Walter and Sara Let the good times roll
Note: to see photos and the short version of this blog click here.

Day 1: May 30, 2012
Monroe to Skihist Provincial Park, Lytton, BC

We managed to get loaded up and leave by 11:20 am this morning. Not bad considering that I had to make two trips back to the house: the first to get the blue ice for the coolers and a pillow case for Walter’s pillow; the second to get the sound cord for the MP3 player so it could play through the truck. Somehow it had gotten separated from the bucket with all the other things like that.

In any case, we hit the road at 11:20 and made it to Sumas at 1:30 pm. The wait wasn’t long at the border and we changed drivers since it was time. There were no problems at the border. They asked about fruit (bananas) and vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, snow peas) and then asked about alcohol (one bottle of wine) and fire arms (none). They wanted to know if we had a date for the ferry (Sunday) and told us to enjoy our trip.

We stopped at the first rest area on Hwy 1 and had lunch and then motored on. Just past Chilliwack we saw a huge waterfall coming down the face of the cliff of the mountains on the south side of the freeway. It’s just west of Bridal Veil Falls Recreation Area so maybe it’s Bridal Veil Falls. But then again, there was yet another waterfall right near the road at the exit for Bridal Veil Falls.

We turned north when Hwy 1 left the freeway and followed the Fraser River up the canyon between the mountains. Near Yale, I pulled over to take a photo of yet another waterfall and of the river. It was very high and very muddy.

The area is called the Fraser River Valley and considered a scenic by-way. We got to drive through 7 tunnels (none of the particularly long) and there were a few long ups but nothing serious. No wildlife and not much traffic either. It’s not a bad drive but there are a few ups and downs in the mountains.

The terrain is more like the Leavenworth area than home. The trees are further apart and the pearly everlasting is in bloom with fireweed just on the verge of opening. We saw LOTS of lupine along the road. I suspect it was seeded in by the highway department.

We rolled into Skihist Provincial Park at about 4:40 pm. The sun was out with a few high wispy clouds. We’d had a few drops of rain on I-5 going north but sun breaks became more and more frequent as we went north and east. It was close to 70 degrees too.

We found a nice large level sight at the top of the campground and managed to get set up without a hitch. Neither of us was nearly as tired as we had been when we set out for our trip in February. We hiked down to the bottom of the campground to register and then followed the loop road back up the long way. It was pretty steep in places and it felt good to be moving. We stopped and read the sign about the hiking trail which was part of the old Cariboo Trail that served mining communities in the area in the old days.

We got back and took a nap in the 73 degree trailer. We awoke to the lady ranger telling us to be aware that she’d just shooed a couple of bears out of the washroom and they had gone to the area just below us. The day before they had been in the spot next to us. So no we are hoping to see bears! No luck yet.

The clouds came in while we were napping and we had a few wind gusts after dinner but it is quiet again and still 66 degrees outside.

Day 2: May 31, 2012
Skihist to Quesnel, BC

The birds work me up singing their hearts out as the sun came up at 5:00 am this morning. I put a pillow over my eyes and went back to sleep. Then Walter got a direct hit of sunshine in his eyes from the back window at 7 am. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep in. It was warm outside from the start –in the 60’s by 9 am so I did my workout regime outside in just a t-shirt while Walter hiked to find a trash bin. The sun was playing hide and seek with heavy clouds that were hung on the tops of the surrounding mountains and we thought we might be in for some rain today. But as we drove north, things cleared mostly aside for a few drops of rain here and there. In fact, once we came down from the 1200 meter pass we went over it got steadily warmer—into the 70’s!

Shortly after we left Skihist, the road joined the Thompson River which we followed for much of the day. It forms a series of lovely lakes including Lac la Hache and Williams Lake. The road actually is following the route of the old Cariboo (yes in Canada it is Cariboo not Caribou) Trail which served the mining camps up and down this section of BC. The towns have interesting names like 70 Mile House and 100 Mile House (which is a pretty good sized town) and 150 Mile House. Given that everything thing is now in kilometers and the towns actually are closer together than the distances indicated it’s kind of amusing.

