Southern BC

We've been lucky to spend the last couple of weeks visiting with various friends. After leaving the Lillooet area we stopped in Whistler for a couple of hours to check out the Crankworx Festival (a freeride mountain bike festival) on our way to Vancouver to pick up our friend Holly.

Once we had Holly with us we drove back up to Pemberton for a couple of days. We biked and swam and had good fun. And as I was getting out of one of the lakes I saw a snake swimming away just a meter or so from where I had been swimming.  I'm glad I saw it after I was out rather than before!

After that we went to Whistler. Luke had heard of a stealth camping area so we stayed there for one night. Then, in the middle of the night, a van of drunken young dudes pulled up and stumbled into the woods to be drunk in nature--but not before one guy screeched on and on about needed a lighter for his 'cigga'. It was a bit hard to get back to sleep after that.
Crankworxs was still on in Whistler and it was Saturday so there was piles and piles of people there. Luke and Holly rode a famous trail called 'Comfortably Numb' while I booted about on the trails in town. I didn't have much fun (I don't like crowds) but I think I would have had less fun on their trail. They described it as climbing and more climbing without ever having much of a downhill payoff. They seemed confused that a trail could climb that much without really coming down at any point.

The next day was in Squamish. Luke and Holly coached me through some easier downhill trail, which was super helpful! We ended the day having great Thai food in Vancouver.
The last day of our Holly trip was spent in Vancouver. We rode up Grouse Mountain and had yummy pizza and coffee at the top as a treat for the climb. Luke and Holly continued to ride while I drove to Surrey to meet up with a friend from Mississauga who was working there for the week. I really dislike driving so it was a bit stressful driving in Vancouver...but I managed well enough.
Here's a photo of Luke and I on the climb up (curtesy of Holly--thanks Holly!!)

 Not-so-flattering photo of me...but Luke looks good!

Behind us they were blasting rock--they would sound off some horn blasts to warn people, then you'd hear an explosion. We also passed the tour helicopter pad at the top just as one was landing and ended up much closer to a helicopter than I ever wanted to be.

Next, we went back to Squamish to visit our friends Phil and Mary-Lin who recently moved there from Dundas ON. Luke and Phil rode some trails while ML and I went **paddle boarding**!!! It was so much fun! I learned that they make inflatable paddle boards and I came really close to getting one for myself (but then talked myself out of it by thinking about how, although we technically have room in the truck, it would be a pain to have to move it around all the time to get at stuff). Then they made us a fantastic dinner of made-from-scratch pizza. Happiness!

The following day we took the ferry from North Vancouver to Vancouver Island to visit our friends Nicole and Moises in Campbell River. We stayed for a week and did lots of swimming, some biking, and ate lots of fabulous homemade Mexican food.
On the Saturday there was another bike competition called The Bearclaw Invitational. I liked it better than Crankworx because you could get much closer to the action. Here's a couple of photos--the bikers were really impressive!

There's an annual chainsaw wood carving competition in Campbell River and Nicole took me to see this year's works. I didn't take any photos but the city buys some of them and places along the path that runs along the sea-side. This one was in front of a cafe:

 "So many cookies, So little time"

And it's not really a good blog post without a silly photo of Luke, who continues to insist on looking ridiculous when having his photo taken.

After leaving Campbell River yesterday we spent an afternoon in Victoria wandering around downtown and walking the Sea Wall. We took the ferry across to Port Angeles in the Olympic Peninsula, where we are right now. It's been a rainy morning, but hopefully it'll clear up for some fun this afternoon!

