Great Hikes

The Berg Lake trail in Mt. Robson Provincial Park is a famous, beautiful backpacking trail. Unfortunately, it also gets about 200 people a day hiking the darn thing so we went to nearby Mt. Fitzwilliam trail instead. When we signed in on Aug. 15th, no one had signed in before us since the 12th. So it’s a lot less used, to say the least. We hiked in, spent the night, hiked back to the end of the trail, and went back to our campsite. We intended on spending another night at our campsite but we were becoming suspicious that our water source was not all that great. Since we’d been drinking the stream water, even though we’d purified it, we kept feeling dehydrated. It looked pretty mineral-y so we thought maybe it actually had something like salt in it and we weren’t helping ourselves by drinking lots of it. So we hiked out that day. Drinking dodgy water just kind of ruins the fun of a backpacking trip.

So, we arrived here in Jasper National Park ready for a lot of great hiking. Thanks to a book Andy McConville bequeathed to me when he left Core Lab ‘Classic Hikes in the Canadian Rockies’ we were prepared. Thanks, Andy. So we started on a day hike to a place called Sulfur Ridge near the hot springs. We hadn’t been walking 5 minutes when two women walking towards us practically jumped out of their skin and start running at a high rate of speed down the path towards us. Now, people always say ‘Never run from a bear’ and I consider it pretty sound advice. They say it provokes their predatory instinct. I know with Molly if a cat runs from her she chases after it as fast as she can. If a cat doesn’t run, she sniffs it curiously and usually walks away. Now, if I was sure a bear meant me harm I might run anyway but as long as it is minding it’s own business I’m not going to provoke the bear by running, or doing anything else to irritate it. So when the women ran by and we asked them what was wrong and they responded ‘bear’. I said, “well, you probably shouldn’t run”, especially as they were running right towards us who didn’t know what was going on. If the bear had been chasing them they would have brought it right to us, who would have had no choice then but to try and outrun them and hope they got eaten instead of us. Of course, the bear wasn’t chasing them, so Dave and I continued slowly up the path making a lot of noise so as not to surprise the bear. We thought it might move off the path so we could continue on. As we got closer we saw the bear, who took an aggressive attitude right away. Then we saw her cub, such a cute little guy, scurry up the tree next to her! So, we yielded the path and went back down, walking slowly down the path backwards to keep an eye on her. When we got down the women said ‘Did you see the bear?’ And we told them, yes we had seen her and her cub. They then proceeded to lecture us on how running was actually the correct response. Have you ever noticed when people are killed by bears it’s usually in Canada? I think now we know why!

Isn’t that the cutest!

Grrr! Mad mamma bear who will rip your guts out.

We left the Yukon and are back in BC now, we’ve seen wild buffalo, caribou, Stone sheep and moose since we’ve been here. No bears this time, though, which is strange. I miss my bears! It’s been weeks since a bear sighting.

The buffalo caused quite a traffic jam!

One of the Stone sheep they have up here, which are like the Dall sheep of Alaska only not white, and have smaller horns than the big horn sheep.

A family of caribou.

In Stone Mountain Provincial Park we hiked up Summit Peak. We eventually turned around, the weather was bad. The wind speed had to be over 80 mph, at one point Molly was almost launched off the side of the mountain! After that we decided we should go back down. Both Dave and I were pushed around by the wind, also. This is looking back down at the campground from on the mountain.

The day we left Alaska and headed back into Canada we had a strange occurance. We were headed for one of the campgrounds in Kluane National Park but our navigation and driving did not match up and we ended up passing it by. When we stopped to regroup and figure out if we should go back or go on to a different campground for some reason I got out and walked around to the back of the RV. I guess it was divine help because our hitch was all messed up and the Jeep was about to fly off! The extra safetly cables we have wouldn’t have helped, either, because the entire hitch apparatus was coming off the RV and would have been flying down the road with the Jeep. Somewhere along the way we had lost a bolt and the metal of the hitch was actually tearing. Luckily, we found a welding shop in Haines Junction (a town of a few hundred people) and the guy fixed it that day for $220 CAD but it looked like he did a good job. While we waited, we got to go hiking again in Kluane National Park, so we still had a good day.

The view from ‘King’s Throne’, a cirque on the mountain.

Me in the cirque.

