Month: September 2023

Boya Lake and Hyder

September 1, 2023

On Saturday, August 26, we were one of the first cars to cross the border back into Canada.  We drove 360 miles from Skagway to Boya Lake, with a lunch stop on the Rancheria River for Larry to try a bit of gold panning. 

At the start of the Cassiar Highway, we had to wait over an hour to follow a pilot car through an area of fires very close to the road. 

We made it to Boya Lake but learned later that the Cassiar was closed overnight.  Our campsite at Boya Lake was one of our best! 

Boya Lake is a beautiful Caribbean blue, and we could park with our big passenger windows facing the lake. 

Even though there were no empty campsites, it was peaceful and quiet, with just the sound of the loons calling. 

We hiked along the lakeshore trail and rented a kayak to explore some of the lakes and islands—you could get lost without a GPS! 

A very protective beaver emerged from a lodge we thought was abandoned and slapped his tail on the water several times to warn us away as he swam around us.  We took the hint and paddled off. 

After two idyllic days, we reluctantly departed on Monday and drove the remainder of the Cassiar to Stewart.  The northern part of the Cassiar is a two-lane, scenic byway without even lines to mark the pavement.  We stopped at Jade City and met the owner, whose show has seven seasons on the Discovery Channel. 

He said winter could come anytime now but would likely be late this year as there was no snow on a nearby mountain that usually marks the two-week warning to winter.  We made it to Rainey Creek Municipal Campground in Stewart and were assigned an excellent site backing up to a creek complete with pink salmon!

The following day was foggy and drizzly, so we toured the museum and visitor center, walked through town, and strolled the boardwalk over the marsh. 

The weather didn’t improve, so we got up early on Wednesday and crossed into Hyder, Alaska (no customs here) to the Fish Creek Wildlife Observation Site.  In late summer, bears feed on pink and chum salmon just below the platforms at the observation station, closely monitored by park rangers armed with bear spray.  A 5-year-old grizzly was chasing salmon, with a preference for the larger chums, and we watched him for almost 2 hours. 

This is us trying to leave from the parking lot while a bear strolled by!

Look at those claws (on an exhibit at the Observation Site, not on a live bear)

Midmorning, we drove up the slick gravel and marl road towards the Salmon Glacier through the thick fog (plus bears) and were rewarded for our perseverance with a clear view of the glacier. 

We spent the day there as others came and went, took pictures, walked to different viewpoints up and down the road, and flew the drone. 

Camping is allowed here, and we considered it, but as the fog rolled back in, we decided to return to the campground for the night.  We stopped again at Fish Creek and watched bears awhile—the male we had watched before was there, and it was a little eery how he would look sideways over his back up at the viewing platform, almost as if he was sizing us up. 

To get to our campground, we had to cross back into Canada, this time with a Border Patrol agent. 

And with that crossing, we left Alaska for the last time on this adventure 😭  Thursday was a driving day, but we started by finding a place to wash the grime off the rig from the drive up to the Salmon Glacier.  We finished the Cassiar Highway, stopping at the Land of Totems and the Gitgawink Battle Site to learn some history and stretch our legs. 

The smoke from the prevalent fires this year in Canada got thicker as we headed toward Prince George.  At Witset RV Park and Campground, where we stayed for the night, we could see the helicopters working to put out the fires in the nearby mountains.

Although no one was fishing during our stay, Witset Canyon is a First Nations fishing spot

Friday was September 1st and the beginning of the Labor Day holiday, so the traffic increased as we drove toward Prince George.  Smithers is a cute alpine-themed town, and we stopped at Bugwood Coffee for a pumpkin spice latte and gluten-free berry muffin. 

In Prince George, we shopped, fueled, washed the rig (again), and boondocked at the WalMart overnight.  Prince George is where we “crossed our wake” on our Alaska trip, closing the Loop we started on the way to Dawson Creek and Mile 0 of the Alcan back in early June.  We have several boating friends who have completed “The Loop” of the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and Intracoastal Waterway for whom “crossing their wake” is the celebrated end of the great adventure.  We’ve crossed our wake but aren’t finished with this adventure yet!

