In the summer time

Our Whistler summer was short and sweet but by far one of the best summers ever. We spent just short of 3 months trying to cram in as much bike riding, hiking and exploring as possible. The result, was some good photos, unforgettable memories and a few new experiences.

The summer began after we returned back to whistler from our road trip. After picking up our stuff from joe and rose and remembering just how much crap we had, then reuniting ourselves with our bikes, we jumped straight back into work. I was back at salomon and the grocery store and Rhys was working in the golf shop at Nicklaus north golf course, one of the more prestigious courses in the area next to green lake! 

First on our list of things to do when we got back to whistler was heading up the mountain and seeing just how different it looked in the summer time! As it was considered early in the season the first time we headed up, not all the hiking routes we open but we hiked up and down one of the cat tracks, checked out the abandoned t bars and walked past the super huge snow walls, cleared to allow access to the hiking trails. At the top of peak we were met by views across to black tusk and once again reminded of our summer goal, to hike to the top of the peak! 

 

In mid July, Ewan came to visit and we were given the opportunity to pretend live like tourists and do a few of the summer touristy events! Zip lining didn't really take our fancy, especially after seeing the South Park episode outlining just how 'extreme' it was. The boys instead went on a full day white water rafting trip down by squamish and made a pretty good day out of it!

We still had the car so took the opportunity to do a few more hikes around the area. Or first on the list was the Joffre lake, a 3 hour hike past 3 beautiful glacial fed lakes just a few km north of pemberton. The hike itself was fun, with a pretty steep incline and passed over a lot of loose rocks and exposed tree roots. At the end of the hike, Ewan and I braved the cold waters of the first lake, while Rhys watched.. 

We went down to vancouver too the night before Ewan flew out, so he could check out the city and we could drop him at the airport about 6 hours early!! On the way down to van we stopped at 'the chief' in squamish, a mammoth limestone cliff visible from the highway and very popular with rock climbers! We didn't rock climb but instead took the steep, stair filled path with some tricky scrambling sections up to the peak to enjoy the panoramic views across squamish and an impressive vertical drop beneath us.

Down in Vancouver we were lucky to have some good weather, which is very rare for our visits to the city! We did a bit of shopping before heading across to Granville island for a few afternoon margaritas to watch the sun go down! It was a great way to end the jam packed, fun filled 10 days we'd spent with him but sadly meant it was back to the whistler reality!

Back in whistler we were back to work and back ticking things off our whistler summer bucket list!

 We did a fair bit of cross country bike riding, Rhys a little more so than me as I am still learning to get over my fear of going fast! We rented some road bikes and went for a road ride and it felt so good to be back on the road! The only problem was the only place to ride was on the highway with all the cars so the ride wasn't as enjoyable as it could've been! A whistler summer wouldn't have been complete without a trip to the bike park either, so kitted out with his arm and leg pads, full face helmet and super suspension dh bike, Rhys hit the park! (There is a photo of him getting some air over one of the jumps below) I wasn't game enough to do it especially after a little incident I had with a small paved downhill section of the valley trail and a tree.. Or my fear in the Xc park so I was more than happy to sit this one out! 

We also headed up the whistler mountain again to do another hike, this time the high note trail, which took us from peak chair on the top of whistler, around the back of the mountain to harmony and symphony areas where we hiked up to the top of flute bowl (something we had also done in the winter before boarding down the fresh un-groomed powder) and back up to the roundhouse. It was a cool hike and even cooler exploring some of the areas we recognised skiing in the winter! 

There was also a mountain top BBQ during the season, basically an all you can eat BBQ up at the roundhouse overlooking the mountains! Luckily Sunday night was the seafood buffet where they had prawns, BBQ salmon and mussels..otherwise I don't think we would have made it up as I wasn't really interested in the pig on a spit or BBQ lamb.. All in all it was a fun afternoon and pretty tasty food (and ceAsars of course!)

We were lucky Rhys was working at the golf course as it gave us access to free golf on a usually $180/person/round course! We didn't get to play together as much as we would've liked..which was probably good for Rhys as I beat him on our first round which kind of dampened his spirits ;) he then spent a lot of his spare time in the practice facility trying to tune his skills so he could beat me next time we met!! I was disadvantaged with a migraine on the final showdown so I guess well have to wait to battle it out when we get back home!

