Monday, October 15, 2007
Catch up time..
Yip, I know - its been awhile :)
On the ride back down all the lakes that had previously been frozen on the way up, were busy with boats, fishermen or just fish and birds doing their summer thing. I think we stopped at every single decent river so Jess could catch us dinner for a couple of days. We ended up taking fresh Actic Grayling through the international border back to the Yukon - we weren't sure how it was going to go but they didn't seem to care at all!
So we were happy, found a deserted Kluane lake side camping spot to cook our catch on a camp fire. Of course we also roasted marshmallows and devoured banana splits with hersheys chocolate and more marshmallows :) Mmm Mmm. Jess went out for another midnight fish just as thunder started clapping and a nearby pack of wolves began howling. Pretty awesome when know one else is around! And of course next morning we woke up to a generous serving of fog over the lake.
Heading down through BC we took a different route. We turned off south before Watson lake down the number 37. Some great lakes and campgrounds, more mountains and glaciers. We saw soo many bears along the side of the road, by the end of the day we didn't even stop for them anymore! The total for the first day was 18 on the way down to Stewart. We couldn't believe it - I think our timing had a lot to do with it (they were all eating the new green roadside grass).
We were stopping for the night at Stewart - a small coastal town (on the edge of the Portage Canal) right on the border of southeast Alaska (Hyder). When we got there we just had to explore a little and found ourselves of the other side of Hyder by yet another river that the salmon swim too and apparently the grizzly bears are an amazing sight. Unfortunately we were a couple of months to soon for all the activity as the fish had still had some swimming to do.
Hyder and Stewart are well worth the journey. They are at the end of a tidal canal, hiding amongst towering mountains with well known glaciers falling everywhere into lakes or just thin air, the international border consists of a sign telling you that you are now in the US (and the tar seal runs out as well). Hyder is the only place in America where Canadian money is accepted (not only accepted either - more like expected).
Next stop was the lava national park. I'm not even going to try to pronounce the name of this place. About 250 years ago legend has it that some kids were playing and degrading salmon (which are sacred). They would catch the fish, stick burning sticks out of their backs and make them swim like that. This angered the gods and next thing your know a nearby mountain erupted killing everyone in the village and redirecting a river. When you drive through this place, you are surrounded by lava. Its unreal - there are also big tree trunk holes you can see in the hardened rock where trees were surrounded and incinerated. Lots of cool water features around here as well.
Lots more water falls and mountains to come, Mt Robson is the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies and Athabasca Falls, just south of Jasper is one to stop it - even if you have to wade through the hundreds of tourists.
We continued down through Jasper national park back to Lake Louise in time for work as horse trek guides for summer. We could hardly recognise the place without snow, instead people and cars everywhere! Big change from winter anyway, yip, another adventure was just around the corner. :)
On the ride back down all the lakes that had previously been frozen on the way up, were busy with boats, fishermen or just fish and birds doing their summer thing. I think we stopped at every single decent river so Jess could catch us dinner for a couple of days. We ended up taking fresh Actic Grayling through the international border back to the Yukon - we weren't sure how it was going to go but they didn't seem to care at all!
So we were happy, found a deserted Kluane lake side camping spot to cook our catch on a camp fire. Of course we also roasted marshmallows and devoured banana splits with hersheys chocolate and more marshmallows :) Mmm Mmm. Jess went out for another midnight fish just as thunder started clapping and a nearby pack of wolves began howling. Pretty awesome when know one else is around! And of course next morning we woke up to a generous serving of fog over the lake.
Heading down through BC we took a different route. We turned off south before Watson lake down the number 37. Some great lakes and campgrounds, more mountains and glaciers. We saw soo many bears along the side of the road, by the end of the day we didn't even stop for them anymore! The total for the first day was 18 on the way down to Stewart. We couldn't believe it - I think our timing had a lot to do with it (they were all eating the new green roadside grass).
We were stopping for the night at Stewart - a small coastal town (on the edge of the Portage Canal) right on the border of southeast Alaska (Hyder). When we got there we just had to explore a little and found ourselves of the other side of Hyder by yet another river that the salmon swim too and apparently the grizzly bears are an amazing sight. Unfortunately we were a couple of months to soon for all the activity as the fish had still had some swimming to do.
Hyder and Stewart are well worth the journey. They are at the end of a tidal canal, hiding amongst towering mountains with well known glaciers falling everywhere into lakes or just thin air, the international border consists of a sign telling you that you are now in the US (and the tar seal runs out as well). Hyder is the only place in America where Canadian money is accepted (not only accepted either - more like expected).
Next stop was the lava national park. I'm not even going to try to pronounce the name of this place. About 250 years ago legend has it that some kids were playing and degrading salmon (which are sacred). They would catch the fish, stick burning sticks out of their backs and make them swim like that. This angered the gods and next thing your know a nearby mountain erupted killing everyone in the village and redirecting a river. When you drive through this place, you are surrounded by lava. Its unreal - there are also big tree trunk holes you can see in the hardened rock where trees were surrounded and incinerated. Lots of cool water features around here as well.
Lots more water falls and mountains to come, Mt Robson is the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies and Athabasca Falls, just south of Jasper is one to stop it - even if you have to wade through the hundreds of tourists.
We continued down through Jasper national park back to Lake Louise in time for work as horse trek guides for summer. We could hardly recognise the place without snow, instead people and cars everywhere! Big change from winter anyway, yip, another adventure was just around the corner. :)
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Alaska in a nutshell..
We are almost on our way out of here, but its been fun.. From dodging Grizzly bears while hiking in the mountians to gliding past icebergs from glaciers. Favourite places were somehow saved till last - at Valdez right now and we love it. Not only have we had sunshine (last years they only had 6 days of sun the whole summer) but the place isn't nearly as crowded with tourists as others on the alaskan coast. We have to come back during winter one day cos these mountains look like they'll be a lot of fun covered in snow! Also just been to Mcarthy which is hardly even a town, (no power/hot water - even though they had it here in the early 1900's) in the middle of nowhere surrounded by glaciers, mountains and a ghost town... had lots of fun exploring an abandoned, falling down buildings balancing on the edge of a cliff high in the mountains.We will be back one day for sure!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Miles and miles of mountains
Was great having the van on the way up - we could go as far as we wanted every day and park up at the nicest places for the night, including Muncho Lake Povincial Park, Lake Louise and at the Yukon river at Whitehorse. 
Jesse has driven over 4000 km's - Banff, Alberta to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula. Its kinda of strange getting used to the daylight hours - it gets dark after 11 at night and light by 4am. The other night at Lake Louise we parked up and had dinner cooking at 12am and we hardly needed a torch.
There were a number of really beautiful places we drove past but the one that stands out is the Kluane National Park. There are many glaciers you can see amongst the massive mountains from the road and at this time of year the mountains were striped with rock and snow. Too bad we couldn't spend much time there and go up into the moutains, that will have to be on the list for our next trip up here.
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