Edited Pics

I went through and did some quick edits on some of my favorite pictures.  You can enlarge any photo by clicking on it:

First view of the mountain.

What happens after the ranger scares the bear off.

Old Dream Fulfilled

Many years ago when Carol and I were so very sick, we had an important discussion about what was the one thing missing from our life that would make our life better if we could somehow do it again.  We decided it was backpacking.  There was no way we could backpack in the state of health we were in.  But soon we came up with the concept of "backpacking by car."  The idea was simple: create a very easy system for camping in our Toyota Tercel.  We did that and set off on our first "backpacking" trip.  We planed to stay just one night at each campground and be out about five days.  Well, the trip was a big failure.  Our bodies couldn't handle the weather and nighttime temperatures.  We ended up going home before dawn on the first day.  Undeterred, we came up with a new concept: camping in an RV (pickup camper).  We bought the camper for $200.  It was in bad shape, but it had

8,500 Miles

Looks like we traveled a total of about 8,500 miles on this trip.  We were gone about two months and spent all but four nights in the roof top tent.  With the Yellowstone trip, we have spent about 20 percent of the year in that tent and we are still married!  That says a lot about the tent.  The folks at CVT have an excellent product.  Several people we know are considering buying one.

Got nearly a quarter million pictures and videos transferred onto my good computer today.  The files that I accidentally deleted were all recovered using a great little program that I downloaded for free.  I'll post a link later.  Now I didn't personally take all 250K photos.  Most of that was the plot camera that we had running most of the trip out the front window.  I'll post those to youtube as soon as I get

Amazing year for bears in GNP

We left GNP today due to some bogus campground and road closures. We wanted to stay because this was maybe the best bear year ever. We only saw about 10 different grizzlies, but they supplied us with day after day of great viewing opportunities. We took more photos and video than ever before and got some great shots.  I'll try to get them posted after we get back home. Staying in Kalispell

Back to the lower 48

Resupplied in Calgary and we are now on our way to GNP.  Should be there this afternoon.  That means the phones will be working when we are in a place where we can hit a tower (which won't be all that often).  Btw, Carol figured out that it was only men taking all those showers.  This supports what an old friend of mine used to say: "If you meet a woman in the wilderness, she is probably furrier than you are."  There is probably a better explanation, but that's all I've got for now.

Pockets picked

You've got to have a good reason to be in the Alberta parks because they aren't cheap.  It starts with $19.50 PER DAY at the entry gate, then $27.50 for the lowest priced campsite, and $8.80 if you want to have a campfire. That was yesterday.  We'll see about today.!  At least the showers come at no extra cost. And man do these Canadians love to take showers!  All seven stalls were filled when we got here yesterday afternoon. I got up at 11:00 to use the bathroom and there were several people headed to the showers. Got up again at 3:00 am. The same thing.  Went to take a shower at 9:00 and had to wait in a line.

Oh well. At least I'm clean and it is a beautiful sunny day. Perfect fo sightseeing as we head south from the Jasper townsight.  It is looking more and more like we might be in Many Glacier by the 1st if not before.  Lake Louise is 145 miles and there is lots to see between here and there.

On our way to Jasper

After finding several more statues of bears in Smithers, we finally found out that the best bear viewing area was the Babine River about two hours away via dirt road.  Decided those bears weren't worth the trouble especially after an outfitter told us people weren't seeing as many bears this year for some reason.  So we headed down the road to Prince George.  Stayed the night there and today we should be in Jasper.  It's only about 250 miles away.  Could be in GNP in two days, but it may take a couple more days depending on what we find in the Canadian national parks.  Here's a pretty good picture of the Salmon Glacier near Hyder:

Remember that you can click on it for a larger view.  Sign said this is the 5th largest glacier in North America.  Kind of amazing that you get to it on a dirt road that has no signs telling you where you are headed.  There are some interpretive signs near the glacier an that's it.  We saw maybe half a dozen other sightseers along the 15 or so miles up to the glacier.

