3 Years Around North America, Plus a Few More

Umnak

Adventurer
Fires in British Columbia

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We started for Juneau (road to Skagway, then a ferry south) on July 8. Our intended route is shown above, but this was changed in Hope, BC due to fires along the Fraser River Canyon roads, 1 and 97.

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The detour took us northeast on Rt 5 toward Jasper, along the Thompson River, which had its own series of fires to contend with. We had planned on cutting over on Rt 24, but the road to Williams Lake was also closed

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The 250 mile detour over, we are back on track heading toward the Cassiar Highway. DSCF2370.jpg

Though fires along this route still can be seen and smelled.

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Umnak

Adventurer
Cassiar Hwy to Whitehorse

Cassia Highway to Whitehorse

We left the fires and the busy traffic — well comparatively busy — of the Trans Canada Highway behind when we turned off onto the Cassiar, or BC Rt 37.

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It’s not as dramatic a drive since it was paved, but still offers a sense of isolation and old time north with the road houses and wildlife along the higway.

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Our first night was at a BC Parks, Lake Maziadin. Bears crowded the road for the next 100 miles, though they slacked off the farther we got from the coast.


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The Tatogga Lodge is as old-school north as it gets. Fresh cinnamon buns baked by a 20 something guy who is learning to cook. A live squirrel sitting at the base of the stuffed moose added some amusement to our coffee and buns break.
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We camped along the Dease River just 50 miles short of the Alaska Highway, which Alaskans refer to as the Alcan.
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From there it was a half day’s drive to Whitehorse and then to Takini Hot Springs.
 

Umnak

Adventurer
Back in Juneau for a week

After 2000 miles of B.C. and the Yukon we pulled into Skagway for the last 75 miles to Juneau on the ferry.
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Its been 2 years since we left on the road trip, and things have changed. The drop in oil prices has gutted Alaska services and though the population of Juneau hasn't been affected yet, there are signs of the slow-down. The link between oil and revenue in Alaska is profound. 98% of the state's budget comes from oil revenue. There is no state sales tax, property tax or income tax. And yet we have more than $60 Billion in our Permanent Fund, which has provided every resident a dividend for more than 30 years.

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Still, it's one of the most scenic places in the world, especially on a sunny day. Unfortunately, there have been no sunny days since May, and that is weighing hard on the locals.


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We've visited a lot of our friends and hiked a lot of our former haunts.
Starting with a cook out at the campground with the our core group of friends from the POD (Paddle or Die).

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To a walk up Salmon Creek and Boy Scout Beach

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and an overnight at 45 minute beach, which has been pretty much unused since we left.

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I grew up here, and it will always be my "hometown", but there are new places to learn about as deeply as we have here.

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Umnak

Adventurer
South

South

Eve left early to help with her mother's surgery, which was postponed when she arrived in Seattle. A POD friend, Tim, joined me for the return trip. We took the long way back to Port Townsend, traveling almost 3,000 miles — and a thousand more than our trip north. Yukon Horses.jpg
The only ferry I could get out of town dropped us at Haines, which added a couple of hundred miles to our first day's run. The pass out of Haines and into the interior was free of snow and showing its summer coat. Yukon horses grazed the open country near the pass.

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Part of the route was along the Robert Campbell Highway, which connects Carmacks on the Klondike with Watson Lake on the ALCAN.

Our first camp was on the Klondike highway south of Carmacks. We then moved onto the Campbell Hwy and spent the next two days learning more about this remarkable road, which is paved to Faro, hard packed gravel to Ross River, then deteriorates to dirt before the last 50 miles into Watson Lake. Even the mud was fun to drive.

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Faro is a faded mining town now officially a Canadian equivalent of a Super Fund site. The pretty lawns and painted houses lending a creepy atmosphere to what will soon be just another Yukon ghost town.

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Ross River is a native community at the confluence of the Ross and Pelly Rivers. A ferry moves trucks across the Pelly and along the CANOL Rd, which was built as a pipeline haul road in the last months of WWII. The road still exists and would be a fun ride north to the border of the Northwest Territory, and there seems to be a “trail” that extends farther in.

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We camped at the confluence of the Pelly and Hooley Rivers. I had noticed that almost every bridge gave access to a dispersed camping site, and this one was superb.

The Canadians call it the Alaska Highway, we call it the ALCAN. It's a lot better than it was 20 years ago, and at Watson Lake, BC the Class As were lined up at the Visitor Center to take pictures of the road signs from their home towns. They seemed to be in a convoy with lead drivers. How difficult is it to find Alaska that you need a guide?