The end crept up on us very quickly and all of a sudden there were only a few weeks left of our amazing summer. It was then that we realised there were still a few hikes on our bucket list we had to do before we headed off! The first was the short, but challenging wedgemount and of course the main player; black tusk. 

We had planned to do the tusk with a few people from work but woke on the morning to lots of cloud and rain..needless to say that day was then ruined and we spent the day kind of moping around wishing we were hiking! Luckily the next weekend was a little nicer so we set off to do wedgemount. The hike was pretty short but very steep and challenging, it was pretty fun climbing and scrambling up and over rocks and tree roots. The clouds had kind of come over when we reached the top so we didn't get the best view at the top but the hike was well worth it in itself! 

Then the day came, black tusk. We woke up to a foggy morning but knew it was going to clear, so we piled ourselves into jimmy for the last time and headed to the trail head. Sadly as we'd had to change our hike date so many times due to the poor weather no one from work was able to get days off, so it was just us! O well, it was what we were used to and it meant we could whinge and yell at each other when one of us started to drop off the pace! 

Arriving at the trail head we realised this was a pretty popular hike! The large carpark was full and it was only 730am on a Sunday! Nevertheless we tied our laces and hit the trail. The first 7kms were through switchbacks and rainforest before we popped out at some meadows. We walked through the meadows for a while before finally gaining site of the tusk! We then started to climb up some pretty steep terrain before we reached the black tusk view point. 14km from the start, this is where most people tend to turn around and where the maintained trail ends. You can see up to the tusk and the beautiful views across the garibaldi lake but the more adventurous continue up the slippery, rocky terrain up to the very top. Obviously we were of the later and started to scramble up the slippery slopes. After a few Km's of near vertical hiking we reached a point where we had to traverse around the base of the tusk itself and up to the chimney where we could then climb to the top! After stumbling around to the base of the chute I nearly freaked out when I saw what was next. A sheer vertical black crumbly wall of rock.. Luckily there were a few people up there with us which was encouring and of course Rhys reminding me that we hadn't come this far to just turn around again! I managed to put my fears aside and commence the climb, making sure with each step that I wasn't putting my fingers of feet onto unstable rocks. The climb up wasn't that bad..until I realised we had to come back down the same way! 

The view at the top though was well worth everything. It was amazing, we could see over to whistler mountain, through the valley and back over the super blue waters of garibaldi lake. 

After taking in the views we commenced our descent, which wasn't as bad as I had imagined! With a bit of encouragement and assistance from Rhys I proudly made it back down to the base of the tusk. The climb back down the rocky mountainside was fun too as we kind of slid our way down the rocks. We stopped via the garibaldi lake on the way down for a much needed swim in the super cold glacial fed waters before successfully making our way back to the car park. Over 30km, 9 hours and gaining almost 1700m of elevation, it was probably the most memorable moments so far! 

We spent lazy afternoons at the 'lake' swimming in the cool waters, throwing the frisby and even testing our skills on the paddle board. I even learnt to slack line, which is kind of like titght rope walking on a slitly thicker rope tied between two trees! The days were longer than we were used to back home due to daylight savings so we were able to fit everything into the day! 

Work wasn't too shabby either, we had a good crew at the salomon store and I am proud to say i got pretty good at pumping up bike tyres, changing tyres and selling shoes!  Toward the end of the summer the numbers in the village started to drop off so it got pret quiet in the store but it was Definitely the cruisiest, but funniest job I've had in a long time! A nice break from the stresses on site!

Rhys's work was a nice change for him too, working in a customer service role for the first time, he got to spend his days greeting the wealthy golfers and meeting all the high rollers from whistler including the general manager of Whistler Blackcomb. There were also some perks with the jobs, getting to dress up in nice Ralph Lauren attire, a uniform which was not complete without the radio headset!

Finally the day came to pile up everything in our little unit in brio and attempt to fit it all in our backpacks before hitting the road for some more adventures! The packing was a bit of a mission and more of our stuff got sent down to the reuse it centre than packed into our bags but we eventually got there! 