We got gas in the town of Cache Creek (which has a creek by another name running under the road at one point). Gas was $1.28.9 per liter. It cost us $94.40 to fill the tank of the truck. The same brank (Husky) cost another 5 cents a gallon per liter by the time we’d driven another 100 miles.

We’d hoped to have lunch and a little hike in a park in 100 Mile House but we saw no signs for it (and I only had the name of the place with no directions) so we ended up in a small rest area along the side of the road. Some folks towing a really small Boler trailer (another brand of fiberglass egg) parked right behind us to have their lunch just as we were getting ready to go.

We arrived just outside of Quesnel, BC by 3:45 pm. We’re staying at Roberts Roost a great RV park just south of town on Dragon Lake. The lake is lovely. The campground is well taken care of and we have the site right next to the lake. It was 76 degrees when we set up camp. We opened all the windows and revved up the computer to check email and update things.

There was a mama duck and her babies on the dock right next to our campsite. She didn’t move a muscle as we set up camp and I stopped to take their pictures. Another mama with maybe 7 or 8 babies swam by at the same time. Then late in the afternoon a dragon boat with a crew of about 12 rowed out across the lake and then further south. You could see their cox in the head of the boat and there was a speed boat running alongside. At first I thought it might be a regular 8-man rowing team but the boat was different and there were too many folks on it.

The breeze came up in the late afternoon but by 7:30 it had died down and the fishermen had headed out for one more round. It’s 65 degrees now at 8:30 and the sun is still out. Boy what a difference 500 miles north makes in terms of daylight. And of course that will only get more so as we go further north.

The ducks and geese made a wonderful racket as twilight set in and I began to wonder at about 10 pm whether they were ever going to quiet down. But by 11 pm they'd quieted down and the last fisherman had pulled in with his boat and all was quiet.

Day 3 June 1, 2012
Quesnel to Burns Lake, BC

I woke up at 5:30 am again and simply put on my sleeping mask and went back to sleep. When we both woke up later it was raining lightly and it was 8:45 am. By the time we’d had breakfast and gotten things together the rain had stopped and we decided that the showers at Robert’s Roost were of the premium sort so it was best to have showers and then take off rather than leave them for when we arrived on the other end. The showers took $1 coins (Loonies) and gave you 3 minutes of hot water. The good news is that the water did eventually become hot, the bad news is that it took my shower nearly 2 minutes to go from lukewarm to hot. Walter had better luck but he never got really hot water. In any case we got clean and finally motored out at 11:15.

Slowly the sun came out and we had nice conditions for the drive north to Prince George. It’s kind of funny country with short fir or spruce trees and lots of marshy looking areas. We saw a deer who started out onto the highway and upon seeing us turned tail and went back where she came from. The fields in the area were simply coated with blooming dandelions. I’ve never seen so many dandelions in my life.

We also saw our first Moose Crossing signs but no moose. We made the transition from the Cariboo Highway (Highway 97) to the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16) at Prince George and crossed the Fraiser River one more time. Then we stopped and got gas just west of Prince George for $1.33.9 a liter. We drove a ways further and found a decent rest area on the south side of the road to have lunch. It was 65 degrees and sunny as we sat and had lunch. But when we turned back onto the highway we headed straight for a bank of very dark clouds that looked like they held a lot of rain. They did! In fact, I haven’t driven through such hard rain in many many years. At times I had the wipers on double fast and I still could barely see the road. You could see sheets of water blowing across the road and I had to slow down just to see where we were going. We had a short period of this and then a break and then we had a much longer squall complete with lightening.

