Mile 0 and beyond

Mile 0

Dawson Creek is the official start of the Alaska Highway and the official beginning of our end.  I was lucky enough to find a thrift store in Dawson Creek and was able to buy a bread machine which I have been wanting ever since we stayed at the sheep farm and Dave feed us home made bread every morning.

The man who oversaw the campground outside of Dawson Creek directed us to the next campground on the Liard River.  The enticement there were the hot springs.  And what springs they were…a river actually, accessed by a ten minute walk over a board walk into a river that had several natural pools and man made steps into them where you could soak in very hot mineral water. The weather was slightly rainy and the air quite cool…just the way a hot springs should be.  It was WONDERFUL.  Again, since we had not had showers, and did not see the possibility of one in the near future, the hot springs were even better.

Our next stop was Whitehorse, where we decided to camp for 2 nights since we had driven for three long days and needed a break.  We passed the famous sign post park where visitors are encouraged to place town signs and apparently have been doing so for years.On the way we saw herds of wild buffalo, including one dead one on the side of the road with a roast cut out of his haunch for someone’s dinner, caribou, and goats.  We quickly learned that stopping in the middle of the Alaska highway to take a photo is NOT A GOOD IDEA.  However, stopping in Whitehorse was a good idea.  Cute town, great setting in the mountains and wonderful  activities.  Our first stop the morning after we set up camp was to approach the nearest RV park and beg for a shower which we got for $2.00 each.  Quite a bargain.  Feeling all clean and new, we went to see the a very long fish ladder which was built to help the salmon navigate past the only dam on the Yukon River.These boys and girls have travelled 1800 miles to get to this point so its nice that they get a little helping hand.

 

Then we went into Whitehorse for a tour with a costumed historian who showed us all the “old” buildings…from about 1903.  My favorite were the log cabin sky scrapers; three story log cabins built in the early 1900’s by a man who realized he could make more money building up than out. And they are still used today by three different tenants!

That evening we took a tour with a naturalist to the Great Salt Lake of Whitehorse.  What was so amusing to us was that, even though the tour had been advertised through posters planted all over town, no one seemed to know what or where the salt lake was.  However, Bruce, our guide did and we rode for about 10 miles outside of town to a funky, salt layered area that came about from salts leeching out of the rocks and being deposited in the lake that was evaporating and being covered with red sea asparagus.  And to make matters even more interesting, the area had been used for horse grazing and was littered with old horse bones, as well as fresh bear paw prints and digs, elk poop, giant ant hills and a toad.  We walked for about 2.5 hours in the area, through “quaking mud” which jiggled when we trod on it; across slumps created as the permafrost stats to melt and the land sinks, and around “boot-sucking mud”…no explanation needed. IT IS FALL HERE!

We also saw the world's largest weather vane.  The story goes that the propellers used to turn until an unsuspecting visitor was driving by in a wind and saw the propellers turning and thought th plane was about to take off and crash into him, which caused the driver to crash.  So the propellers are now welded shut and do not spin.  But the big plane, a DC-3 does swing in the wind.

  All in all, great diversion from the Alaska Highway.

Another day of driving got us to the western edge of the Yukon. Did you know that this territory is bigger than Montana, Wyoming and part of Colorado and has less than 30,000 people, most of who live in Whitehorse.  Whew. Pottstown, PA has 30,000 people.

And now we are in Alaska, having passed through Tok into the great Wrangell St. Elias National Park which is bigger than Connecticut, Mass. and Rhode Island combined and has only two roads; one 60  miles long and the one we are camping on which is 40 miles long.  The roads are dirty and gravelly and have wrecked havoc on our car. We also got our first stone chip on our front window.  Boo!We finally saw a moose (mother and yearling) on the way today. And our luck has held out…it rained all the way to the park and half way to the spot where we are camped.   Here I am writing this very post. And now, even though it is quite cold (about 41 degrees at 9 pm) the sun is shining brightly in the sky (at 9 pm) and the mountains are glowing pink.  Here is the view from our campsite.   What a place.

Today, August 25 wwe are spending in Anchorage and tomorrow we go to the giant Alaska StateFair in Palmer and will end the evening listening to Ralph Stnley and the Clinch Mountain Boys.  Quite fitting to both begin and end our journey with music.