Striker will add Alberta to his list today.  So far he has breezed through Candian customs 5 times and American customs once.  Shoutout to Casey, Rusty & Mac.

SMITHERS

Just arrived in Smithers. Trying to find out where the bears are. So far we've seen a couple of statues. Stopped at McDonalds. No bears and the internet was no help. Definitely bears around. A guy was attacked on the 21st. Lost his jaw and nearly lost his life. We'll ask around. Someone must know how to find real bears.  Nice little town btw with lots of nearby recreation, a lot like Bend but with grizzlies. Cool!

Still looking for the big one

Stayed last night in Hyder at the Run-A-Muck campground.  Looks nice but doesn't live up to how it looks. Just okay.  Checked out Fish Creek yesterday afternoon and saw no bears.  Have been told they still frequent the area daily, so we will spend some more time looking today.  Saw a black bear cross the road and walk through the campground this morning.  The bonus here is the huge glaciers.  You can easily get close to at least two of them.  So we have some more exploring to do in this area and then it is on to Smithers which is just about 200 miles down the road.

Back in British Columbia

We are making our way down the Cassiar Hwy and have stopped for the night at a private campground just North of Iskut, BC.  Showers!!!  And gnats...  Oh well, there seems to be no escaping the gnats because we are experiencing an Indian Summer with clear skies and temps in the 70's.  Should be in Hyder tomorrow.  Hoping to find some bears..

Back in the Yukon

Stayed in Whitehorse last night. Headed to the Cassiar Hwy today.  Saw lots of hunters but no bears traveling from the Russian River.  Tim suggested Smithers for bears.  Must be a good tip because someone was mauled by a grizzly there yesterday.  Seems like every place Tim sends us, someone gets attacked.  At least it isn't us.

Will have no access to cell phones for a while and internet will probably be limited as well.  So if you don't hear from us, just remember that no news is good news.  It means we are enjoying the journey.

Here are some bear pictures from friends:

As always, we get better pictures when others take them.  Bill takes the most amazing pictures out of that big green Denali bus.  He gave us some good tips, but I don't think anyone can get pictures as good as his out a bus window.  Remember, just click on any pic to make it bigger.  Then click on the "x" (top right corner) to get back to the blog.

When we left AK, the days were getting six minutes shorter each day.  It was very noticeable.  The tourist areas were mostly closed up or closing.  As mentioned, hunting season was in full swing.  We've never seen that many hunters anyplace else.

The tent

I keep forgetting to post about the tent.  Was having some problems with the ladder and so I called Bobby at CVT.  He is shipping out a new one and told me how to make a temp repair on tne old one. It's just a great company.  So here is the web address I've been promising everyone:
CASCADIA VEHICLE TENTS (CVT)

Some bears

Saw this one about half a mile from the bus on our way out the last day:

This is one of the first bears we saw in DNP (also from the bus).  It is eating soap berries:

Saw these 3 nore than once:

A couple more:

And a big one:

 

The "big f---ing mountain":

   

Anchorage sucks

I'm working on a post about our 8 days in Denali, but first I've got to say that Anchorage is a huge disappointment.  We drove from DNP to Wasilla mainly because we wanted to get into Anchorage early.  Wasilla was quite the experience.  Maybe it was the time of day, but we saw no one looking like any of the Palins.  Instead, it was like a zombie-fest.  Very strange people.  We stayed at the Walmart under bright lights because the people we saw on the Parks highway for at least 30 miles before Wasilla were some of the scariest we ever saw pretty much our entire life.  Then we got to Wasilla with all it's modern stores and thought things would be different.  Not exactly...

