Columbia Icefields and the Athabasca Glacier

On Tuesday June 12, we left Canmore, AB early and returned to the Trans-Canada Highway heading westbound this time. The early morning hours brought a squall through the area. We had some pre-dawn rain but there was fresh snow on the slopes several hundred feet higher – beautiful to see as the clouds lifted and the air cleared! We went through the tollbooth at the entrance to Banff National Park and bought day use passes for the very reasonable cost of $9.95 Canadian for adults and $8.65 for seniors. Then we drove back past the exits for the town of Banff and for Lake Louise (and could have stopped again if we wished and had time in the travel schedule) and turned off onto Highway 93 North, Icefields Parkway. The road climbed steeply to a summit at nearly 7,000 feet, above the treeline and in a rugged rocky barren wilderness. We stopped to view yet another waterfall (not the last by any means) called Bridal Veil Falls and entered Jasper National Park.

The Columbia Icefields Visitor’s Center has interesting displays about the geography and climate that created the icefield and its hundreds of associated glaciers. And, more importantly, they offer excursions onto the Athabasca Glacier in a snowcat. Our group was shuttled to the edge of the glacier, boarded a vehicle with huge balloon tires and traveled out onto the glacier. We left the vehicle and were able to walk on the ice, drink some of the glacier melt water and get a close-up view of other nearby glaciers, some part of the Columbia system, some independent. An independent cirque glacier was directly overhead within the peak of a nearby mount while an impressive hanging valley glacier loomed over us as we made our way out and back to the excursion dock. One of the nearby peaks serves as a triple continental divide. Water runs off it into 3 different oceans, the Pacific, the Atlantic and…(Can you guess the third? Yes, the Arctic.) Not surprisingly, it was VERY cold on the glacier. I wore a shirt, sweatshirt, parka, jeans, sweatpants over the jeans, gloves, a knit cap and my parka hood for our 30 minutes out on the ice.

While waiting for the shuttle to the glacier, we were entertained by several mountain goats on an almost vertical cliff above the Visitor’s Center. They were hard to spot with the naked eye but easily followed with binoculars.

We parked our motor home in the lower parking lot of the Visitor’s Center, where we could stay the night. The temperature dropped and it began to snow lightly. The wind picked up and everyone huddled inside our homes on wheels. Steve and I invited Laurie and Dan, who are traveling in a 17 foot Casita (a fiberglass torpedo-shaped trailer), to join us for a movie on our DVD player. They had very limited propane and battery capacity so were worried about staying warm. We set up our catalytic propane heater, kept us all cozy for several hours and enjoyed a DVD. Then we all turned in and bundled up snug in our beds. The overnight low was close to freezing and the cold wind found its way in every crack and poor seal in our units. The light lingered long in the evening, past 11 PM, then reappeared before 4 AM. This is a foretaste of what we should experience in the Yukon and Alaska. The morning was again very windy with light snow flurries so we hitched up quickly and drove off toward the town of Jasper.

Caravan Travel

We’ve now had several travel days to get a feel for the process of moving the group from place to place. In this caravan, we DO NOT travel nose-to-tail in a long string of vehicles. That would pose a traffic hazard and just wouldn’t work since there are few areas large enough for so many big rigs to pull off for rest stops and meal stops. Our wagon master just completed a long tour through Mexico and Central America where they did travel in a convoy but the group was smaller and the local conditions (language barrier and security) made it desirable to keep everyone together. Instead, we travel “scattered”.

A typical day begins rather early. Don’t worry; we still get plenty of rest since campers tend to turn in early as well. At the previous evening’s travel meeting, the wagon master discusses the route, reviews any hazards and points of interest then announces his departure time and our expected arrival time at the next destination. The leader’s departure is usually 7:30 – 8 AM. Guests should depart in small groups spaced out over the next hour. The tail gunner’s rig leaves a little while after the last guest. We check in with the tail gunner by CB each morning to confirm that we are up and preparing to leave, then again as we depart. We can talk by CB with anyone else in range, for example to pass word back about wildlife or road conditions. We are free to stop wherever and as often as we wish while completing the day’s journey by the arrival deadline. The tail gunner keeps his coach at the end of the string while the wagon master must be the first to arrive at the next stop to complete the arrangements.