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Eve and I drove this part of the highway on our way to Yellowknife in 2015. Aside from the smoke coming from the central BC fires, not much had changed. The Bison were still in the road and the Northern Rocky Mountains still spectacular.

The fires had caused the BC govt to ban any fire in the Province, and this caused us to detour to the Northwest Territory community of Ft. Liard, where we camped at the community's Hay Lake park and had a great fire.
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The next day we drove along the Peace River Valley, stopping at the picturesque town of Hudson's Hope, where we spent time looking at the local museum and the abundance of flowers.


From there it was into Central BC and the land of smoke, which became the norm for the next five days. We managed to find decent camp sites along the way. We also made a point to stop and hike each day. A good trail led us from the road to a cool river with three wooden chairs set up along its banks.
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Our border crossing was marred by Tim's name and birthdate being very similar to someone who was wanted in the US. That took an extra hour as we waited for the border guards to figure out that a man who had lived in Alaska for 45 years probably wasn't the same guy who did something very wrong in Washington 10 years ago. They also took our sweet peppers and apples.

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The Northern Cascades were thick with smoke. We found what may have been the last open campsite in northern Washington and settled in for an evening with a fire and cooler temperatures.
 

Umnak

Adventurer
The Olympic Peninsula

It’s been a busy few weeks, and we’ve been having fun on land and sea.

Started with a backpacking trip in the fog to the Washington Coast’s Olympic Park, which draws a lot of people in the summer, even off the highways. DSCF2492.jpg

The Wedding Rocks section of the coast trail system has some great petroglyphs and comfortable camps. DSCF2498.jpg

The walk out to the coast is easy along a flat boardwalk/gravel trail. From there it’s just another mile and a half to the Wedding Rocks. There are trees to crawl under or climb over at high tide, but the effort is worth it for a beach side camp.DSCF2532.jpg

The fog rolled in heavy during the night soaking the rain fly and, later, us as we emerged at dawn for the walk back to the van.DSCF2528.jpg

We also camped along the coast with the Cabin.
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First on the beach just north of Clearwater and south of Forks, which I understand has some street cred with young people, mostly girls who like Vampires.
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And then in the Hoh Rainforest along the Hoh River of the same name.
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And we went sea-kayaking off of the west coast of Vancouver Island for a week, which I'll post later.
 

Umnak

Adventurer
Kayaking Vancouver Island's Broken Group

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We went kayaking on Vancouver Island.

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It wasn’t the POD — our core kayak group out of Juneau whose acronym means Paddle or Die, and it wasn’t wilderness, and it wasn’t about miles, but it was fun to be back in a kayak (double Passat like ours with a center hatch) for almost a week.
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And yes, there was a guide named Sue who had coffee and tea ready at 7:00 am with breakfast — we are talking pancakes, french toast, scrambled eggs — at 8:00.
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Three brothers and one son/nephew were the other clients. One of the brothers — the one carrying the log — was from Kamloops, BC. The others were from London. *The guy with the orange OR jacket has climbed Everest and Denali among others. *They were fun, and as I have already said, they were not the POD, but they had good stories and a lot of Scotch.
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And they really enjoyed making fires!
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Eve calls it being a psychic vampire, and now we know where to paddle on the west coast of Vancouver Island and that tents work but tarps would be better because of the fog.
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Umnak

Adventurer
California Trip Question

We are heading out next week for the Southwest, eventually landing in southern New Mexico where we hope to spend a few months. I'm looking for route suggestions along or aside the Sierra Mountains. Map apps show Rt 395 as a primary route and would appreciate getting some suggestions about other roads or places to visit. Rough plan is to stop at Lava Fields, Yosemite and Death Valley then settle in at Joshua Tree for a while before heading east.

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pyrate

Rollin' along
We are heading out next week for the Southwest, eventually landing in southern New Mexico where we hope to spend a few months. I'm looking for route suggestions along or aside the Sierra Mountains. Map apps show Rt 395 as a primary route and would appreciate getting some suggestions about other roads or places to visit. Rough plan is to stop at Lava Fields, Yosemite and Death Valley then settle in at Joshua Tree for a while before heading east.

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Access to Yosemite from the eastern side of the Sierras (HWY 395) is very limited once the weather turns (Several closed last night due to snow. Possible to reopen but all dependent on the weather). Tioga Rd closes with the first major snowfall until May / June of the following year. Many of the other passes will as well (Sonora etc) and so crossing the Sierras can be via I-80.
 

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