So we left at 9:00 am and were in Anchorage by 10:00.  The town seems really run down with lots of shady looking people.  Not as bad as Wasilla, but still pretty bad.  We needed a campground with showers and were hoping to find something like we found in Fairbanks.  After a short time at Costco, and several hours of looking, we finally found a place that was "okay."  But a sign said "no tenters until further notice."  Went into the office and learned that they had had a huge windstorm a week ago and were expecting another one the next day.  They didn't want a tree to fall on us.  Turns out a lot of people here are freaked out by the forecast of another storm.  We pushed a bit because the windstorm wasn't supposed to arrive for 36 hours.  They didn't budge.  So we decided to just stay at Walmart and figure out our next move in relation to the predicted storm.  There are two big Walmarts and neither of them allow overnight parking.  We asked and were told it was a city ordinance.  Imagine that.  Up here where everything is so wild and free, were almost everyone is against government regulation, and they won't even let people take a nap.  Go figure.  So now it was getting close to 5:00 pm and we still had no place to stay.  We went to the Motel 6 and it was $90 per night.  Ended up staying there because there were no other good options and the other motels were almost twice as expensive.  At least it is a really nice Motel 6.  Looks like we'll have to stay two nights because the predictions this morning are still for a major windstorm with lots of rain and possible flooding.  Just kind of ticks me off that there was no place to stay for cheap last night when the weather was good.

We came to Anchorage to resupply.  Would have been better off going back to Fairbanks for that if we had only know.  Oh well ...

Back in the USA

Important things first. If you are driving the ALCAN and see a sign advertising great cinnamon  rolls, be very skeptical.  The only good one we found was at Johnson's Crossing. A good roll, but we're not quite sure how it got to be "World Famous."

Arrived AK yesterday and got to Fairbanks this morning.  Staying the night at Rivers Edge Resort.  Nice tent sites with showers, wifi, etc. for $20.  Striker breezed through customs again by hiding in his condo.  We've got reservations to camp in Denali for 5 days starting Thursday.  The campground is very remote for DNP.  You can drive in only if you are staying there, then you can't drive again until you leave.  So you may not hear much from us during that time unless the cell phones work.

The road was in great condition the whole way.  Gas was at least $5/gallon in Canada and sometimes as high as $6.  Plus, the pumps are set to rip you off everywhere we stopped in the Yukon.  You pay for 10 gallons but get less than 9.  Good to be back to honest/regulated stations with much lower prices ($3.83 in Fairbanks).

The car is working great and all the mods are working out.  We'll reshuffle things a bit for the rest of our time in AK now that we won 't be driving as much.  Got to get the thermostat working in Striker's condo so he can stay warm while we are off on the shuttle in DNP.  Hopefully, we'll get to see the mountain.  The weather forecast isn' t especially encouraging on that one.

Oh, almost forgot, we saw the biggest grizzly we've ever seen (so far) as we were leaving the Yukon (near Destruction Bay) just 100 feet off the road.  Got some pictures and video.

Who knew?

Whitehorse is huge.  Big surprise after miles and miles of open country doted by very small towns here and there.  Stopped at Walmart, Extra Foods, and McDonalds.  Fairbanks is 600 miles, DNP after that.  Cell phones should be working again in a couple of days.  Haven't seen any shack people for a while, so it should be smooth sailing the rest of the way.

On the ALCAN

Spent the night in Dawson Creek, start of the Alaska Hwy and about 1000 miles from Bend.  It will be 900+ mi to the next large town, Whitehorse. 1600 miles to DNP.  Should hit halfway point today.  Shoutout to David, Terry, Tim, Scarlet, Lee, and Pam.  Would have been here sooner, but Carol had to take blueberry bread and brownies to the shack people.

Striker visits Canada for the first time

We are at the McDonald's in William's Lake, BC.  Striker snuck through customs by sleeping in his condo.  Should be on the ALCAN tomorrow.  It starts in Dawson Creek, BC.  No cell phones for us in Canada.  Striker is upset because he can't tweet.  Other than that, all is good.

I'M DONE MAKING PREDICTIONS

Even though we have the car packed full, I'm not going to make another prediction as to when we are going to leave.  Should have known better anyway considering how things tend to go with our health.  Carol will tweet when we leave.  Don't count on Striker.  He seems to tweet only when he feels like it.

Check out the pic of the updated ride.  The fairing turned out pretty nice:

Click pic for larger view

I know I keep promising, but more pics will follow.