The group has already divided into the early birds, who often depart before the wagon master then pull over and linger somewhere so he can get ahead, and the trailers who leave well after the wagon master and get to camp right at the deadline. We often leave near the end of the group (Steve is NOT a morning person) but drive a little faster than some and pull into the destination in the middle of the pack.

The next hour or so is spent parking, hooking up electric and water service (and sometimes the TV cable, yes even in rural areas), and sewage dump hose. Then, when we don’t have a planned evening activity, we gather in small groups, break out the lawn chairs and some refreshments and talk – about previous trips, our RV’s and their features or faults, family or jobs, the day’s sights … The social chitchat is quickly becoming more intimate and meaningful as we get to know each other better. Friendships develop quickly in these circumstances. We chose to travel to Alaska as part of a caravan, rather than by ourselves, for the company and comfort of having companions on the trip. We feel we are getting much more out of this trip by sharing it with our fellow travelers than we would have by going alone.

Lake Louise and Banff

On our second day in Canmore, we boarded a tour bus and motored down the Trans-Canada Highway, Route 1, for a visit to Lake Louise and Banff. Once again, the weather was gray and showery, at least in the morning. It was raining steadily when we reached Lake Louise and the damp chill limited our time outside. Still, the lake was beautiful and we could imagine how spectacular it would be on a clear day. The lake is glacier-fed, deep, cold and normally a brilliant blue color. The Chateau (hotel) at lakeside is magnificent and very posh. Tour groups, especially from Asia, were loading onto their buses as we arrived. I walked about 20% of the lake shore, got thoroughly wet and enjoyed coming in to the inviting hotel lobby to warm up.

Our tour then took us to a high altitude lake, Moraine Lake, which formed several thousand years ago when a rock slide dammed a mountain stream. There is a charming rustic lodge on the lake shore – the complete antithesis to Chateau Lake Louise.

We then motored to the town of Banff. Again, there is a posh resort hotel but also many hostels, motels and bed and breakfast establishments. Our bus driver drove across the Bow River Bridge, with water just below the roadway and commented that the river was the highest in anyone’s memory and 60% of the snowpack had yet to melt! We visited Bow River Falls and noticed that the city officials had closed off the path along the river’s edge due to the high water. We then had several hours for lunch and a chance to explore the museums and/or shops of the town.

Leaving Banff, our bus traveled a secondary road along the Bow River with some spectacular scenery. Near a small lake, we passed a group of bighorn sheep grazing near a roadside rest area. They seemed remarkably unconcerned about the vehicle traffic. There were several lambs with their mothers, and several rams with a full curl of horn. They were shedding their winter coats so looked rather moth-eaten.

After returning to Canmore, I had a few hours to sneak in a trip to the local quilt shop and then the grocery store while Steve did a load of laundry. Everyday chores continue even when on vacation when you take your house with you.

The Canadian Rockies

We spent June 9 – 13 in the Canadian Rockies. Leaving Oliver, in the south central part of British Columbia, we traveled north and east through the Okanagan Valley and into the western foothills of the mountain range. This area has many rivers emptying into beautiful clear blue lakes. The biggest is Okanagan Lake, home of the fabled lake monster Ogopogo. The prettiest, Lake Kalamalka, has many colors of blue and green striping its surface and is so clear and still that the reflections of the surrounding hills are as clear as the hills themselves.

We passed through a series of small-to-medium sized towns, including Kelowna, the third most populous “city” in BC. Each town quickly yields to open land, increasingly forested and gradually getting higher and more rugged. Then, you realize that you really are in the middle of a mountain range with steep angles of descent for the creeks and rivers. There are a series of waterfalls, many of them seasonal but running at high volume this unusually wet spring. The terrain remains thickly forested; often, you can’t see more than 5 feet into the woods from the road. We passed Mount Revelstoke, and the community of Revelstoke, and continued to climb to Albert Canyon and the Canyon Hot Springs Resort.

