Page 8

1 Sep 2010We slept in and enjoyed all the conveniences of having electricity. Kim made some popcorn and we watched a DVD, “Monsters Inc.” It has been getting consistently colder each day, and along with the rainy conditions, it’s be down-right chilly. The heat has been coming on more often in the trailer, and it is a pleasure to have. The trees and foliage are really changing now, and you can see the dramatic difference from one day to the next. It’s really beautiful. Kim especially likes the Quaking Aspens because they change silvery light green before yellow and because of the way they sound when even a slight breeze stirs the leaves. We went back to the Klondike Rib and Salmon Restaurant and had our favorite meal. There was only 17 days left until they closed for the season. We’re seeing many more rental RV’s lately. I’d say the majority of the RV’s on the road now are the rentals. There must be a good deal on off-season rates. Gypsy had found one of her packages (poop) she left at this exact same campground when we passed here earlier. She said the postage was still good, so she left another and mailed them both again. She thinks she’s a real world-traveler. She reads all the mail and sends many letters, postcards and packages. I think she has a few pen pals. She is very funny to watch when she scratches dirt on something that she wants to claim; every so often when she’s doing this she becomes over exuberant, gets a bit of traction not anticipated and launches herself into the air. We always compliment her when she does this, hoping to see her do it again. It only happens once in a while.

Yes, we went back to feed our Halibut addiction today. It was just as good as the first time. We also got gas and went grocery shopping. Every time I go to the store in Canada I feel like I’m going to have a stroke at the check out line as I see everything being added up. Everything is going to look so much cheaper when we get back in the states! It was nice driving around and knowing where you are going. We didn’t look like tourists too much. Looking forward to popcorn and a movie tonight!

3 September 2010Sorry if there are not as many pictures lately, but with all the rain I didn’t want to get the camera wet and we don’t have a backup. It was overcast when we left. Kim was just saying, “I don’t care if it is over cast as long as it doesn’t rain”. Five minutes later it started raining. It did this off and on, mostly on during out drive to Big Creek in the Yukon. This is the stretch of the road that we go back and forth from the Yukon to British Colombia a few times. This will be our last night camping in the Yukon. We’ll miss it. It is a very beautiful and remote province. Whitehorse is the largest city in the Yukon with 29,000 people, and 70% of the population of the Yukon lives in Whitehorse. Another math problem for you guys.

Big Creek is a very nice little campground right along side of the creek. The water is swift and very clear. I noticed there was a group shelter when we first pulled in so I went to check it out after I parked. There was a really nice wood-stove just waiting for a bit of fire, and you know how I like fires. I got a few loads of wood set by, and started a nice hot fire. We stayed by the fire for a good long while and had some snacks. Kim had bought some marshmallows in Whitehorse and we got them out. A lone motorcyclist came by and I invited him to come warm up. He decided to pitch his tent right there in the shelter next to the wood stove. I think if he loads up the stove before he goes to sleep it will burn until morning. It was a big stove and could hold a lot of wood. He was driving a BMW R100 This is the first motorcycle we’ve seen in a few days. He had gone up to the Arctic Ocean and he was returning to his home in the Okanagan in British Colombia.

Was I happy to have the stove under the shelter. It put out so much heat that we could take off our coats and be really warm. It rained off and on again and it was nice to be able to sit outside without freezing or getting wet.

4 September 2010

We headed to the small town of Watson Lake to top off the fuel tank and pick up some bread for lunches. It is the biggest place we’ll see until we cross the Alcan Highway at Prince George. We are on the Cassiar Highway now. It is quite different than the Alcan Highway in that it is a smaller road with trees that come much closer to the roadway. The road has not been leveled and straightened; it is still winding and hilly. Once we turned onto the Cassiar it was clear that this is a road less traveled. It is also less populated and less maintained. We are seeing the results of the fires that closed the road for weeks, however there are still many unburned areas. If most of the roadhouses on the Alcan have been closed over the years, I imagine the same thing has happened on this road also. We’ll see. We settled into Boya Lake Campground, our first back in British Colombia. The water of the lake is a blue-green color and stunning. The sun came out for a couple hours and I started a fire. It’s raining now and it will be a good time to read. Kim has been so nice to let me use her book reader.