We left whistler happy, knowing we had made the most of our summer and ready for the next adventure! 

We're coming home

The final stretch of the trip from Whitehorse in the southern end of the Yukon to Whistler in British Colombia was a distance of 2375km. We could see the end and were keen to push through to get back to a real house (no offense to Jimmy...) where we could stretch our legs out and stay in one place for an extended time =) Not to mention the return of a permanent toilet, shower, refrigerator and of course; a real bed!!

While we were keen to get home, there were a few stops along the way to split up the trip and make sure we made the most of our time on the road. As much as we wanted to rush through it all to get back, we also wanted to see as much of the beautiful country of Canada (and a bit of the US) as we had set out to achieve in the first place!

First up was Watson Lake, the self appointed home of the Aurora Borealis (the northern lights) and since we weren't going to have the opportunity to see them (what with the sun barely spending any time below the horizon) we decided to visit the Northern Lights Centre which had a special dome shaped cinema (similar to that at the planetarium in brissy) to present the lights as if you were really just sitting there looking up to the sky! A camera had been designed to capture the borealis and display on this planetarium style screen and during the presentation we found out that a special type of person was required to capture the images themselves. In order to capture this awesome natural phenomenon of the borealis in the dark of the night the camera and crew had stick it out through the extreme conditions; suffering through -45 degree conditions with what looked like tens of layers of clothes, somehow all the camera equipment made it through as well! We were by far the youngest in the cinema but it was cool to watch the lights and gave us a taste of what we were going to definately come back to see in the future - the lights themselves. The town is also home to the "world famous" Signpost Forest in which travellers bring 'signs' from their home town to display on telephone poles in the forest (outside the information centre). There were over 72,000 signs, from city signs, to people writing their names on their esky lids and we even managed to find a number plate all the way from Tasmania.

 

Making the most of the evening light, we ended up doing some more driving before pulling into what looked like a nice little free-camping spot called Whirlpool Canyon to enjoy the sunset. It seemed this was the prime wildlife viewing time with plenty of black bears and bison either crossing or sitting either side of the road! Thr whirlpool canyon was cool, but unfortunately our camping spot ended up being the worst night sleep we have ever had, with the car somehow absolutely full of bugs and mosquitoes and the heat of the day not leaving us with the onset of night. At about 3am after lying in the car since midnight we decided if we weren't going to be sleeping, then we may as well be driving so we were back on the road in the attempt of escaping the army of insects!
We drove along the highway for about half an hour before reaching an obstacle - the infamous road works. DUring the day, these aren't so bad as the volume of traffic coming through means there are 2 pilot cars running and thus minimises wait time, however, at 3am in the morning there are very few vehicles on the road and thus you get to wait for about an hour before you can pass through!  We continued along the highway until we reached Liard Natural Hotsprings and spent what was left of the night in the camp ground 'overflow' on the side of the highway.. lets just say not much more sleep was had!

The Liard Natural Hot Springs was an amazing morning treat though where we found a great establishment combining the naturally existing hot springs and a beautifully constructed timber decking. Although after the night 'sleep' we had had and the temperatures above confortable, hot springs weren't really our first choice but our aching and tired bodies loved the warm water, and we even spotted a moose on the boardwalk on the way to the hot springs!

After our soak, Jiummy was thirsty and in order to ensure we made it to the next gas station (as out here they were few and far between), we decided to fill up and ended up paying a ridiculous $1.95/L for gas..We didn't like it, and neither did a very vocal and aggressive American in his gas guzzling RV. .

After our bug filled evening we decided to invest in some kind of bug repeller, as our mozzie spray was only useful for about 10 minutes. After assessing our options in a tiny little home hardware somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we emerged with a little battery powered beauty that could be attached to your person and had a little internal fan that misted some kind of mozzie repeller. It looked great (See Em below..) and was suprisingly successful at clearing the car of bugs before bed time!

