, but not too bad, and wild strawberries!  They never look ripe, but are very, very sweet.  Cooked dinner and hit the hay early after an early morning and long traveling day.

2017 Inside Passage Route Waypoints

Put together a .gpx, .kml and .kmz file of campsites from this summer and other locations I found to be useful.  Most of these I found through BC Marine Trails, Washington Water Trails, Kimantis, Dwyer, Miller and other common sources, but a few (especially in Alaska) are my own find (or Carl's or Emily's or Jason's!) finds.  Files here.

Post-trip Thoughts on Routes

First off, I should admit that I'm generally an Alaska partisan, so my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.  That said, with a few exceptions, I found the landscape of the inside passage more striking, and the wildlife more numerous and impressive the farther North I paddled.  Overall, I'm very glad to have done a more-or-less full transect of the inside passage route, in order to see what there was to see.  If I had done a tour of Southeast Alaska, one of the ideas I contemplated early on in the planning process for my 2017 trip, I would have wondered was I was missing in Washington State and British Columbia.  Still, if I had to do it all over again, and knowing what I know now, I would probably plan a longer trip in Alaska, possibly including some of the Northern portion of B.C.   Though I would like to return to a few places I only saw from a distance, including Port Townsend, Victoria, and Anacortes, I'm not sure how interested I am in returning by kayak.

Much of the same goes for other parts of Southern B.C.  I would return to Desolation Sound and the Lasqueti/Texada region, but I generally found the stretch from Desolation to Telegraph Cove a bit underwhelming, though my opinion might differ if Carl and I hadn't struggled so much with winds and tides.  

On the other hand, I found the day or two before Port Hardy and the whole Cape Caution area compelling, if sometimes scary.  I would love to go back and paddle more in that area.  Beautiful country which really stretched my skills and increased my confidence.  

North of Cape Caution, Carl and I decided to take a relatively direct route to and through Princess Royal and Grenville Channels.  I would still love to see Hakai and Laredo Channel, among other areas, but I also didn't find the zone we did paddle all that interesting, though I thought Seaforth Channel and other areas immediately North of Bella Bella/Shearwater very beautiful.

The area around Prince Rupert also was lovely, and I would enjoy going back with more time to visit the Tsimshian communities there.  Dixon Entrance treated me very well, and I think it would be a remarkable place to paddle under much more challenging conditions.  I also really enjoyed Revillagigedo Channel and Clarence Strait.  Ketchikan itself was not a strong draw for me, but then, I've been there many times before and have seen the sights.  

Emily and I both enjoyed seeing Wrangell and Petersburg, but one day in each place is plenty!  

The stretch between Petersburg and Juneau is really striking, and I definitely plan to return to both the mainland side of Stephens Passage (which I paddled) and the Admiralty Island side (which I have not).  I would also like to do the connecting section between Juneau and Gustavus through Lynn Canal, Chatham Strait and Icy Strait, as well as the stretch from Juneau to Skagway up Lynn Canal, even though I have seen both stretches many times by ferry.  

By far the best paddling of the summer was the last section I paddled--my second trip, from Gustavus to Sitka.  The outer coast section is very, very beautiful--unrivaled by any other area I paddled this year.  It also has more wildlife, and wildlife of a more impressive sort, than other areas.  I have every intention of returning.      

July 30, Snettisham Peninsula to Juneau (!)

What a day!

Managed to get out of camp, in the rain, at the usual time.  Covered a fair amount of ground before about 4PM, paddling through a crowded gill net opener near beautiful Limestone Inlet, passing a bear near Point Styleman, and enjoying the beautiful scenery.  

My objective for the day was Point Bishop, at the mouth of Taku Inlet, on the West/Juneau side, and I stopped for dinner at Suicide Cove, below Butler Peak, on the East side of Taku Inlet, then headed North, to cross over.  I had initially planned to work my way several miles up the East side of the inlet before crossing, but began to get a bit of a tailwind as I headed Northwest, and decided to cut a bit of a corner and head directly for Point Bishop from Circle Point.  

Paddling in.  The light is me.

I made good time on the crossing, but it was starting to get late as I started, and a pack of gill net boats was concentrated near Point Bishop.  I normally wouldn't worry about fishing boats, but I was concerned that it would be getting dark by the time I finished the crossing, so about halfway across, I decided to head more directly towards Point Salisbury, a safer-seeming location.  It also helped that the wind was pushing me towards Salisbury! 

When I arrived, it was still light, but although I had been fairly certain that I would find a beach to camp on, I was mistaken, and it would have taken a fair bit of backtracking--towards Point Bishop--to find a nice gravel beach.  Instead of heading backwards, I figured I would continue up towards Juneau and stop (soon, I figured), when I arrived at a good camping spot.  