More BC

After we left Prince George we stopped in Wells and Barkerville BC for a couple of days. We just missed their arts festival, which was kind of sad because it looked like it would have been fun. Like so many of the areas we've been to in the North it was a gold rush area and Barkerville is an old-timey gold rush village (which you can visit for an entrance fee).
We did a bike ride on one of the old wagon trails in the area--it was nice to be in the forest but it wasn't very scenic beyond that. The highlight was seeing a ptarmigan and her three adorable babies on the trail. Unfortunately we came upon them right on the trail, so the mom was very stressed trying to figure out what to do to protect her babies. My instinct is to stop and stare adoringly at wildlife, so it's a good thing that Luke's around to remind me that it's stressful for wildlife to have us around and so we moved out as quickly as we could. Just a few minutes later on the trail a different ptarmigan flew out of the trees and dive bombed my head, a different kind of maneuver to protect her young. Can't they tell we're vegetarians? :P

Next we went to Quesnel. It's a nice enough town, but the most memorable part of our stay there was the water ban due to mining tailings being released into the river. The good news (as much as such things have good news) is that the town gets its drinking water from a different river so as long as you drank town water you were fine. However they were evacuating campers to be sure they weren't drinking or entering the polluted water.

I can't help but think often about the environmental price we pay for the quality of life and society we live in, especially here in BC. We saw similar things in the Yukon and Alaska, but up north there is still large areas of untouched land (well...nothing is truly untouched any more). In BC, as soon as we hit the Stikine and Spatsizi parks there has been lots of evidence of resource extraction almost everywhere we've been. There's a whole lot of logging and mining in particular. I understand that people need jobs in our society and that I would be a hypocrite if I pretended like I wasn't part of the problem. Even though we own very little now we still use gas to drive around in our truck, we still buy our food from the grocery stores and I'm writing this using electricity for my laptop. I guess it just saddens me to see such beauty juxtaposed with such abuse of nature. And there are no easy answers.

Anyway, Williams Lake was our next stop. It was often recommended to us by a number of bikers and was even described as the best biking in BC by one fellow. The landscape of the city is pretty fantastic--there's a lake surrounded on every side by hills and mountains. Pretty ideal really.
We did a fun loop at the top of one of the trail areas. I'm finding BC riding pretty challenging for climbing and steeper descents, so I was grateful to find something I could handle.  Then Luke did some of the tougher trails while I did laundry and drank coffee :)
There was a little island that had some wildlife viewing areas, which is where I spotted these fellows:

 Muskrat emerging from the bushes just a couple metres away from where I stood

 Muskrat making waves

Pelicans

Lillooet was next on the list. There's a free BC hydro campsite there, which we very much appreciated (although you had to hear the buzzing of the electricity wires from the nearby dam). There was even a lovely BC hydro worker who came by and welcomed us to the campsite.

The other bonus was there was a beautiful lake across the street where we went swimming (should have taken a photo...) The lake is thin and long with mountains running along both sides as far as you could see.

I did take photos of the area we went to about 45 minutes out of town (on dirt roads that were scary for me at times because they were one lane wide and had a drop off on one side). This areas is in the rain shadow and is pretty much a desert.

Frasier River

There was a downhill trail that Luke wanted to ride, so he did the big long climb to the top of the trail while I walked down to a nearby stream. It was horribly hot--40+ degrees with very little shade. I don't know how Luke rode his bike in that.

I've already mentioned that I do not ride DH (steeper downhill trails) and I can not handle that kind of heat (I'm much better at -40 than +40), however I still hugely regret not going on this bike ride because Luke saw WILD HORSES on the ride up!! I spent pretty much all of Montana trying to see wild horses and it's a dream of mine to see them. There were 8 of them, all dark brown with black manes. And they wouldn't get off the trail for a while, so Luke got to hang out with them for a good long time. Sigh.

At least on the way out we saw three black bears running through a field, came across really good looking chickens wandering on the road and saw a number of ptarmigans.

It's a horribly hot day again today, so I don't think we'll be very ambitious. Stupid heat wave. At least it cools down in the evenings and you can get relief in the shade! 

Northern BC

I have a correction to make--Luke tried a soapberry on the trail, not mountain ash berry.

Also, here's a photo of the Anchorage moose we saw on the trail (courtesy of Luke):

We drove and drove and drove and eventually made it to Smithers BC. It's a pretty cute place--quite a lot of interesting shops and, of course, some mountain biking :) We did some of the cross country trails the first day and then I shuttled Luke on the downhill trails (since I don't ride downhill).  Here's Luke at the top of the trail, trying to look majestic:

 The standard frown as I try to document Luke's beard growth (he's talking about shaving it off now that it's gotten all hot again!)

