The Final Chapter: July 24-August 1, 2005

Journals

The final stage of our journey began on Sunday the 24th when we drove from Prince George, BC to Jasper, Alberta. As you approach Jasper, you cross over to the east side of the Continental Divide: it has been our plan from the start to follow the Canadian Rockies and then the US Rockies down into Colorado. The is mainly because this route runs through several Canadian National Parks, as well as Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks in the US, but also because our home is only a few miles from the divide in Colorado. This route is also the most direct in terms of geography, although I am sure that we could have made better time by coming down either I-25 or I-15. We've driven on very few interstate highways during this entire trip (there were no interstate or similar highways along our routes through Canada or in Alaska), and this route home allows us the chance to complete the trip on mostly smaller roads. The drive to Jasper on Sunday was around 250 miles-we stopped briefly in the town of Jasper, but it was pretty congested and not too east to get around with our rig. Jasper lies at the north end of Jasper National Park, so we headed south into the park to find a campground. We found a nice one near a river and set up camp for the night. I should mention that the road from Jasper to Lake Louise is called the Icefields Parkway because it follows a route right through the mountains and there are several prominent glaciers along the way. Lisa and I have experienced many scenic mountain byways including Trail Ridge Drive in the Rocky Mountain National Park, Skyline Drive in Virginia, and many of the scenic mountain roads in Colorado: none approach the beauty of the peaks and glaciers of the Icefields Parkway. Our campground on Sunday night was only a few miles south of Jasper, so we drove most of the Icefields Parkway on Monday the 25th. Along the road towards Lake Louise and Banff, you enter the Banff National Park. Once you reach Lake Louise, you can either head east into Banff or west into the Yoho National Park. We headed west of Lake Louise about 15 miles, and camped in Yoho National Park for Monday and Tuesday nights. We spent Monday afternoon checking out some of the attractions around the campground including Takakkaw Falls (2nd highest waterfall in Canada). On Tuesday morning we headed over to Lake Louise were we spent the day hiking around the lake and up toward the glaciers above the lake. In the Swiss tradition, they have a couple of tea houses pretty far up in the hills where the weary hiker can stop for tea, biscuits, sandwiches and soup (read no beer). The teahouses were very nice, although not quite as authentic as the one Lisa and I visited (Hotel du Thrift-read yes beer!) while hiking above Zermatt, Switzerland several years ago. Nonetheless, it was a good place to stop for a bite to eat before heading back to the bottom of the valley. I learned that these teahouses originated in the early days of the exploration of these areas so that the mountain guides could bring their wives and children along for the summer guiding season: the men spent their time guiding, while the women and children ran the teahouses. On Wednesday morning, we packed it up and headed southeast towards the US-Canadian border: we drove about 250 miles before pulling off to camp about 30 miles north of the US border. We had planned to spend the night at a decent sounding BC Provençal Park on a lake, but when we arrived we found the campground full. We later learned that this is because the lake is great for swimming, and there are several family-type beaches in that park. Fortunately we were able to find a spot in a private RV park only 2 miles away-turns out we paid $4 less for our site, which included full hookups (no hookups in Provençal parks). We have rarely needed hookups on this trip, but after leaving Yoho National Park behind, the temperatures reached about 95 degrees-we are not at all accustomed to summer weather this year! Having an electrical connection means that we were able to run the air conditioning in the camper, something we have not done at all except to test it out a couple of times (we did run it at the Ligeski's house in California to keep the dogs cool while we were in the city). After setting up camp, we biked back over to the Provençal park to enjoy a good swim in the lake. Thursday morning we headed across the border into Montana and honked the horn loudly at the state line (a custom learned from our friend Owen); we were very happy to be back in the lower 48! We headed south about 60 more miles are found a Montana state campground in Whitefish, MT near Glacier National Park. As this campground also featured a nice, warm lake we put the kayak in and went for a ride and some more swimming. Friday morning we left the camper behind and drove into Glacier National Park and up the "Going to the Sun Road." Although it was a beautiful drive, it was also pretty crowded in the park and we didn't see any glaciers of the caliber that we have seen in Alaska or even the lower Canadian National parks. We had a picnic at the top of the pass before turning back to camp. I should note that tickets for the Denver Broncos went on sale at 11am on Friday the 29th, meaning we had to stop in an internet enabled coffee shop so that I could get tickets for the Broncos-Redskins game. We go to one game per year, and when the Redskins play the Broncos, that's our game (my brother Mark is a big Redskins fan so I got tickets for him as well-don't worry, I'll be rooting for the Broncos!). In my last log update, I mentioned that we planned to arrive home around the 3rd of August. At some point after that log posting (I think around Jasper) we mapped out our plan and figured that we could get home by the 1st if we did three long driving days out of Whitefish. Although our original trip plan called for us to spend a couple nights in Yellowstone National Park, we decided against that because we are road weary, miss our family and friends in Colorado, and miss our home. We have visited Yellowstone for about a week several years ago: it's very crowded this time of year, and we can get back there quickly from home for a visit any time. So, we packed up early Saturday morning and drove about 350 miles from Whitefish to a campground in the Gallatin National Forest near Big Sky, Montana. We lucked out and found a nice spot on the river where we took a dip and also gave the dogs a bath (something that they surely needed!). Sunday morning, we headed out of camp and drove about 60 more miles to enter Yellowstone at the West Yellowstone entrance - even though we decided not to spend the night there, it is still a good drive through the park and keeps us along the track of the divide towards home. We cleared Yellowstone and continued on through Wyoming - we made it most of the way through this state, and ended up camping at a private RV park (an interesting place, but it served our needs well) near Rawlins, WY. Rawlins is near the Colorado border, and left us with only about 4 hours to get home on Monday: we probably could have pushed for home Sunday night, but decided not to push too hard after two long days of driving. Needless to say, we were very excited to get home so we headed out early Monday morning into Colorado. In keeping with the plan to drive the divide home, we entered Colorado on back roads that lead almost directly to our house in Lawson; we went through Granby, Colorado and then over Berthoud Pass on US-40 and thus arrived home without having to drive through Denver. Thanks to our friends Steve and Owen, the house was in great shape for our arrival home: refrigerator turned back on with cold beer and ice for the martinis! This marks the end of our trip to Alaska and back; thanks to everyone out there who has been reading this and keeping up to date with our adventure. Just a couple of statistics to end this log:

Click any of the above photos to enlarge the image!

 

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