By the time we reached Burns Lake the sun was out again but you could see the white caps on the lake. Burns Lake is in an area called the Lake District because there are so many lakes of all sizes and varieties. We had found a place on the internet that was supposed to be just east of town but when we got there it had turned into a full-time trailer park full of double-wides. Time to punt. With a little difficulty we found a place to park in downtown Burns Lake and got out the AAA campground book that of course was stowed in the trailer. We had choice of driving 15-20 miles south to an RV park on a lake or driving 50 miles to the next town. We opted for the former and called ahead to make sure that they had a spot for us—which they did.

So we are camped tonight at Sandy’s RV Park on Francois Lake, a long narrow lake that reaches nearly 75 miles east and west. Tonight it is windy on the lake and there are not only white caps but surf on the little rock beaches. We have a site set back a little ways from the lake out of the wind in a grassy area. This isn’t a high end park and doesn’t compare to a place like Roberts Roost but it will do nicely rather than having to drive another hour after a long afternoon of bad weather driving. For folks planning to drive this route I’d advice planning on camping either before or after Burns Lake.

Day 4 June 2, 2012
Burns Lake to Terrace, BC

When I woke up at 5:30 this morning it was 28 degrees outside (yes that’s F not C) and it was 48 inside. Brrrr. By the time we woke up again at about 7:30 it was 48 outside and sunny and beautiful. We packed up and I did my exercises outside (with fleece on this time) and then we motored on our way. We stopped and took a photo of the Moose crossing sign along the highway that led to Francois Lake. It turns out that the highway department has two kinds of Moose crossing signs with two different moose profiles. I of course managed to get a photo of the one I didn’t like as well as the other but it’s still a swell sign.

The reason why it was so cold last night is that the Burns Lake area is over 2400 feet in elevation and it was clear last night.

The forest in this area is mostly birch with a few spruce and firs mixed in.
At about the town of Houston we began to see glimpses of the Hazelton Mountains off in the distance. We stopped at a rest area nearby and I took my first of a series of photos of the mountains. I paid less and less attention to the trees and more and more attention to the snow-covered mountains that mostly had their heads in the clouds but would occasionally be lit by the sun.

We stopped in Smithers for gas. It’s a very pretty town at the base of the mountains with a ski area and other high end types of things like nice golf courses and a real airport. We’d planned to have lunch in Moricetown where there was supposed to be a short hike to a waterfall. We saw the town but no signs for the interpretive center or trail. We did see the river crashing out of view over what expect were the falls but with a trailer on a 2-lane highway it’s hard to decide to turn around for something that you’re not sure is worth it.

Instead we stopped in a rest area for lunch that had a great view of both the mountains and the Bulkley river which was very muddy brown and surging a long at great speed.

The highway takes you north around the Hazeltons (through the town of New Hazelton) where you get a great view of the Seven Sisters a group of 7 peaks right next to each other. The Bulkley joins the Skeena River just past New Hazelton and the highway following the Skeena through the mountain passes and down to Terrace. It’s a very pretty drive with view of the river and the mountains mixed together. We had a few spits of rain but many breaks in the clouds for sunshine and great views.

We found the Ferry Island Municipal Campground in the middle of the Skeena River in the town of Terrace without a hitch. We got a spot with power (no other hook ups) with lots of space for the trailer and the truck and got all settled in well before 4 o’clock. We rested for a little while and then took the hike around the island. It’s a very nice hike with wild flowers and great views of the river and the mountains. It looks like the river is moving at about 6 miles per hour (about the speed that the Skykomish when it’s at full flood). The thing that makes the hike even more fun is that over the years artists have carved faces in the bark of the trees along the path. From the photos I’d seen ahead of time I thought that these were going to be really big. They’re not. They’re mostly about the size of Walter’s hand (about 6 inches) and don’t penetrate deep into the bark at all. They’re not marked along the trail so you have to keep your eyes out for them and if you look carefully all of a sudden a face will jump out at you.

The trees are moss covered cottonwoods mostly and the moss it’s self sometimes looks like faces. It’s rumored that the trail has as many as 55 carvings. I know we didn’t see them all but I did take photos of a lot of them 35 of them. In addition to the faces, there are a set of small owls in the bark, 2 large owls on stumps, and one very large carving in a dead snag with its own bench.

