Kulane in the rain

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Left Whitehorse optimistic about the weather. Bit of blue in the sky, but it turned out to be shortlived. Didn't rain the whole day, but clouds were low and moved in and out, making peeks at the mountains exciting! Still saw some amazing views. We drove, and stopped for pics and drove and stopped some more. Did a really nice hike at Sheep's Creek Mountain. 4000 Dall Sheep on the mountain, we saw.... 0. Of course, the bear bells we were wearing and the clapping we were doing probably didn't do much to draw them nearer. We had some great discussions about the bear bells. Like a Christmas bell, you hang it on your pack and it rings while you walk through the forest to alert the bear that you're coming. And in a perfect world, the bear decides it wants to be away from the noise and leaves the area. My problem with this theory... aren't bears curious?? If I was a bear I'd think--hey, what's that sound, maybe I should check it out! So, just to cover our bases, we used our most threatening clapping skills too. There's a great poster we've seen about strategies to take while in bear country. They suggest having a bear bell, and also carrying pepper spray(as a last resort--and don't spray into the wind!). They suggest looking for signs that there's a bear in the area, and recommend being able to tell the difference between grizzly and black bears in case you have an encounter. It's useful to look for/at bear crap, apparently. Black bear crap is full of berries, and vegetative matter. Grizzly bear crap is full of bells and pepper spray. get it?? haha. I can't take credit for that one.

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Anyways, enough lame humour. We were lucky in that it wasn't raining during our drive, so we enjoyed our hike, and the views as much as we had. We stopped for the night in Burwash Landing, which has population maybe 25? Free camping out back, which was super. We roamed town a little bit, made ourselves some tomato, cheese and tuna sandwiches for supper, and crashed. It stays light all night, which is strange. At 10pm, it feels like supper time. I've been doing okay, at falling asleep though. It's strange to wake up at 3 in the morning, and be able to check the time without the backlight.