MAYBE WE SHOULD HITCHHIKE

You guessed it ... we're still in Bend.  But I've got this huge looking thumb now on my left hand and I'm thinking that could be an asset if we ever have to hitchhike on our upcoming journey.  I tried stopping the table saw blade with my thumb and ended up in the emergency room.  They say the thumb will be fine and that the main long term problem will be that it will have a significant amount of scar tissue on the end.  I got lucky.  Just a bunch of stitches and a slightly broken bone.  Then the whole thing ended up being a blessing in disguise.  They had me follow up with a hand surgeon today and I told him that I thought my carpal tunnel syndrome played a role in the accident.  He told me there is a simple surgery that cures the problem.  I had no idea.  So it looks like I'll be having the surgery when we get back.  It will be great to have normal use of my hands again.

Still trying to get on the road.  Good news is that someone who just got back from Alaska said the weather was miserable with rain almost every day for three weeks.  That happened to us once when we got going late to GNP.  When we got there the weather was great for the duration of our stay but we were told it was horrible the two weeks before we arrived.  It is sounding like this trip could end up being a repeat of that experience.  At least we hope it is.  It couldn't keep raining for longer than three weeks ... could it?

STILL IN OREGON

Doctor wanted 12 pieces of my prostate so that he could tell me nothing was wrong.  That and the normal delays that seem to plague us have left us really behind, which I guess is the norm for us.  Still you would think that having a full month to prepare for this trip after Yellowstone would have been plenty of time.  I'm just glad we didn't try to host and prepare for the trip at the same time.  We would never have made it.  Looks like we will be leaving this week, hopefully sooner rather than later.  All the big things we needed to get done are finished.  We just have left a bunch of smaller/faster things to do.  Could probably do it all in one day if I could get my body to cooperate.  So two or three days does seem possible now.  The renovations on the car are turning out great.  Much more organized than the trial run to Yellowstone.  Plus Striker's condo now has air conditioning in addition to the heating system it always had.  He seems to be happy with the changes if I am reading his tweets right (Yes, he is now on twitter, check it out through the link below).  That's it for now.  I'll try to have some pics posted in the next couple of days and then its off to Alaska ...

WE NEED YOUR ADVICE

Have you been to Alaska?  What are the "must experience" places we should try to see?  Of course, for Carol there should probably be a high likelihood of seeing bears.  But suggestions based on scenery, other critters, etc. are also welcome.  Because this is our first trip, we want to make sure we use the time we have wisely.  We're not able to travel everyday trying to "see it all."  Instead, we need to stay at least a few days each place we go.  Given all of that, any suggestions and inside tips you might have will be greatly appreciated.

We were hoping to leave on the 1st, but the 3rd is now probably the earliest we will leave (and that would take a small miracle).

PICTURES FROM YELLOWSTONE TRIP

More photos in slideshow ...

YELLOWSTONE TRIAL RUN

Because gas prices were getting so high earlier in the year, we decided to fix up the Scion for the trip to Alaska.  By the time summer arrived, gas prices were going down, but we had locked ourselves into taking the Scion.  We got it fixed up and made a trial run to Yellowstone for two weeks.   We left the second week in June and stayed the whole time at Tower Falls campground.  Bill Hamlin and Lauri Darrah were there when we arrived and they got us up to speed fast.  We figured out that we had not been to Yellowstone in something like 22 years.  Noticed a couple of big changes.  The grizzlies tended to be seen mainly in the Lamar Valley as opposed to the places we used to see them.  Then there were the wolves that weren't there the last time we were there.  Carol got hooked.  I'm still not all that excited about them.  We'll see how long it lasts for Carol because, while she likes watching them, she doesn't like seeing animals kill other animals.  A grizzly cub was killed by the Mollies while we were there.  They had killed the sow's other cub just before we got there.  Carol was able to handle hearing about it.  I'm not sure she could handle seeing it happen.  We did see lots of grizzlies, wolves, and other critters.  Saw our first badgers and got some decent pictures and video.  We were asked to host there next summer and we are thinking about it.  It would be fun, but it is not the type of hosting we usually do.