Alaska, 2.8

Stewart BC, Hyder AK, all the way to Colorado

To get to Hyder, AK, you need to travel through Stewart BC. There is no border crossing check, just drive right back into the USA from the Canada side. But there is Canadian customs when returning back into Stewart. The village of Hyder is small, but filled with character. Most of the business’s have long been boarded up and abandoned. But there are still a few that hang on due to the flow of tourists coming to see the bears and Salmon Glacier. And of course, going to the Bus for some of the best fish and chips around.

The original Bus. Five years ago on our previous visit, there was a board walk with picnic tables. During the pandemic, they were forced to shut it down. So they recycled the wood to make above ground planters for growing veggies. They worked out of this bus for 22 years.

The now "Take Out" Shack. This was there before, but it was a coffee and ice cream building. Now, they serve only fish and chips until they run out for the day.

The Bear Walk, is a board walk built specifically for watching bears catch salmon and do other bear things. It’s pretty popular and we were once again part of the very lucky group who were able to watch a bear in the stream terrorizing salmon and sometimes catching one. He came from under the bridge, and wandered up the stream for quite a long way, and then turned around and came back down. Everyone was able to get a good view and plenty of photos and videos.

After the bear walk that morning, we decided to drive down a short road that lead out to a dead end that was a small marina and boat dock. We spent some time there wandering around taking pictures, flying the drone, and waiting for The Bus to open at noon so we go get our fish and chips. They were just as good as last time, but the actual bus isn’t in working mode any longer. During the Covid lockdown, no one was allowed into Hyder, so it sat dormant for too long and is now just a cherished memory. The owners, Jim and Diane, served the fish that Jim caught, for 22 years. Now, they are running their business out of a little log shack that sits next to the bus. They say they’ll continue doing it for as long as it makes them happy.

The remains of what the original Hyder was built upon. Which was over the bay on stilts. This was not sustainable, so they moved the town inland a little to where it is now. They originally wanted the town to be named Portland City, but the US postal Service declined their request. We don't know who placed the bird houses, but I thought they were very interesting to see. The Canadian Customs Border check office is middle/top of image.

From Stewart, we drove a long day all the way to Frasier Lake and found two more beautiful campsites. Kathy and Monika stayed up sitting around the campfire until around 12:30 hoping for some northern lights. They didn’t show that night, but they are not losing hope.

The next day, we drove a short distance back to Prince George where we did some resupply shopping and met up with Mark and Mandi again. This was planned out by the group because we had some extra free days in our schedule. So Mark and Mandi will be traveling with us for the next 6 days as we visit two more Canadian national parks. We ate lunch at Earl’s in Prince George, and then hit the road again to try to make it to Williams Lake for the night.

We ran into two road delays along the way, but made it to our campsite by around 5:30. I was pretty tired of driving and happy to be having my happy hour beverage. We have decided to stay at this site for two nights. Two reasons for this two night stay: (1) we all needed a break from the road, and (2) Monika found out that there was a garlic festival in the town nearest to our campground. Monika has a knack for finding things to do for all of us. We arrived there at 11:15am, along with about 2000 other people! There were just under 200 booths, and a live band and all kinds of garlic. It is grown here by many people is what we found out. The festival also had many other artists and crafts people from around the local area and Canada. I think we found out that only folks from Canada could participate in selling their goods. I think we all bought a few things and had some lunch and enjoyed the atmosphere of the place. There is something about Canadians that just sits well with us.

When the “too loud” regular live band was taking a break, I heard this other band performing from a distance. It had instruments and vocals and that caught my attention. I walked toward the source and discovered a 5 piece group playing some blue grass on the porch of the Historical Society building. They weren’t drawing too much attention so I managed to get close to take some photos of them performing. I was so happy to hear their talents in the instruments and their voices. This really put a smile on my face. I stood and listened as they played a few songs. Then, to my dissatisfaction, and to theirs as well as witnessed by myself and one of the band members as I made eye contact with him, the other main band started playing again, drowning out the delicate and beautiful sounds. They had no choice but to wrap it up and quit playing. I was happy to have that moment though, it was a fun moment I’ll remember. After that, we ate our lunches and then headed back to the campground.

