NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAY 22 - MUD BAY AND MILLION DOLLAR FALLS

We are officially into our fourth week of our travels since we left Wisconsin. There are so many places we want to see! Check out this Google map below where we've put little points of interest everywhere. Who knows if we'll get to see them all or not. But you get the idea of what our summer is going to be like...

It was time to get out of Mud Bay and head back north up into Haines. The winds were blowing and it was pretty darn cold across that area of the beach.

We noticed as we drove north, the waters along the inlet beside us was steaming... We are not sure if it was because there were hot springs back there? I don't think it was really a difference between air and water temperature, because that water just recently had ice on it. It really gave a strange illusion...

All along this whole stretch of the highway it seemed kind of eerie, like it was from another world. 

the air was cold

 the water was cold 

the wind was cold

 so I don't know where the steam was coming from?

Once we reached Haines, we had to take a left. Now it was time to head back North and West back into Canada again!

Why go back in to Canada? Because there are no roads between this part of Alaska and the rest of Alaska. We have to cross into British Columbia for a short stretch and then into the Yukon. The map below kind of shows what I mean:

We passed out of the United States and into Canada again at the border. No problems, easy crossing.

This route also meant crossing another mountain pass. Similar to what we crossed coming down into Skagway. 

We kept crawling up, up, up, and watched the elevation increase on the computer screen.  

Before we knew it, there was snow. And I mean *S*N*O*W* everywhere. At least the roads were clear, which made it great for us to travel.

We wound our way upwards and upwards through the rolling hills and into the lower mountain ridges. Up ahead, we could barely see the outline of the tallest mountains against the white sky. Covered with clouds, it was hard to see how tall they actually were.

As we got closer, we could glimpse the faint outline of how tall the mountains were that we were actually driving through. The camera couldn't quite catch it, but you can use your imagination. The whole upper part of this photo below is really all mountains!!

A few spots are cleared up enough so we could see. These mountains did not have any greenery poking through the white snow. No. They were all rock so they had a very vivid bluish purple look to them. It was in contrast through the snow. It looks like something was faked in a photograph, but it really isn't.

Then we descended down a ways and pulled into our next desired campground. It was called Million Dollar Falls.  The sites were only $18 a night, and it seemed to be in a pretty nice quiet area of the woods.

Read the last paragraph of this article to understand where the name came from. 

We picked out a nice site near the waterfalls. It wasn't perfectly level so we used our levelers and also set our front tires up on leveling blocks. That way the levelers aren't holding all the weight of the front end with the tires off the ground. Bigfoot Leveler Company said that it was okay, but I feel better having the tires on sturdy blocks.

We made up some lunch and the skies were still blue. We decided to take a little nap and relax a bit after our drive.

But, when we woke up, the sky started clouding up and we were having little bits of hard pieces of sleet come down. Some weathermen call that "graupel".

Graupel forms when snowflakes fall through supercooled liquid droplets and instantly freeze, creating small, crushable pellets. Unlike hail, graupel is not associated with severe weather and only requires cold temperatures to form.

We figured before it got any worse we better get a walk down and see these waterfalls. Find out why they cost a million dollars?

Ooooowieeeeee.... I don't like heights at all. But I did manage to go down all of these steps, holding the camera and my other hand. It's on the video in the You Tube link below.

We walked down down down as the roar of the waterfalls got louder and louder. It really was amazing how much water was crashing through that narrow channel of rock.

The water had a strange greenish color to it when it went over the falls. I'm not sure what is giving it the green tone. We do know the bluish color has to do with mineral runoff from the glaciers. But I'm not sure what this green was all about?

Maybe it was green from the color of money? From the million dollars? Lol

Steve walked a little bit further down than I did. It pretty much looked the same from either direction.  It was nice to hang out down there for a little while, but it was starting to get cold.

We headed back up the steps and I took time to look up at all of the trees surrounding us. It makes a very interesting viewpoint, and really makes a person feel pretty darn small.

Tomorrow we are going to hit the dreaded stretch of road known as "Destruction Bay"!

106 miles today 

3,050 miles so far