Updates for July 11th thru the 13th

July 11th, the day of the Bears.
That morning Dale woke up and headed down to Honeymoon Lake to see if he could see any animals. He did spot the hind end of a black bear headed back into the trees. Apparently a bear had been seen walking along the shore on the opposite side of the lake for quite a ways the day before. Another couple at the lake said it had just showed up and then left on our day. All in all that day we saw 6 bears along the road. They didn’t seem interested in the vehicles and just went about their business of eating. We stopped and got pictures of two of them. We stopped at Maligne Canyon East of Jasper to look at the falls. Dale walked the easy trail with me (I later walked it again for the exercise.) then he headed down a steep trail to get his exercise. There are 6 bridges across the canyon with the water falls. Dale made it to bridge #5 about 2 km (1.25 miles) downhill. The river is basically a series of waterfalls and rapids for about ¾ of this distance. The trail is steep in several places, but they have put in steps to make it a lot easier. While the insects were bad, it was a cool and pleasant walk. The canyon was steep enough you could not see the water most of the time, even though the trail was usually close to the canyon edge (they did have good fences and rails most of the way). One reason they built the bridges was to be able to see the water down in the canyon. You could really hear the water all the time. The highest bridge was about 56 feet above the water. I was not looking forward to the hike back up to the top, but I found an alternate route. They’re maps were very poor and the trails were not well marked, so I was kind of leery about taking a different trail back. There were many trails in the area and some of them several miles long that end up in different locations. It looked like this short cut back should always be the closest to the main trail, so if I always took the right branch at any fork I should be OK, as the worst I could do was to end up back at the original trail. It worked great, even though I still worked up a good sweat. That trail cut 30% off the distance and eliminated much of the increase in elevation and steepness of the trail as it did not follow the edge of the canyon. Didn’t get to see much water on this trail, except at the beginning where you could see the other trail below and the river after it had come out of the steep canyon.

We went on to Hinton to find a Wal Mart and ate a late lunch. Decided to stay the night. There were a lot of campers at this WM. Later we went and gassed up, found a pizza place (you know Dale, he has to get his pizza fix!) and got a few groceries.

July 12th, On the road headed for Dawson Creek and the Alaskan Highway, 97 via Hwy 40. It was an animal day! We saw 7 deer, 1 coyote, 1 fox (?) and a couple of dead moose along the road. There is lots of reforestation going on along this route. You could see where they had thinned out the forest and where replanting was taking place. They have signs saying when the forest was last harvested and when the next harvest is planned. One we stopped at the trees seemed fair sized and had been planted in 1972, but harvest wasn’t planned until 2062. I thought they had trees that grew faster than that now days (I guess 1972 isn’t now days).

A sign to Grand Prairie read 184 KM (115 miles) with no services. The longest stretch so far. Coal mining is big here near Grand Cache. Also lots of logging. They cut the trees and laid them in piles along the roads they made in the forest and you can see them in many spots near the main road. These were the long straight trees that were not real big around (guessing most less than 12” at big end). We saw a lot of signs for logging trucks, but only saw one loaded truck and a few empty ones. As we got within about 50 miles of Grand Prairie we started seeing lots of signs of oil and gas wells and drilling. We went from very little traffic to a lot of traffic including a lot of semis. When we got to Grand Prairie it was like they talk about Minot being on a bad day. There is a two lane road through town and there were semis on all sides of you. Tanker trucks, flat beds with big machines, equipment, drilling towers and pipe, ones with man camp units (like trailer houses, except they haul on a flat bed instead of pulling on wheels) and most any other of semi you could think of. This was in addition to the many pickups and a lot of them with big trailers, as well as the local traffic and the RV’ers. We did get right into a gas station, but had a long wait at Wendy’s for just a Frosty (they needed more help). While the traffic in Grand Prairie was far the worst we’ve seen, we have seen lots oil and gas wells, compressor stations, plants, signs, semi’s and pickups all the way up to Fort Nelson. Unbelievable how much oil and gas work is going on up here and this is not even the area of the sand tars, that is supposed to be the big thing up here (that is further East).

Around Grand Prairie there was more agriculture, many colorful canola fields full of big yellow blooms and lots of hay. Officially we got on the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek, which is milepost 0. Keeping track of where you’re at on the Alaska Highway is more difficult than you might think. The highway has been changed and improved over time, thus the original miles do not match the current miles. Also, there are not really mile posts every mile along the road like the interstates in the US. When there is a “mile post” in Canada it gives the distance in kilometers (km). So some things refer to actual miles, some things to km and some to the miles on the original Alaskan Highway.

In the Fort St. John area there was a haze in the air. At Wendy’s Dale read the paper and found out the haze was from wild fires burning in northern Alberta. Also in this area we saw lots of dead forest, probably caused by the Mountain Pine beetle. These beetles target specifically Lodge pole pines which are prevalent up here. We spent the night at the Sikanni River campground about 120 Miles south of Fort Nelson. Pretty place with Wi Fi on the porch of the main building and two friendly cats to twine among your legs while you read.

July 13th, Friday, We left the camp at 8:30 pacific time. Lots of signs to watch for deer, caribou, moose, and mountain sheep, bud did not see any. Saw an ad in the Milepost (a mile by mile magazine of the Alaskan Highway.) about a Quilt Shoppe near Fort Nelson so Dale found it and took a nap while I shopped and gossiped with the ladies that worked there. Fabric is expensive here so I bought just enough to say I bought fabric in Canada. They had lots of fabric with the native animals up here. Woke Dale up and we continued on into Fort Nelson for gas up and lunch. And of course a stop at a grocery store. I don’t get much at one time so we stop when we can to restock.

Along the road this sign! “All those who hate speeding tickets raise your right foot.” Gotta love the creatively of some ads!

Just outside of Fort Nelson we found road construction. Had a bit of a wait for a pilot car. The method of patching up here is to lie down some liquid tar (?) and then a thick layer of gravel. So most of the way today we alternated between paved and “gravel” roads that were windy with steep grades of 8% or more. We hit the high point of the trip, literally for the Alaskan Highway, at Summit Pass with an elevation of 4,250 feet. Much cooler here. Saw one patch of snow by the side of the road. Most of this trip has been warm, in the 90s or so. The Canadians are experiencing heat not commonly found this far north. We are at Toad Mountain Lodge and RV tonight with free WiFi! Yay, we can both surf and catch up on internet reading.