Since we have a few free days on the schedule, we all agreed to spend some time around Revelstoke, BC. Our very talented team of organizers found a great campground for 4 nights and there are 2 national parks in the area too. So we spent some time hiking and site seeing around that area before heading down to Kelowna and the Okanagan Valley for some winery and fruit orchard site seeing.

The further south we drive, the earlier the sun is setting. This is happening quite dramatically to be honest. We were so accustomed to having the sun setting around 10:30 or 11PM, now its setting around 8:30 or 9. The day time light is beginning to turn into more night time dark. The leaves and ground cover and bushes are turning as well. Soon, the aspen and birch trees will be turning yellow. The night time temperatures are getting a little lower and the day time temps are also not as hot. There is one thing to say about taking this long of a trip over the summer, we ended up missing all the very hot days that happened at home. We instead were wearing jackets and warm layers most of the time. In fact, most of the time, both Kathy and I were on the cold side and looking to get warm somehow.

Our first day in Revelstoke was spent at Canada’s Glacier National Park. It is east of Revelstoke about an hour and high in the mountains. Mandi found a nice hike for all of us and I found some photography while the women found and picked wild huckleberries! They came home with a big ziplock baggie full. Mandi turned them into the most delectable huckleberry cobbler for desert that evening. We were all in desert heaven that night.

My photography was film on that trip but I did take one pic of the berry pickers.

We then found two other easy boardwalk walks to do that took us into some deep old growth forests and I managed to make these two images from that walk.

The next day was nothing but steady rain. There was a brief break in the late morning to early afternoon, but then it started again in the evening and into the night. We all went to town for some walking and window shopping and a lunch at a local bar and grill. On our way back the campground, Kathy and I stopped to walked to a waterfall that is right next to the campground, so I managed to get a few fun shots of that. The light was not the best, but I tried to make the best of it with the time I had.

The last day at Revelstoke, we all drove to the top of Mount Revelstoke. This is also a National Park and there is a 26km switch back road that ends near the summit. The mountain is dense trees all the way to the top, but the summit has different trees due to it’s elevation and climate. It was cloudy and foggy, but once again, you take what you get and make the best of it. So I was very happy taking monochrome images in the foggy trees.

On our way down the mountain, we stopped at a lookout picnic area and ate some lunch and then made one more stop at a place of interest. Nels Nelson was a local ski jumping hero back in the early 1900’s. He broke world records for ski jumping so the town decided to commemorate his legacy by preserving some of ski jump area. Someone had the very clever idea to place this very fun ski jumping person body frame here for folks to lean out and get a sense of the feeling of jumping out into the air on skis.

We ended the day and our time with Mark and Mandi with a group dinner and nice fire at our campsite. Mark and Mandi are really great people and we hope to one day spend some time with them again.

Next destination is Penticton, BC for two nights, on the southern end of the Okanagan valley. (sorry, no photos to post from this stay) This region is very well known for it’s grapes and wine, and for it’s fruit growing orchards. The days are warm and nights are cool. Penticton is situated between two lakes giving it very unique qualities for growing very good grapes and fruit. But before we were to take our wine tasting tours, Kathy and Monika wanted to spend a couple hours floating down the Okagnagan river. This river is more like a slow moving canal that connects the Okanagan Lake to the Skaha Lake. There is a company that rents a wide variety of floating devices, so they rented a two seater and spent two hours enjoying the sun and water.

Once Al came back from gathering the floaters, we all got ready and left for our wine tasting tours. We decided on the first two wineries and then picked two more after that. So much fun! I pretty much skipped the tasting at the 4th winery since I was feeling the effects of our many different wines we were presented already. I ended up buying some bottles to take home and was happy, so was Al, with our outing.

The next day we crossed the border back into the USA. Al and Monika were heading to Boise ID to visit Al’s brother, and we were heading to The Palouse in eastern Washington. We are to meet up again in 5 days at Gros Ventra campground at Grand Tetons NP for our final camping location of the trip.

I managed to find a campsite at the Palouse RV Park in the town of Palouse WA. This was surprising since all three days were over Labor Day weekend. The campground has only ten sites, but all have full hookups with 50 amp power, meaning we were able to run both air conditioners since the temps were low to mid 90’s. We needed them too, we spent the hottest parts of the day in the trailer and went exploring all the other times.

