Wells Gray

This post is dedicated to my mom, whose adventurous heart allowed her to agree to come with me for a seven-day, 50-mile, hut-to-hut hike in Wells Gray Provincial Park in British Colombia. Living way outside her comfort zone, she learned to take a bucket bath, went without a hairdryer for a week, chugged up grueling inclines, endured very rainy weather and even some hail, and did it all with good cheer. What a woman.

Happily, I think she'd agree that it was an amazing experience. The landscape was hands-down incredible, with the end of wildflower season singing its song across expansive meadow systems ringed by mountains. 

There wasn't a whole lot of wildlife around, perhaps in part because we had such rainy weather, but also because animals could hear our group of seven stomping in their direction from a mile away. We did see more lichen than you could shake a rock at, though.

Plus squirrels, marmot, spruce grouse, ptarmigans, voles, and owl, and wolf scat. But only the scat. Plus those views, on the couple of days when the sky was clear and the day magnificent.

After each day of hiking, we got cozy in the three different "chalets" that we stayed in throughout the week. The term chalet was a tad euphemistic, but it was really nice to have a warm, dry place to relax and read and play cards and eat way too much at the end of each day's hike.

One thing that likes rain: mushrooms. I've never seen so many mushrooms, and such a variety of them, in my life. That's moss behind these ones; they were maybe a couple of centimeters tall.

One of our fellow hikers liked to fix all of his problems, including my mom's split toenail, with duct tape. By the end of the trip, she was nonchalantly doing a crossword puzzle while he was taping her up in the morning, but the first operation was a group event.

Despite the rain, we summited Table Mountain and put our rocks on the cairn at the top.

And once in awhile, the clouds would part long enough to allow the strange sensation of sunshine on our skin and a misted view.

When we couldn't see the big picture, we all had fun concentrating on the little one.

Oh, and seeking shelter in circles of trees to quick eat something to give us the energy for the next climb.

On the second-to-last-day, we reached the cull of Battle Mountain before a thunderstorm (and the afore-mentioned hail) forced us to turn back before reaching the summit. But the view sure wasn't shabby, even from the cull.

And our cabin at that point was nestled in one of the most expansive meadow systems in the world, all of which turned golden at sunset.

It felt so strange to emerge from the woods, climb into a vehicle that moved while our legs stayed motionless, and see people other than those in our group for the first time in a week. Before calling it a trip, we stopped at spectacular Helmcken Falls.

Then we pointed the car to the even more disorienting bright lights and big city of Vancouver, which my Dad had flown into to await us and the next leg of the adventure!

In transit

When we (sadly) said goodbye to P & C & R in Gustavus, SS and I ferried back to Juneau. There, we watched float planes take off from the downtown piers and explored town a bit. 

Then it was time for SS and I, too, to part ways: her, home to Arizona; me, on a couple more ferries to Haines and then Skagway. Pretty darn great to be making onward progress while relaxing on a boat deck with this view!

Then it was time to get back behind the wheel, which certainly wasn't all bad. The leg of the Klondike Highway headed north from Skagway to where it meets up again with the Alaska Highway was particularly stunning, especially going over White Pass.

I had to do a bit of backtracking on the Alaska Highway as far as Watson Lake, which was okay as I've been admonished by several people for driving straight past--not even noticing, which is disturbing in hindsight--the impressive collection of signs people have posted there.

Once I dutifully appreciated that sight, I turned south on 37, the Cassiar Highway, for the long but gorgeous drive down central BC. I keep seeing red foxes everywhere, this one having some lunch.

And I was making good enough time that I bit the bullet and took a significant detour to Stewart, BC, and Hyder, Alaska (ONE MORE jaunt into AK!) to see the Salmon Glacier which, as you can see, was totally worth the trek.

Hyder also has a shallow salmon river that attracts bears like crazy, though there weren't any around by the time I had to get back on the road. (Most of the ripples you see in the water here that you might assume are rocks are actually salmon!)

From there, onward to Prince George to pick up my mother as she flew in for the next leg of the adventure.

Back in the Land of the Sitka Spruce

SS has friends from Arizona who transferred up to Gustavus, Alaska, to work in Glacier Bay National Park. This place was on my hit list when I first visited Alaska three years ago, but there just wasn't time then. So I was totally thrilled for the chance to go now--and, even better, to have local people to stay with! P and C and their son R were unbelievably kind and welcoming and generous to us for our five days in town.

And I was very happy to back in the land of the Sitka spruce. (This shot taken on a walk near Bartlett Cove and the park lodge.)

Native Tlingit tree carving:

P & C's backyard is the Salmon River, and there were a bunch of raspberry bushes back there that we happily harvested from...

...to make a raspberry crisp, to die for.