More mountains…

Leaving Alaska

So, the day we left we went out for sourdough pancakes for breakfast for a last bit of tradition before we head into Canada. We sure have had a good time up here. You know, when we bought Alaska from the Russians we only paid 7.25 million for it, and congress didn’t want to pay that! We thought we were doing Russia a favor. They called it Seward’s Ice Box and Seward’s Folly (secretary of state was Seward at the time). Of course, no one could have known a gazillion dollars of oil were sitting up on the North Slope, but even with out that it still would have been a bargain.
Last summer in the lower 48 we had a lot of adventures, but we really worked hard for those adventures. Climbing Mt. Whitney in California and King’s Peak in Utah were excellent, but we had a plan last summer. This summer we came up here with only the vaguest of plans and adventure just leaps out at you from every corner. Go fishing, meet bears, both black and grizzly. Go to the city and find awesome hiking and biking trails. Go to the middle of nowhere and find nice people and good food. Go for a drive and see moose and porcupine. I used to think Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho were wild but now I see, Alaska is what they probably were 50 years ago.

So, after spending my birthday in the relative luxury of an RV park (electricity and showers that are not 2 feet wide!!!) we got to go back in to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. It has two areas with trails and roads and we were now at the second one. Really, this is not like any other National Park. They even let dogs on the trails which Molly was very grateful for. We did a 6 mile hike with 2,800 feet of vertical gain and she did great! We thought she�d found the dog fountain of youth the way she took off up the mountain. Turns out the dog fountain of youth is actually squirrels. The hike we took went up to an extinct volcano with really cool geology, beautiful views, and a look at the Dall sheep that live up here. This was our last full day in Alaska and we enjoyed it as much as we�d enjoyed all the days preceding it.

Molly running ahead on the trail.

Dave taking a rest.

Me.

Molly doing her best to resemble a predator. There was a funny thing in one of the paphelets we picked up, saying ‘if you want to spot wildlife you may want to leave your dog behind as they resemble a predator’. Resemble? Molly took serious offense to that one!

Driving and hiking along the Denali Highway is one of the coolest things to do in Alaska. We were lucky and had sunshine for the start of the trip, although it rained on us before the day was over (big surprise). The dirt road goes along the southern edge of the Alaska Range, so you have fabulous views the entire trip, and all the land pretty much on either side is state owned so you can get out and just start walking. There are lots of marked trails and plenty of unmarked trails, enough to keep a person busy for years. And the area is perfect for multi-day backpack trips, you only have to walk a few miles to find totally secluded beautiful lakeside spots.

Some salmon in a stream.

A fox along the road.

Mountain views!

Molly and I on a hike.

Alaska National Parks are not really like a lot of the National Parks in the lower 48, like the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. Wrangall-St. Elias National Park is the largest National Park area-wise with only two short roads going into it at all, and they are unpaved and remote. So we set off to explore and found a free campsite near the town of Chitina, AK where one of the roads begins. The road goes to a ghost town with a few tourist attractions and ends, but a small dirt road that private cars are not allowed on continues another 5 miles to another ghost town called Kennicott and the start of a few really cool trails. So we set off on bicycle again and got about ¼ mile from town when Dave got a flat tire. No big deal, we always carry a patch kit, right? Wrong, of course we’d left it in the Jeep this time. So we ask around town and no one has anything remotely resembling a patch kit, and we can’t even find duct tape. The best we get is packing tape. But we hike and enjoy the trails to glaciers and old mining camps anyway. Since we can’t patch Dave’s tire he suggests he start walking and I ride down (it was all uphill to the town, so it’s all downhill to where we parked) and grab the patch kit, then ride back to where he’ll be. I was a bit reluctant for fear of bears but I took off and zoomed down the hill. I guess the bears knew to stay away from a person going 20 mph on a bike singing Sublime and Weezer at the top of their lungs. I was happy though, just after I chugged some water and got ready to head back up the hill Dave came riding down. Turns out, there are some patches inside the little tire pump I carry on my bike. I think my Dad got us those for Christmas one year, so thanks Dad! It really came in handy. Here are the photos from the glacier hike.

Here are some of the fishwheels the native people use to catch salmon out of the rivers.

Beautiful mountains!

On the trail to the glacier.

The Root Glacier. This was a great hike to the glacier and really cool (even if a bit scary) hiking around on the glacier.

It was weird, it was a hot day so we were wearing shorts and t-shirts, but while walking around on the glacier my feet were freezing!

Dave, blazing ahead on the ice.