Of course, it began to rain as we arrived and set up camp. The snowy rocky slopes above us disappeared into fog and the temperature dropped. Still, the rain didn’t interfere with our trip to the mineral pools. The resort has two pools of spring water, one at 106 degrees and the other at 86 degrees. Steve and I spent nearly two hours alternating between the two as we soaked out the stiffness of the drive and talked with fellow travelers, including visitors from England, Denmark and Germany as well as our American companions.

Sunday morning began with another good rain shower but the mist began to lift just in time for our departure. We entered Glacier National Park (the Canadian one, not the Montana park) and climbed above the tree line. The bare cliffs still had snow, especially in shady or north-facing areas. We could see large ice fields and small glaciers hanging from high elevations. Rogers Pass Summit has an interesting visitor’s center with displays about the first European explorers of the region. A small valley in the mountain range houses the town of Golden, whose riverfront farms and fields were flooded as the river was over its banks.

Climbing further into the mountains took us into Yoho National Park and cost us an hour as we entered the Mountain Time Zone. Then we crossed the Continental Divide into the province of Alberta. Suddenly, rivers flowed to the east, eventually emptying into the Atlantic Ocean rather than west to the Pacific. An interesting feature in this area is the spiral railroad tunnel. Freight trains in western Canada can be very long, sometimes 1½ miles long. The “big mountain” was a formidable barrier to these trains, so engineers reduced the grade, and eased passage over this mountain by building a spiral tunnel through the heart of the mountain. Some of our group were fortunate enough to see a freight pass through the tunnel while they watched. The engine entered the tunnel and emerged some time later high up the slope, while freight cars were still outside the mountain at the tail end.

We spent two nights in the resort town of Canmore, Alberta. The eastern side of the Rockies is much more rugged, rocky and drier than the western slopes. From our campground, we looked straight up at jagged gray granite peaks, including the Three Sisters which are the logo of the town. The first evening we attended a dinner show called “Oh Canada, Eh!” in Canmore. The servers are also performers in a revue of Canadian history and culture with a humorous tone. It was a fun evening and a nice break from camp food.

Across the Canadian Border

Thursday June 7, the caravan pulled out of Ephrata, bound for the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. We went north on two lane roads through farms and orchards, along rivers and lakes, into the coulee area of eastern Washington. During the last Ice Age, a lake of glacial melt water formed across eastern Washington, the Idaho panhandle and western Montana. The ice dam periodically broke, releasing gigantic floods over the region. The floods were greater than any known during recorded history, depositing silt and gigantic boulders all the way to the coast and beyond, and creating huge subterranean canyons at the mouth of the Columbia River. The gigantic braided lake and river beds that were left behind are called coulees – areas of water-cut mesas and gorges. Grand Coulee Dam spans one of the higher coulees and dams the upper Columbia River for hydroelectric power.

We crossed the Columbia at another hydroelectric dam, the Chief Joseph Dam, then began climbing into fir forest. Everywhere there was running and falling water. The rivers were at spring flood stage and water seemed to pour out of bare rock and over canyon walls everywhere we looked.

We reached the Canadian border at Osoyoos, a smaller border station than the main one near Vancouver. The Canadian customs official was most interested in what we had for weapons. He seemed to think that, as Americans, we must have firearms in the coach and was skeptical as we proclaimed that we had none. Two minutes later, we were in Canada!

Our path into Canada followed the Osoyoos River into the Okanagan Valley. This area is actually the northern limit of the Sonoran Desert – yes, desert in Canada! Although the area only gets about 10-14 inches of rain (and a dusting of snow), irrigation made it a paradise of fruit orchards and truck farms. Water is plentiful in nearby rivers and lakes; it just had to be piped in. In the past 15 years, the area has warmed by several degrees, resulting in milder winters. The warmer climate now permits growing noble varieties of wine grapes. There are over 100 estate wineries in the valley, mostly established within the last 20 years in place of tree fruit orchards.

