October 10, 2009 by Rae

Quick Update as I Boondock My Way Across British Columbia

Very quick update!

I am posting from Prince George. (Les, if you’re reading this, I won’t be stopping in on this trip, thanks!) I can’t do justice to the last four days with a free Starbucks wi-fi connection, so details will have to wait. 🙂

I am now at my third day of boondocking and will be boondocking again tonight, with no hardship whatsoever. I have plenty of battery juice, heat, running water, a fully charged laptop, and plenty of reading material. And I’m not even running the genset! I just solved my battery charging issues from the spring; more on that in my next post.

As for the genset, it probably needs a new fuel filter seeing as no fuel whatsoever is getting into it but it runs fine when I inject gasoline directly into the carburetor. I’m going to go price one at Canadian Tire this morning, but if it’s expensive, I won’t bother for this trip seeing as I’m not in dire need of the extra power.

My decision to take the Cassiar Highway was one of the best I have made in my thirteen months on the road. More about that will follow. 🙂

Unfortunately, the weather being what it was in Nugget City, I didn’t make nearly as much money as I would have liked, so I’m in a real rush to get to Campbell River and a new job. I’m therefore doing long days of driving and provided Croft says it’s okay ( 🙂 ), I might be there at the end of this week!

Long days and cold nights not withstanding, these have been my absolute best days on the road so far, bar none, just because I’m finally living my dream of a self-contained life. If only I could have my own internet, but I’m now back in ‘civilization’ and my Starbucks account gives me two hours free DAILY at their hotspots so I can at least check in periodically. 🙂

August 19, 2009 by Rae

Sticker Shock

Today was my first time since leaving southern BC that I got real honest to goodness sticker shock. I thought I had some when I found out that kitty litter sells for a dollar a pound up here, but this was worse!

I ran out of propane on my onboard tank and, suspecting that propane would be ‘pricy’ up here, I decided to live off my 30 pounder until I get back to Whitehorse. I therefore had the 30 pounder filled today and the bill came to… thirty-six dollars.

All winter in Surrey, I filled that tank for twenty dollars. My onboard tank was last filled for thirty-seven dollars in Coquitlam!

OUCH!!!

I’m just grateful that I was able to go three full months with my onboard tank and an additional couple of weeks with the dregs of the 30 pounder, so I know that that I’m in no dire straits to fill up the onboard tank and that the auxiliary tank will get me back to civilization!

(not that Dawson isn’t civilization, of course… 😀 )

August 1, 2009 by Rae

Northern Conflagration

This dry, hot summer has been a forest fire nightmare. There are currently major fires burning outside every major community in the Yukon, with fires near Watson Lake being critical, and many more throughout Alaska and British Columbia where several communities are on evacuation alert. The last few days, the weather forecast in Dawson has been represented by a fire, indicating smokey conditions. I don’t have a very good olfactory sense, but I’ve been able to smell the smoke for two days now. Today, it was particularly cloying as it’s also damp out.

This is what things have looked like for several days now. Don’t mistake it for fog, this smoke is thick, grey, and tastes like ash.

smoke

We had a good dose of rain overnight, taking us from hot and dry to cold and damp in just twelve hours, but it will take a lot more to end the wildfires.

European tourists I spoke to yesterday were flabbergasted that we don’t put the fires out. I replied that forest fires are a natural phenomenon often sparked by lighting more than by human hand. It’s cost prohibitive to put out fires in the wilderness and not ecologically sound to do so. Some plants need the high heat of wildfires for germination. Wildfire suppression causes more damage in the long run than letting nature run its course.

July 25, 2009 by Rae

The Cost of the Chilkoot Trip

Several people have followed my link to the Sea to Sky website page about the Chilkoot hike and commented that the cost for the trip is very high. Someone even used the word ‘exorbitant.’ I couldn’t disagree more; the trip was a bargain!

In cold hard numbers, the trip cost $1569.75 and covered essentially eight full days, for a total per diem of $196.22.