 

The stretch of the Alaska Highway we were driving has quite an impressive history and the hotsprings we spent the morning in were actually found during its construction with the workers taking a break and enjoying the natural feature! The highway was constructed during WWII with USA fearing an invasion by the Japanese from the north and prior to the highway there was no was of accessing the rugged north. The highway was constructed with amazing speed, completing approximately 2700km of dirt road within 9 months. Apparently the speed of clearing was so fast that surveyors plotting the course of the road often found themselves overtaken by the tree lopping crews! The highway has since been upgraded to a fully sealed surface and was straightened and re-routed with improved surveying technology and more time and has been reduced to 2,232km long.

We drove past the 0mile sign for the highway when we were in Dawson Creek and took time to head up and visit the towns main attraction; a wind farm. we were pretty excited to see the giant wind turbines up close; they were SO big!! It was tough to take a picture and we had to resort to using the wide angle lense ont he go pro in order to capture the magnitude of the towers. To get to the wind farm we had to do a little bit of off road driving and it was a little wet so jimmy got nice and dirty! After lunch in the back of our little 'rv', we passed through Chetwynd, which was an interesting little town to say the least! The parks, road side and most front yards were scattered with wooden statues that had been carved with chainsaws. Some were pretty impressive, but we took a photo of my favourite one (which was decided as we drove past them all) and then continued on our way to a camp ground for our evenings rest!

The Marble Canyon campsite was where we ended up stopping and we were impressed to find probably the nicest campsite from the whole trip! We were treated to an afternoon thunderstorm on our approach and pulled up to an amazing site with a view over the lake. The clouds cleared for the evening leaving a starry sky and we were greeted with a beautiful morning to carry on driving!



It had been a while and i needed some retail therapy, so after a night at our beautiful campsite, we stopped in Prince George for a while and did a bit of shopping before hitting the road again. SUmmer was on our mind so it was shorts and singlet shopping. I was searching for a replacement for my havianas but sadly nothing came up :( so after we had stocked up on tinned tuna, stuffed our faces with some amazing sushi, we were back on the road toward Whistler!







As the trip came closer and closer to an end we began spending more time in the car. We definitely survived the whole trip without a monstrosity of a car/ van/ bus and I was convinced that we could use Jimmy as an RV, and we proved it so by managing to construct and eat a meal in the comfort of the boot. We surprised ourselves a little with what we were able to live with the minimal space; using the back as a kitchen, bedroom, living room, storage facility and even a theatre.


At long last we made it to our final day of the trip! Having travelled a total of more than 10,000 miles or 16,500km in 68 days. Of the days on the road we spent 50 days sleeping in the back of a car & 2 other days sleeping out under the stars! 10 US and 3 Canadian states and territories were visited and we somehow didn't even manage to listen to every single song in our music collection. We pulled back into Whistler ready to enjoy the Summer ahead!

I wear my sunglasses at night

After what seemed like ages on the ferry for the second time, and after I had rekindled my love for drawing, we arrived at our final destination in the little town of Haines, Alaska. It was definitely a lot smaller than we were both expecting! We treated ourselves to an afternoon coffee (which was once again surprisingly amazing - small town, hippy style cafes were pulling out the good coffees!) , hit the wifis at the library (our new found favorite hotspot) and then sourced out some lunch. The little local IGA wasn't really sporting any 'deals' for the groceries but claiming to be the biggest grocer in town we had no other choice but to pay $3.50 for a iceberg lettuce!!

After enjoying the scenery down by the water and sharing lunch with some rather large blow flys we were back on the road. Our aim was to get as far as we could and the never setting sun really helped us out! Along the way we were greeted by ever changing scenery, minimal traffic (there were literally no cars on the road) and our first sighting of moose! As we were driving along the highway, we startled one which pretty much saw us and then ran straight into the bushes! It must've been a female though as it didn't have big antlers. We then spotted one down in the gully, crossing through a channel of water; he spotted us at exactly the same time we did him and he stopped straight in his tracks, watching us for our next move. We watched him for a while and tried to take some good photos while enjoying his presence!We made our way through Haines Junction and after stopping in at the visitor center, made our way to a little campsite within the Kluane National Park. We were met by a lot of mozzies in the very busy campground so made a camp fire in an attempt to ward them away! I don't think we had much luck, but it was nice to be able to make a fire again. When we finally decided to go to bed around 11pm it was still light outside and felt like early afternoon! Turns out, this was just the beginning of the never setting sun and our disrupted sleeping patterns for the next few weeks!