On Friday afternoon our group toured three wineries, with talks by the vintners about their styles and methods of wine production. The area still gets hard winter freezes (most years) and one of the wineries specializes in the production of ice wines. To make ice wine, a vintner has to take a big risk and leave fruit on the vine until it freezes hard. The frozen berries are hand picked, often at 2 AM, and immediately pressed to separate a concentrated juice from the ice crystals. The wine is a sweet dessert wine with intense fruitiness. Another vintner specializes in wines made from fruit or fruit-grape blends. The third was a marvel of modern technology applied to winemaking. Then, we stopped for local fruit and produce. Strawberries and cherries were just coming into season and were perfectly ripe and sweet.

The Caravan Converges

On Monday June 4, we made our way east along the Columbia Gorge then north into Washington. Our goal was Ephrata, Washington, the rendezvous point for our Alaska RV caravan. We crossed the Columbia River east of The Dalles and climbed (and climbed and climbed) from the arid north river bank through high desert terrain to prairie and irrigated farm fields near Goldendale (the site of a prominent public observatory) and finally into fir forest with slopes steep enough for winter “snow play” recreation. We spent Monday night at Brooks Memorial State Park north of Goldendale. Unfortunately, the sky was too overcast to return to the Observatory for the evening open telescope.

Tuesday, we traveled north through “Washington’s Palm Springs”, a region of high desert near Yakima, then into an area of orchards and alfalfa farms near Ephrata. Upon arriving at our rendezvous RV park, we met the wagon master and tail gunner staff of our caravan, as well as the other guests. The staff consists of two couples, the leaders, or wagon master, who handle the finances and logistics, and the tail gunners, who follow the guests, prepared to assist in case of breakdown or to rescue any one who gets lost.

The guests come from all over the US, from New Hampshire and Florida to Utah and California (us!). Our caravan has 14 guest couples and our two staff couples, 32 people total. We have a wide variety of RV’s. Several couples have 40-foot diesel buses; several have large fifth wheel trailers towed by full-size pickups. We are the smallest motor home, as we expected, but one couple is making the trip in a truck camper and another will spend 3 months in a 16-foot fiberglass trailer towed by an SUV.

Our first afternoon and evening was spent in an orientation and get-acquainted meeting. The tail gunner Larry checked all the vehicles for soundness and assisted with minor maintenance issues. We had mail forwarded to General Delivery at the Ephrata post office so went into town to claim it and to find the RV supply dealer to pick up some forgotten items. Then, we made what we thought would be one last stop at Walmart to get Steve some sweatpants, since he thought he’d forgotten his. Well, there were no sweatpants at this time of year. It took stops at 4 more Walmarts on our way north before we found some in stock. Of course, several days after buying two pair, Steve found that he had indeed packed sweatpants but not sweatshirts!

Wednesday night, we turned in late, both eager and a little apprehensive about the start of our Alaska adventure.

The Columbia Gorge

We left the Monaco Service Center Friday morning, June 1 and drove about 150 miles past Portland to the Columbia River gorge. We found a spot at Ainsworth State Park near Cascade Locks. This is a small park in the woods south of the river bank – very nice facilities (full hookups for $16/night and free hot showers), green and moist and fairly cool for the gorge area, and quiet except for the ubiquitous freight trains rumbling along the tracks near the river. Saturday was Oregon State Parks Day, a free night of camping as a thank you to supporters and users.

We spent the weekend viewing waterfalls, including Horsetail Falls and Multnomah Falls, driving what remains of the historic highway along the river bank, and visiting Bonneville Dam and Fish Hatchery. Unfortunately, Steve caught a cold and felt progressively worse over the weekend so we didn’t take our planned drive around Mount Hood and didn’t do any hiking. We stayed an extra night at Ainsworth to give him a chance to recover and as a result, I got to take a tour of the Pendleton Woolen Mill in Washougal, WA on Monday morning. Pendleton processes scoured wool, dyes it, spins the yarn for their yardage, weaves the cloth and fulls or felts the yardage. The goods then are cut and sewn into garments, scarves, purses, etc. or sold as fabric to home sewers and for upholstery. Some of the yarn is diverted to another mill at Pendleton, OR (well east of where we were) for weaving into patterned Indian blankets and robes. I had visited this mill more than 20 years ago and welcomed the chance to take the tour again.