To anyone planning on doing the hike, I'd recommend doing it clockwise rather than counterclockwise around the island. The faces seem to be oriented so that they are easier to see if you're coming from that direction. We did it counterclockwise and had to turn around a lot to find faces pointed up trail.

After our 3K walk we came home and took a nice deep nap. Nothing like a little exercise and fresh air to make for a good nap.

We’ve also set Carmine the Garmin up to take us to the ferry dock in Prince Rupert tomorrow. It’s only about a 2 hour drive and we don’t need to check in until 3 pm so we’ll have some time to wander around Prince Rupert and find something to take on the boat for dinner. Sailing is at 6 pm and there is only a snack-bar type food facility. They don’t allow you to cook in your rig (propane gets turned off) or even go down to it except at designated times so we have to figure out something for dinner. It’s Walter’s turn to cook so that’s his mission for tomorrow.

We don’t get into Ketchikan until 11:15 their time (12:15 our time) so we may have an interesting time of it finding a place to stay. If all else fails there’s always the Wal-Mart parking lot which isn’t far from the ferry dock. Wish us luck.

Day 5 June 3, 2012
Terrace, BC to Prince Rupert, BC
Ferry from Prince Rupert to Ketichkan, AK

We got up and had breakfast and packed up with a few clouds in the sky but no real rain falling. We made the decision to not stop and get water before we went into town to use the dump station there. There wasn’t a hose bib in the campground and so you had to fill jugs from an unthreaded tap to transfer the water to the tank. This turned out to be not a great decision. There was no drinking water at the dump station. In fact, this is the first dump station we’ve used in over 10 years of RVing that overflowed when we started to dump our black water tank. Ugh. Thank goodness Walter has quick reflexes and he turned our black water dump off and then just pulled the lever partially out so the dump didn’t overflow all over the ground again.

We motored off to Prince Rupert sure that we would find some place to fill our fresh water in one of the Provincial Parks along the way. It’s a gorgeous drive. It reminded us both of the drive over Hwy 2 or the Mountain Loop Highway but on steroids. The road follows the Skeena River as it runs to the sea. The mountains that surround it are 9 to 10,000 feet but the river is nearly at sea level. The contrast makes the drive that much more fantastic. The only bad news is that there are nearly no places to pull over to take photos. So I resorted to taking shots through both the side and front windows to get pictures of the wonderful waterfalls and great mountain views.

We stopped at 2 Provincial Parks along the way (and a riverside viewpoint) and had no luck getting water. The viewpoint had no water at all and the Provincial Parks just had a hand operated pump with no hose bib. We motored into Prince Rupert at about 1 pm. It’s not a very impressive place. In fact, it’s a bit grey and drab with too many concrete-colored buildings and old run-down ones. We stopped at the Canadian grocery store, Overwaitea, in hopes of finding a deli department to get things for dinner on the ferry. It was pretty low end so we drove back to the beginning of town to the Safeway which was actually pretty upscale. We got some nifty quinoa salad and they even had gluten-free bread in the freezer department. Walter got a chicken samosa for dinner and I got a chicken leg and some broccoli salad. We got mixed fruit salad for desert that turned out to be very good.

Our next job was to find a place to have lunch. We dug out the Milepost to look at the map of Prince Rupert and Walter found a park that looked like it would have an ocean view. We drove into a very nice residential area and after a mistaken trip down a dead end street we found the little pocket park that clearly serves the neighborhood but had no parking—especially for a truck plus trailer. Time to punt. We found another big park further back in town on the map and drove through another not so nice residential area to find it. Its parking wasn’t fantastic but we did finally find a spot big enough for us to safely settle for an hour or so. We had our lunch, looked at the map so we’d know how to get to ferry terminal and began the final stage of the ‘getting to the ferry’ process.

