November 2, 2009 by Rae

Ah, That Bracing Ocean Air!

I woke to rain this morning but, as mostly usual, it cleared up by mid-day. Needing to get up at, gasp, 5AM tomorrow I decided that a long walk in the bracing ocean air might be what I need to tucker myself out enough to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Norma left me a little project that requires a trip to the hardware store, so I decided to walk to the Rona, about three kilometres away. The store wound up not having what I needed, but I did get a few things for myself. It was an amazing walk and there were moments that made me feel that I was in either or both an alien world and a Harry Potter novel!

there are wizards in Campbell River!

I thought this was William Tell at first, but turns out it’s Eve!

The first of several fantastic wooden statues all set up in a park. They are available for ‘rent’ by local businesses and I had fun spotting them throughout the village.

Oscar!

Willowpoint Village has a grocery store, coffee shop, restaurants, pharmacy, pizza place, and just about any other service you could need

this whimsical seaside cottage is almost a cliché

Driving down the highway, I saw Cookie Monster from the rear and knew I had to walk down and take a look at all the statues!

first time I’ve seen a wooden inuksuk!

a jetty

????

this burn pattern caught my eye

I wear a size nine shoe, if that’ll help with scale

it also looks like that writhing mass of snakes at the bottom of the Well of Souls in Raiders of the Lost Ark

this is pretty much what I imagined Devil’s Snare (from the Harry Potter series) looks like

yellow dogwood next to seaweed

that is some serious seaweed!

October 17, 2009 by Rae

Back on the Horse

As promised, Miranda was ready to go by 10 on Thursday. She’d undergone an oil change, thorough mechanical inspection, and been washed. I hooked up without fanfare and slowly drove out of there.

In my exploration of Pemberton, I had concluded that the AC Petroleum gas station was the most RV friendly, so I went there to fill up and then across the road to the information centre next to which there is a sani-dump and a potable water tap.

It had rained all morning, but the sky had really cleared up, and I had ideal conditions for getting back on the proverbial horse as I drove out of Pemberton. There was one hill with a steep grade and a couple of hairpin turns that was going to make or break me. I approached it bravely, heart in my throat, geared down, and got down safely, having to tap my brakes only once. They held up fine. 😀

I was caught in a bit of conundrum, time-wise. It was too late to get to Horseshoe Bay, grab a ferry, and arrive at Croft’s place in daylight, but it was much too early to stop for the day. I decided to stop at the Starbucks near the Canadian Tire in Squamish to do some online stuff then go park at Shannon Falls to hike and kill a few hours before pulling into the Walmart for the night.

There was no really convenient place to park at the Canadian Tire, so I took up a bunch of spots and tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, but I ended up not feeling comfortable enough there to stay as long as I could have on the Starbucks connection. So, after a catch up session with Will and a quick check of my email I proceeded to Shannon Falls Park.

There, I paid the 3$ day parking fee, squared Miranda away, and went off to explore the falls and trail network. It was a nice way to wile away a few hours, but I was exhausted and ready to stop for the day.

Three o’clock is too early in my book to park at Walmart for the night, but I decided to make an exception to my rule provided the Walmart folks were okay with overnight RVers. The Walmart in Squamish is really not set up for big vehicles, so I wound up having to park almost in the middle of the lot, taking up a full row of spots. When I came out of the rig and saw a Walmart employee coming up towards me, I figured that he was going to tell me to get lost. But no, he just came over to save me the trouble of going in to ask for permission to park and to let me know that I was parked fine!

The long evening passed quickly as I watched movies and set off on a three hour marathon blog post writing session in eager anticipation of being able to post with pictures. I went into the Walmart a few times to get various sundries and the fourth time the greeter told me “I know you’re parked in that motorhome. Don’t feel obliged to spend the night in here!” LOL!

It wound up being a pretty good night in Squamish, quiet and reasonably dark by Walmart standards. It started to rain in the wee hours of the morning.

Tantalus Lookout

A family picture. That Fiver-er is a Glendale Titanium, a line Glendale still produces even after dropping the Royal Classics

Tantalus Lookout

October 13, 2009 by Rae

Boondocking Success

I probably won’t be able to give a write up of my trip from Nugget City to Campbell River, complete with pictures, until I arrive, so in the meantime, I’ll just share my experiences with the house batteries this time around.

I noticed last spring that my house batteries were not charging while driving. I started by blaming the installation of the new truck battery, which proved to be correct as there was no voltage on the cable from the truck solenoid to the house batteries.

There were no loose wires around the truck battery, so I examined the connections from the solenoid to the battery and found them loose. I cleaned the terminals, applied conductive gel, and tightened the connections. After that, there was proper voltage going from the truck to the house batteries. But that only solved part of the problem as I found that the charging was not satisfactory, especially after long days of driving.

