Salt Lake City

It's been almost a week since we have posted anything and so much has happened.  We are almost ready to leave Salt Lake City for Moab for another 2 days of tenting.  We successfully stayed ahead of the weather front in Montana and have not had any rain for a week now.  What a nice change!  Beautiful blue skies and today will be our first t-shirt and shorts day.  YEA!!

We spent 4 days and 3 nights in Yellowstone NP and did have heavy frost and 28 to 30 degree breakfasts while there.  But the stars were stupendous since there was no background light or clouds.  We'd get up in the morning, boil water for coffee and oatmeal, wash our faces with the hot water and be on the road about 8AM.  We were able to drive the complete north and south roadway loops and see all the major attractions and realize another week + would be nice in the future.  We walked many of the shorter trails with boardwalks and to viewing platforms, but there are MANY longer hikes to more remote spots that we didn't have time for this trip. 

The geysers, hot springs, mud pots, fumarols, travertine deposits, bison, sheep, antelope, osprey, hawks, and many other types of birds were also fun to watch.  Every evening we arrived back at the campsite close to or after sunset so we were glad for our small battery LED lights and the warm campfire as we prepared and ate our dinner.

We had 2 emergengy dowloads of Alison's camera memory card because it was full.  We'll need to get her a 4 or 8 gig card for India.

On the drive to SLC we went to Antelope Island State Park in the Great Salt Lake.  It is close to Ogden and was very interesting.  You drive on a 6 mile causeway to the island and then have a 14 mile road to drive along the one side.  There is a camp ground, picnic area and info center.  It would be fun to camp there in the future and swim in the salt lake and hike up to the ridge for the view.  There are almost no trees on the island so it is all rocks with grass. We saw hundreds of bison and many deer and antelope while on the island.

Yesterday in SLC we toured the temple grounds and I toured the LDS welfare compound, similar to New Windsor for the COB readers, while Alison went to the Art Gallery.

We went to several brew pubs while here for dinner.  Seems there have been several new 'revelations' since I was last in SLC in the 1980s. The downtown area of SLC has many showcase modern buildings and public art along many of the streets, but it is eerily quiet and lifeless nonetheless. The street blocks are square and long, and there are few people walking along, mostly tourists on their way to or from the LDS Temple Square. Even at the visitors' centers (conversion centers?) there is an aura of ostentatious luxury that struck us as more creepy than attractive or inspiring. We watched a couple of interesting historical docudramas on the enlightenment of Joseph Smith and the westward migration of the Mormons. It is quite a tale. Of course, the perspective is quite different from that in Jon Krakauer's book! [Under the Banner of Heaven]

We're off to breakfast and on to Moab. Instead of freezing, we may be boiling! Hope all is well with you.
XOXOXO

Dean & Alison

Sheridan Montana

Hello from Sheridan, Montana. We had a nice drive here from Hamilton where we were last night. We successfully stayed ahead of or aside of the front moving through Montana. Impressions from the drive:

1. Montana has a lot of ranches and grain and hay fields. Also interesting rail fences with many different designs and gates.
2. Wow! forest fires burn large areas.

3. The drive through the mountains has lots of wild animals; we saw hundreds of Sandhill Cranes, Canada geese, a mixed bag of ducks, about 10 hawks, and four Osprey. We also saw several groups of Stone Sheep and some White Tail Deer.

4. All those things Alison and my grandparents had in their houses are now in antique shops in Montana.

5. You can see weather fronts from a long distance and we just learned from the weather channel that we are having ‘official’ rain. What is unofficial rain?

6. Finding a room for the evening is not a problem after Labor Day, even in very small towns. (Corollary to that is there are relatively few cars on the smaller roads.)

7. Buy gas in Montana, not Canada. The cheapest price in Alberta, $0.95 per liter, is much higher than $2.86 per gallon in Montana. Highest was in Yukon Territory at $1.80 per liter.

One of these days I’ll put together a blog of animal pictures on the trip so far.

Alison is starting a new knitting project so I’m sure she will describe it in the future.

Buy for now.

Fun with tenting!