Monday noontime, after returning from the tour, we moved east along the gorge, crossed the Columbia River into Washington and headed north. The terrain change moving east is almost startling. Thick green forest changes to sagebrush and rock. The river is windy - it is not uncommon to see whitecaps out on the water. The area around Hood River is a favorite spot for sailboarding. Surprisingly, the eastern part of Oregon and Washington, and the central area of British Columbia, is desert!

Camp Monaco

Camp Monaco is the (tongue-in-cheek) name of the RV facilities at Monaco Coach Corp. Factory Service Centers. We arrived at the facility in Harrisburg, OR on Memorial Day for a brief visit. The coach had a couple of minor issues (and one that could have been a major problem) that we wanted fixed before heading out to Alaska.

We parked with water and electric each evening then had to evacuate the coach (including the dogs) each morning by 7 AM. The technicians then drove the coach into the shop, worked on it until about 4 PM and returned it to our site for the night. The dogs were welcome in the customer lounge (but not on the furniture, which disappointed our pair since they have couch privileges at home). Otherwise, we had to drive them around with us.

A funny noise from the engine compartment turned out to be potentially serious. The dash air conditioner clutch was not releasing. It could have seized and, if it did, could have snapped the main drive belt. We would then have been “dead in the water” until we could be towed to a service facility to have a new belt installed. Luckily, the Coburg, OR Cummins Northwest service center could fit us in and got it fixed (under warranty).

Also, mechanic Mike at Top Flight Automotive in Junction City was able to locate and fix a gas leak in the Suzuki. Apparently, the gasket around the fuel sender at the top of the gas tank was not sealing. Now, we no longer smell gas dripping from the ‘Zuki (not a good thing when you’re towing it behind a motorhome full of gas and propane, with the potential of sparks from rocks or a dragging tow cable igniting the whole rig!).

We spent three days dealing with the service issues and shopping for forgotten items. We were finished Thursday evening, May 31, and able to resume our vacation Friday morning, June 1.

Departure Day - at last!

Our departure was delayed due to several unexpected problems at home. The house refrigerator died just days before leaving. We had to shift all the food into the RV 'fridge (even food not planned for the trip). Then we had to shop for a new one and wait for delivery so we'd have somewhere to put leftovers on our return. Also, packing just took longer than planned. We finally left LA on Tuesday May 22. We had to skip a side trip to San Francisco to visit friends. Instead, we zipped up the I-5, stopping for dinner at Harris Ranch (>$100 for Beef Wellington, a nice grilled steak and 2 glasses of Pinot Noir!), and stayed in their truck/RV parking lot for the night. (After blowing the daily budget on prime ranch-raised beef, it was nice to have a free, if noisy, campsite.)

Wednesday found us at Lake Shasta, in the wooded Forest Service campground at Lakehead. We noticed that the blooming wildflowers changed as we drove north - here the lupine was just finishing its bloom while at home it was long past. However, the lake was low - about the same level as we saw on our stop last August, despite the winter inflow. Just north of the lake, Mount Shasta still has a deep snow cover.

On Thursday May 24 we passed into Oregon and stopped at a membership RV park in Sutherlin, OR, north of Roseburg. Then we spent Memorial Day weekend with friends at Silver Falls State Park near Salem, OR. We had a light shower Sunday morning. It was nice to see water falling from the sky after Southern California's winter of drought. The woods are lush and green in Oregon and there are ferns and wildflowers everywhere. The lupine is in full spike and so thick at the edges of the woods that the ground is solid purple or blue. Silver Falls State Park is known for its waterfalls, including several where the trail goes behind the falls. We visited four waterfalls in two short hikes during the weekend. It's a unique experience to have water cascading over you while standing behind the fall. Each of our trips seems to develop a theme without our planning one. This time, the theme seems to be waterfalls - more about that later.