And about that Loop—we’d need a boat….one we could pull behind the truck….Larry was pretty excited about this setup he saw in the Yukon……

Fifty or so years ago, my paternal grandparents took their sailboat up the inside or outside passage to Alaska every summer well into their eighties.  There was always a spectacular slide show when they visited us and stories of their adventures, including a rogue wave in the Pacific that rolled their 40-foot boat.  So, it can be done when we’re older (maybe minus the rogue wave….)

Whitehorse to Jasper

September 9, 2023

I had not made any camping plans for the Labor Day holiday weekend as we drove east from Whitehorse to Jasper National Parc.  Back in March, I had decided that we would take a relaxed approach to the weekend and find someplace to land as long as we stayed away from the major parks.  Honestly, it worked out better than I had expected!

On Saturday, September 2, we stopped at Purden Lake Provincial Park in the early afternoon as a nice camp spot was available. 

We walked down to the lake and found it full of families splashing in the water, sunbathing, and grilling.  As pleasant as it was, we drove to the Ancient Forest Provincial Park the next day, where we spent several hours hiking the trails entirely on boardwalks.  Unlike the coastal rainforests of Vancouver Island, this inland rainforest is one of a kind. 

We enjoyed the peace and solitude as we were there early, but it did get busy later in the morning, so we continued our drive east to LaSalle Lake Recreation Area.  There was an available campsite across from the lake, and as we were settling in, our neighbors on the lake said they were leaving so we could have their site.  It was a fantastic site, and — free! 

Later in the afternoon, we launched our two-seat inflatable kayak we had purchased for this trip.   We hadn’t even unfolded it until now, and for its maiden voyage, we discovered that our “red” kayak was orange, orange, orange!  Nicknamed the Orange Peel, we also found that we had forgotten the hoses that go with the pump to inflate the kayak.  So, Orange Peel was a little underinflated but still performed well as we enjoyed circumnavigating the small but clear water LaSalle Lake. 

We’ll try to get the hoses, but ordering them in Canada is challenging.

After a peaceful night, our Labor Day Monday drive was increasingly smoky and heavier traffic.  Rearguard Falls is the furthest east the salmon travel to spawn, and though it is too late in the season for them, we did see some whitewater rafters just leaving for a trip downstream.  I waved, and they waved back!  I’m sure they thought we wished we were with them — and they were right! 

That afternoon, we made it to Jasper, our destination for the next few days, where the air quality was “unhealthy” due to all the smoke.  There is no free parking in town, so we didn’t linger at the visitor center after we talked to a ranger who confirmed we had solid plans for our visit and gave us a few other ideas.

 Campground is further out of town and much more forested than the other campgrounds, and on our drive in, we saw a magnificent bull elk just walking along the road! 

The smoke was so thick we could hardly see the outlines of nearby mountains.

The following day, the predicted rain came, so we waited until lunchtime to drive up the narrow, steep, winding road to Mount Edith Cavell.  We walked to Cavell Pond on the Path of Glacier Trail, where we saw the pond and Angel Glacier above.  The rain removed the smoke so you could see much better, though now there was some fog to contend with.

Wednesday, we left early and drove the Icefields Parkway to the Columbia Icefield Centre.  Along the way, we stopped at Athabaska Falls and Sunwapta Falls.  Athabasca Falls was awe-inspiring with its narrow slot canyon and abandoned channel.  The waterfall was short but powerful, and we enjoyed walking to all the viewpoints in solitude. 

We had tickets for the Icefield Adventure at 10. We first got onto a shuttle bus to cross the street to a depot, where we boarded an enormous glacier crawler. 

The crawler took us up and down a steep hill, through a tire wash (deep puddle), and then onto the glacier.  There was a groomed area where all the crawlers parked inside a roped-off “safe” area for visitors to walk on. 

Does the kid in the middle look old enough to drive that monster crawler?

It was such a different experience than the one we had in Wrangell-St.  Elias!!  Walking on the glacier with the mountains in close backdrop was neat.  Larry drank some glacier ice and helped others take photos before we returned to the crawler, then a bus that took us up the Parkway to the Skywalk. 