Well, this morning we are in Kalispell, MO, and you may notice that it was not a planned stop on our itinerary. More precisely, we are in a motel there, after just two nights of tenting at Waterton Park. We arrived at Waterton campsite on the lake on Saturday afternoon as planned, in partly clouded skies with tremendous wind. We struggled to get our tent up in constant gale-force wind off the lake, and although we had hoped also to put up a tarp above the tent, there were no trees near our campsite. It was so windy that our normally domed tent looked more like a partially melted Hershey kiss. Dean concocted a series of ropes to guy the tent against the wind, but even so, the force unhooked the tent poles from their little ring-pegs and we were circling the thing, trying to keep it from collapsing altogether. Finally it seemed to be pegged and tethered as much as possible, but remained flopping and slapping in the wind. It seemed impossible that we would have to try to SLEEP in the thing.

Dean crouched in its lee and lit the Coleman stove and we cooked our planned delicious dinner of steak, new potatoes, Zucchini, fresh salad and macaroons. All the while, the deer and fawns were poking around us, interested in our activities, and I suppose, perhaps in our food. When finally everything was cooked, and the wine poured, the dinner was immediately cold because of the constant gale. We couldn’t even put down our wine glasses for fear of them taking off in the gusts. Once the sun disappeared behind the mountain, and eventually sank below the horizon, the wind showed signs of subsiding, and gradually over the next hours it became quiet. Whew. Our camp neighbors in an RV, a couple from Calgary (Doreen and Gregg) and their 3 children, invited us to join them for a campfire in their portable fire pit, and it was lovely to be able to relax after the war against the wind. We planned that on Sunday, Dean and Doreen and I would take the boat down to the south (Montana) end of Waterton Lake to Goat Haunt and walk the 13k back to Waterton. As we were saying goodnight, it started to rain. We dashed into our tent and off to sleep.

It rained. And rained. When we awoke in the morning it was drizzling but the clouds were down to only about 200feet above us, and the visibility was nil. We quickly decided that the morning boat trip was out and we would hope for clearing during the day. By mid-morning it was raining properly and by afternoon, pouring. I finally have found a use for all those little plastic cases of trial-size dental floss that accumulate after trips to the dentist. On this trip, the zipper for the main door of our tent has quit working, so I sewed it closed with dental floss and we are using the smaller entry door instead. Luckily because we have the large tent we were able to set up inside with our chairs, a camping table, our iPod (we had electricity at our site) and the electric kettle. Really, it was almost comfortable. Doreen and Gregg invited us into their RV in the afternoon and we eagerly went, and whiled away several hours just chatting and sipping. During that time, Gregg looked out and said, “It’s snowing”, and sure enough, great gobs of slush were crashing down with the rain. Luckily it only lasted a few minutes at our elevation, but the mountains around us became quite white. We were cozy in their RV. What a pleasant couple. We finally left them when it became evident that their kids were fainting with hunger, and we were facing the challenge of taking a shower… but, oh, what joy to find clean shower stalls and lots of hot water. We went out for a delicious Italian dinner in town, (where we didn’t have to fend off the deer for our food and the food stayed hot more than 5 seconds) and were in our sleeping bags before nine. And guess what? Still raining. Water had seeped into our tent around the edges, but amazingly, the upper dome and fly were holding out the downpour.

We both awoke at 2am when the sides of the tent began to flap gently, and within minutes, the wind had started up again to near gale force. It had stopped raining, but instead, we were in a tornado again. I went out and discovered that the entire sky was clear, and with little ambient light, the starry array was spectacular. Dean got up to see it as well, and we stood out in the wind looking skyward. Soon we were aware that Gregg was struggling to put down the awning on their RV because it was flapping violently, so we helped him with that. Amazingly we were able to get back to sleep even with the tent wobbling around us, and were even slightly (very slightly) thankful that the tent and fly would dry out before we packed it up later. When we got up, it was cold, and still windy, so we went off to breakfast in town, came back and wrestled the tent down and into its place in the soft-sided car-top carrier. Sadly, Dean discovered that the plastic container of his clothes he had left in the carrier was partially soaked. Our towels and mats were soaked from mopping up the water that had seeped into the tent… I was fit to be tied. Dean, normally sweet natured, is very crabby when putting up or taking down the tent even in good conditions, and more so in difficult ones. So, eventually we got everything re-stowed in the car, and set off from Waterton just before ten.