When our bellies were full with that, we went for a hike on Falls Creek Road and, along the way, picked blueberries until our fingers were stained purple. With those we made a pie, pancakes...sigh. Yum.

We also hiked the Bartlett River Trail--in the rain, but that's part of the Alaska experience, I guess!

And then, a big splurge compared with my efforts to keep the summer low-budget, we took the Glacier Bay park day boat "up bay" to see all of the amazing things the park has to offer. There were grizzlies (just referred to as brown bears here on the coast; it's the same species as grizzlies, but apparently the coastal inhabitants are better fed and therefore much more mellow), puffins, humpbacks, sea lions, sea otters...

...and the gorgeous Marguerite glacier.

We also swung by the Lamplugh glacier, with its distinctive cave-like feature (it's actually a river of sorts flowing under the glacier).

In between all these adventures (and pies) we feasted on halibut caught, while we were there, by C.

And P and her fellow National Park Service employee/friend L took SS and I out with them on a kayak patrol among the Beardsley Islands near Bartlett Cove, as part of their official work. And how official they looked in full uniform!

As if all of this hadn't been spectacular enough, on our last night in town, we built a fire and made s'mores in P & C's backyard, enjoying the long Alaska evening until that insistent Alaska drizzle finally forced us back inside.

Gustavus was not an easy place to leave, that much is for sure!

Alaska-Canada-Alaska

There were several days in there where Sharlot and I were really confused about which country we were in, which currency to use, and what time it was with all of the shifting back and forth between Alaska and the Yukon and a corner of British Colombia. After crossing into Alaska and through Chicken on the Top of the World highway, we stayed for a night on this lovely lake at a free campsite that was part of the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge (though the only wildlife we really saw was a few ducks and ptarmigan).

Then we crossed back into Canada and drove along Kluane Lake...

...into Haines Junction and Kluane National Park. We took several short hikes in our too-brief time there...

...before heading south toward Haines, Alaska, crossing the border again, and (not necessarily in this order; who can keep track?!?) passing this amazing view point our over the Tatshenshini river valley.

From Haines, we took an Alaska Marine Highway ferry (I just love the concept of a marine highway, and how could you not when the setting is this gorgeous?)...

...to Juneau and then, the next morning, another on to the very small town of Gustavus, Alaska. But more on that, soon.

Map it

It's been awhile since I've posted any maps. So for those of you who love a good paper representation of the planet as much as I do, here's a visual recap of the past six weeks. First, the path through western Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta...

And then the string of highways I've been writing about. I picked up the Alaska Highway at its origin on the right center of the photo and took it all the way to Whitehorse, in the southern Yukon. Klondike Highway from Whitehorse up to Dawson. Dempster for that jaunt to the top of the map, at Inuvik, and then the Top of the World Highway from Dawson over to the far left of the frame, into Alaska.

It's all south from here....

Top of the World Highway

After the Dempster, we found ourselves back in Dawson City, and found it hard to leave there. We went up Dome Mountain, and not only got to enjoy the incredible view of the Yukon merging with the Klondike...

...but discovered we were enjoying the view directly in front of a raspberry patch and so picked some berries for breakfast while we gawked.

SS also did some museum-going, though I settled for an external view of the cabin once lived in by gold rush-era poet Robert Service.

Somehow the whole day got away from us before we could finally bear to say goodbye to Dawson...

...and take one more ferry across the Yukon...

...in order to officially find ourselves on the Top of the World Highway. This twisty-turny feat of engineering is very aptly named, as it cruises mountaintops west into Alaska. But it is very difficult to photograph. Especially when there is clearly a wildfire burning that obscures a lot of the most dramatic views and turns the sky all kinds of crazy shades.

We crossed into Alaska for just a brief jaunt, where we...

...very much enjoyed the town of Chicken. They're really not shy about the chicken thing, even though we learned the original inhabitants wanted to name it for the ubiquitous ptarmigans in the area but found that word too difficult to spell.

Continuing south, we finally came across some spectacular caribou. In Chicken, we'd been chatted up by some hunters out looking for caribou, so when we spotted two caribou not a half-hour later, I told SS, "Take a picture, quick, before someone drives up and shoots them!" I was kind of kidding, but then another half-hour down the road, when this beautiful specimen trotted down the highway in front of us for a good quarter-mile, there was actually a pick-up full of extremely annoyed locals behind us. After we got our pictures and edged past the animal, encouraging it to leave the road and head off into the brush, we saw the people in the truck behind us fly into action, pulling off the road and pulling out their guns in hot pursuit. We don't want to know what happened after that.

Instead, we continued on into the beautiful, smoke-filled evening, leaving the Top of the World Highway but not this spectacular (if smoky) scenery.