June 14 Monday in Pink Mountain, BC

We didn't get to leave Dawson City until about 1:30pm today, but we think the oven is fixed.  Trying to test it, I made a brownie mix and it was supposed to bake for 29 minutes and the damn gas went off at 25 minutes, so we have brownies that are about 90% done, eatable.  The guy did some more work on it after the brownie episode and it seems to work.

There are two points which celebrate the start of the highway and I've included pictures of both along with the plaque.  We're doing well--at mile marker 98.4 John spotted a moose and her baby but the road is so narrow and without shoulders, so we didn't get an image.  Maybe some more wild life tomorrow.  We'll be going about 300 miles through more mountainous areas.

Catching up Friday - Sunday

This morning I was finally able to get onto the wireless at Mile Marker 0 RV Park in Dawson City, so here's an accounting of the last three days.  We'll leave this morning after getting propane service for the trailer, so I don't know how many miles we'll make today, but we are on the Alaska Highway now--built in 1942 from Dawson City to Delta Junction and we'll be following it along the way.

June 13—Dawson Creek Mile Marker 0 of the Alaskan Highway

We’ve had a 12 hour day today and are both beat. Drove from Jasper up here and after setting up the trailer, we went about 60 miles west to Chetwynd, BC where they were having the last day of the International Chainsaw Carving Championship. There were 12 carvers who placed in the awards and the carvings they did were beyond belief! This event started on Thursday and they could carve from 8 am to 6 pm and then today from 8 am until 1 pm. Massive sculpture!

We got there just in time to see the 60 minute event among the carvers located out in the middle of a field—one guy, the world champion chainsaw carver actually completed TWO works of art—a bear which sold at auction for $700 and an owl which sold for $450. Below are some images of the bear and owl.

When he completed the bear, he asked the judge how much time was left and she said 27 minutes. The first image is his first cut, then the owl after about 15 minutes and the last one is the final product. As a photographer, every instructor tells you to have a battery, a card, the manual and your camera. Well, I was tired and took only one camera and the card filled up, so the last two images are from my blackberry! Creative, aren’t I?

Tomorrow we need to take the trailer for a touch of service—the propane cook stove and oven aren’t right, then we’ll hit Wal-Mart for supplies and head up the Alaskan Highway. So far we have driven 3381 miles. We will post whenever we can, we are happy and well and glad we aren’t in Denver helping Mitch move. We’re both way too old for that!

June 12  Saturday morning I woke up freezing! It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day but colder than it had been and we didn’t turn on the furnace before going to bed. John graciously turned it on and got the trailer warm so I would get up and get ready to go to Athabasca Falls.

On the way south, he spotted a place to pull off the road and fish and wa-la, caught a big bull trout about 5 minutes after he started fishing—I hadn’t even had a chance to get my chair, knitting or camera down to the water.

Athabasca Falls was beautiful.




Driving back into the campground we had to stop—the elk mama’s were standing on the side of the road looking back towards their young ones—there were three calves so one had twins and the other was solo.

June 11

This morning we packed up and left Radium Hot Springs, traveling north to Golden and into Yoho National Park where we saw mountain goats—three adults and one baby…or as John says, “A cute as a button baby.” As you can see from the image, it was pretty young, and looked rather confused about the climbing on rocks routine.

Traveling into Banff National Park, we headed north on the Icefields Parkway for Jasper National Park. The Icefields Parkway provides unlimited opportunity to view beauty. Glaciers, ice fields, lakes, waterfalls and animals, it is stunning!

Bow Lake and Bow Glacier are shown below. There is ice on the lake, as you can see towards the middle of the image above the pine tree tops. The reflections were amazing! A bit further north is the Athasbasca Glacier where tour operators take you out on a bus into the ice fields or you can walk up to the base of it. We just looked—and I think the top of the mountain looks like God just iced it with about 100 feet of snow!

When we entered Jasper National Park the wildlife was waiting to show off—this bear liked the field of dandelions! It was located just at the junction of Banff and Jasper Parks.

We got a place to park the trailer at Whistlers Campground—no hookups, so we operated on the propane and battery power. In the evening, we went to Maligne Lake where John spotted this huge elk and on the way back the moose.

June 10 Bugaboo Provincial Park

After doing all the "housework" this morning, we headed north to Bugaboo Provincial Park about an hour north of the campsite including 26 miles on a dirt road. John has inherited Daddy's DNA--riding all afternoon on pothole filled roads, trying to get the truck as dirty as possible and locating as many critters alive or dead --I just sit back and say "stop" for photos.  Nice life.  We met a consultant riding around on a logging road who was researching how to put in hydroelectric lines and he told us he had just bought a can of bear spray--$50!

