The Three Guardsmen

We have better satellite imagery of Mars than we do of Alaska and much of the North. As a result, using the imagery can be quite annoying when trying to glimmer an idea of the terrain at issue for a planned off trail excursion.

One of the hikes i wanted to do while visiting the Haines area i found using google earth. Sometimes a glacier pours into a valley that acts as a pass, and the ice flows both ways. I've never seen one of those glaciers in person, but i noticed one on space imagery about 7 miles from the Haines Highway. It looked like a high tundra hike and, and one route that would be considerably shorter, involved walking up a low profile glacier situated on a beautiful mountain.

This was the mountain i wanted to either hike over or hike around, to the glaciers on the back side. My picture doesn't do it justice, but it's a fantastic, iconic mountain when viewed from the right angles.

Instead i decided to climb the one on the right of this photo. I went up the back side, which was less steep. It is named The Three Guardsmen.

So i left Haines, and after miles of scenic driving on the way to Haines Junction the mountain came into view. It looked great, and i found a parking lot with an official looking trail leading off in the direction i wanted to go. But there were two problems. One was a sign on the trailhead indicating that there was a bear in the area. That didn't settle well with me since i would be alone and certainly off trail at some point. The other issue was storm clouds in the distance that seemed to be heading directly towards the mountain.

I went back to the van and ate lunch, watching the storm get closer and larger, until i was convinced to change my plans. The storm seeemed to be moving west to east, and back south the weather looked great. I saw some interesting looking mountains back there too, so i decided to go see what i could do on one of those.

As the storm approached it cast a strange light on the glaciated mountains across the valley.

 After struggling up hill for a good hour or two, i came upon the surreal vision of a bed frame in the middle of nowhere! Now that doesn't happen every day. Maybe it was for a Pink Floyd album cover photo shoot. I solved the mystery in another hundred yards when i climbed over an earth bank and found the remains of an old mining camp. I think they had built the wall as shelter from the ferocious winds i was currently experiencing.

I didn't know it at the time, but the mountain i chose, was called the Three Guardsmen. I didn't know it even had a name, but both it, and my original choice of mountain, have been icons to the native population for thousands of years. The spatial relationship of the mountains were landmarks on a native trading route from the interior to the coast, and they kept the route a secret from outsiders for many years.

Up on the highest ridge there is this huge ass pile of rocks. At first i thought it was a rock glacier, but the more i looked at it, the more it looked like a pile of mine tailings, bulldozed into place.  But geeze, it's a HUGE pile of rocks, and i just couldn't figure out where all that rock came from. It probably accounts for about 20 percent of the top of the mountain. Maybe the snow was hiding something?

After an initial steep climb up the Three Guardsmen, i found an old mining road and followed that until it wandered off on a long switchback. Later i met it again, and it certainly made progress easier. Meanwhile, the wind really picked up, the sky darkened, and that blasted thunderstorm looked determined to get me wet.

 The storm had followed me 9 miles. There was some thunder. I felt threatened....

I had found an old miners camp, but there were no longer any standing structures to offer shelter. So i stopped and put on all my rain gear. That was just what the storm was waiting for, because after i did that the wind stopped, and the dark clouds that had filled the sky mysteriously dissipated into nothing.

So i took my raingear back off, and continued up the steep, upper portion of the mountain. Finally reaching the top revealed a violent, wild looking valley below, as well as a fantastic view all around. I found evidence on the ridgetop of more old road and structures, and i began to wonder just how big this mine had been. Later i tried to find something about it on the internet but i didn't have any luck.

The valley on the other side of the Guardsmen was rugged and wild. Notice the large landslide in the middle of the valley. It had forced the stream to carve a path around it.

Farther up the same valley the landscape was alluring. I had no idea what was behind those snowy slopes. Too bad my time was up. Below you can see a closeup of the "distant" looking peak in this picture.

It was another situation where i had spent a long time getting to a place that offered far more distant and attractive goals, but it was getting late in the day, so i turned back. As i drove back to Haines Junction i noticed that a lot of smoke was moving in, so much smoke that i decided to cancel my planned flight tour and head home a day early. As much as i wanted to go see Mt. Logan, i just don't see the sense in paying so much money to spend the day staring through smoke.

Mining artifacts above and below, and the southern peak of the mountain. In this area i found a cliff wall covered in green crystals, and some cable and piping sticking up out of the rock.

The clouds had cleared and left me with a large and impressive view of icefields glaring in the sun on the hike down. In this picture you can see the talus pile on the left, with streams coming out of it crossing over the broad plateau where the mining camp was. You can even see a bit of the old road. From the edge of the flat shelf the mountain descends steeply down the the valley floor.

All in all my trip to Skagway and Haines was fantastic. The scenery greatly exceeded my expectations, the flora was considerably different than what i have in Anchorage, and in going i found all kinds of new things to do if i visit the area again, which i would at the drop of a hat.

Haines Junction at around 11:00 pm.