Onward we set toward the Top of the World Highway, which would take us from the Yukon Territories in Canada, through Alaska US and back into Canada! The roads along the way weren't the greatest, lots of gravel and lots of continuing construction, which meant we waited long periods of time for the pilot car to escort us through the 10km length of construction site!

We made our way through lots of windy, gravel roads, crossed through to the USA and then found ourselves in an interesting town called Chicken. I can't quite remember where they got the name from but the whole 2 stores in town were making the most of the tourism! I got some funny stares from the lcoals when i asked what beverages were dairy free and if they had soy milk and Rhys had fun with the giant chicken and the sign post showing the distances all the 'chicken' related towns in the world.

It was over the border again and after a quick chat with the border security man, back into Canada. Onward to the little down of Dawson city, a little historical gold mining town located on the edge of the roaring Yukon River. We came into town from the west and set up camp before realizing we had to use a barge (which thankfully ran 24hrs a day) to cross the river and enter the town! It was June 21 when we were in town, the longest day of the year and because we were so far north, a day in which the sun didn't set at all. We joined the rest of the town at the top of Midnight Dome to watch the phenomenon but couldn't last all night as we were chased away by our new friend, the mosquito.
It was still cool to be part of the never setting sun  !



THe next morning, before heading through to Tombstone National Park, we wandered through town which still had a very old school feel to it! the roads weren't paved and the little town was full of people amazingly still trying to find gold!

After a coffee, a wifi stop at the local library and a fill up for Jimmy we were back on the road, en route to Tombstone. We didn't know what we would find here, but what we did find was quite spectacular! There were some pretty impressive mountain-scapes which we viewed from the top of a hike; we were a little rushed up the top as we had to run down the hike to avoid the quickly approaching storm and only just made it to the car before the skies opened. Rain and living in a car don't really work together and cause problems when it comes to cooking dinner! We were one step ahead though as we'd selected a camp site close to the public 'kitchen' a covered area with picnic tables and a wood fire. We put the fire on, made our dinner in the dry and even a few friends in the process.



Our next destination was Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon. It was a little smaller than we had expected for a state capital but did have a cute little hippy style camp ground! Sadly this day will be remembered as the day my haviania died.. I had been dreading this moment for the entire trip; if the plug were to break i would be thongless and forced to wear only sneakers.. I had got so used to wearing thongs i even had a beautiful thong tan to show for it! Never-the-less, after its sad passing, i tried to revamp it with a bit of duct tape. The duct tape was going strong but about half way through our afternoon walk around the river in Whitehorse, i lost it again and hobbled back to the camp site with one shoe.

After an amazing coffee, a chat with a like minded traveler from Quebec traveling to Alaska solo in her brand new SUV (who had some pretty good ideas on how to sleep in her car!), a shower, a car wash and a full tank of gas we were back on the road, destination Whistler.

We're on a boat

After a relaxing few days in the very small town of Prince Rupert, we were ready to set sail on the Alaska Marine Highway which takes a route through the stunning Inside Passage all the way north to the seaside towns of the Alaskan coast. The trip was spread out over three days which included one night on the boat, a night in the capital of Alaska (Juneau) before taking us to our destination - the port of Haines, which gave us access to the great north.

Before any of this great adventure could begin, all vehicles had to check in so they could measure the cars and make sure we would fit on board! we had to go through customs too as we were heading back to the US. we had to eat all our fresh fruit and veg before we were allowed to cross the border but the crossing went a lot smoother than our previous crossings! When it was time to board we lined up for about four hours and did not actually getonto the vessel until 10 minutes before the departure time! The ferry service was the sole vehicular access to some of the small island communities in the passage and this attracted a bunch of interesting characters aboard (including the little family of 14 from the campsite in Prince Rupert which we had nicknamed "The Wild Thornberries" as they had one child which looked totally different to the rest of the gang) which added to the many tourists doing similar trips to our own (quite a few oldies in their RV's and old blokes on motorbikes).

