After wrapping up another incredible summer with MICA Guides in Alaska, Brett, Katie and I coordinated a road trip back to the lower 48. We loaded up our coolers with food the rest of the crew had purchased too much of before their flights back home, and the three of us didn’t have to buy groceries for 5 or 6 days, with no shortage of delicious options. Thanks to everyone who over-prepared!
Our first day on the road was long but we made it all the way to Destruction Bay in the Yukon, and camped on the beach next to the lake. We were surprised and delighted to see the Auroras make an appearance early in September.
Our plans then brought us a couple more days of solid driving, but ultimately it would give us more time to play when we got to our next destination at the Salmon Glacier overlook.
I have written about the Salmon before, when Lizzie and I visited in 2016. But bringing Brett along meant there were sure to be some exciting adventures. And besides, I never made the hike down to the Salmon itself, so this would be a great opportunity for that. Unless other crazy ideas got in the way…
We got to camp well after dark, but once again got to watch the sunrise from the overlook. It was a foggy morning but the clouds lifted just as the sun reached us on the edge of the lookout, revealing the immense and beautiful glacier below.
Instead of heading straight for the Salmon, we decided to do some driving and explore the area. Brett and Katie had never been and driving in in the dark we didn’t see much of the road up. Much of the day was spent driving between scenic lookouts, and ultimately we decided to hike out to a glacier we had seen from a small road. We had no map with the name of the glacier and no idea what we would find, but it looked to be fairly close to the road (for remote Canadian Wilderness) so we ventured out toward it.
We lucked out to find an easy access point to walk onto the ice, and moraine (dirt and rocks) carried by the glacier made for easy walking without even putting on our crampons.
Almost immediately we began to find wood and metal debris mixed in with the moraine, and we would later figure out there were mines all over the steep hills around glacier, debris was probably carried to the glacier by avalanches or landslides.
Rocks in the moraine varied greatly, and we saw many varieties with cool colors and minerals scattered about. Katie was beside herself with all pretty rocks, stopping every other step to pick up and observe some awesome rock. All three of us were fascinated by the rocks, but only one of us loaded her backpack with souvenirs…
Brett and I later convinced her to abandon many of them and take just some small rocks home, since she would be on a flight out of Vancouver in a few days and rocks could be an expensive way to fill your luggage.
We were especially fascinated by many pieces of quartz which we found with not just green moss, but some silvery, stringy substance or growth in the crevices. We never could figure out whether it was growing, or whether it may have been some byproduct of the mining in the area. It was present on several large and small rocks on all sides, but not on other adjacent rocks with the same green moss. So if anyone has any ideas on what it may be, I’d love to hear them!
Hiking further up, we saw more and more mining trash scattered around the glacier
Brett turned back a while before Katie or I, so we figured it was about time to wander back and see what sort of shenanigans he was getting into.
It took us a while to find Brett, as he was back near the edge of the ice exploring. He finally popped up out of nowhere, covered in mud. We wondered if he had taken a slide on the dirty ice, but no…
… He’d been sniffing out ice caves!
So here’s the don’t try this at home section – glaciers move and tiny narrow caves under the ice are dangerous!
We’re professionals!
After banging our heads on the ice more times than I can remember, sinking past our boot tops in muck, and crawling through freezing cold mud a while, I followed Brett and Katie up an increasingly narrow tunnel until I was sure we would all be worming down the tunnel backwards to find a place to turn around. Brett, in the lead, remained confident about the increasing amount of light coming through the ice as we crawled closer to the edge of the glacier.
Katie and I thought for sure he would get himself stuck, but he could see something we couldn’t, and kept crawling until it took some true skill to work his way up and out of a hole no wider than his hips. Katie was next, and less confident about the squeeze, but after a short struggle she pulled herself free.
Learning from the first two, I was able to wiggle through quickly after passing my camera bag to Brett. Suddenly, we stood once again in daylight above the edge of the glacier high up on the moraine slope to one side.