Looking forward to arriving in Homer on Thursday to see Dylan without his beard in his new house, and to start making friends with Fred who will be our new dog in Alaska.  He’s Dylan’s second dog now and his knapsack is packed and he is ready for the move to Fairbanks. 

One More Rodeo or You Can't Trust the Signs

We camped at Whistlers Campground in Jasper National Park.  This is a larger and more primitive park than Banff and the town, which is in the park, is smaller than Banff townsite as well.  Thus, the signage isn’t so good.

Our first full day we took a hike to the Valley of the Five Lakes.  Except that it turned out to be a hike to “the missing lakes” because somehow we missed the turnoff on the trail and ended up hiking through fields and up hills all the while hearing a bubbling stream to our right.  Since it was an unseasonably 90 degrees the hike was not going well at all.  I finally stopped and said, “No more”, at which point David headed straight downhill through brush and brambles until he found the stream and called me to follow. We spent a lovely afternoon dipping into the stream, eating lunch and just enjoying the silence and each other.  Then back up the hill and home to Celeste to get ready for the rodeo.  We had met a waitress at a bar the night before and asked her about the rodeo and she said, "Yeh,  Its great.  They even have real cowboys.  I wne t the other night andone of them said "Howdy Ma'am."  That was enogh for me. This was a real rodeo with grown-up cowboys, bucking broncos, steer wrestling and a dance afterwards.  The rodeo was on the dirt covered ice rink in the Jasper activities center and the dance afterwards was to be in the curling lounge, luckily not covered with ice for the occasion.  We cannot wait to see if Fairbanks has a curling team.  Those little curling stones are so cute.

The following day was another sign fiasco as we tried to find Bubbling Falls and the Pocahontas Mine.   David is the miner in the middle. We found the turn-off but no signage for the mine and then hiked up and up a very dusty path looking for the waterfalls, but finding only a man and his son who said we missed the turn and not to worry because there was no water at this time of year anyway.  So, down and down we went, back into our car and on the road for not more than 2 minutes when we came to a pull-off where we could see the “no-water” falls right by the side of the road.  Pretty strange.

All was forgiven, however, when we saw bunches of cars pulled off on the shoulder (where there was absolutely no signs whatsoever) and found dozens of people wading across a mile wide, fast running glacial river which was no deeper than their knees.  So, in we went to wade with them.  Absolutely sandy bottom, absolutely level, cold and fast running.  What fun (How many of you would be brave enough to show that photo?)

Back to the campground to find the resident elk parading about.

The nest day, August 18 was my birthday which we celebrated at a campground outside of Dawson Creek and Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. We are on our way to Alaska!

David made a new friend in Banff at the Icefields Center.

From Stupendous to Speechless

The road to Jasper is called the Icefield Parkway and we had no idea what we were getting into.  Glacier National Park is named for Glaciers, right? But we didn't see any of aby size.  Here all we saw were snow covered peaks, icefields and glacier after glacier.  Again, our rain luck held out, and although there had been rain in thea rea two days before we arrived, we had sunny, blue skies, the better to see the snow, dark green evergreens, glistening waterfalls, blue, green and smokey glacial pools and braided streams.  

We camped for two nights at the southern end of Jasper and were lucky enough to be two campsites over from an Austrian threesome who layed the bass, guitar and dobro all afternoon.  I even joined them with my banjo.  Very brave for me.

Our first hike was to Parker Ridge, which was straight up through a number of switchbacks to the Saskatchewan Glacier and the headwaters of the S. River.  Can you imagine a cliff's edge full of wildflowers across from which blazed a river of ice leading into a green glacial pool out of which flowed a braided river.  We just had to plop down and enjoy the view.  Of course, we were exhausted at the end of our 6.5 km hike.   However, our congratulations ended very soon after we got back to the camp when we talked to several people who had been, over the course of two days on 17 and 20 km hikes.  Oh well.  All is relative, and I am relatively certain that those hikes were not for us.