We took a walk around the campground because the rain had let up. There were plenty of grouse running around the park. We met the Fire Chief of Whitehorse who was camping just down the way with this wife. Nice people.This lake had the prettiest water that we’ve seen so far. I forgot how nice the parks are in B.C. Not that the ones in the Yukon aren’t nice, they are just different. Here there is always someone to talk with and to register you for your site and tell you about what’s been going on as far as which animals have been seen in the campsite. It’s still raining off and on for about nine days now (eye roll), but we have been trying to keep the inside of trailer and ourselves dry.

5 Sept 2010Do I get tired of seeing the same old absolutely beautiful scenery? Heck no, it’s never really the same and the weather changes so often and the season so quickly, that everything seems different. The rivers are fuller and faster now because of the rain, the colors are changing daily and there are less bugs lately too. Each morning we get up and see new snow in the mountains. We passed by a really nice beaver dam, you know the National Geographic model, at Gnat Summit which happens to be the Arctic / Pacific Divide. We also saw quite a few muskrat houses. The day started bright and sunny although chilly, and the temperature dropped to 41 degrees as we climbed in elevation. Finally the clouds took over and it started raining as we arrived at Kinaskan Lake. Another really beautiful camping stop in British Colombia, man do they do a great job on their parks. We are parked right on the lake again. Even though it was raining lightly, I started a fire and we, all three stood under the umbrella watched the fire and saw 3 loons just out from our site. Earlier in the day we say some white fronted geese. We stopped a little down the road and walked back to take a photo, but they were quite timid and put some distance between us as soon as they saw us stop. I couldn’t get a good photo. There are a few good things about all the rain we’ve been having, for one it has opened up the Cassiar Highway, and secondly it’s nice to know the fires are not going to flare up at night while we are camping. We did see some hot spots still smoldering, and the fire chief said they would probably be some still smoldering come next spring.

It was 48 out this morning. Well here is our neighbor in the next campsite in her bathing suite getting into the lake. I have on my boots, winter coat and hat. What’s wrong with this picture? I’m really happy that Bob took me down this highway. There are so many different things to see how does someone who only has a few weeks decide what route that they are going to take? How do you choose what you are going to miss when everything is so different and so beautiful? Today we saw free ranging horses on the side of the road. Strange just to see them eating the brush walking around like they own the place.

6 Sep 2010It was quite chilly last night, temperatures in the low 40’s and raining. We are continuing to head south, and today we entered a different climate range. There was just a light sprinkle of rain today, and then it cleared up nicely. With the temperature now in the 50’s and sunshine it fell much warmer. We didn’t even need coats this afternoon. There are more types of trees and much larger trees than we’ve seen in the last few weeks. Things are lush and it seems the season is about 3 weeks or more behind where we were yesterday. So far, this road has not changed one bit from what I remember. We passed two native communities, and other than at a junction of a road there are not too many other signs of people. We did pass by a bear and her two cubs. We passed one logging camp and what looked like a new logging road in progress, but we haven’t seen any logging trucks. I remember quite a few logging trucks in the past. Maybe they are all just heading south now. We are camping at Meziadin Lake. It’s a beautiful clear-green color and is known to be only one of three areas where 4 species of salmon spawn in the lake. Of course watch for bears the sign says. We took a walk around the campground after dinner to take out the trash and just as we were approaching our campsite, Kim yells “Bear!”.

