Srewart Cassiar Highway, day two

The Seven Sisters Range

If the sign says, "rocks falling", they probably are.

We drove out slowly across the big gravel lot, to many pot holes to miss and onto the highway wondering what today would bring. Had we been lucky with the road yesterday? We shall see. The stubborn rain continued. But the road was in such good condition, it must not be more than a year or two old. It even had lines down the middle which we had not seen for hundreds of kilometers. We began to see more and more snow capped and much higher mountains. Some even had obvious Glaciers high up. We saw four Black Bears along the road today.
We stopped for gas, after 148km. When I went in to pay I noticed a sign giving prices for site seeing by helecopter. 15 minutes-$345. 45 minutes-$940. I decided right then and there, that we would find another way to do our site seeing.
As we drove back out onto the highway a sign warned, "next gas 249km", we would be fine. We learned weeks ago to fill up when ever we saw a gas station. Northern Ontario, the Prairies and the Alaska Highway as well as the Klondike and now Cassiar all have long sections without fuel.
The showers became less frequent as the day passed and finally we turned right off of the Cassiar. Highway 37A would take us the 60 km west into Stewart. This is touted as the Glacier highway, as there are apparently 20 Glaciers along this stretch of highway. We saw several and two big ones that came right down to the road.
Stewart is noted for the Grissle Bear sitings as they catch migrating Salmon. We set up camp and went for a drive to see Grissles. The bears are in Alaska so we needed to cross the border from BC. The towm is Hyder Alaska, advertised as the friendliest Ghost Town in Alaska, We pasted the welcome to Alaska sign and were surprised to finf no Customs or Immigrations. The speed limit was 20kph. No one should go that fast here. I have written about potholes before, but this was the champion. Our 4x4 truck could barely handle the road actually covered huge, deep holes. The truck shook as though some monster was violently shaking it. Barely moving forward, in company with others heading to the bears. It is six miles to the bears and I considered turning around except there was no where to turn. No we did not hade the trailer with us.
We finally did make it, Tongass National Park. The bears have always come to the spawning grounds to catch and eat the dying Salmon after they have layed their eggs. The National Park has built a raised walkway. about six feet off the ground beside the river.
We stayed and watched for about two hours and saw nothing, so we decided to leave. Some people we spoke to come and stay for a month and spend their days waiting. After dinner, we decided to tackle the road again, afterall the bears were the reason for being there, so off we went.
We were there for about half an hour when Bev spotted a wolf. We watched quietly as he worked his way along the shore lined with low bushes. We watched and were able to get many pictures as he would stand in the shallow water,catch a fish, take it on a little grass covered island, eat what he wanted and set off for another. This all happens about 50m from us. It was amazing to watch, but almost dark, so we headed for the truck and home. On the road in we had sat in the truck and watched a black bear eat berries beside the road. On the way back out at dusk, a large Black Bear sauntered across the road in front of us, awsome!!
As we started to pack up in the morning, not having seen a Grisslie, we decided to go in one more time. WOW! We watched momma Grisslie and baby Grissle fishing, right in front and below us! Perhaps 50 feet away in the water and less then 10 feet when they came in the bushes below us.  That was what we had hoped for and we were so lucky.