The SkyWalk lets you walk out on a glass overlooking the valley below.  The drop-off was very steep, so of course, you felt like you would fall through the air to the river below, and it was a hoot to watch everyone’s reactions.

We drove to Maligne Canyon just after dawn the next day and hiked the bridges.  A narrow river carved the canyon with potholes, swirls, and unique beauty. 

We stopped at the large but shallow Medicine Lake that drains into Maligne Canyon.  Driving along the banks, you can see the cracks in the lake bottom where the drainage occurs.  Long ago, they even tried stuffing newspapers into the cracks to stop the drainage! 

We found a good parking spot at Maligne Lake and walked the Moose Lake Trail (no moose) and the Mary Shäefer Trail along the lake. 

At 4:30, we took the cruise out to near Spirit Island.  You can’t walk on Spirit Island, but you can get a good picture, and we had a lovely late afternoon light for that!

On the way home, we stopped in Jasper to do laundry and pick up some groceries, so it was pretty late and very dark when we got back to camp.  On Friday, we hiked the Valley of Five Lakes Trail.  Lake One wasn’t much, but Lakes 2-5 were lovely, clear, and beautiful blue! 

We took photos at the red chairs and enjoyed low numbers of people on the trail until the end, where at the trailhead, someone had just tested their bear spray (why?) and left a lingering acrid residue that burned your eyes and throat.  We had a fire and a rare treat of roasted hot dogs for dinner that evening.

On Saturday, September 9, we said goodbye to Jasper and drove down the Icefields Parkway again to Banff. 

We stopped for a short hike at Waterfowl Lake, where the campground was closed for the season.  Paw prints of a big cat were in the mud along the stream! 

We hiked up to Peyto Lake, which is very popular but still fun, and then Bow Lake, where we walked the lakeshore. 

Bow Lake would be an excellent stop to stay awhile, and we enjoyed a sandwich and cookie from the Lodge Cafe on the remainder of our beautiful drive into Banff.

 

Fun Fact:  When Apple launched the 2014 iPad, an image of Spirit Island was chosen to illustrate its photographic capabilities, and according to our tour guide the island is still one of the most photographed places in the Canadian Rockies!

Banff

September 16, 2023

Yikes!  We drove into Banff, which was like dropping into a crowded theme park.  Granted, it was a Saturday, so we deserved the traffic we got, but transitioning back to civilization is always challenging.  We were glad to be in the truck camper to find a parking spot in town! 

As always, we went to the Park Visitor Centre to chat with a ranger about advice, weather, and general information before catching some groceries and heading back north on the Trans Canada Highway to our campground at Johnston Canyon.  I had picked this campground as a base of operations between activities we had planned in Banff to the south and the Lake Louise area to the north, which worked well for the week we were there.

On Sunday, 9.10, we drove to Lake Louise, and I made a good breakfast before we joined a Parc Canada ranger for a guided hike to Hidden Lake.  It is usually a long hike with a steep, dusty road to the trailhead, but we got a shuttle ride to skip the road walk. 

As we hiked, the ranger stopped periodically to talk about the cutthroat trout and efforts to preserve it. 

The short story is about the cutthroat trout going extinct, so they found the perfect place for it (Hidden Lake), killed all the fish there, and reintroduced the trout.   It was a full day with a stop by the lake for the lunch we brought.

On Monday, we drove east to Golden for the Skybridge. 

This particular adventure was part of a discounted package I purchased through Pursuit Pass Rockies and I’m not sure I would have gone otherwise, but it was enjoyable.  The plan for the day was to first sightsee at YoHo National Park.  We drove up to Takakkaw Falls —a very steep drive with a switchback that vehicles over 24 feet must back up to maneuver.  The Falls had a neat rooster tail, and it was a quick walk out to them. 

On the way to Emerald Lake, we stopped at Natural Bridge, where the water eroded the rock across the river to form a cool bridge. 

Emerald Lake was truly emerald, and we walked around the perimeter. 

After that, a bit of a drive to the Skybridge,  where two pedestrian suspension bridges span the kicking horse river gorge.  It was a lovely day, and we enjoyed ourselves.

