We’ve spent the last week travelling the Yellowhead Highway west to Prince Rupert to catch the ferry to Alaska. We stopped often in the last week for hikes and views and more bear sightings - taking time to smell the roses….. what a pleasant change of pace! The Yellowhead Highway turned out to be a good road - much better than we thought- thank goodness! We're all doing well - Gary, Molly, Rose, Scooter and me, fingers crossed, sure hope it continues! It's been so nice to take our time getting here and to have seen so much beautiful scenery, hiked lots of great trails and seen so much wildlife along the way. Surprisingly, most of the other campers we have met along the way have been from Canada and Europe - not many Americans...
We’ll finally arrive in Alaska on June 6 after 3,300 miles of driving and a 5 hour ferry ride. Good ole’ Rose and Scooter both get a break! Rose has done a good job in getting us this far with a little help from the chief mechanic, Gary!
It’s still really chilly – 40-50s during the day but there’s much less snow than in the Canadian Rockies. The closer we got to the coast, the more the rain and clouds increased. In Prince Rupert it reminded us of Ireland - rain one minute and sun the next - 5 or 6 times a day!
We’ll finally arrive in Alaska on June 6 after 3,300 miles of driving and a 5 hour ferry ride. Good ole’ Rose and Scooter both get a break! Rose has done a good job in getting us this far with a little help from the chief mechanic, Gary!
It’s still really chilly – 40-50s during the day but there’s much less snow than in the Canadian Rockies. The closer we got to the coast, the more the rain and clouds increased. In Prince Rupert it reminded us of Ireland - rain one minute and sun the next - 5 or 6 times a day!
Highlights
•Boat ride to see the grizzly bears in the Khutzeymateen fjord and valley
•Boat ride to see the grizzly bears in the Khutzeymateen fjord and valley
Click on the arrow to see the grizzly bear video
• More sightings of black bears – they love the dandelions that are blooming right now
Click the arrow to see the video of the black bear munching on dandelions...
• Berg Lake Trail in Mt Robson Provincial Park - one of the top hikes in British Columbia
• Prince Rupert - a quaint little town on the coast of British Columbia
• Watching the sea planes take off and land while eagles were flying around above us
Click on the arrow to see the video of the sea plane landing
Back at the campground.....
Molly loves the hikes but she's always dog tired when we get back to Rose. Plus her hair is like velcro - she collects all types of twigs, briars, evergreen needles, dust and dirt along the trails so after a hike she gets groomed on our little work bench/grooming table in Rose's garage- she'd rather be hiking and so would I!
- One of our "campground neighbors" was carving a paddle for a 6 day canoe trip in a dugout canoe with his First Nation tribe.
- Rose admiring the Glacier view and Gary and Molly grilling burgers
Tomorrow afternoon we board the ferry for Ketchikan - we'll finally be in Alaska! It's been almost a month since we started on our trip. We will have 6 ferry rides in the inside passage with stops at Wrangell ( a very small port, no cruise ships stop there so it should be nice a quiet and there's lots of trails to hike), Petersburg ( "Little Norway" and no cruise ships here either), Juneau, Haines and our last port of call Skagway. We'll be back in the USA ( with lower gas prices - yeah!). Communications will still be a challenge since there are BIG holes in the cell phone service but when it's available at least it will be cheaper and we won't have to use a pay phone for calls! We'll still be dependent on WIFI hotspots for email and blog posts- our next chance for WIFIis in Juneau around the middle of June - we're hoping to update the blog while we are there. Thanks for following along!