My next suspect was the refrigerator. I guessed that by putting it on ‘auto’ it was switching to battery power rather than LP and that I was draining the battery as I drove.

When I left Nugget City, I purposely left the fridge on ‘auto’ and when I arrived at my spot for the night, my voltage read 12.3. I had left with a fully charged battery and driven almost three hundred kilometres. This did not seem right. I switched the fridge to LP. The battery voltage dipped to about 12.0 overnight as I left the inverter on to recharge the laptop.

The next day, I stopped after about one hundred kilometres of driving and my battery was at 12.6, fully charged! This confirmed to me that my charging problem was resolved. When I parked for the night at the turnout, I still had a fully charged battery. However, I had no sooner turned on the furnace than my battery was at a 50% discharge evidenced by an 11.1V reading!!! I turned off the furnace and the battery reading increased to a more reasonable 11.5 to 11.6 range, more than enough for a comfortable night.

I had recently checked the distilled water levels for the batteries and found them to be satisfactory, but decided that maybe they did need a bit of topping up. They each took on a little water, not enough to make a difference I thought, but I was in for a surprise.

I parked in Prince George with the battery at 12.6V. I ran the furnace all night while recharging the laptop and the battery levels dipped down to the 11.6 to 11.8V range and stayed there steadily.

From Prince George, I returned to the Chasm. My voltage was at 12.6V upon parking and 12.1V upon going to bed after running the furnace and charging my laptop. I left the furnace on all night and awoke to a voltage of 11.8. During the day, the only direct use I made of my batteries was to charge my laptop and the voltage hovered in the 11.6 to 11.8V range. It was a nice sunny day and without doing any math, so take this with a grain of salt, I suspect that I was getting enough juice out of the 15W solar panel to compensate for the laptop charge.

I stayed a second day at the Chasm just for a rest and my battery remained at the 11.6 to 11.8V reading right straight up to my departure (so, two nights of running the furnace). I drove only about a hundred kilometres, including careening down a mountain, before my stop for the night where my battery was at 11.5. It was at 11.3 when the tow truck came this morning.

It seems that my batteries rapidly discharge into the 11V readings, but then stay there steadily. I was glad to be hooked to power tonight, but would have had enough juice for running the furnace.

The generator will be useful to help me boondock in one place for several nights, but I now know that I can boondock from place to place with a small of driving in between each and still be perfectly comfortable. This knowledge is very comforting. I’m starting to feel like a seasoned RVer. 🙂

September 4, 2009 by Rae

Fall Colours

I was happy to get today off, but not so much as when I realised that, hey, my day off coincided with my one year anniversary of being on the road! I didn’t hesitate to pack up a picnic and head back up the Dempster to Tombstone to see the fall colours! I was a little bit late as the colours are fading, but I did manage to get a few good shots. I also decided to rehike the Grizzly Creek Trail, sans 30lb pack, and discovered along the way that I’m sick and tired of climbing UP and I need a break from climbing mountains. 😀 To add to my disappointment, the pictures I took from the summit are all washed out and don’t do justice to the landscape. Bah. 🙂

En route, I stopped at the Klondike River Lodge for a coffee and ran into my Chilkoot guides yet again! Not much later, I ran into my cyclist friends whom I’d met on the Top of the World highway. What a small world for such big country!

On the way back, I picked up a young guy I’d met at the camping this week. He looks like a complete punk, but he had wowed me with his impeccable manners. I hate to judge a book by its cover, but I wouldn’t have picked him up had I not met him before. I’m glad I did because he had the funniest story to tell. We somehow got on the subject of stupid questions tourists asked and his favourite was “What do you guys do with the ice bridge?” To which he replied: “We take a big saw and cut it up into chunks. Every resident of Dawson has to keep at least three chunks in their freezer all summer and then the bridge is reassembled the next winter.” Hee hee!

It was a grey, drizzly day, but, still, what a spectacular anniversary!

This map showing the elevation change for the Grizzly Creek Trail was not up when I first hiked here. Had it been, I’m not sure I would have ventured up with my 30lb pack! It’s actually not that far off from the elevation change from Sheep Camp to the summit, but it’s STEEPER!

there was another one of these guys hanging out by itself in the bushes

okay, this was worth the climb 🙂

June 21, 2009 by Rae

Into the Tundra

This post is a bit out of order as I have two other outings to write up, but this was the most exciting. 🙂 The internet has been misbehaving (a territory-wide issue), hence why I’m behind in my posting. Believe me, a lot has been going on and I’m making the most of my nightless summer in Dawson City!

