Ice Fields Parkway to Alaska

We drove from Banff to Jasper in the afternoon, just in time for some glow in the clouds.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

The scale is so massive that none of these pictures lived up to my expectations. You can still see the incredible twisted and folded geology in the mountains, but from a photo it is impossible to feel how expansive this landscape really is.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

The Ice Fields Parkway is about 260 km long, a three hour drive at the shortest. We were taking our time because the roads were packed with snow and we were only going to see the scenery once!

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

A common sight in the Canadian Rockies - tilted rock layers. 

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

Sheer rock slabs. I am amazed at where the trees manage to cling on!

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

The big bend in the road when climbing the pass up to the Colombia Glacier.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

Sunset in early December happens before 5pm.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

The Colombia Glacier spills out right next to the road at the highest point along the highway.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

After an overwhelming day of incredible scenery, I was glad the sun had set so I could drive the last hour in undistracted darkness. We arrived in Jasper with incredibly clear skies, which meant that we could expect colder weather overnight. We made hot water bottles for our sleeping bags to try and keep comfortable. By the next morning I felt fine but Dash was getting cold and restless. When we checked the car thermometer, it said 6 degrees! We quickly finished breakfast and headed to Maligne Canyon.

Maligne is a canyon that is narrow enough in places that you could leap it, but it would be a risky jump because the canyon can be as deep as 50 meters. 

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

The trail gives great access to views of tall waterfalls (and in winter, icicles) and numerous bridges let you look straight down into the canyon abyss.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

How long will that tree stay there? Probably only until next spring. Marks on the canyon sides from high water suggest that the stream is a raging torrent in summer.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

Farther downstream the canyon mellows out.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

Great colors in the frozen waterfalls. Numerous springs feed in to the stream from up above the canyon walls, building columns of ice in winter.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

I read that in late winter, you can hire a guide to take a tour of the canyon from below! It was too early to do that now, since the stream was open along most of its length.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

These circular ice chunks were funny! They must have been formed in the swirling water in this eddy.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

I never got over how rocky the mountains were.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

There is so much rock.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

Big chunks of rock.

 

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

Our destination was somewhere beyond Fort St. John. We drove through the cities of Grande Prairie and Dawson Creek at night, and they seemed awful. Plumes of stinky steam, piles of trucks and heavy machinery, huge warehouses, power plants, more bad smells, and more ugly buildings. To be fair it was dark and that was all we could see from our narrow strip of highway. It wouldn't have seemed so terrible if I was not tired and looking for a place to sleep. I think that it is a very industrial area, supported by lots of signs advertising these cities as "energetic", haha. 

That night we slogged on to finally come to rest at the Kickinghorse River. The sunrise reminded me of the colors of home, in wintertime. We were getting close!

We stopped at Stone Mountain Provincial Park to climb Summit Peak. The trail actually takes you along the arc of a mountain ridge, and Summit Peak is the last high point.We only had enough time to reach the first peak, which gives great views.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

We stayed at Liard Hot Springs to camp for the night. As per usual, the snow was falling thick and fast. We were a little nervous because a cold front was forecast to come through over the weekend, but it was still relatively warm and the snow made us hopeful that we might squeak by on our last night camping. 

The hot springs are magical in winter! Frost builds up on the nearby trees until they are totally encased, from top to bottom. The hot springs have been kept in a pretty natural state, and they are so hot that it's uncomfortable to be near the source. It's a half mile hike on boardwalk just to get to the springs. The pool has a gravel bottom, and the water exits the pool over a small wooden wall. On the other side is the "cool" pool and a stream continues into the forest. We swam down the stream and it got narrower and narrower until we were squeezing ourselves under logs. It was awesome to see the frosted forest around us partially lit with the blue light of our headlamps. 

Apparently Liard is also the local party spot in wintertime, when there are fewer tourists using the pool. Which is somewhat surprising because the closest "towns" are Muncho Lake and Toad River, and then it's hours from anywhere. When we left at 9pm, people were just starting to arrive in groups.  

In the middle of the night the wind picked up, and it wasn't long before it was howling. At 5am I couldn't sleep anymore because I was too cold, so we decided to pack up the tent and get in one more soak before leaving. The tent was drifted in from the blowing snow! We saw one car still in the parking lot when we walked to the springs, the car still running and someone passed out in the front seat. Hopefully they didn't run out of gas! We never saw the springs in the daylight, which I think made it more of a surreal place.

We stopped at an IGA in Watson Lake to stock up on sandwich fixings and candy bars. We had to prepare for a long day of driving to get back to Tok.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

The last stop we had to make before leaving Canada was finding a Tim Horton's to buy a donut. We found one in Whitehorse and it was delicious.