The next day we declared a "day off" from our vacation and slept late and hung around to about 11 am.  Then we went on the BEST HIKE ever past a 50-60 foot gorge

through which thundered a series of 7 waterfalls.    The weather was unseasonably hot, about 87 degrees, so of course, nothing stopped me from plunging in to the freezing cold water on several occasions.  (Black bikini undies do look like bathing suit bottoms, right?)  We took lunch and camped out next to the highest falls for a couple of hours, reading and snoozing, until we felt it was time to leave.  How perfect can you get?

 

Oops.  Today was the MOST PEARFECT HIE EVER!  We took a 3.5 hour hike on the Athabasca Glacier which came right down from the Colombia Glacier.  A bit of hisotyr here.  A number of hears ago David and I were in McCarthy, AK and decided to forgo to guided hike on that glacier and took off on our own in sneakers and hiking boots.  Well, we got stuck and had to be talk down after hakcing out steps in the glacier with rocks and become bloodied and torn in the process.  So, when we saw the sign-up sheet for guided hikes on this glacier, we jumped at the chance.

Even though the temperature was about 75 degrees in the parking lot, we loaded up with long underwear, hats, gloves, scraves and hiking boots to which we afixed crampons when we got on the glacier. With our guide Peter and his dog George, we were off.  What a wonderful trip and since words fail,here are the photo.

 

 

 

And you wonder why David is not in more photos?

Tomorrow its off to the rodeo in Jasper!  This should be a more professional rodeo than the others we have been to.  Hopefully there won't be any mutton busting at this one.

Stupendous. The new overused word.

Every few minutes as we drove to Banff National park David and I said, “Wow!  This is really stupendous.  Look over there.  That is even more stupendous.”  Of course, we were talking about the Canadian Rockies.  Even the cows that crossed in front of us on the road had horns that seemed stupendous.  Sometimes we have read about tectonic plates moving and continents crashing into one another, thrusting up mountains.  Well, it made sense when we saw the Canadian Rockies; giant stone fingers pointing into the sky, covered with snow caps and glacier, colored with evergreens and dotted with glacial pools. 

However, I must editorialize here. Even though we knew that gas would be very expensive, I had not counted on the rest of the expenses.  $6.00 for a tub of cream cheese; $20 per DAY in Banff (compared to $25 per week in the US) and $27.40 for a non-electric site at the park; $2.00 per 20 minutes for internet.  I am a little taken aback, but David has taken all this in his stride.

However, the park is surely beautiful, if a little scary since our campground, the only one of the many here, is protected by a fully electrified fence surrounding the whole site, with entry roads electrified as well and gateways for pedestrians and bicyclists to go around.  There are big signs that warn that food and coolers, etc. will be confiscated and the owner thrown out of the park if everything is not put away when we leave the campsite. And there are some trails where you can only hike in groups of four or more.  Maybe they have smart bears here who know that three tourists are tasty but four are dangerous.   The showers are great!!!

As soon as we got to Banff we set up and then took a long and lovely hike around Lake Louise, the centerpiece of the park.  Not without reason is it the most photographed site in Alberta.  Glacial lake, huge Rockies’ peaks, rushing river and glaciers.  In addition, as we were hiking the fog rolled in covering the peaks and adding to the drama.  At night the temperature got down into the low 40’s and we slept under 2 quilts. That’s 9 degrees centigrade here in Canada.

Up the next day for a long hike to Consolation Lake, one of the places where foursome hikers are mandatory.  Since we are only 2 we met up with a family from Belgium who were caterers and very nice to talk to. Then we ran into them several more times during the day, as we did with an English mother and grown daughter who, we found out later, were camping in the campsite directly across from us!

After lunch we took a hike straight up into the mountains above Lake Louise to Mirror Lake and then on to the teahouse way up in the mountains.  I pooped out at Mirror Lake and David went all the way to the tea house.  However, I had my cake and ate it too since he did bring me down an oatmeal cookie.

It was freezing coming down the mountain and we scurried back to camp for hot chocolate (me) and beer (David).