We, and the camera, were covered in fine gray silt ground down by the glacier. Still, all were stoked about such a cool find in a random place in the middle of nowhere. The best part about friends like these are we can always find something incredible (and maybe a bit crazy) to get into.
Walking back toward the road we passed a large, perfectly calm kettle pond. Katie could not help herself. Despite the fact that we were already wet from the cave mud and the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, she had to go for a swim. But then again a few days ago she also swam in a lake on a mountain pass in the Yukon when it was actively snowing. And she didn’t have a towel then, either.
Once our mermaid friend got dressed and we made it back to the car, we headed back up to camp to enjoy a fire and drinks with some nice german folks traveling through in their RV. I passed on drinks and Katie and I headed into town hoping to find wifi, gas and last minute food, barely making the only gas station or grocery store for hundreds of miles before they closed for the night. Since we had driven in so late the first night, we had missed being able to fuel up or get groceries, and we would need both for a few more day of adventures.
On our return to camp, Brett told us we had just missed the Northern Lights glistening over the glacier. Sad, yes, but I was excited to show him what I had found. Katie had wanted to make a call when we stopped in town, so I had a wifi from the market and time to try to find out what glacier we had just been on and under. I fell down a few internet rabbit holes and wound up researching nearby mining claims. I stubbled across an old map that piqued my interest. Dirt roads barely visible on Google’s satellites even if you know what you’re looking for criss-crossed all over the mountains. For safety reasons, I am choosing not to share what or where, but when I showed Brett, we all knew where we were going the next day.
High up in the Boundary Mountains, mining claims dot the landscape. A few of them were once active, and most have shut down, been boarded up and locked tight. However, much like the American West, mines were abandoned by the hundreds, in many cases overnight, when the price of whatever they were looking for plummeted. I have read of cases in Colorado where workers showed up for their shift early in the morning to be told the mine was closed. Many of them lived on site, and were forced out of their homes with no warning, no pay, no other job possibilities, and no way out of the remote wilderness of the mining camps.
From some of the places we saw in Canada, a similar story unfolds.
We found machines and tools scattered about the entrances to several old mines, including welding helmets, hammers, lights, and all sorts of hardware. Many of the open mines we dared not go near for collapsing entrances, but we were able to poke our heads in at least one. Something tells me the miraculously-still-pressurized fire extinguisher is the biggest hazard we encountered…
We even found a personnel train to shuttle miners. It wasn’t in great shape, but with a good cleaning it would probably still roll down the track. In fact we did find a much smaller flatbed mining cart that did roll still, though the track was destroyed just inside the entrance, so it traveled about 20 feet. Still Counts.
We dared not explore too far into any mines, and certainly don’t suggest anyone does – poisonous air, collapsing ceilings, and angry land owners are all hazards to your life. But we did get a small glimpse of life back in the mining days…
…the mining days of roughly… February 26, 1984.
The top left newspaper is hard to read but I was able to make out an advert for townhomes in North Delta, BC starting at $79,900, for 1250 to 1400-some-odd square feet. For reference, I looked up properties for what is selling in North Delta (in Vancouver) and as I write this in early 2020 the best price I could find is a studio for nearly $400,000. Anything over 800 sq feet is north of $600,000.
We wrapped up our day with some relaxing above the calving face of the Salmon a short drive from camp. We waited a while, but saw only relatively small pieces of ice break loose from the chaotic edge of the glacier.
Brett was eager to get to Squamish to do some climbing before a big weather system rolled in. This time of year marks the beginning of the monsoon season in coastal BC, so it was now or never. We decided to pack up and hit the road the next day, with another 2-3 days of solid driving ahead. Since where we sat offered no safe way to access the glacier, and we bet on needing at least a half day to walk the 800 vertical feet down (and later back up) from the road to access a flat section of the Salmon, I would have to wait even longer to get a chance to properly explore the Salmon Glacier.
Edit – For the record, Brett and I returned to the area in September 2019 to find many more of the mines sealed up, and others bustling with construction workers and security guards. Either they are reopening some old mines, or sealing them all shut permanently.