Today is the solstice, the longest day of the year. Up here, the sun sets for just a short moment; it is the night where we come as close to 24 hours of daylight as possible. True 24 hour daylight is found further north, past the Arctic Circle.

Last year, I set as a goal that I would spend this solstice on the Dempster Highway at the Arctic Circle. I didn’t think it was a realistic goal, but it motivated me to at least be north of 60 by June 21st.

Sunday is a short work day for me, 7AM to 9AM, so I decided that a day trip onto the Dempster was in order. I drove 100km up the highway to Two Moose Lake and celebrated the solstice a ‘few’ hours early (I have to get up at 6 tomorrow!) at the southern limit of the tundra, 300km shy of the Arctic Circle. Wow! 😀

My original plan for the day was to just go hiking in Tombstone Territorial Park, but my manager told me to go 30km further north to Two Moose Lake so I could see the tundra. Great advice! I drove straight to the Lake, then did my planned hike on the Grizzly Creek Trail.

The Dempster has a reputation for being a very rough road, but the 100km I drove were easy. There were perhaps two sections with really bad potholes, but, otherwise, it was very smooth going on a road that was more dirt than gravel. My average speed was 70kph, but my return was more at 80 and 90kph since I knew what to expect. If the road is like that all the way to Inuvik, I am not worried about taking Miranda on it. I was disappointed that the first 30km or so are incredibly boring and that there are far too few turnoffs once you start to hit the incredible views! Small quibbles. 🙂

I only drove one seventh of the Dempster and was already struck by the sheer isolation of the land I was driving through. I saw a homestead or two that were obviously self-sufficient, but, otherwise, there is nothing but mountains and tundra as far as the eye can see. It was land a person could disappear in.

The Milepost guide has a section about the Dempster and includes the following helpful information about Two Moose Lake:

Moose can be seen at twilight.

What about the season when there is no twilight?! 😀

Even though I wanted to keep going after the lake, I knew I had a long drive home and an even longer hike planned, so I turned around and headed back into Tombstone Park. I stopped at the campground and information centre to get the latest trail report and to find out if there had been recent bear sightings on the trail (nope).

The day had dawned very grey with heavy clouds and they let loose during the time I was the information centre. By the time I reached the Grizzly Creek trailhead, the sun was out in full force. I always have ‘luck’ with the weather the day I decide to climb a mountain. Hopefully, that streak will hold up with the Chilkoot!

The trail leads to a backcountry campground, but my goal was the observation deck, about halfway. I hadn’t done any reading on the trail, so I didn’t know what to expect and was prepared for anything. My pack had everything I needed to take care of myself if ‘anything’ happened in the bush. I set off at 2PM with an ETA back at the car of 4 or 5 based on the little information the Milepost gave me.

The trail starts off gently, meandering through thick forest and lush vegetation, following the eponymous Grizzly Creek. The going is a bit treacherous as the trail is composed almost entirely of exposed tree branches, which are very slippery. The path slowly and sneakily starts to climb until you reach a staircase. From there, the slope is obvious and it’s a hard haul to the summit, with a patch of rock scrambling. Without exaggeration, the bit leading from the stairs to the top of the rocky area could be described in the same way as the trail from Sheep Camp over of the Chilkoot Pass is described in books, only in extreme miniature.

What impressed me the most was how the trail takes you up above the treeline to fantastic views of the valley below. Standing up at the summit was very humbling; I felt very small and insignificant, but, ironically enough, very much part of the world around me.

The hike down was much harder, jarring my poor knees. I would have twisted my ankles in a couple of spots had I not been wearing proper hiking boots with high tops. But what great practise this was for my next backcountry hike!

At the trailhead, there is a box with forms for ‘voluntary self-registration.’ The purpose is to find out how many people go into the park and for what reason so that the Yukon government can best manage the land. I filled in some of the info, such as where I was going and how long I planned to be there, but did not fill out the personal information as I am growing a bit paranoid in my older age ( 🙂 ). Upon returning to the trailhead, there is a second form to complete, which asks if there were changes made to the itinerary or length of journey. One of the last questions is “Did you encounter any wildlife?” I replied “Yes, mosquitoes.” Next question was “Why do you think this encounter occurred?” To which I replied “I didn’t wear bug spray.” I’m such a smart ass. 😀

I was back at the car by 4, where I inhaled a snack of yoghurt and a granola bar before heading back home, about an hour and a half away. I am very amused by the fact that I had to stop halfway and take a short nap! I haven’t had a real solid night’s sleep in weeks and have been surviving on catnaps, which explains my exhaustion. 🙂

What a fantastic day it was! I am so thrilled that I got a ‘taste’ of the Dempster this year; it will tide me over until next year, when I will finally go to Inuvik.