Today we are spending the day in the town of Banff, hiking and soaking in a hot springs.  Then tomorrow it is on to the Icefield parkway and Jasper

Home Sweet New Home

Our first day we went into Cochrane Alberta, Canada, a lovely little tourist town, where we tried and tried to use the internet without much luck.  We were successful, however, in renting our new house in Alaska, 3477 Buffalo Lane, Fairbanks, AK  99710.  Don’t send any mail and don’t make plans to visit yet.  We sent a deposit and a letter of intent and will sign the lease when we get there. Do you believe we did this over the internet on Craig’s List?  We hope it will be perfect.  It is about the same size as the Schwenksville house with a full bath and a downstairs toilet on 2 acres in a neighborhood about 20 minutes outside of Fairbanks on a dirt road sort of near the Chena Hot Springs. Hiking trails nearby.  Lots of folks in the neighborhood, including our landlords who live next door have DOG SLED TEAMS.  How cool will that be?   And amazingly enough, we did it all through email, and a few phone calls.  We hope the house is as good as the photos.

 

Up North To Glacier and Beyond...the beginning of the end

 

We decided not to rush to Glacier to get a campsite.  So we stayed one night in Lolo National Forest, near Glacier, in a site right off the access road.  Not really great, but a nice hike to a lake at the end of the road.

However, the next day we went to Glacier National Park, and that is really great.  Got an OK campsite and immediately hopped the shuttle for the Going ToThe Sun Road, a 50 mile road carved out of the mountains.  We saw mountain goat, big horned sheep (in a parking lot) and a grizzly bear, as well as an entire family hit by one motorcycle from the Netherlands.

Since this park is as far north as you can go in the US (it borders Canada) we are certainly getting prepared for Alaska.  First of all, it is 9:30 pm and I am sitting in light dusk typing this.  Plus I have on long pants, two shirts, a sweatshirt and socks.  We are sleeping under our summer and winter quilts.  The days warm up nicely, however.

Lots and lots of lakes and waterfalls.  Lots of deer and chipmunks, but almost no glaciers.  They seem to have melted (global warming?)

The next day we went into Whitehorse to take care of some emails and then took a wonderful hike through great, green mountains and gushing icy streams to Avalanche Lake.  David wanted a real odilesque (which would have meant getting naked, but I objected)  The hiking trail was right by our campgrounds.

The next day, to get away from all of the people we drove to Bowman Lake which was quite aways away on a dirt road.  Since Glacier is only open from the end of May until the middle of September, the whole season is so short that the visitors swarm into the park.  As a matter of fact, the ranger ho checked our pass mentioned that all of PA must be in Glacier because she kept checking in PA residents.  And, wouldn't you know, the car following us through the gate honked us over to the side and told us they were from Paoli.  On the way to Bowman Lake we passed through Poleridge, a town of one store and about three houses all on generators.  The store, however, was the most marvelous bakery ever and we certainly stocked up on goodies.

Our hike around Bowman Lake was peaceful and relatively people-free.  For those of you who think that David is not on this trip...here he is.

Our final day in Glacier was spent canoeing on lake Macdonald, one of the largest glacier lakes in Glacier.  It was cold, calm, clear and beautiful. 

That evening, after many failed attempts, we managed to meet up with our friends the Davids and their three children who just happened to be in Glacier (more of those pesky Pennsylvanians) the same time we were.  We had a wonderful dinner and it was great to see folks from home. (David's the one behind the camera)

Lucky for them, we decided that dinner went on so long that we did not impose upon them for use of their shower in their hotel room.  However, things were getting rather desperate, having not seen a shower since we left Bozeman 5 days before.  Washing my hair in a pot and resting my tush in the lake is certainly not enough.

Life is beginning to be reduced to basics and David and I began plotting our next shower.  We knew that the campgrounds we were going to in Canada were pretty basic, or very expensive so we were getting desperate.  Once we got into Canada I called one of the RV parks, not to stay but to see if they would sell us a shower.  "Oh, no, the manager told me.  No one will do that."

Riding through a little town on the way to Calagary (the hometown of Faye Ray) I saw a sign that gave me hope and shouted "Stop!" to David, who obligingly pulled over, did a "u-ey" with Celeste and tracked down the campground that advertised SHOWERS.  Needless to say, I went to speak to the manager while David hid.

"Hello.  I don't want a campsite, but do need a shower.  Can you sell me one, or two?"

"What?"

"Shower.  I haven't had one in 6 days.  Please can we buy some?

And, believe it or not, for $3.00 each, David and I GOT CLEAN.  What is our life coming to?