Very happy to be home

By this time, I was in territory that I had often paddled, and yet was surprised to find no camp-worthy beaches before DuPont, the site of a DuPont factory town from Juneau's gold mining days.  At this point, it was really getting dark--it was probably 9:00 or so--and I knew there to be good campsites above the lovely beach at DuPont, right beside the deteriorating pier which sticks out visibly into the channel there.  However, DuPont is so close to Juneau--it's a common Juneauite day hike--it felt crazy to stop there.  So I unpacked my phone and called home!  Emily sounded thrilled to hear from me, and agreed to meet me at the Sheep Creek beach/launch/zombie chum salmon colony.

The paddling was a-ok.  No wind, and almost completely calm water, with the exception of two slightly nervous moments dealing with big wakes, in the dark, from departing cruise ships.  This was only the second time I had ever paddled after dark!  It took another hour or so to paddle to Sheep Creek, but when I did, there she was, parked out on the tidal flats, ready to take me home.  It was after 10 when I arrived, and was I ever thrilled to be there.

July 29, Point Windham to Snettisham Peninsula

Another good paddling day with great mileage.  Left camp late-morning (typical start for me) and paddled most of the morning to the Southeast side of Holkham Bay, where I grabbed a snack and took a short break.  The crossing of Holkham Bay was especially beautiful, with good views up Tracy and Endicott Arms, and especially of the poetically named Sumdum Glacier.

Grabbed water and ate dinner in a cove North of Point Coke; this might be a reasonable campsite, though I did not explore extensively.  Then camped above a pretty beach on the Snettisham Peninsula, about half way between Holkham Bay and Port Snettisham, just to the Northeast of the Midway Islands.

Another solid mileage day, despite contrary currents (never did get a favorable current in Stephens Passage) and rain off and on all day.

July 28, Point Walpole to Point Windham

From the area of Point Fanshaw (several miles before point Walpole), I had to choose between several different route options that would get me to Juneau. The Western route would be a crossing over to Admiralty Island, home of the world's highest concentration of Coastal Brown Bears, then up through beautiful Seymour Canal, across to Stephens Passage at Oliver Inlet via an old rail tram, then across to Douglas Island to Juneau. This seems to be the standard route. A second option would be to cross to Admiralty, then, rather than heading up Seymour Canal, to head up the East side of the Glass Peninsula, up the West Side of Stephens Passage, then across to Douglas Island and to Juneau. The third option, which appears to be the least commonly taken, would be to travel up the mainland side of Stephens Passage. The attraction of this route would be (potentially) more striking coastline, with views up several long, steep fjords, including Tracy and Endicott Arms and Port Snettisham.

This last option is the one I chose. All three alternatives sounded fantastic, but it seemed more likely that I would make a trip down Seymour Canal and/or the East side of Glass some time in the future. The Southern end of Stephens Passage, though, is quite a long trip com Juneau, and I wasn't sure how long it might be before I could make it back.

I was not disappointed. The scenery is unbelievable, and I was compensated for missing Admiralty bears by my earlier and later interactions with Brown Bears on Revillagigedo an Chichagoff.

In any event, the 28th was a day of crossings. Port Hougton, about four miles, Hobart Bay, about two miles, then Windham Bay, about three. The weather was again indecisive, with rain in the morning and evening an periodically through the day, but views up the three inlets were good and the scenery was very pretty. I thought the view up Windham Bay was particularly striking, and the rocky coastline was quite beautiful. Although I got little help from the flood current, the 28th was another solid mileage day.

July 27, Grand Point to Point Walpole

Another good mileage day, despite somewhat contrary tides. After a typically late start paddled down the remainder of Sumner Strait to Fanshaw Point, then turned North into Stephens Passage. Not much of note except for indecisive weather--it couldn't decide whether it wanted to rain or be sunny, making it difficult for me to decide what hat to wear and whether I wanted to wear sunglasses or not. The paddling was relatively fast, even though tides were against me most of the day and a predicted afternoon tailwind failed to materialize.

In the late afternoon, I took a break at the back of Fanshaw Bay for a snack and explored some of the site of a long-abandoned cannery; little remains, but interesting to see how quickly the forest has taken over what must have been a busy settlement forty or fifty years ago.