The first leg of the trip was a 27 hour voyage from Prince Rupert to Juneau; there were a few stops along the way so we had to figure out what we needed to take upstairs as we were not allowed in the vehicle deck while sailing! With an assortment of clothes, sleeping gear and food we searched the vessel for the best hangout area of which there were lots! There was the indoor front viewing deck, bar, cafeteria, reclining lounge, outdoor viewing deck and solarium; we set up camp in the back viewing deck which seemed to be the best location, pulled up a couple of deck chairs and had a nice little relax before eventually spending the night on the top deck to enjoy the night sky =)

Motoring through some of the most amazing scenery we saw some great landscapes, glassy waters, fishing boats, sunsets, sunrises, glaciers, tiny little light-houses on tiny little islands, dolphins, grey whales, hump back whales, bald eagles, black bears and unfortunately no orcas (killer whales).

Juneau itself was a rather small city for the capital of a state with about 30,000 permanent residents which seemed to be fuelled by both the tourism and fishing industries. We only had 1 night to spend in town so we made the most of our time by first visiting one of the glaciers which was visible from the cruise into port. The glacier was massive, however due to the warming climate has been receding and the wear marks against the rock faces shows just the extent. Since the prevailing wind in the valley below comes from above the glacier, the temperature in the area is generally 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the town; it was amazing to be able to experience the sheer size. After watching a few bears, killing a lot of mozzies and checking out the ice bergs in the area We drove back to the main part of town and treated ourselves to some freshly cooked salmon in one of the ocean frontage restaurants, a real treat compared to the meals we had been preparing almost entirely from canned goods.

Amongst all the sight seeing, we had plenty of other time to fill on board which we managed to do with some of our newly found activities. There is of course many card games (which I am currently on top of the leader board with Emma a close second!), puzzles, drawing, playing with photos from the trip and of course catching up with our blogging!

The final morning of our Inside Passage leg of the trip provided us with a brief display of the massive bald eagles congregating near the fishing jetties as they searched for food scraps before the morning bustle began. These are some absolutely massive birds and probably our favourite animal from the trip. From Juneau it was a short ride up to our destination, the city of Haines where we would begin the final portion of our massive road trip.

There are definitely plans to come back to this amazing place and do a real cruise into the famous Glacier Bay one day in the future!

Baby you can drive my car

Our next item on the itinerary was the Alaska Marine Highway; but before we could get onto the ferry we had a solid 1200km to drive to get there - from Jasper (Alberta) to Prince Rupert (British Colombia coast).  

By the time we left Jasper we had already ticked off quite a few of the animals from our Bingo cards, however we were still yet to see a moose, grizzly bear, or bald eagle. Along the side of the highway we were encouraged by the signs noting to drive cautiously due to moose activity (and these were signposted almost the full distance along the road) however we didn't end up finding any which resulted in us inventing new lyrics to the songs we were listening to which basically went along the lines of "moosey moosey moosey, where are you!" with a number of variations... at least we were entertained the whole way there! 

The animals we were lucky enough to see included a grizzly, plenty of black bears (including some with little cubs!) and I even spotted a wolf crossing the highway, which is quite the spot of luck!

Prince George is a nice town and was located central to our travel path so we ended up spending the night. Before setting up we managed to fit in a few little excursions with some frisbee, views of the town from a great little park where we had our dinner and the local pet store where we entertained the idea of buying a fuzzy little friend and figuring out where to fit it in the car like all the other RV owners we have been seeing! This is also the town where we were introduced to the population of bugs which resides in Canda during the summer time... with a small park which was almost completely covered in caterpillars and the even less popular mossies.

There was quite a lot of roadworks between Prince George and Prince Rupert since access to doing maintenance and upgrades is made difficult by the amount of snow which falls during the winter which lengthened our time in the car slightly! Road constructions are done differently over here to say the least... Instead of opening up small sections of the road, they tend to open the full length up which creates a massive dust storm the entire length, we still havnt figured out why they do it in this way! The longest stretch of work we saw was 16km in which we had to be led by a pilot car as the dust was so bad.