 Majesty!!

We camped at a free site at Twin Falls in Smithers.  Here's one of the twins:

Luke took some photos of a jump on one of the downhill trails. You jump over a crashed plane!

We spent a couple of days in Burns Lake BC. They have a pretty great set-up. There's free camping and parking at the trail head with a lovely lake to swim in after getting all sweaty on the trails. (the lake has leaches though. They didn't seem to find anyone else but me though)
They have a bike park with cross country trails and then a downhill trail section. I tried part of one of the easier downhill trails--it was fun, but I'm pretty sure I won't ever seriously get into it)

We accidentally drained our truck battery (Luke had his tablet plugged in a bit too long it seems) so we couldn't get the truck started. We have bad luck with truck problems on long weekends. The good news is that, after a bit of pushing, we got the truck on a slope and started it with a push start. It was nerve wracking to see the truck and Luke going down the hill but at the very bottom it started and it's been fine since then. We had very nice camping neighbours who offered to help us out if we needed it too.

We're now in Prince George and Luke has been finding lots and lots and LOTS of mountain bike rides to do as we travel down the province. I'm wondering if we'll ever make it to Vancouver ;)

Anchorage and the Kenai

We spent a few days in Anchorage, checking it out and getting shopping errands done. We bought a new tent--the waterproofing was going quick on the old one and after a couple of soggy nights we bit the bullet. We've stayed in some very, very buggy places and the number of mosquitoes that laid in wait between our tent and the fly was pretty disgusting. It doesn't help that Luke has been telling me they are his minions waiting to attack me, in his best mosquito voice :P The new tent is a bit easier to get in and out of, so we can escape the awaiting swarms quicker.

Anchorage has 1500 moose that live in the city. When we were biking the Tony Knowles Coastal bike trail, which is a paved path in the city, we found a moose (with antlers!) sitting in the trees about 3 metres from the trail. Luke learned that moose are actually more dangerous than bears in this area. Apparently since it has been getting warmer earlier in the spring now people are going on the trails earlier, which is coinciding with moose calving season. The mom moose can charge without warning and people are getting injured and some have died. People aren't as afraid of moose too, so they probably put themselves in danger more often too.

The Single Speed World Championships were held in Anchorage this year, so we spent some time at the race. Luke took some photos (which he hasn't shared with me yet) and our friend Sierra was the winning female!! There are a number of silly aspects to the race (lots of beer drinking, costumes) and the winners are required to get a tattoo. Lucky for Sierra, the tattoo is actually really nice this year.

I went to Oomingmak, which is an interesting qiviut co-op (my non-knitter friends can skip to the next paragraph if you want to avoid knit nerd talk). It was started in 1969 and it has about 250 members from remote Alaskan villages who hand knit traditional patterns with qiviut that they get from a musk ox farm in Palmer and Fairbanks. They are paid per stitch and get a portion of the profits at the end of the year too. These lucky ladies get to use the divine, incredibly soft and warm qiviut and preserve the knitting traditions of their area at the same time.
I also went to the musk ox farm in Palmer and did a tour. The musk oxen are brushed once a year in the spring and they get 6-9 pounds of qiviut from each animal. (a cowel can be made with about an ounce of yarn, so that makes a lot of yarn) Qiviut is very expensive, so I couldn't justify buying any wool, yarn or knitted items. But it being at the farm made me happy enough! There are only three musk ox farms in the world (2 in Alaska, one in Norway) so I'm glad I was there to see it.

We spent 5 days in the Kenai Peninsula, which is ridiculously gorgeous. We stayed in the area between Hope and Seward and there are big mountains, lakes and rivers everywhere! There's also glaciers and fjords. Every moment was beautiful. I have lots of excuses as to why I don't take more photos and my excuse for the Kenai is where do you start when everything is breathtaking? My photos also don't do the area justice--but here's a few.