My preferred daily paddling rhythm is a late afternoon start, a few relatively short breaks during the day, a break during which I eat and maybe cook dinner, then a few more hours of paddling before a relatively late stop (often 8:30 or 9) to make camp. My paddling partners generally prefer a more conventional schedule, so I usually follow along; typically, a slightly earlier start and earlier finish, with dinner in camp in the evening, but paddling alone (and also with Emily, who shares my preferences), dinner on the fly is the norm. In this case, I took a short break on a gravel beach on Foot Island to eat (didn't seem like a good place to camp anyways), then paddled on to Point Walpole, on a small island, unnamed on my chart (Walpole I?) with a beautiful gravel and clamshell beach, good upland camping and a lovely view in several directions. I paddled along with a pod of feeding humpback whales for the last several miles, and they also spent the whole night feeding in the area near camp--I could hear them spouting all night long.

July 24-26, Petersburg to Grand Point

Emily's ferry didn't leave Petersburg until the evening of the 25th, so we wound up having almost three days to enjoy the amenities of Petersburg. Good to finally see the place after living so close for so long, though we probably ha a pretty good feel for Petersburg after an afternoon. But we ate lots of pizza and seafood and enjoyed our last few days together before the next stretch of my trip.

On the 25th, we carried Emily's boat and gear over to the ferry terminal in the afternoon and checked her in for the ferry ride back to Juneau. The ferry arrived on time, and we said goodbye. Sad to see her go after a great two-ish weeks together.

Got up and got packed up the following morning, and ate breakfast at the B & B. It was a little tricky to get my boat down to the water by myself, but managed to get loaded and on the water by 9:30, just a bit before low slack, so I got a little bit of a push from the ebb current out of the Wrangell Narrows into Summer Strait. I made the crossing to the North side of the strait from the Sukoi/Sockeye Islands, basically so that I would pass close to some of the icebergs I could see floating on the Northern side of the strait. I had paddled by icebergs before a number of times, but it's always a striking sight.

Spent much of the day paddling down Sumner Strait against a flood tide, but Sumner has only a weak flood current and a substantial back eddy in many places, so made good progress before stopping at an attractive campsite with good beach and upland sites near Grand Point, on the Eastern side of Farragut Bay.

July 23, Iceberg View to Petersburg

Although we originally planned to arrive in Petersburg on the 24th, having left lots of time for short days towards the end of the Ketchikan to Petersburg leg, we made such good time on the 22nd that we decided to try to make it a day early, with the idea that we would be able to spend a little bit more time exploring Petersburg and eating the legendary Petersburg pizza.

After a typical mid-morning start (late morning?) we were able to make it to Petersburg by early afternoon. At one point, close to town, we stopped for a break on a beach which would make an excellent campsite for a first or last night out, with good upland camping and a nice gravel landing beach, at least at high tide.

Once in cell range, we were able to make a phone call to out lodging, located next to the ferry terminal, and were able to add an extra night to our reservation.

The paddle into town was a trip--strong ebb tides out of Wrangell Narrows combined with lots of vessel traffic made for some high-intensity paddling. Throw in the sights and sounds of Petersburg's busy fish processing plants and the result was a little bit of culture shock after the serene wilderness paddling of many of the prior days and our mellow time in Wrangell. Cool place, though, and very true to it's Norwegian fishing town roots.

Getting in and out of town with a kayak is often a pain in the butt, but it was a little better in Petersburg than elsewhere--the ferry terminal has pretty good water access on either side of the terminal building, though we did have to carry our gear over some slippery kelp. From there, it was less than forty yards to the B and B.

The 23rd was a Sunday, and not much was open, but we were able to get some groceries and order a pizza from one of at least two local pizza joints. Studebaker's delivers, and comes with East Coast Pizza Snob Approval. Actually, both pizza places are solid options.

July 22, Wrangell through Dry Strait

Looking a little fuzzy and pretty well armed! LeConte Bay behind me.
 Dinner was macaroni and cheese.

After a tasty breakfast at the Grand View, Emily and I managed to get out on the water by about 10:30, which was about right for us to catch high slack across the Stikine River Delta, the idea being to make it through Dry Strait before the tide turned and currents made it too hard to make progress.

We had good luck on our crossing over to Mitkof, passing by Kadin island on the way. The relatively long crossing made Emily a little uncomfortable, combined with some wind and following seas, fog, and vessel traffic, but in the end, we had no problems and made it through Dry Strait just about on schedule.

In a way, the day was a little anticlimactic, since we saw no sign of gravel bars or mudflats on the delta, but we had very favorable tides all day and made good mileage. Also had some good wildlife sightings (harbor porpoises and whales). And once we were through Dry Strait, we could see icebergs floating out of LeConte bay, working their way down from the glacier.

Although the very high tides were helpful in our crossing of Dry Strait, they meant that we needed to find a good upland site--we had good luck in finding a site with a good view towards LeConte, with a nice gravel beach and water. We decided that the campsite was called "Iceberg View." The site would also have good beach camping at neap tides.