Bear was right. How cool was that!? He was just walking slowly in our direction from another campsite. All the “what to do when you see a bear” training went right out the window when you are looking at one. He was calm, just looking at us, well, more like looking at Gypsy. We all stopped and watched him for a second then Bob picked up Gypsy so fast her breath came out as a humph but she didn’t make a squeak. We walked quickly to the campsite and threw the dog in and we looked around for a minute to see if he was following us. As I said, all the what to do when you see a bear training went out the window. Bob’s getting the camera and looking for his big stick. Like that’s going to do anything but make him feel better. Seconds later we heard a loud bang! The park hosts also saw the bear and shot a warning blast like a fire cracker in the air. We looked around and didn’t see the bear so we decided to toast marshmallows by the fire while keeping an eye out, Gypsy still safe in the trailer. It was still light out so we would see him coming. Within five minutes there was another big blast on the other side of the campground. We then proceeded to go quickly in the trailer and call it a night. Gypsy knows something is up and is not complaining about not going out side at all. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I need to take her out tonight or tomorrow morning. I guess I should go over the “what to do when you see a bear” information! Exciting evening to say the least.

7 Sept 2010Great weather for traveling. Heading to Tyhee Lake Campground. We left the Cassiar Highway and headed southeast on the Yellowhead Highway. We are back into civilization, and I must say I’m a little melancholy. Not having the complete wilderness around, having to share the road and now having to look at all the things built by and for man is somewhat of a culture shock. Now there are lines on the roads to keep one in the correct lane; telephone poles, shoulders on the roads, stop signs and stop lights; roadside signs indicating a town is coming up and to shop at this or that retailer. Straight roads you can see down for a few miles, straight as arrows, surely laid out by a surveyor according to sections on a government plat. There are fences now, to keep livestock in or people out. There are large and small parcels of cleared land with perfectly mowed and bundled hay, or tilled and ready for planting. There are small towns and even railroad tracks now; saw mills and logging trucks. I don’t recall seeing one logging truck on the Cassiar Highway. We did read signs of past logging and replanting, but no new logging. There is an intense effort to log the loge pole pines killed by the pine beetles. It is commercially viable timber before it begins to rot, and it also helps lower the population of beetles and gives an earlier start to growing new pine trees. They say that this is a cyclical phenomena, and the forests will recover, but the excellent control of wild fires in the past 10 years along with mild winters have compounded the problem. Instead of the beetles having a mortality rate of 80% as is usual, it has been 10% which greatly adds to the beetle population. We passed through Hazelton the home of Carol Huynh the now famous Olympic Gold Medal winner in Wrestling! http://www.carolhuynh.com/

We also passed through a very nice little town called Smithers.

9 Sep 2010Last campground in BC is Purden Lake Campground. Another beautiful camp on a lake. We ran into one of the BC Park employees that we met when we first arrived in Canada. Last night we ran into his partner who we also met at another campground. It seems they are shutting down campgrounds as the seasons change and the longer term employees get to move to other parks that remain open. Small world Canada is. We started and ended this drive with great weather. We stopped in Prince George to stock up on some food since we’ll be at Jasper and Banff until we reach northern Montana. All of the logging that we didn’t see on the Cassiar was surely made up on this stretch of the Yellowhead Highway. The land is mostly used for range grazing cattle, growing hay and of course timber. There are 5 lumber mills in Prince George alone, which is also the center of commerce for central and northern BC. A bustling city, even Walmart is looking for workers. We had our last campfire in BC, and it was a nice one. Both last night and tonight the fire seemed especially warm and long lasting. We stayed out standing near the fire until out backs were too cold even though our fronts were warm. We looked up before we went back in, and the Milky Way was out brighter than I had seen in years.

10 September 2010It was overcast when we started the day. The terrain changed as we increased our elevation. We passed through the Ancient Forest. It was a preserved stand of very old trees.