On Tuesday, we were at the Lake Louise parking lot before 7 am to get a parking spot in their RV lot.  To get there that early meant we left the campground in the dark, which is not unusual, but as we drove through the parking lot, we were surprised by a giant black bear!  We watched the sunrise over Lake Louise, then hiked the Plain of 6 glaciers trail up to Agnes Lake Teahouse. 

The trail climbed steadily to the Teahouse, and we watched a helicopter making multiple trips. 

We thought it was bringing  food, but on arrival at the Teahouse, we learned they were emptying the pit toilets.  We had hot chocolate and a snack – not the sandwich and soup we had anticipated, as the crew was primarily busy with the helicopter. 

Then, we hiked to the trail’s end, past and on glacial moraines, where you could see six glaciers across the valley and on the mountains.  It was spectacular!! 

We hiked back to the Teahouse and had a piece of chocolate cake (they still weren’t serving lunch). 

Not getting the lunch we’d intended left us a little flat on the hike back, but we met another hiker whose enthusiasm and joy were uplifting.  He shared pictures of his morning hike and plans for his vacation, confirming that one of the best parts of travel is the people we meet!  We shared our amazement at seeing one of the glaciers calve with a huge thunderous roar and our appreciation of all the beauty around us.

Now that’s one way to travel!

This chubby guy clearly gets food rewards for his boldness!

We drove into Banff early on Wednesday to get a picture with the Banff sign.  There was always a line of people for this, and in the afternoon, the light was from behind the sign, so we knew we wanted to do our picture in the morning. 

We walked the trail to Bow Falls and the overlook before going to the Banff Gondola, where we had tickets for 10:10 am. 

The views from the boardwalk and stairs to the top of Sulphur Mountain were clear without the recent smoke!  Northern Lights Alpine Kitchen had a delicious buffet, which we treated ourselves to at a table right by the window. 

We drove to Lake Minnewanka in the afternoon for the 6 pm boat cruise. 

The trip had no stops, but the narrator gave a great demo of how the “Stoney” people used hot rock to boil water and cook food!

  Thursday, we went back to Lake Louise, where we had reserved early morning shuttle tickets to Lake Moraine.  We climbed Rockpile to get the morning light and sunrise photos, then did the Larch Valley hike. 

The larches were not at peak yet but in a lovely grove.  Larch trees are the only evergreen trees to have their needles turn yellow/gold and fall off each year, so this area of Banff is famous for fall foliage (hike early!).

We started hiking the upper and lower Johnston Canyon Falls near our campground on Friday before sunrise.  We got to the upper falls as the light was getting pretty and enjoyed the beauty and solitude, though it was chilly! 

Our next adventure was a four-hour horseback ride to Sulphur Springs Mountain, and we ended up going under the gondola we’d taken the day before and then further on to Spray Creek.  All the horses at the stable are rescued from auction and well cared for.  From his lip tattoo, they knew my Arabian horse had been a Level 4 Dressage Horse, which is hard to fathom how he ended up at auction, but he was pretty popular with all the riders.

Saturday, we just had to go back to Lake Louise for one more gorgeous sunrise before heading to Calgary!

I did not mention that the young man we met on the hike down from the Teahouse walked with an unusual gait, which suggested some orthopedic issue, yet it didn’t stop him from hiking further than we did that day.  His hands started at his elbows and had missing or misshaped fingers, yet he could scroll through the photos on his phone faster than I could.  He will always be an unstoppable ray of sunshine in my memories.  Banff is a beautiful gem of a place, but the real treasure is people like him.

Be unstoppable.

September 20, 2023

Waterton Lakes campgrounds become first come, first served after September 10, and as it was a Saturday, we went with a sure thing and made reservations at Pincher Creek along the way.

Each Canadian Province has a unique look, and Alberta was more prairie and farming for a change of pace from mountains and glaciers!

On Sunday, we drove into Waterton Lakes, and the first thing we hiked was the Bears Hump to get a panoramic overview of the town.

It was pretty windy up there, which was an excellent introduction to how much stronger the wind would blow for the rest of our stay.