We followed the signs on the main highway that pointed us to not only the Alaska Ferry dock but also the BC Ferry dock and the train station. When we drove into the Alaska Ferry area there were young men waiting for us with a clip board and a vehicle measuring device (one of those wheeled jobs where you walk along and it tells you how far you’ve gone). They found our reservation on the manifest and measured our truck and trailer as being 37 feet. Oops, we were registered as only being 35 feet. The good news is that the boat was not full and so all we had to do was pay another $70 for the entire Prince Rupert to Haines reservation to make up for it. This is the point where they turn off your propane too. So from 3 pm on our refrigerator was off. We’d hoped that they wouldn’t turn it off until it was time to load the boat, but no such luck. They turn off the propane and seal the cover with tape so you can’t turn it back on.

Once they had us measured they directed us down the hill to lane #6 (with all the other RV’s, trailers and folks towing boats) and told us to go into the building and check in. There we waited in line, gathered up more literature on places like Ketchikan and Sitka and the struck up a conversation with the folks ahead of us in line. They were from outside of Grand Rapids Michigan and were making their 3rd trip to Alaska. They had no reservations and she hoped they’d be home by late July because she hoped they wouldn’t miss the entire summer. Clearly the trip was his idea and she was kind enough to be going along. We talked with them some more on the ship.

At check-in they went through the complex process of changing our reservation to include our extra 2 feet in length. They had to check to make sure there was room for us at each stage of the trip and then change the reservation. There was a computer glitch with the system for the Fairweather ferry from Sitka to Juneau (it’s the new fast ferry and it cares about weight not just length). Our reservation clerk finally had to call the home office in Juneau to find out what the workaround was on the glitch. In the end, the charged us the extra $70 and issued us tickets for each of us and our vehicle for each leg of our trip. They also gave us our customs declaration to fill out and told us that we could bring in anything but tomatoes, peppers and packages of assorted vegetables (since they might have peppers or tomatoes in them). I had a lone red pepper which I ate half of before tossing the rest in the trash.

We finally got back to our truck and trailer after about 45 minutes of paperwork and put the little sign that said we were going to Ketchikan on our driver’s side window. Not long after that the line began to move through US customs. They asked for our passports and declaration form (which thank goodness Walter had already filled out while we were waiting inside) and asked all the usual questions about alcohol, tobacco and fruits and vegetables. They didn’t care about the fruit salad we had bought for dinner so all was well. From there we moved to the next station where they told us to go to lane 2 which had the folks going to Ketchikan parked. The loading of the ferry is a pretty complicated process because not only do they have to have space for all the vehicles, they have to place them in a way such that they can get them off the boat at the point when they need to. Ketchikan is the first stop, and the loaded us last.

We sat for quite a while and I got restless so I walked up to the front of the line and took a photo of the ferry and stopped to talk to the folks (Mary and Bill) who we had met in line. They were trying to decide where they were going to stay that night when they rolled off the ferry at 11:15 pm. We had tried to call the one and only RV park in Ketchikan to make a reservation but we were getting one of those lovely “I’m sorry we can’t complete your call at this time” recordings. We discussed the pros and cons of staying at WalMart but our camping book said they weren’t sure if we were welcome to do it. I went back to the truck and began to read one of the freebie magazine I’d picked up while in line. And low and behold it said clearly that we were welcome to stay at the Walmart in Ketchikan. Problem solved. We had a map that showed where it was and we were home free. I walked back up to tell Bill and Mary and they were pleased too. But his GPS wouldn’t find the street where the Walmart was. Eventually he got instructions from another passenger that made him happy and they arrived shortly after we did once we debarked in Ketchikan.

They finally began to load the ferry at about 5 pm. It took forever as a fellow with a clip board kept counting rigs in each line and checking his clip board and talking to other crew people. They’d take a few folks who were going to say Wrangell and then we’d wait a while more. In the end it was about 5:30 before we motored on with a spot at the front of the line inside the closed-in car deck. Unlike Washington car ferries, the car deck is entirely closed in AND the vehicles don’t debark out the front but instead out of the side. We were parked just shy of the front right side door.

