Thursday, July 15, 2010
Our trip so far (to 15 July 2010)
Alaska Highway
After a couple of days in Jasper we finally started for our trip on the Alaska Highway, a total of 1,422 miles (2,288 km) from Dawson Creek to Delta Junction. We want to travel on the Fairbanks, Alaska, and then to Denali National Park with Mt. McKinley or Denali, the highest mountain of North America.
Overall, the Alaska Highway was a beautiful trip, to be enjoyed again on our way back :-) . There are not too many towns along the way, most of them just plain and simple to cater for the needs of the people living in the area. Fort Nelson and Whitehorse, the Yukon capital, were rather nice, but most enjoyable is the scenery, forests, mountains, sometimes snow-covered, glaciers, creeks and streams, it's all there! Endless stretches of seemingly untouched landscape, no power lines, houses or other signs of civilization (besides the road, of course), every now and then some wildlife like bears, deer, elk, moose, bison, wild horses.....
In the evenings there almost always heaps of choice for a site on a state or provincial park. These are much nicer than the commercial campgrounds, offering a lot of privacy in mostly stunning locations. The only slightly depressing part are the big number of run down or given-up service stations along the road. There must have been a time when it was easier to make a living here from the tourists.
Before we left people had told us to fill up on fuel at each and every location, we might run into trouble otherwise. That was obviously bullshit, at least with a fuel tank the size of ours (~ 280 liters, good for at least 500 miles or 800 km's) .
Fairbanks, Alaska, is good for restocking on groceries and fuel, and that's it. Ok, they probably have more days with temperatures below 0 Celsius,but still, I wouldn't want to live here. Anyway, its only a short 3 hour drive to Denali, so that's where we go next.
Overall, the Alaska Highway was a beautiful trip, to be enjoyed again on our way back :-) . There are not too many towns along the way, most of them just plain and simple to cater for the needs of the people living in the area. Fort Nelson and Whitehorse, the Yukon capital, were rather nice, but most enjoyable is the scenery, forests, mountains, sometimes snow-covered, glaciers, creeks and streams, it's all there! Endless stretches of seemingly untouched landscape, no power lines, houses or other signs of civilization (besides the road, of course), every now and then some wildlife like bears, deer, elk, moose, bison, wild horses.....
In the evenings there almost always heaps of choice for a site on a state or provincial park. These are much nicer than the commercial campgrounds, offering a lot of privacy in mostly stunning locations. The only slightly depressing part are the big number of run down or given-up service stations along the road. There must have been a time when it was easier to make a living here from the tourists.
Before we left people had told us to fill up on fuel at each and every location, we might run into trouble otherwise. That was obviously bullshit, at least with a fuel tank the size of ours (~ 280 liters, good for at least 500 miles or 800 km's) .
Bald eagle near Whitehorse
The end of the Alaska Highway at mile 1422 or km 2288
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Banff and Jasper National Parks
We had been to both National Parks last year, and surprise, they haven't changed all that much since! We travelled via Calgary where we did some wholefood shopping and made another visit to the Walmart Supercenter. Besides that we bypassed Calgary as apparently its main attractions are undercover/underground shopping and the 1988 Olympic venues, both not really our favourites. Shopping, well that's a no brainer, and the Olympic sites were used for the winter olympics so their main feature is not so obvious in summer.
Anyway, we moved on and had a beautiful campsite at the Bow Valley Provincial Park, some 20 or so km's to Banff. Next morning into Banff which is of course highly touristy yet still in a tolerable way. We managed to stay for a couple of hours before cold and rainy weather moved in and us out of Banff. The road from here to Lake Louise was still impressive despite the rather poor weather. At Lake Louise we went for a 3 hour hike up the mountain to a small lake with amazing views over Lake Lousie and the surrounding mountains.
The next day the weather was still rather poor yet better than last year when we had a snow storm here in August. Still, the Glacier Highway is impressive, sometimes breathtaking, glaciers all over the place, waterfalls, bighorn sheep, mountain goats......
The next station was Jasper where we had to discover that our favourite Greek restaurant from last year had a new chef. The food was still ok, but we had hoped for a feast. Well, tough luck and it was back to home-cooking. We stayed at the Jasper campground for 5 nights, waiting for a spare part for our heater that is rather impulsive in deciding when to heat and when not to heat. Unfortunately, quite often it doesn't start up in the morning and we were at 1600 m in the mountains with all those glaciers.
We used that time for a couple of bike rides around the area, little bit of sightseeing at the Maligne Canyon ( which we had visited last year, so it was not as impressive now as it was then), some reading and housekeeping.
After five days the package still not had arrived so we had it forwarded to some village near the Alaskan border. Maybe we'll get it there!
From Jasper it's off the Dawson Creek, mile 0 of the Alaska Highway.
Our site near Banff
Anyway, we moved on and had a beautiful campsite at the Bow Valley Provincial Park, some 20 or so km's to Banff. Next morning into Banff which is of course highly touristy yet still in a tolerable way. We managed to stay for a couple of hours before cold and rainy weather moved in and us out of Banff. The road from here to Lake Louise was still impressive despite the rather poor weather. At Lake Louise we went for a 3 hour hike up the mountain to a small lake with amazing views over Lake Lousie and the surrounding mountains.
The next day the weather was still rather poor yet better than last year when we had a snow storm here in August. Still, the Glacier Highway is impressive, sometimes breathtaking, glaciers all over the place, waterfalls, bighorn sheep, mountain goats......
The next station was Jasper where we had to discover that our favourite Greek restaurant from last year had a new chef. The food was still ok, but we had hoped for a feast. Well, tough luck and it was back to home-cooking. We stayed at the Jasper campground for 5 nights, waiting for a spare part for our heater that is rather impulsive in deciding when to heat and when not to heat. Unfortunately, quite often it doesn't start up in the morning and we were at 1600 m in the mountains with all those glaciers.
Biking near Jasper
Our favourite spot for lunch
After five days the package still not had arrived so we had it forwarded to some village near the Alaskan border. Maybe we'll get it there!
From Jasper it's off the Dawson Creek, mile 0 of the Alaska Highway.
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