The Palouse region is a vast farming area for wheat, barley, lentils, garbanzo beans and other grains. It’s rolling hills resemble sand dunes frozen in time and are it’s most famous and well known qualities aside from holding the point of pride in it’s record production of grain. Modest farms are scattered around the area as are modest villages and towns. This area has to be seen and experienced to really get an appreciation for it. My photos do not come close to seeing this in person. I was awestruck many times in the three nights and two days we spent there. As a photographer and art loving person, I could go back and spend many days further exploring and making images there. 95% of the harvesting had already taken place, but the few machines still running were so impressive to watch as they moved slowly up and down the hill sides. Like some futuristic alien machine that has come to steal the grain from us. These combines have evolved so the machine stays level as the head glides along the contours of the slopes.

I flew the drone many times during our stay. This was to me, a photography workshop for 3 days. Kathy joined me each morning as we rose early enough to see not only the beautiful sunrise colors, but also moose, coyote, and many birds. She joined me for two sunset sessions also. And she was very patient while I flew the drone or stopped to get other images. I’ve included some of the Palouse images here, but I want to take my time at home with choosing and processing images from this area and eventually, I’ll post them in the Alaska gallery or a separate one.

Famous historical flour mill in Oakesdale. Known as J.C. Barron's Mill

This side of the mill had another attached building, but is no longer there.

I was sort of sad to leave the Palouse area, but onward we must go. We spent 2 and half days traveling to Grand Tetons National Park. One night was spent in Missoula, MT again, and the second night was in a national forest campground along the Gallatin River south of Bozeman, MT. This campground had electric and was right next to the river. The Gallatin river was the river featured in the movie, A River Runs Through It. One heck of a gorgeous place. I can see why a novel and movie were made there.

Now we are at our final camping location for the trip! Grand Tetons national park, and Yellowstone National park. Kathy and I made the final drive down to the park to meet up with Al and Monika. They spent the last 6 days in Oregon and Idaho visiting a winery and family in Boise. We have spent 4 nights in Gros Ventra campground in Tetons, where she and I have been 2 other times. We had three days to find things to do, so the first day Kathy and I drove around a little on our own. The second day we all drove up to Yellowstone for a day of geyser gazing. We drove to Old Faithful lodge area and walked around the boardwalk and then waiting for Old Faithful to erupt, which it did, right on time. Then we went to Black Sands Geyser area to walk more boardwalks and get some really fascinating images.

The last day of our time together, we decided to take a short hike in the foothills below the Tetons. It was great weather and I for one really enjoyed the hike and getting outside for some movement and activity. We hiked to Taggart Lake, which turned out to be about a 4 mile round trip hike. I shot a couple film images, no digital on this hike. Then we ate at a local pizza place and enjoyed the view of the Tetons one more time.

The next day, Kathy and I rose at 6am to meet our planned departure time of 7am. We were right on time, and saw two moose right away as we drove out of the campground. We counted at least 5 other tour company vehicles and many other single vehicles trying to get their chance to see and photograph a moose or two.

There are two pathway options to use when traveling by car from Jackson, WY to Arvada, CO. One takes you south first and through a winding canyon before straitening out. The other takes you a little north before then heading east and finally southeast. The north route has better roads with less curves. It also had a wild fire going on. The road was open, but we to expect a pilot car to be operating. We decided to go the north route for the better roads despite the smoke of the fire. Once we got into the fire zone, the smoke was pretty heavy and we almost regretted our decision. But it kept getting lighter and lighter as we drove. So, we kept going and it turned out to be ok. The road was light with traffic and in excellent condition. I put my air pods in and cruised home with no issues. We arrived home at 4:30pm on Monday the 9th.

11,055 miles total. 13 mpg, this blew my mind. Last time it was 12.5 mpg. Cannot figure out why it was better this time. Maybe more miles driving without pulling the trailer And, 86 days away from home.

Thank you all for following along with us, its been a real adventure for sure. Thankfully, neither Al and Monika, or us, had any mechanical issues that affected our trip. We both do have some repairs to make, but I think that can be expected with a trip of this magnitude. The Airstream does show some more wear and use, but I think I can get those things repaired during the off season coming up.

Until next time!

Dennis

Alaska 2024, Analog Edition

Alaska, 2.7