Just think, I had no responsibility whatsoever beyond getting my personal items together. Everything else was taken care of for me, from coordinating train schedules to gathering together the necessary permits to putting together meals. This enabled me to focus on getting in shape.

All meals except for the dinners in Skagway and Whitehorse were provided, including an additional snack for the train ride to Alaska. We were extremely well fed, with fresh produce every day, and tons of treats being brought in for us at Lake Bennett. I met a couple on the trail who were eating freeze-dried food exclusively and going through about $80 worth of the stuff each per day, for a total of $160 that closely reaches Sea to Sky’s per diem!

We had two guides for a group of five guests when the industry standard is one guide for five guests. I chose to help them out on occasion with meal preparations, doing dishes, or hauling water (they were, after all, only human and as tired as the guests!), but I didn’t have to, which turned a very strenuous hike into something more closely resembling a ‘vacation.’

All transportation from Whitehorse and back was included and we even did a 5K detour on the way back to drop me off at my cousin’s place (I hiked out to the South Klondike Highway on the day out).

Finally, the hike required some equipment I don’t have and didn’t feel I could justify purchasing for this one trip when storage is at such a premium in the RV, so Sea to Sky provided me with a larger pack, an inflatable sleeping pad, a tent, and a hiking pole, saving me hundreds of dollars.

In short, it’s easy to look at a number like the one on the website and blink, but when you add it all together, it’s surprising that the cost for the trip is so low!

July 22, 2009 by Rae

Bareloon Lake to Bennett and Out

The meanest miles didn’t give up once. The final stretch of the trail is uphill through sand. Never was I so happy to see a church steeple as I did when we reached Lake Bennett, our final campground!

We stopped just before the campground to look out over the lake. There were two floatplanes there. Flying out is another option when finishing up the Chilkoot and the one chosen by a family of 8 (including two young children) who had paralleled our trip, but pushed on to Bareloon when we stopped at Lindeman. We took a moment to wave them off as they flew into the wild blue yonder. Clichéd, I know, but the pictures will prove the cliché true.

We were met just before Bennett by another Sea to Sky guide who kindly brought in our last dinner, breakfast, and lunch so we’d have less to carry. Dinner that night at Bennett was an event, with caesar salad, mini-pizzas (assembled on site), pasta, wine, and cheesecake!

There is a lot to see in the Bennett area, so I explored a bit during the evening. What struck me the most was the amount of debris, mostly glass and rusted cans, which cover the site. They are all that remain of the hotels and saloons which covered this site during the gold rush.

Bennett is a strikingly beautiful location, a turquoise lake resting against grey mountains and rimmed with purple fireweed. Lake Louise doesn’t hold a candle to it! Mark was right when he said that hikers who take the shortcut from Bareloon miss out on something extraordinary.

We had another leisurely morning the next day and the guys made us pancakes for breakfast, a real treat after almost a full week of oatmeal and breakfast bars! We then went for a walk, sans pack, to check out the Bennett cemetery and also to look over the rapids that separate Lindeman and Bennett Lakes.

Lunch was veggie quesadillas and then it was time to start getting serious about packing up as more hikers were coming off the trail and in need of our sandy tent sites.

We left Bennett at 3PM on a train headed for Skagway that would drop us off in Fraser, where we’d left our van. It was strange to move forward without effort and I actually felt a bit queasy on the hour or so ride!

En route back to Whitehorse, we stopped briefly in Carcross to pick up our trail completion certificates and to poke around the tiny community. Our day, and our journey together, ended in Whitehorse, at the High Country Inn, where we had dinner without even changing or showering first. We ate out on the patio. 😀

My journey over the Chilkoot Pass is one I will carry in my heart forever. It was a week that blended history, ecology, and exercise; one that took me from lush Alaskan rainforest to British Columbian desert in the footsteps of men and women who shaped the modern Yukon territory. It was the trip of a lifetime.