I got to Haines Junction too late, so i ended up with this awesome hotel room. It had no ventilation or climate control, so the fan on the bed has been placed as far as the cord will let it, in an effort to get it close to a tiny open window (the size of a shoebox), hopefully blowing air in. In the bathroom you could not straighten your elbows out in the shower with your back against the wall. But if you were in one of those situations where you need to use the toilet and the sink at the same time, it was well suited for that activity. And yes, there is a gold plasma pattern all over the mirror.

Skyscraper Mountain

Independence Mine is a State Park where i often bring visitors because you can drive right up to it, and the drive itself is very nice. But i'm always nagged in the back of my head by numerous ruins and shacks that you can make out high on the hillside, very far above the restored buildings that serve as the centerpiece of the park. So, one day this past summer i decided to climb up and check some of them out. I needed to get in shape to do some harder stuff later on anyway. The ruins I spotted were on a hill that ascended 1,000 feet in just over 3 tenths of a mile, or 1 foot up for every 1.75 feet forward, as an average. That was plenty of exercise, plus you get to walk through brush to the hill and figure out how to cross two streams. But i was properly nourished and had a good atitude that day.



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There was lot more stuff up there than i had expected but i was disappointed to find that all the mine shafts had been blasted shut and i had hoped to look into a few of them. Since the cabin was so high up on the hill it seemed silly not to climb all the way up. I decided i would mount the ridge and then walk over to the next coulier to come down a different way. Not only that but the way up the side of the mountain so far had been steep to the point that i wasn't confident i wouldn't fall down by slipping on all the vegetation. It also looked like there was a chance it would rain, and if that happened there was no way i wouldn't slip.





On top of the ridge i could look down on an active mine site in the adjacent valley. I got to see a helicopter make several deliveries to some prospectors below me. It's not everyday you get to watch a helicopter by looking down, and at first i thought it might be a rescue operation, but i decided that the guys getting help from the chopper were too close to a visible trail to actually need an aerial evacuation. All in all, for a cloudy day everything went well, and Fisher had a blast all day chasing groundsquirrels and marmots.

Kennecott

Kennecott was a copper mine. The ore was discovered in 1900 in the form of green cliffs above the Kennecott Glacier that were 70% pure chalcocite, apparently one of the most pure deposits ever found. The site was extremely costly to develop and involved building a long railroad and even hauling steamships piece by piece over the mountains. It required the combined resources of the Guggenheim family, J.P. Morgan, and the Havemayer family to form what was called the Alaska Syndicate. They ended up mining $200 million dollars worth of copper, which allowed expansion across the globe making the company one of the largest minerals companies in the world.



It's a 4 mile shuttle ride from McCarthy to the mine site and it's not a free ride. Any hiking you would want to do in the area would require that shuttle ride. There are numerous trails from there, but since it was raining and very cloudy we were content to stay at the main complex, which had plenty of stuff to look at. The mine was closed in 1938 so suddenly that it became almost an instant ghost town full of relics. Most of it has been picked clean over the years. The park service began restoring the site several years ago, so that now many buildings are not accessible, and some of the ones that are require paying a fee to enter. I got really angry momentarily when i realized, after taking the shuttle, that i had forgotten to pack my camera, because i had camoflauged it in a plastic bag to keep it dry. So we had to use Maree's camera all day. It worked out allright though.




This was the steam engine power plant building. It is being restored, and it seemed fitting that the construction workers were blasting Rage Against the Machine on a hidden but somehow great sounding loud stereo.


The main structure was a 13 story wooden building


This was the top floor, and the first stop for the ore. It looks largely unsafe, but if you paid $20 per person some local guy would take you a little bit farther into it

I don't know if we were allowed to go there, but one of the most interesting buildings was one of the bunkhouses. The bottom floor was completely filled up with rocks. The building was right next to a mountain stream at the base of a gorge, and it looked like the stream had a habit of violently flooding. Over time i guess numerous floods had broken through one of the walls and deposited tons of rocks inside the building. The building was warped and leaning, but i figured it must have a good foundation now with all those rocks holding it in place.


The bunkhouse






The culprit creek looked so innocent...


Maree is on the middle landing between the first and second floors


The second floor was covered in a few inches of dirt and mud


It looked like the hillside had crumbled somewhat near the back of the building and even second floor rooms near that end were filled with rubble


There was some kind of Silent Hill thing going on in this room


Stay out of Room 33....


On the third floor you could actually see the wood floor!

The pictures below are of the gorge above the bunkhouse. In the second one you can see the "old" bridge. The very first picture on this post is above the waterfall and shows a collapsed retaining wall of some sort. The bushes to the right of the stream bank were actually on an island in the stream bed and there was an old dry overgrown canal running through it. I'm guessing they had a lot of problems controlling the rocks and sediment that came down this little stream, which would explain why the bunkhouse is now half buried.





Above the site were numerous cabins on an old road called Silk Stocking Row. It was where women and families lived. We were surprised to find that people still live in them, and some of them were even for sale.






Next time: Thompson Pass