I had another odd experience in Waterton Park. I found a wedding ring which someone had posted as lost. She is a woman with whom we spoke on our first night there, in another campsite next to ours. I have emailed her to say we have it, and as she lives in Colorado, we may either deliver it or mail it once we hear back from her. I also found 22 cents at various places in the park during our stay there. Quite a lucrative, if uncomfortable, stay.

It is too bad that we essentially missed Waterton Park because of weather, from the point of view of hiking or seeing more of it, but we did have great fun with our new friends. The drive south and through the Glacier National Park in Montana was cloudy but absolutely stunning anyway, and we enjoyed the trek along a twisting narrow road, stopping to take photos along the way. Both of us agree that we would love to do it again in clearer weather. The mountainous scenery is breath-taking. We (I) opted OUT of camping, as we had planned, and thus we are at a trusty Econolodge in Kalispell. Solid walls and a roof. AND a clothes dryer!

Alison’s ***New*** Conditions Regarding Tent Camping (still evolving).

1. Don’t.

2. If you have to, make sure the weather is going to be at least vaguely reasonable.

3. As much as possible, let Dean put up and take down the tent on his own… nothing can be of help to him.

4. Friends and good food make up for inclement conditions to a certain extent.

5. If you have to tie up your tent against the wind, it is too windy to tent.

6. Always choose the largest tent available in case you have to move indoors for a day.

7. A back-packing air mattress is not enough padding for comfortable rest.

8. Always have an umbrella and a flashlight. A picnic sun umbrella can double as an entryway for the tent if it is raining like stink.

9. Availability of electricity at a tent site is not a bad thing.

10. Campsites with flush toilets, warm water and showers are a good thing.

11. Never try to cook and eat dinner in gale force winds. Make reservations.

We have changed our plans for the next 6 days for more flexibility with the weather. But will be back on the ‘schedule’ starting in Salt Lake City. We are taking advantage of a ‘between the storm’ window for our Yellowstone camping time.

3 Days in Alberta and BC Provincial Parks

September 3, in the morning.

We are in Radium Hot Springs this morning, in Kootenay National Park, BC, at a nice hotel looking over a golf course. It is chilly in the mornings these days, and as we have been driving through the Rockies there has been a dusting of new snow on the mountaintops. It looks lovely. We had a soak in the hot spring pools on the way into town yesterday. They have been developed (in the 1950s) to be like swimming pools, but outdoors, so it is a very nice setting. All in all we preferred the undeveloped hot spring at Liard up near the BC Yukon border, but it is much less used so doesn’t require development to “protect” it. This would be a good place for a ski holiday, though… skiing at Panorama and then dipping into the hot spring pools.

The evening we were in Jasper we drove 50 miles looking for elk and didn't see any until we returned to the motel and there we saw 5 or 6 elk eating grass about 50 meters from where we parked the car!  So, when you are in Jasper, the tourist information that says the best place to see elk is in town is TRUE.

Yesterday, Sept. 2nd, was a mostly sunny day and we drove the Jasper not-quite-to Banff highway, then turned off on Hwy 93 for Radium. When we started off in Jasper around 8am, we were treated to the sight of a half dozen elk feeding near the highway, and took a video of a male elk absolutely decimating a 5’ spruce sapling while scratching his head. By the time he walked away about 5 minutes later, all that remained of the tree was the trunk, stripped of bark, and a few green sprigs at the very top of the tree.

The views of the mountains, rivers, forests, wildlife and waterfalls the past 3 days of driving from Dawson Creek have been spectacular. It has been a varied weather from light showers to severe clear with cloudless blue skies. We haven’t had time to review our 1000+ pictures of the past days, but will get some posted for you to see. (We are spending our time taking the pictures not reviewing them.) Our new rechargeable batteries for the cameras are doing very well. We shoot 400 to 500 pictures before they have to be changed. So why go to the hotel to charge them??

