Grey Ridge Traverse

LOTS of photos!
In keeping with hikes that are NOT described in the local guidebook , this is a trip my old diehard bushwacking buddy Malcolm and I made this past weekend.
Grey ridge is the prominent ridge on your right as you drive from Whitehorse to Carcross.  I suppose there are many ways you could go about it, but this seems to work well.
Start at Annie lake and ascend as you would if you were going up to "The Cave".  Then keep going through the notch to the East side, and make your way along sheep trails (mostly good, sometimes very good) and benches, through notches, and up drainages until you are overlooking Bennet lake and Carcross, then descend as best you can to the South of Wabona creek and make for the obvious microwave tower, then follow the cut line down to the Watson river, wade Watson river, thence to ice cream in Carcross. 
2 solid days, with solid bushwacking to get down to the microwave.

  

The route with Carcross bottom right

Theres some of this

View towards Lewes lake, Mt Lorne on left

Niiiiiice sheep trails

Yet more niiiiiiice sheep trails

Sheep hair

Lots of climbing up to notches, then descending

Lots of sheep means lots of trails.  We were very glad to find as many of the trails as we did, otherwise it would have been a lot harder going.

Looking towards our campsite notch with Montana mountain in the background

Descending to Surprise valley

Getting checked out by the local toughs

Whitehorse waaaaay in the background.  Heading up towards out last pass and camp

Montana mountain and Nares lake behind us

Morning light at 6000' overlooking Carcross

Looking thrilled with the shrubbery in Wabona creek valley

A sight to gladden a mooses heart, and fill ours with despair

Some sort of cool swamp weed

This felt DAMN good I tell ya!  You can see the microwave and the cutline in the left background.  Camp was at the right most snow patch you can see.

A very worthwhile alpine hike near town if you don't mind a bit of bush.

Kusawa Day Hike

Made a quick scamper up a mountain I've always wanted to check out.  Its up Kusawa lake near where the Primrose dumps in.  Saw about 30 Sheep.

Water droplets on moss

I don't think I have ever taken a picture of Kona without her tongue swinging in the breeze.

Canada Day Long Weekend

Actually, it was a Canada day long, long weekend.
Taking advantage of a 5 day long weekend, we (myself, Michelle, Grant and Chris) piled in the boat and headed up Kusawa lake to do some hiking and exploring.
Thursday morning was windy and generally snotty, and it was a long, slow boat ride up the 60 Km long lake.  We arrived at the Takhini river, and spent the night there.  The next morning we headed up the Takhini in an attempt to reach Johns lake.  The going was initially very good on an old horse trail through Pine benchland, then we reached this:

This slowed things down considerably.

Once we got out of it, sort of, we realized that there was no way we were going to reach Johns lake that day, so we camped along the upper Takhini and settled down to enjoy the surroundings.

A plant.  I think.....

Fireweed. That ones easy.

The next day we located the horse trail on the other side of the burn and flew back down to the lake.  The southern Yukon is crisscrossed with old horsetrails, and it would be incredible to clean them all up, map them, and get them in some sort of condition that the general hiking populace could enjoy them.

In general, the trails are this good.