It rained all night last night and drizzled 90% of today--no wonder everything is so green!

Along the fence rows are a lot of wild roses in full bloom with many more in the bud stage.

We hit a couple logging roads and saw two female Ruffled Grouse and their babies.  The young ones blended into the ground cover so well, you could hardly see them.  This female ran across the road away from the babies to protect them.

As we got further into the mountains, the fog was covering most of the tops and the raging creek along the side of the road was filled almost to overflowing.  The tall waterfalls like this one were roaring with the snow melt.  John's getting to be pretty expert at looking for his own photo ops from the drivers seat and he helps take the images for the blog.

Tomorrow morning we are loading up and driving north into the parks--past the Columbia Ice Fields and into Jasper where we will find a place to camp--this will be our first adventure without a reservation.  Don't know how the internet connections will be for several days, but we'll try to communicate.

June 9 Yoho National Park

John fells a lot better today after two days of antibiotics so we left about 8 am and drove to Golden where Kicking Horse Ford changed the oil in his truck.  On the way north we followed the Columbia River  Wetlands Area which is largest unspoiled wetlands in North America.  There is active logging in Canada and we saw a lot of huge trucks hauling two or three trailers of logs. They reforest the land, and it is beautiful to see all sizes of trees along the side of the roads.  John drove onto one of the logging roads and we discovered a wooden bridge over the Columbia River and it is the only bridge that is used by the logging company Tembec, so you know it has to be safe and sturdy. Note on the lowest wooden support on the  right side, there have been several hits on the wood....dirt road, wooden bridge.  Nice.

We went into Yoho National Park and visited Emerald Lake and the Natural Bridge which was created by eroded rock over the Kicking Horse River.

After enjoying ice cream in a shop at Lake Louise, I drove back to Radium Hot Springs via the Bow Valley Parkway and through Kootenay National Park.  John said, "there is something up there" and this came into view:

 "I hope Evan sees one like this during his elk hunt in Colorado this October." 

As we were leaving the park there were several cars parked on the side of the road going north while we were going south.  Integrated tree:

June 8 Radium Hot Springs

We have entended our stay here until Friday since John has come down with a massive sinus infection.  Found a physician today and he has two prescriptions to hopefully clear this up by Friday.  It was nice going into Invermere this morning.  After hitting the doctor, pharmacy and grocery store, we went to Tim Horton's a favorite bakery, cafe in Canada.  John loaded up on donuts and bagels.

On the way back to Radium Hot Springs, we saw a herd of big horn sheep.  John parked and I walked over a bridge to grab this shot.  The one on the left all of a sudden got an itch and he/she pulled their horns back to scratch their back.  Too funny!

This afternoon, John napped and I read a book by the stream behind the trailer. Nice.

Tomorrow we'll drive north about 90 minutes to Golden so he can get the oil changed in the truck and we'll go into Yoho National Park.

June 7 Radium Hot Springs

We arrived in Canada about noon yesterday and drove through Waterton Lakes National Park en route to Radium Hot Springs, the gateway to Kootenay National Park which actually provides entrance to the main Canadian north highway, route 93. 

Just after we entered the park this morning, we saw cars pulled over and there was big momma and two cubs.  The cubs were playing in the tree and although this is not such a great shot, you can see the cub on the branch of this tree.  They were so fun to watch playing with one another and falling off the branches.

We saw another bear and several deer, a grouse and prairie dogs today.  It was about a 6 hour drive in the park and after a stop in Lake Louise for ice cream, we drove back to our campground.  The trailer is parked right be a roaring stream and it was cool enough last night to use the heater.  Tonight we are grilling steaks for dinner.

Thanks to my friends Larry and Priscilla, I bought a portable electric ice maker before leaving.  At $3.50 per bag of ice up here, it will prove to be a great investment.  Thanks, guys.  It cranks out ice in about 30 minutes and we are happy campers!

June 6 early morning at Glacier National Park

We were in the park by 6 am and saw deer, elk, mountain sheep and bears!  John got in a few minutes of fishing and I'm quickly posting these images while he gets the trailer hooked up so we can cross the border into Canada and get to Radium Springs.  The bears were amazing--the smaller one was pawing at something--and then they just walked off.  Image was taken through the windshield.