We finally found ourselves in Prince Rupert, the little seaside town which from which we would commence our Alaskan adventure. We explored the port, local shops and even splashed out and purchased some real coffees (although they were not quite up to scratch in comparison to the store from Jasper). There were a couple of memorable quotes from our afternoon, one when we walked into the liquor store and Emma was asked for her two pieces of ID which was followed with " it's just the way she is" and then there was the lady at the health food shop which we saw purchasing some baked goods; when the employee picked up the gluten free goods she exclaimed with disgust "oh no! I want the ones WITH gluten". 

Unfortunately we were not able to find a suitable place to free camp and ended up heading across town to the cheaper campground which it turned out was a win as we found it came with free wifi... there were also a few interesting families to keep us entertained.

First there was the family of 14 (that's no typo!) from Alaska that was moving home from their previous town in north Alaska which goes from one extreme to the other with months of full darkness followed by months of full sunlight. I guess it makes them go a little crazy up there; and there is NO guessing required to figure out what they do during the dark months is there! 

Then there was the couple which had set up their RV which was inherited from a relative and they just planned to stay there in the campsite for 3months. Not entirely sure what they did by day.... but there didn't seem to be a whole lot to do in town, and the mosquitoes were bad as there was a pond right next to their spot! 

Ain't no mountain high enough

The drive from Calgary to Banff was bleak; to say the least... looking ahead you could see the base of the Rocky Mountains with some rather large black clouds filling in around them, meanwhile in the rear view mirror it looked like sunshine and clear skies! It felt like we were heading in the wrong direction! 

We made it to Banff though and the rain ceased long enough for us to enter the visitor centre where the elderly ranger underestimated our hiking abilities and recommended we do all the green level beginner hikes and stick to the trails around town! We had other plans though and hit the harder higher elevation trails in attempt to find the views!! We were limited though as a lot of the higher elevation trails with the good views were still snow affected..typical..  Hiking in the Rockies, similar to Whistler we found out and a lot of the north Americas, is really limited to the true summer time from July to September. 

Between unpredicted rain showers we managed to get in a few good hikes around Banff and managed to see some pretty good sites. We also started to enjoy the extended sun hours and started one of our hikes off at about 530pm, returning to the car at about 8pm to full sunlight! It seemed like a treat at the time but is something we later found we were going to get a lot of!

 After Banff we headed to Lake Louise, which is still within the Banff National Park. The goal here was to capture some impressive reflection shots in the lake. Unfortunately the weather had other plans for us though as we woke on the first morning to rain and clouds. Once again a lot of the higher altitude hikes we had read about and been recommended were snowed out, but we persisted with our first hike up to Lake Agnes. The walk took us up to a little tea house, a reflective lake (conveniently named 'mirror lake' like all the others we had been to in the US) and a few water falls. The clouds moved on as we reached the top so we were able to get some cool photos but as we made our descent to the parking lot they closed back in again. 

Being a weatherman in the Rockies would be a very difficult job, with the mountains causing havoc to predictions and therefore leading to very unreliable weather reports in the morning! We decided not to bother with checking the weather reports and just went with what the day brought us.

The following day we woke early in an attempt to capture some cool shots of the sun rising over Lake Louise, but typically we woke to rain so decided to stay in bed. When we finally did rise, it was still cloudy and miserable but we were determined not to let it spoil our day. We hiked the 'trail of six glaciers' hike at Lake Louise, which was a fun little hike that took us through lots of snow, along ridges, through waterfalls and up to, yet again, another tea house. We reached the top and it started to rain a little but the wallet had been left in the car so we weren’t able to warm up with a nice little cup of coffee. All was not lost though and after the rain ceased a little bit, we donned our rain jackets, gloves, rain coats for our backpacks and the trusty beanies, and made our way to the base. While we weren't able to capture the photos of the area that we had been hoping to, we still managed to have an awesome time and get in a few good, challenging and definitely different hikes in. 

It was then onto Jasper National Park. We arrived late in the afternoon and checked into the largest camp site ever seen. There were 780 sites split up into 67 loops lettered from A to, in some cases O. It was quite ridiculous and while the campsite wasn't full we were allocated a site between 2 families with young children. The camp site had showers and it was another nice treat to feel clean again. 

