Watson Lake, Yukon

Friday: (06/17) Leftover potatoes and ham with eggs for breakfast.


On to Waltson Lake to look at the sign forest and add our own sign. We stopped in Watson Lake at the visitor center, watched the movie and checked out the museum and the sign forest. We added our own little sign. I estimated it was 3020 miles from our home in Palo Alto. Not too permanent of a sign though. I just wrote on a DVD with a permanent marker.


We stopped at Rancheria Falls along the way. A nice double water fall.


Saw these nice flowers on the hike out to the falls.

We stopped at the Dawson's Peaks Resort for their world famous rhubarb pie. It is properly considered world famous! They had good Wifi so I added this post.


We continued up the road stopping where the Yukon Highway 6 meets the Alaskan Highway at a Rest Area/Historical Interest Point. They have been pulling out some of the old abandoned trucks that were used to make the highway during the WWII rush to complete the highway. Many were abandoned and cannibalized. They remind me of the old vehicles in our neighbors yards when I was young. Today our wildlife sightings were limited. We saw 5 bison, 2 bears and hit a hawk. Today we were fortunate to not have any rocks thrown at our windshield so no repairs needed tonight. We almost had a problem though. A hawk pulled into our lane and couldn't go 60 mph so we hit it at the top left of the driver windshield. Fortunately, no damage to us, the bird was another matter. Along the way, we saw fresh snow on the road. We just missed it's falling. We had experienced a little rain just before it ourselves.


We stopped at a rest stop about 80 miles away from Whitehorse.


I fixed my famous spaghetti for dinner. It was a little different since I had to use mostaccioli noodles instead. The mosquitoes were bad here. If you stepped outside, you had to fight them off and when you stepped back in the battle continued with the hitchhikers.
(GPS: 60.38348918, -133.77711766)

Rest Stop South Of Watson Lake

Thursday: (06/16) We didn't make much headway today. First, I had to glue up a recent extension to our windshield cracks. Somewhere around Dawson Creek we grew a 12" extension on the right windshield crack. It has two cracks, one about three years old and another group that have started to arise from a small ding that was in the windshield when we bought the coach and had been repaired with no growth for 8 years until a few months ago when it burst out with two fingers about 12" long and now a third finger. While that dried in the morning sun we enjoyed a nice breakfast of ham, eggs and home fried potatoes. We finally departed our camp at 10am, rather a late start. The intent today was to get up to Watson Lake, a little less than 300 miles but that didn't happen. We enjoyed ourselves too much. We stopped several times for a hunt for beavers (0), a hike to hoodoos (3), bear (3), bison (>40 with 10 calves) and stone goat (>10) viewing, and some information signs. Lunch was nacho chips supreme (chips, cheese, onions, beef, and salsa). Dinner was our shepherds pies that we picked up at M&M Meats in Fort St John yesterday. Quite good. The weather was nice most of the day until about 5pm when we had some good showers. For the last 40 miles of our travels there was gravel on the road due to chip sealing. When a group of three trucks passed us at well over 65mph cruising through a long patch on their side, even though I had stopped and pulled to our shoulder a batch of rocks hit the windshield and caused about 10 dings including one cup. When we stopped, I glued them up. Tomorrow morning when the sun has set the glue I'll clean the excess glue off and hopefully they wont run. I think I'll need to pick up a gallon of windshield glue for this trip?


One of our searches for beaver brought us to this pond. No beaver seen, just a dam.


We hiked the Hoodoo Trail. There are three unusual erosion pillars which are different than most since they are mixed into the forest and on the side of an otherwise ordinary looking mountain. On the right is our RV parked on the road from near where the hoodoo in the left picture is looking down a steep wash.


A family of sheep


Not too many wild flowers here in the North. Here are some photos of a few we did see.


Some look like sweet peas and the one on the right above is called a rose.


Some of the buds look better than their flowers. The flower on the right has great detail.


Part of a big herd of Wood bison we passed through along the highway. There were at least 12 calves in the herd.


Lots of bears including the black bear above right. They seem to enjoy the taste of the grass along the highway. Above right is the Laird River 60 Miles South of Watson Lake Along the Alaskan Highway.


Our campsite at a Rest Stop 60 Miles South of Watson Lake Along the Alaska Highway.
(GPS: 59.87593, -127.4052)

Dawson Creek, BC

Tuesday: (06/14) Nice morning. Not raining. We had cereal for breakfast with sliced apples. After a quick walk about camp and a look at the lake we were hooked up and off toward Grande Cache where we stopped at the visitor center and borrowed the use of their WiFi to post this update. Nice blue skies with a few scattered clouds now.