Again, many moose crossing signs, but no moose; Kim is upset about this. There are two distinct types of moose crossing signs. One is a very nice representation of the profile of a bull moose; the other is a stylized version that makes me think of gay moose. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it does seem odd. We stopped at the Mt. Robson information center to stretch our legs and luckily I was able to get a short video of a Golden Eagle soaring in front of Mt. Robson. My camera doesn’t do very well on videos, I think one could draw stick figures on a pad and fan the pages and get better quality than I get. Clouds covered the peak of Mt. Robson and the weather looked like it was closing in, so we kept on the road until we entered Alberta, and Jasper National Park. Since it is Friday, many areas of the campgrounds are full. Some of the campgrounds in the park closed on 6 September, so all camping is done in only a few campgrounds. We headed into Jasper village to get information about the camping and activities. Luckily we arrived for the weekend because the ranger led interpretive talks are only given on the weekends this time of year. We were warned about the Elk being in rut and in the campground. The bulls get aggressive, so it can be dangerous. Even though BC is only a few miles away, you can sure tell the difference between a park in BC and a park in Alberta. I wonder if the emigration information that I requested arrived in Florida yet? They did have an excellent program for BC that ended a few years ago. The Canadian government would let you buy land for a ridiculously low price if after 5 years you could demonstrate improvements. I think they have that program ongoing in the Yukon, but that place is so blasted cold in the winter. The Yukon is like Alaska, it has only two seasons, winter and last winter.

Well, I was disappointment on the interpretive talks. They showed a bear etiquette video because one of the presenters was sick. Tomorrow there is a talk on what it takes to run a national park. I don’t know if I’d be interested. I was hoping for a talk on moose, caribou, wolves, trees, lichens or even ducks! …… but management techniques for a national park and a bear safety video shared by both US and Canadian National Parks, sheesh! I could find that stuff in pamphlets. Well, that’s what I get for thinking things would be the same as they were. I hope they ask me what I think. Now I find myself looking for things done wrong.

Our ride was nice today I really enjoy being back in the mountains. We pulled in to the Whistlers campground registration line with about 20 other campers. Most of them are rented RV’s. We got a space, but it sure isn’t as nice as what we are used to. It looks like we are out in the overflow camping area and that the sites have all been trampled by the 2 million visitors that come to the park. We had to walk quite a ways to get to the outdoor theater for the talk tonight; I think we should have driven. I feel bad that Bob was disappointed in the park and the talks. He has such fond memories of these parks and it’s not living up to his expectations. I hope the rest of the trip here is better.

11 September 2010It rained last night as we slept, I always like that, I pull the covers up just a little bit more, roll over and go back to sleep. The first time I rolled over I looked over to see if Kim was up, she is usually the first up; the second time I looked over she was still in bed and I had to check to see if she was still breathing. We all slept in and then got up to go exploring around Jasper village, the roads up to Pyramid Lake and around town. We were just about at the end of the road up to Pyramid Lake and we were passing a pull `over area, I saw high heels, skirts and beers. I think someone was getting married, or had made a wrong turn 200 miles ago. The clouds kept us from seeing the mountains, but it was nice just to see the area. We headed back to town to see if we could find an internet connection. We headed out around dinner time and saw elk in the campground and all around the park. We even saw some Rocky Mountain sheep on the side of a hill close to the road.

12 September 2010It was a long wet and cold drive from Jasper to Lake Louise. We stopped at Saskatchewan Glacier to take a few pictures, and it was snowing and 34 degrees. It was only during the time we were in the high pass that it snowed and was near freezing. It warmed back up into the 40’s for the rest of the trip.

The ride from Jasper to Lake Louise I’m sure is fabulous, however, we didn’t see much of it. The clouds were so low and you had to keep your eyes on the road as you went up and down the mountains. We stopped at the glacier and we couldn’t believe how much the temperature dropped! We ran in the trailer and got our winter coats and hats. One stop we made at Bow Lake to where we could see a little bit and Bob and I looked up at the side of a mountain and we both almost fell over backwards it was so tall! Later we camped in the Town of Lake Louise and it was still cold and raining so we stayed in and kept warm. Hope to see the lake tomorrow.