After breakfast Shaun flew us the short skip over to Finlayson Lake where we rejoined our truck. The drive back towards Whitehorse went without incident. We had pleasant blue skies, puffy clouds, and mirrored lakes the whole way back. We opted to stay at the campground near Takhini Hot Springs (rebranded as Eclipse Hot Springs) a little north and west of Whitehorse. We had a nice big campsite in the trees at the end of the loop conveniently close to the hot springs. We strung lines between the trees and managed to dry everything out with the most sun we had seen on our entire trip. The mosquitoes were annoying but thankfully not in full force. Heather and I strolled over to check out the hot spring facilities, which were suitably posh as we expected from their website touting "The Experience", "The Way to Relaxation", and their "seamlessly blended Scandinavian and Japanese Onsen healing practices." Anyway since we were camping we were allowed multiple entry and certainly got our $26 worth trying out the 4 pools, Japanese clay tubs, bucket dump shower, tile covered heated lounge chairs, and 4 saunas. We cycled through everything numerous times over 1.5 hours and then after dinner came back for another 2 hours. The hottest pool was a toasty 109F and the hottest sauna an even more formidable 190F. For such an experience oriented place I was impressed by their strictly no phones policy so no photos but it was worth it. We were thoroughly relaxed by the time we turned in.
For our bonus day we decided to drive south to an anomalous place called the Carcross Desert. Here glacial and river sediment blowing off Bennett Lake have accumulated into a hundred-acre area of sand dunes. I happily kicked off my shoes and strolled barefoot to some of the prominent high dunes and sat enjoying a mellow day. We did almost get run over by a dirtbike blindly zooming up a dune towards us. After we drove into the petite town of Carcross (short for Caribou Crossing) to check out the history signage, paddle boat ruins, and tourist trap outdoor shopping mall. Over a little more than an hour we twice witnessed the sleepy town be transformed by the sudden arrival of cruise passenger-laden coaches descend in hordes and then depart after a while.
On the drive back we stopped at the roadside lookout for Emerald Lake which had some pleasing green color progressions from its shallows to depths. Closer to Whitehorse we stopped at a house with a "rock shop" sign and met an interesting guy that winters in Quartzite. I casually asked about an interesting historical mining share certificate for a mine called the Arctic Chief that prompted him to show us its location on Google Maps. It turns out it was not too far out of our way at all and we would be guaranteed to find some interesting copper minerals.
We found the Arctic Chief Mine easily enough and strolled around through its west pit and then a tailings pile to the east. We found an interesting assortment of minerals including bornite, chalcopyrite, malachite, chrysocolla, epidote, garnet, and magnetite. Each of us came home with a dozen or so specimens.
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| Arctic Chief Mine |
We had a gastropub-style dinner in downtown Whitehorse then drove on back to our campground at which time it started to rain and soon would pour. Cleverly we used the campground's large covered cooking/dining platform to pack our suitcases as thunder boomed and the rain on the tin roof deafened. The rain was so persistent we were tempted to lose faith and find a crummy overpriced hotel room in Whitehorse but we persevered and were rewarded with one last good night of tent sleep. All in all we had a nice day for being highly improvised and touristy. In the morning we had time a plenty to finish last minute packing and get to the airport with an abundance of time.
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