We stopped in Grande Cache at the visitor center. I used their Wifi to check email and make a blog post including some recent photos. Lou got some information while I was busy and took a good look at their museum. Lots of stuffed animals. I got a look as well. They had several very nice stuffed owls. We had ham sandwiches for lunch before departing. We stopped at Walmart in Grand Prairie. From there we did our shopping both there and nearby. I got the RV oil changed at Lube-X next door and filled it with gas. For dinner Lou and I split a nice carnitas burrito from a nearby burrito shop, different than any we've had before but good. We decided to spend the night at Walmart.
(GPS: 55.17197, -118.8269)

Wednesday: (06/15) We were up early. That's a problem way up here. It stays light late and gets light early. We enjoyed strawberry waffles for breakfast and were on the road by 0710. We stopped in Dawson Creek at the Visitor Center. They have a nice small museum and we watched a movie about the building of the Alaska Highway at the beginning of World War Two.


And, of course, we snapped a picture of ourselves at the mile zero post. Above is proof we started the Alaskan highway trip. The left picture shows us at the real mile Zero. the right is the photo location in the middle of the street downtown.


Above is a picture of the last remaining original wood bridge on the Alaskan Highway North of Dawson Creek.

Lunch was leftover split pea soup and a ham and cheese sandwich. Other than that it was pretty much a driving day. We stopped in Fort Nelson at the Visitor Center and used their Wifi to make a blog post, check email and chat with Dawn.


When they closed at 8pm we filled up the gas and headed North about 35 miles to a wayside for the night. We saw little wildlife today, only three black bears, a mom and cub and a lone cub?


Lou fixed a Chinese like dinner tonight with noodles, broccoli, carrots and shrimp. Our first heavy mosquitoes attack was tonight. Lots of standing water around our night spot.
(GPS: 58.82609, -123.5131)

Banff And Jasper National Parks

Saturday: (06/11) Apples and peanut butter for breakfast. Mostly clear skies this morning. Our recent storm seems to have passed.


On our way into Yoho National Park we stopped and hiked out to Wapta Falls, a 2.4km hike, about an hour round trip.


Some nice flowers along the trail. On our hike back to the RV it started to rain lightly. So much for the storm having passed. When we arrived at the parking area for the hike, we had to uncouple and get turned around. When turning down these kind of roads that's often the case. We had lunch before we left. Fried toast and Lou's bean soup.

We continued down to the visitor center at Field. There, we were finally able to purchase a National Parks Pass. We've been scofflaws until now but this was the first place that sold them.


We drove out toward Emerald Lake for a look. On the way we stopped to look at the Natural Bridge, a spot where the Kicking Horse River used to pass over a waterfall but eroded into a bridge. We continued on out to the lake for a look.


Then we hiked out to Hamilton Falls. An interesting water fall that comes down the inside of a cliff sideways.


We stopped for a look at the spiral railroad tunnels (above left), an engineering marvel imported from Switzerland that cut the grade going over Kicking Horse Pass in half. It's much like the Tehachapi Loop East of Bakersfield except the loops were carved in rock. On the road we stopped where a bunch of cars had pulled over and saw a mother bear and her two cubs crossing the railroad track and going up the hill (Above right). Probably just a little late to see them cross the highway as well. The train that passed by just after they crossed the tracks would have been the one we could have seem at the spiral tunnels if we had stayed another 20-30 minutes. Darn

Then we went on down the hill crossing the continental divide, entering Alberta and stopped in Lake Louise at a nice campground for the night.
(GPS 51.40687152, -116.16743522)

Sunday: (06/12) Pancakes and sausage for breakfast.


We drove out to Lake Louise to start our day. Evidently, the last of the ice on the lake didn't disappear until about three days ago. We hiked along the edge of the lake to the glacier end.


On the way we stopped to listen in on a ranger talking about the mountain sheep. He really gets in to his job even singing and leading the group in a round of "Rocky Mountain High". Lou turned around at the end of the lake and I continued up the Plain Of Six Glaciers trail a couple of kilometers.


The trail goes up for some closer views of the glaciers. There was lots of snow and ice still on the trail. Since I promised Lou not to be all day I turned around about 40 minutes up the trail probably 1.5 km from the Plain Of Six Glaciers Tea House. Back in the old days they were quite civilized here. Before we left we enjoyed our olive loaf sandwiches for lunch


Next, we drove down to Banff and stopped and looked at Bow Falls.


Then out to the Cave And Basin Historic Site. It's currently closed and under construction. It is the origin site of the Canadian National Park System. We'll have to return some time in the future to see the cave. We took a nice hike around the Marsh Loop Trail nearby.


We returned up the road to home at Lake Louise. Along the way we passed some of the nice wildlife bridges that are being installed in the parks. The highway is fenced really well and there are over and under crossings for the wildlife. None for the cars though. Garlic sausage, potatoes and and broccoli for dinner.
(GPS 51.40687152, -116.16743522)