The town sits at one end of the deepest lakes of the Rockies so the wind has a long fetch to gather force. After getting a spot in the Townsite campground, we walked over to the visitor Centre, where Ranger Jack of the US National Park Service was out front for a talk about bears and skulls, skins, and other props.

Ranger Jack shared this quote about bears, which seems appropriate as we’ve seen 24 black bears and almost as many grizzlies on this trip. “In part because bears can be so dangerous, they force you to pay attention. They flood your blood with adrenaline and endorphins. They introduce you to terror, awe, amazement, and ecstasy. Bears connect you to the deepest pulses of life. This is their gift: the power to take your life, or to renew it; to re-create who you are, if only for a moment, and perhaps for a lifetime.”

Afterward, we toured the town and ate frozen huckleberry yogurt in a chocolate and coconut-dipped waffle cone.

Very relaxed deer all over town.

We spent the day driving, hiking, and exploring Waterton Lakes National Park on Monday.

We quickly stopped at Cameron Falls before driving the Red Rock Parkway out to Blakiston Falls, where we had to stop and let a doe with her two fawns cross a footbridge ahead of us. We could tell she wanted to cross, but we were in the way, so when we backed up, she ran past us, closely followed by her fawns.

This looks like a fun way to explore Waterton Lakes!

After completing the Red Rock Parkway, we backtracked into town and drove the Akamina Parkway to Cameron Lake, where we ate our picnic lunch. When I made our trip plans, Waterton Lakes was at the end of the trip, so I didn’t give it too much research. It’s a Waterton/Glacier Crown of the Continent, two parks joined together across the United States and Canada border. So, how different could Waterton be from Glacier? As it turns out, it’s very different!

In 2017, a fire swept through Waterton and burned about 90% of the trees you can see from any drive or hike. Additionally, the whitebark pine at higher elevations is dead mainly due to blister rust—you mostly see dead tree trunks and bare limbs everywhere. Some spots have shrubs turning pretty fall colors, but overall, it’s nothing like what I imagined. When we hiked around Cameron Lake, we met some locals who said it was tough to see the park the first time they returned after 2017, but the spring wildflowers are spectacular now due to all the sun they get. They sadly admitted that perhaps their grandchildren will see it in a semblance of its former glory.

On the way back into town, we stopped at the site of Canada’s first oil rig, whose production was short-lived due to the shallow and small oil deposit.

We hiked to Crandall Lakes, where the rocks around this lake were so white they almost looked whitewashed.

We hiked over 10 miles, and the wind was 30 mpg with gusts to 40! Thankfully, the camper only shook a little bit overnight in the wind.

Tuesday was a bit less windy, though still too much for a boat ride to Goat’s Haunt, so we did a peaceful early hike from our campground to Bertha Falls.

It was our last day in Canada, so we drove to the Prince of Wales Hotel, high on a hill where Upper and Lower Waterton Lakes meet. We had a delicious High Tea to celebrate our trip, which seemed fitting as we started Day 1 with High Tea at Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island!

Recalling our trip and talking about our favorites overall and by location was fun- what a trip we had! We relaxed for the rest of the day and prepared to cross back into the USA.

And here we are, back home!🥹

 

I came across this quote when I was trying to find something about how you don’t get to choose home but that home tugs at your heart and chooses you.  At the end of our Alaska adventure, Drue’s advice seems more appropriate.

“Life should be a daring, loving, laughing adventure — or it is nothing at all. If you don’t start choosing, life and circumstance will choose for you. You can change or stay the same. You can grow or never leave the nest. All of life becomes about our choices. We choose our people, we choose our ways, we choose our thoughts, and we choose how we seize or surrender our days. Every day, every moment, and every thought is about choice. So everyday you must make your choices. Life isn’t ever really about what happens to us, but how we respond to life.”

― Drue Grit

 

Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Independence Rock, friends old and new

September 30, 2023

It’s so lovely to be back home!! We drove to Great Falls, Montana, and parked there for a few days while enjoying the opportunity to shop, change our phone plans as we no longer need Canada access, talk to friends about upcoming visits, receive packages, pay bills, and tend to chores.  Gotta say—Walmart in the lower 48 not only has better selection than Canada but very cheerful people!!