 My favourite grass

 Fjord

 Hope Alaska

 Mountain Ash Berry

Luke decided to try one on the trail and they are very bitter. I looked it up later (my policy is not to eat anything you don't recognize but Luke said he'd take his chances) and the berries aren't really palatable until later in the fall. The bears seems to love it though, since you see lots of it in their scat.

Seward Alaska

We did some hiking and some biking and it was all happiness. I'm in love with Alaska!

Oh! Before I forget--Luke is growing a beard. Before we left on our trip I insisted that Luke was not allowed to grow a beard, but since we are camping almost all the time I can see that it would be hard to shave regularly. He seems quite proud of his beard but he hasn't voluntarily let me take a photo of it, so this is the best I have so far:

This was from a couple of weeks ago, so it's filled out a lot more since then.

The Northiest

We had a great time in Whitehorse with our friends! We spent some time in Carcross, about an hour south, and it has changed quite a bit since we were there two years ago. There are a number of new buildings and businesses (including a great coffee shop) and it seems like they are getting a lot of tourists.
Our truck broke down again, this time in the parking lot right across from the Nissan dealer. It wasn't starting at all though, so we had to get it towed across the street. It turns out it was some small part that wasn't very expensive but took 3.5 hours to figure out, so of course it was an expensive repair. Luckily Luke is super smart and interested in such things so he's figured out what to do if that happens again.
We also got to hang out with one of my favourite dogs Starbuck. Even Luke admitted to missing him when we left, so I feel like I'm one small step closer to convincing Luke that we (eventually) need a trail dog :)

After we left Whitehorse we drove north to see Dawson. I'm not much of a history buff so I didn't go crazy over the historic significance of the area. Here's a view of the city from up high:

It's a very cute town though and it is interesting to see what the building style was back then. We did go to see Dredge #4 though, seen here:

There are piles upon large piles of rocks that were dredged for gold. The process is actually quite involved--they would often have to spend long amounts of time thawing the ground, then when the dredge would do its work it would only move 0.8 km in 10 months on average. They got an awful lot of gold out of this area though, so it must have been worth it.
Most of the area has been claimed but there is one small area that has been left public so you can try gold panning for free there. I don't have anywhere near the patience for that kind of thing but we did spend a few minutes looking for surface gold....there was none, of course.

Here's a pretty flower that I haven't identified yet:

And here's the view further down the river from the downtown, taken from the Midnight Dome. There are plaques that have cute photos from the 1800s (can't exactly remember the date) of a group that climbed the mountain expecting the sun not to set until midnight from that height. It turns out the sun sets at 11:30pm on top of the dome, which I think is close enough. The people were all dressed very nicely, with the women in long dresses...which makes me wonder how comfortable it was for them to hike it up there.

We camped on the far side of the river and you have to take a short ferry to get across. Along the edge there is a boat graveyard of broken boats (steamers and dredges I think).

Once we left Dawson we drove the Top of the World Highway over to Alaska. It was slow going but so worth it! It's just as it sounds--you drive along the top of mountains while surrounded by other mountains. I don't have any photos of it, but this time I have an excuse. It was raining the whole time.
Speaking of which, I have friends who drove the highway last year and they told me that the weather was great on the Yukon side, but when they crossed the border it changed to cloudy and rainy so they turned back. We had the same, but opposite experience. It rained and rained until Alaska and then it was sunny blue skies.
We drove through Chicken Alaska, which has a funny history to its name. The town wanted to name it Ptarmigan but decided that was too difficult so they went with Chicken instead.

We camped by a river with this view:

As we were driving in there was a lynx sitting at the start of a trail. It got up and left so we didn't have much of a chance to see it, but it was my first time seeing a lynx. There were also moose tracks right beside our spot but we didn't see any come by.

Our next stop was Fairbanks Alaska. It's a pretty cool town surrounded by woods with lots of trails. It rained for most of the time we were there and, according to the locals, it was unusual to have that much rain. Consequently, there was a fair bit of flooding. We did to a hike in the intermittent rain to the Angel Rocks. Here's one of the views:

And here's one of the rock formations:

Does anyone else see a face there?

