Putting on the Miles

Since we left Charlie Lake near the beginning of the Alaskan Highway, we have been putting on the miles. We drove to Stone Mountain Provincial Park and camped at Summit Lake. The picture below was taken from our campsite. Unfortunately Cheri's back has been hurting so we did not pull out the kayak.




Kris took a hike up the Microwave Tower Road past the treeline and into the tundra. Lots of wildflowers, but no ptarmigan. We both hiked up the stream across the highway from the campground.


The next day we drove to Liard River Provincial Park where our campground fee included a dip in the natural hot springs. There was a board walk across the marsh to two hot spring pools. What a relaxing way to unwind after a day on the road! Later in the evening several groups of fire fighters arrived to relax in the hot springs after fighting a local wild fire. We were able to get the most up to date report on the road conditions as there had been some concern they might close the road.

As we drove several hundred kilometers to Teslin, we saw some of the effects of the fire and the suppression efforts. Spaced along the roadside we saw large pool sized buckets of water that had been strategically placed by helicopters. Some of the buckets were to help the firefighters who were lighting backfires and some of the buckets were placed near the few buildings along the highway.

Signs of Spring

We spent the last couple nights at Charlie Lake near Fort St. John surrounded by aspen forest. The number of birds and the volume of their song, particularly at 4am when the sun rises is astounding. I've seen several typically eastern species, like Ovenbird, Bluebird and Baltimore Oriole that are at the limits of their range here. We knew this was going to be a great area when we pulled into our campsite and found a morel coming up out of the gravel. Cheri and I hiked a couple of local trails and were torn between looking up for the birds or down for the fungi. Morels and pasta for dinner!

Icefields Parkway

Highway 93, the Icefields Parkway, runs from Lake Louise in Banff National Park to Jasper townsite, and in between it passes 7 icefields and many smaller glaciers. When we bought our National park pass, and mentioned we were planning to drive north to Jasper, we were handed a little brochure that described the Icefields Parkway as the most beautiful road in the world. I didn't think much of it, and then we actually drove it. It seemed every few minutes there was another spectacular vista and Cheri and I were both saying "wow", until Cheri finally said her wow-meter was stuck at 12. I don't think the pictures we took do the place justice. If you like snow capped mountains, this drive is a "must see" trip!


Hector Lake, still covered in ice.

Peyto Lake, also ice covered, but showing an impossible turquoise blue around the edges.


Looking south from a pullout below Sunwapta pass.


The Athabasca glacier, which is one little tongue of the enormous Columbia icefield.

bears

One of the attractions of the Canadian mountain parks is all the wildlife. We saw big horn sheep and caribou in Banff, and saw a moose with her very young calf while we were kayaking in the aptly named Moose Lake in Mt. Robson provincial park. But up until a couple of days ago we hadn't seen any bears. Then we saw a total of 6 bears while driving to Prince George. We felt like complete tourists pulling over on the highway to take this picture. After spending days in the Rockies it was complete culture shock spending a day running errands and doing laundry in Prince George - so many people! So few trees! where are the mountains?

Ready to Kayak

As we were in the final planning stages for this Canada/Alaska adventure, we wanted to be able to go out on the water in the places we would be camping, particularly after looking at the map of British Columbia and seeing all those lakes! With our limited amount of space, we decided an inflatable kayak would best suit our needs. We settled on a convertible kayak from Advanced Elements. The kayak can be used as a single or a double kayak, depending on which deck is used. It's worked pretty well so far, although it takes some care making sure everything is aligned while inflating it if we want to track straight. What's even more amazing is how much equipment actually fits in our kayak box.
Be sure to check out the link to "Our Spot Locator Page" in the upper right hand corner of out blog. We have a Spot Satellite Messenger and have been using it to track our progress and stay in touch when we don't have internet service. The page shows the the last seven days of messages, and using Google Maps, you can see where we were at the time the message was sent. For the Spot links that seem to be in the middle of the lake - that is because we were kayaking at the time we sent the signal.

Cooking

It is a bit of a challenge (for Kris - Cheri doesn't cook much) to cook a variety of meals on a two burner stove with a limited amount of cookware. We have a cook set with three pots that nestle together and their lids double as pans. We did dedicate the space to bring a fair sized frying pan whose handle folds into itself to conserve space. Kris choose her spices and we found stacking/attached containers that each hold a fair amount of spices.

The storage space in the fridge and freezer are a factor in our variety of available ingredients also. Kris' mother gave us a great recipe for homemade sherbet. We had been making it at home for months. We have found that by cutting the recipe in half we can make it in the available size containers we have and we can then transfer the liquid to small plastic containers to create single servings that fit nicely into the freezer.

Kris had been experimenting and researching one pot/pan meals for several months before we left. We definitely came up with some favorites. I just hope we can find more Orzo when our supply runs out! Just before we left we asked several of our friends if they had any one pot, stovetop meals they liked. Our friend Illana gave us several that we have now tried - the stuffed chicken was great.

I never cease to be amazed at my wonderful wife's abilities. We stopped for lunch at a picnic ground and the leftover southwest fish stew we were reheating were a bit spicy. Kris asked if I wanted some coleslaw with the meal. She chopped some cabbage, added some honey, apple, yogurt, mayonnaise, vinegar, and tossed. Yum Yum.

Anyone have a favorite one pot/pan stovetop meal for two they would like to share?

Second Weekend

From Revelstoke we passed through Glacier National Park. Entering the Canadian Rockies, we were surrounded by snow capped mountains all day. We camped at the city of Golden Municipal Campground Friday night. The campground was tucked into a corner of town with the Columbia River on one side and the city swimming pool and High School on the other. We had a nice walk along the river.

We then drove fifty some miles to our next camp site at Kicking Falls Campground in Yoho National Park. We found a campsite right next to the river again. There is something to be said for arriving early, claiming a campsite and then go off exploring. By the time we got back the campground was about 3/4 filled. We explored Wapto Falls and Emerald Lake. Kris called in several swarms of warblers as we walked around the lake, including MacGillivary's and Townsends warblers.


The next day we drove about sixty miles stopping at Lake Louise then on to Banff National Park. At the last minute Kris saw an entry for Two Jack Campground, so we are camping in the forest instead of next to town. We again arrived early and got (in our opinion) the best campsite in the campground. We are right next to the lake and we launched the kayak just from our own site. Follow the large snow patch on this mountain down into the trees and there is our camp. You can almost see us . . .


We saw our first large mammals today. While we were driving on the Highway we saw a black bear up on the railroad tracks and later a caribou grazing on the side of the road. While we were driving to our campsite we had to stop on the road as big horned sheep crossed in front of us. Later as we were kayaking we were able to get several pictures of the same herd from the lake.