We took the time to visit the Lewis and Clark Museum nearby, which has a rotating selection of movies and several exhibits about their expedition. We then headed southeast for a quick lunch with our daughter’s in-laws before camping in Bozeman at the fairgrounds. After a quick oil change (Larry is getting good at these), we headed towards the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park. Before we moved again into the land of no cell service, we chatted with our daughter and were delighted to hear she is pregnant with our second grandchild!

We had been to Yellowstone earlier in our travels but not to the Lamar Valley, called Yellowstone’s Serengeti, for the bison herds, pronghorn, elk, deer, and wolves. I had been lucky enough to get reservations for three nights at Slough Creek campground right at the start of the Lamar Valley, so it was easy to arise before dawn and park at an overlook where we hiked the Specimen Ridge Trail. There were bear tracks along the way, a busy badger, tufts of bison fur everywhere, and even scattered bones from a large animal.

Can you see the chipmunk—he does!!

Neighbors

The following day, before dawn, we parked at another pullout where an elk carcass had attracted some wolves. We did spot a lone wolf scavenging and were sad to see that its lower jaw was broken on both sides and hanging uselessly. Some “wolf watchers,” easily located by looking for groups of people with immense spotting scopes, opined that the park rangers likely would be sure it didn’t suffer.

On Wednesday, September 27, we drove to a pullout overlooking the Hayden Valley just north of the MudPots. We watched the fog lift and some geysers steam in the river in solitude until after lunch, when we drove south around Yellowstone Lake toward the Tetons.

We boondocked for free at Sheffield Creek campground off a forest road just south of Headwaters campground. One site nestled back by a little creek near some of the horse corrals was open, and the next campsite even had a few horses in their corral!

On Saturday morning, we drove through Grand Teton National Park to the National Museum of Wildlife Art just north of Jackson. Dave and Cindy had recommended it, and we wanted to stop in before seeing them that evening. We enjoyed the sculptures outside as well as the realistic portraits. 

In Jackson, we rinsed Marvin off and got groceries and fuel, and Google Maps was kind (& creepy) enough to remind us that we were here three years ago! We had a great time catching up with Dave and Cindy (MyTripJournal.com Albino Rhino) over pizza at Dormans, and then stayed on their work camper site in Gros Ventre campground.

It was hard to say goodbye the following day, but we headed southwest to Lander, Wyoming, through the gorgeous Wind River Range. We stopped at the Tie Hack memorial to those who cut the necessary railroad ties as the railroads moved west, and then we went to Sacajawea’s Gravesite just north of Lander.

At the Museum of the American West in Lander, there were several floors of local history, preserved outbuildings and cabins, and a friendly docent. A bearskin rug and rocking chair by a wood burning stove—I’m in!!

The Lander City Park was our free campsite for the night, and although it was a bit busier than usual due to a soccer tournament, we had a quiet night alongside the creek.

On the last day of September, we had a splendid day driving to Independence Rock.

This rock was especially significant as emigrants knew if they reached it by July 4, they should get to Oregon and beyond before the winter snows of the Rockies.

In the 1850s, many thousands scribed, painted, or carved their name on the rock to mark their passage, and you can still see some of them, especially in areas protected from the wind, sun, and blowing sand.

One hundred eighty years later, time is erasing their signatures as slowly as those who came before them.

Larry climbed to the top, where there was more recent “historical graffiti” from the 1930s.

We drove to Devil’s Gate and Martin’s Cove nearby, where a group of Mormons with handcarts traveled too late in November of 1856 towards Salt Lake City and got caught in a blizzard. 145 of the 600 perished before rescuers arrived to help them. There appears to be a campground, hiking trails, and a Mormon museum, so this would be a neat area to return to with more time to hike, bike, explore, and immerse ourselves in the history.

In nearby Rawlins, Wyoming, we spent the night in a Walmart parking lot where our Alaska tag made us friends with our neighboring campers from Kasilof, Alaska. After chatting well into the evening, we exchanged numbers and hope to catch up with them again in 2025. It is a small world, and adventurous travelers through the ages have always found they share much in common!

 

Pumpernickel turned 15 this month! He is such a great traveler and companion—what a life he leads ❤️