These mushrooms are all over the place in the area. There's a theory that they connect to the origin of Santa Claus. And the Smurfs lived in them.

Next we traveled through Denali National Forest. It's huge and beautiful. It was more commercial than I expected (when you learn about 6 million acres of wilderness you don't expect to see a mini mall with Subway and $6.99 t-shirts) but not as bad as Yellowstone. We didn't do any of the main road into the park but we did try to do the Ferry Trail that gives great views and has Boot Hill (a place where Alaskans bring the boots of people who have passed away). I say we tried because we went down the wrong trail that wasn't very scenic (unless you consider grizzly bear tracks scenic). We might go back to do the real trail.
We also checked out Stampede Trail which goes to the bus where Chris McCandless died (check out the book or movie Into the Wild if you're interested in his story). It was pretty wet and boggy, so we didn't go far. The river you have to cross can be very dangerous so you have to be smart and plan ahead if you're doing the full trail.

Since we didn't go up the main road (you can only drive the first 20ish miles, then you either have to take one of their buses or bike or hike) we didn't get any of the money shots. However, here's the famous mountain from a distance--Mount McKinley to some, Denali to others.

 We are now in Anchorage. The weekend is supposed to be a bit rainy but the rest of the week is supposed to be great. We'll be heading to the Kenai Peninsula next!

Tahoe Flume Trail video

Here's a video Luke put together of footage when we rode the Flume trail in Tahoe

Alberta, Northern BC, Yukon

We didn't have very good internet access for the last while, so I have some catching up to do. We're in Whitehorse Yukon now, staying with friends, so we have good internet and a real bed for a few days :)

Here's a photo I forgot to post earlier--it's a pine cone from the large pines in Northern California (this wasn't even the largest one I saw)

And here's a nice lizard from Tahoe

OK, so once we left Helena Montana we drove up to Calgary (and dealt with the shock of the large increase in gas prices in Canada). Then we headed up to Banff (we just drove through so I could have a look), Canmore (we did some biking there) and Lake Louise. I must say that after the beautiful photos I've seen and all the talk I've heard about how great it is, I was a little underwhelmed by Lake Louise.
It was smaller/less epic than I expected. I took a photo anyway :)

We also did a bike ride along an old abandoned grown-over road that Luke knew about that goes up to a glacier. You wouldn't even know it used to be a road for the first section, but further on it had some cool bridges (built in 1938) over deep crevasses. There was also a super rusted upside-down car in the middle of the trees that must have driven off the road many years ago. The trail didn't lead right up to the glacier, presumably because the glacier is quite a bit smaller than it used to be. Even though I got Luke to bike my camera out there, I completely forgot to take photos. So here's the glacier off in the distance, taken from the road after our ride. You'll have to use your imagination regarding the rest.

We kept going north and stopped to see the Athabasca Falls. The falls are pretty amazing. The water rushing down the falls was quite violent and the erosion of the rocks is very beautiful.

You can see a trapped large log that is getting knocked around in this cave.

And here's Luke posing like a goof.

We spent a few days in Jasper. Luke lived there for a couple of years in his early 20s and it was fun to hear about how much things have changed and to have his expertise of the trails. We did some good hikes and bike rides. Here's the view from one of our campsites:

I've fallen in love with Jasper. Being surrounded by mountains and nature is wonderful and addictive! I don't think I can go back to not having regular access to this kind of nature.

We saw piles of wildlife in Jasper and along the Alaska Highway through northern BC and the Yukon. Here's the list:
Grizzly, brown and cinnamon bears, elk, caribou, moose, owls, wolverines, mule deer, white tail deer, bunnies, golden eagle, bison, big horn sheep, mountain goats.

 Mountain goats

More bison--with a little baby bison

The drive from Jasper to Whitehorse was about 30 hours....so many hours in the car! The landscape is gorgeous though so there was lots to entertain us. We stopped at the Liard Hot Springs which was fantastic! There were so few people in that whole drive too, which is kind of unique. There were hoards of mosquitoes though--it felt like a GTA of them :P

After our stay in Whitehorse we'll be heading off to Alaska!