We were starting to notice big differences between the Canadian and US National Parks. Firstly was the development. In Canada development restrictions were pretty loose and as long as you were providing a service to the tourism, you were able to purchase land and build, this meant the central villages were a lot larger, there were plenty more gift shops and even tea houses at the top of some of the mountainous hikes. In the US, they had very tight restrictions for future development once an area had become a national park in order to preserve the wilderness; definitely the approach we are in favour of! After the development was the entry fees; In the US entry was per vehicle and passes lasted for 7 days. In Canada it was per person, per day... it didn’t end up working in our favour as well as it had in the US! Finally, were the camp sites. In Canada the price for a site was a bit more than in the US and then there was an additional fee for a permit to allow you to make a fire. They did have hot showers though so we just went without a fire!

The weather wasn't on our side the day we got into Jasper and we kind of felt like we had been walking solidly for the past few days so decided to do something different and go for a horse ride! After finding a hidden secret in Jasper town, a little organic vegan cafe and fuelling up on the most amazing real coffees we had had since leaving Australia we met our new friends, Bob and Punchy. They took us through the bushes, alongside a few of the picturesque lakes (which would have looked much more impressive if the sun was out) and through some areas that were closed due to bear activity. Unfortunately we didn’t see any bears but saw lots of elk (one of which followed us for some time along the trail!), deer’s, squirrels and a couple of osprey that had set up house at the top of a light pole. It was nice to do something different and I felt like a kid again being back up on a horse!

After narrowly avoiding rain on our horse ride, we headed out to the Miette Hot springs for a soak in the hot pools and an evening at the Pocahontas camp ground!  The water was from natural hot springs but was cooled with town water and treated before making its way into the concrete baths. It wasn’t as natural as some of the springs we had been to in NZ but the warm water (and of course the shower after it all) was well worth it!

We had hoped for some more hiking and site seeing the next day but once again the weather was against us and the sun didn’t come out until later in the afternoon after wed done all our exploring. We did see some pretty cool scenery, some (would be) picturesque lakes and a bear up a tree!

Jacque, one of the girls I had worked with at the Salomon store in Whistler over the winter had just moved to Jasper so we caught up with her for a drink and were made very jealous by all the adventures she had had in Whistler last summer. We left with the summer goal to do as much hiking as possible and concur Black Tusk; a rather large rock structure on the top of one of the mountains visible from Whistler village.  Jacque also showed us the nightlife in Jasper and we ended the evening at a fundraising event where 3 of the local (straight) guys were dolled up by the local hairdressers and then danced and lip synced to some provocative songs pretending to be the opposite sex. It was quite funny and well attended, with just about the entire town crammed into the little pub.

Just before leaving Jasper we treated ourselves to breakfast out at our new little favourite coffee shop before hitting the road for another big day of driving.

Take a walk on the wild side

Before leaving the US we hoped to stock up on some camping supplies with Emma in need of a new day bag and me looking for a more travel friendly jumper, so we made a stop in the state capital of Montanna... Helena. Being the state capital, I guess we were expecting a little more than what we got. With a random assortment of outdoor adventure (which was just hunting and fishing stores) and large chain stores we emerged slightly unsuccessful a couple of hours later and continued on our way to Glacier National Park. 

Upon arrival we were once again surprised by the amount of remaining snow around the place and we are now talking about the month of June! Not only were a lot of the amazing walks not open, the main road through the park was still closed, so our options were limited. One of the hikes which was mentioned in the brochures we were reading was one which crossed the border between the US and Canada which would have been a great little story to have.

We did actually manage to do a few activities during our stay. We did play with some photos of the stars, enjoyed some amazing views of the lakes with mountains beyond, saw some more animals up close as they walked along the trail and continued our quest for the perfect s'mores.

One of the things which has been great about cruising through the US is the campsite facilities available which are perfectly suited to short term stays and are ideal for the travelling we are doing. Every site gets a picnic table, fire pit and in areas with high bear activity there is food storage bins which means there is plenty of room in Jimmy for sleeping and hanging out =)

A milestone was reached during our stay in Glacier and our friend Jimmy reached his 10,000th Km with us! We have done a few more than our google maps estimate at the start of the trip, but no matter and no time to ponder... It's time to head back up into Canada!