We loaded dinner into the cooler, decided what else we might want (camera and Kindles but we decided against the computer) and locked up the trailer and truck for the trip. Once under way we had no chance to go downstairs to the trailer during the trip to Ketchikan.

The first level up from the cars held the staterooms for folks who were going to be on the boat all night and had paid for one. The next level up was the main passenger area with the cafeteria, bathrooms and the forward observation lounge. The next level up had the rear solarium which has plastic deck chairs where you can sleep (ha!) and a rear deck where you can pitch a tent. There were no tents out there on our trip. In fact, the ferry was pretty empty both of vehicles and passengers. We spent the bulk of the trip in the front row of seats in the forward observation area. It had great views though the seats were a little uncomfortable and Walter tended to get stiff after sitting in them for an hour or two.

We finally left port at about 6 pm and slowly made our way southward out of the port of Prince Rupert. Once we were clear of the port area we swung west and moved out into the channel and the journey had truly begun. There were clouds over the surrounding mountains but as we moved northwest it cleared more and more. Every hour or so I’d go out on deck and take photos and face the cold wind on the bow. It was wonderful.

By about 6:30 our time (5:30 Alaska time) Walter was hungry so we went back to the cafeteria eating area and had our dinner. The ship stays on Alaska Time even when it moves into Canadian waters and Pacific Time. The cafeteria didn’t open until 6:00 Alaska Time so we had the dining area to ourselves. They were opening up to serve just as we finished.

We talked off and on to Mary and Bill and watched for seals, and floating logs. I took photos of the passing mountains and islands and we watched people walk by in front of the viewing windows as they got blown by the wind. Other people settled down to read but both of us just kept on watching. The sun began to sink and shine in our eyes and we just used our maps and brochures to shade our eyes.

Sunset began at about 9 pm Alaska time and continued to show color until about 10:45. I went out on deck at 10:45 and the nearly full moon was shining across the water to the east and the sky was still pink in the west. Gorgeous.

At about dusk we began to see a pair of strange small islands with lights to the right of them. Slowly as we gained on them it became clear that the lights were a small ship. Finally when we were nearly upon them we realized the ship was a tug boat pulling a pair of barges. One barge had a large square multi-storied concrete building on it (the odd island that made me sure with the glasses long before that it couldn’t be an island) and the other with a load of sand and gravel in heaps (which made for another very odd small island at a distance).

By the time we approached Ketchikan through the straits it was pretty dark and you could see the lights of town. They take it very slowly in the straits so it seemed to take a really long time to finally approach the dock. You can see the lights of the airport (on the island across from Ketchikan) long before you can see the ferry dock. At last we came into dock.

They don’t allow you back down on the car deck until the ship is fully secured so we got to watch them fiddle with the ropes and run the winches and fiddle with the ropes for quite a while. Finally shortly after 11:15 pm they allowed us down to the car deck. We went down the stairs only to discover that the door at the bottom of the stairs that was right next to our truck was locked. Eventually a very exasperated crew member got it fixed and we got to the truck.

We were the first vehicle they decided to unload and I got to make the wide turn to get the truck and trailer to clear everything and make it out the side door. We motored out through the parking lot and turned left onto the North Tongass Hwy which leads out of the town. The ferry dock is quite a ways out of town (thank goodness) and the WalMart is only a couple of miles further north of town on the right at Don King Rd. There’s a Ford dealership on the corner and a signal(!). You turn right and go up a little hill and there is a rather small WalMart with a not too huge parking lot.

There was a big RV parked up against the back wall where we would normally park so we parked in a long double space nearby. The big rig drove out just as we finished setting up the trailer. They were on their way to catch the 2:15 sailing of the ferry. We got settled in and opened up the trailer only to discover it was hot and humid inside. It had heated up in the belly of the ferry. We aired it out a bit with the door open a while and then went to bed.

Click here to go to Part II of this blog.