We have had the past four nights in motels. As we are starting to hear weather forecasts which apply to our next session of camping nights, it sounds as though it will be getting down near freezing at nights, so I am hoping to hit the thrift shop at Radium to seek out some long-legged PJs. For some reason I thought that this was summer, and that we would be going toward warmer weather as we travelled south. Ha! Apparently it is getting down to freezing in Yellowstone Park as well, where we will be next week, so I definitely need to step up my night wear situation. I certainly hope we will get into warm weather sometime, or I have a plentitude of summer clothes that will have travelled unnecessarily. Tonight we will overnight in a motel in Fernie (this morning’s cold spot at 1 C, according to the news), and then on to Waterton National Park in Alberta, for the start of 4 camping nights).

Scarf FINISHED!!

[Alison] I am still stunned by the fact that I can knit in the car. I almost said “while driving” but I haven’t got to that point yet. Unless the road is very very twisty, and the trees and close to the edge of the road, I can knit with impunity. I always have to look at my work while I’m doing it, but I can look up frequently and scan for wildlife or other fascinomas, and still keep track of the pattern. More importantly, I don’t get sick to my stomach. For a person who can almost talk oneself into motion sickness while not moving, this is quite an accomplishment. So rest assured, knitting is being accomplished on this long driving trip.

This brings me to another distantly related topic, the non-twisty-ness of the road. It is pretty amazing that the road down from Alaska through the Yukon and BC is relatively straight or only gently curving, given the mountainous nature of much of the terrain. There has been some considerable work on straightening initially tortuous sections to the point of bone-straightness in some instances. I remember hearing that Prince Charles had once commented on the “unnecessary” wide swath cut through the landscape for the AlCan highway, and I must say that I concur… the roadway itself plus the verge on either side seem to be pointlessly wide trough much of the highway’s course. Now that it has been such a devastating year for forest fires in BC, however, I can now see the utility of having the wide right-of-way as a potential firebreak, and for the driver, the opportunity to spot wildlife before it/they spring out onto the road is an advantage as well. (Also straightening adds to the areas knitting output.) What does Prince Charles know of these things? SFA, obviously. And me too. XOXOXOX

29 August

[Alison] Here’s the thing… when you need something, I mean, really need something, a thrift store is just the place to find it. Take a garlic press. I was certain that I had packed our garlic press into the kitchen box for our car trip, but when it came time to anoint the steaks with garlic before barbequing them a few nights ago, the garlic press was not to be found. I had to chop it finely and it all fell off in the grilling process. Today when we rolled into Dawson Creek, BC, I asked at the Visitors’ Center about any thrift shops in town, and was told there was a Salvation Army shop a couple of blocks away. After taking photos of Dean at “mile zero” of the Alaska Highway, we wandered into the SA and found not one but TWO garlic presses from which to choose. Fifty cents later we left, fully content. That, my friends, is the wonder of second-hand shopping! XOXOXO

White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad GREAT!!!

Aug 23: White Pass and Yukon Route to Skagway: 93 kilometers in 6 hours

What a great trip with an overnight in Skagway. The conductors and trip narrators told us all about the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899) and history of the WP&YR as we traveled along for about six hours. The winter of 1897-98 there were 28,000 people in Bennett who built 7000 boats to float to the Klondike gold fields near Dawson City after the ice went out from Bennett Lake. At the Bennett Station train stop for lunch, Nancy Taylor and Hiroko were with a group of Chilkoot Trail hikers from Anchorage. (Another small world moment.) From the Fraser stop to Skagway, about 27 kilometers, it is amazing the rail line was ever constructed. Many shear drops, bridges, and 2 tunnels were needed to complete the line through steeply mountainous terrain. It rained through most of the train trip, but it was fun nonetheless and we only missed some mountain tops because they were in the clouds.

Once in Skagway, it was very impressive to look down Broadway Street and see the cruise boats towering above everything else. There were only 3 boats in town the evening we were there so it was a ‘light’ boat day. The town gives the impression of the gold rush era, only tarted up and absolutely filled with diamond jewelry shops. Monday evening we ate at a Thai restaurant and joined our two conductors, breakman and photographer we had met on the train earlier. On Tuesday we went for a hike to Lower Dewey Lake above downtown Skagway, a nice hike in the rain forest. We returned in time for the Park Service’s two person play about the Klondike gold rush. Then an hour city tour and history walk also by the Park Service. The Park Service is caretaker/restorer of 22 properties in Skagway. In the early afternoon we returned to Carcross via bus, taking only three hours including the US/Canada border stop. It was less rainy than the day before