Thanks to the generosity of the change in multiple time zones, we arrived home in Tok at 9pm. We lucked out with the warm nighttime temperatures, without which we would not have been able to camp with our light-duty gear. Despite all the snow at night, we had pretty good daytime weather for driving and getting out to stretch our legs. And the car made it through this trial by fire. Success!

Driving the Alaska-Canada Highway in December, Colorado to Southern BC

We left Estes Park after a whirlwind Thanksgiving week (the Rockies were literally that windy, with blowing snow too!), headed north to Canada on our way back to Alaska. 

Wyoming had peaceful, serene scenery, and a whole lot of nothing.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

We were not even at the Montana border, and already snow storms were looming. 

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

Even though the state lines are somewhat arbitrary boundaries when you are embarking on a 4,000-mile trip, it felt like an accomplishment for the day when we crossed into Montana at nightfall. Unfortunately, that's when the snow started and it continued until we stopped near Livingston for the night. If only the snow could have held off for just one more day! We had an appointment the next day in Kalispell to buy winter tires for the Subaru. Meanwhile, we narrowly avoided a buck in the pelting snow and I'm sure numerous other deer that we did not see, while crawling along and hoping not to lose traction in the wet snow. We found a likely campsite on the map, and the directions led us up a narrow, steep, and winding road, made all the more mysterious because it was pitch dark and snowing!

The next morning we woke up to a few inches of fresh snow! The good thing about snow is it keeps the night time temperatures warm. Before starting another long day we took a hike in the beautiful Gallatin National Forest.

The Montana hills were all dusted with new snow.

We made sure to pay homage to Sinclair the Dinosaur, without whom this trip would not have been possible.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

We successfully installed our Blizzak winter tires and crossed the Canadian border after dark (incidentally, a lot of our "milestones" will continue to occur after dark). Similar to our stay in Montana, we located a provincial park on the map and drove about 15km off the highway down some twisting forest service roads to reach Premier Lake Provincial Park. 

Still gently snowing, but gorgeous green water.

To inaugurate our first stop in Canada, we hiked the loop trail to Yankee and Canuck lakes. 

Apparently there is a large ridge above the lakes that is important habitat for mountain lions, bighorn sheep, and bears. We had a brief glimpse of the peaks through the clouds and the ridge was startlingly high. I guess when it's overcast your eye tricks you into thinking there is nothing on the other side of the cloud curtain!

We could see that there were a lot of larch trees in the forest, but since it's wintertime they are not very showy.

Our hike took up much of the day, so we stopped in nearby Radium for the night. I was nervous about our camping options, because being so close to Kootenay and Banff National Parks meant that there was not likely to be any place we could stay for free. On the way in to town we saw a large herd of bighorn sheep bedded down right next to the visitor center! Inside the visitor center we inquired about camping and learned that the public can camp anywhere on "crown land". The closest piece of crown land was accessible via logging roads that led into the hills above Radium. When we arrived at the location recommended to us, it was apparent that this was the local booze-and-bonfire spot. Since it was cold, snowing, and a weekday, we felt it was probably safe for the night.

We did get in a short hike in Kootenay the day we arrived, but because of the snow we could only see part of the mountain tops. The trail we chose was anticlimactic because it went up a valley and simply ended, without climbing to any particular viewpoint. But we didn't have enough daylight to hike to the top of anything anyways, so it was more for the purpose of getting exercise. Afterwards we visited Radium Hot Springs, which is actually inside the park. It was not very hot for a wintertime soak, but given about an hour it seemed adequate.

The next morning promised better weather, very important when you are driving the scenic highway through Canada's Rocky Mountains.

One thing that impressed me, first in Radium but throughout the entire drive, was the scale of the timber and natural resources industries in Canada. Radium had a huge sawmill (I think, or some kind of timber yard), and we were constantly passing loaded logging trucks while we were driving.  I could only fit half of the logs that were stacked in this yard in the photo frame.

We encountered several more sheep while leaving Radium, including a ewe that jumped what looked to be an 8 foot high fence, and a ram trotting down the middle of mainstreet. 

We passed in and out of clouds as we crossed into new valleys.

Because it had been unseasonably warm in the parks so far, the rivers and lakes were all wide open which let us see the vivid blue water!

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

We saw big cliffs and pulled off the road to hike up to a hanging valley.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

There are a lot of relatively recently burned areas in Kootenay, which made for better views! The regenerating ponderosa was really thick in places. 

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

The only people we saw while hiking were these ice climbers. How many can you spot?

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

View towards the end of the valley.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

The walls above us were so tall that the valley never got direct sunlight, and it seemed really dark when we turned around to leave even though it was early afternoon.

Photo credit: Dash Feierabend

I wish we could have hiked all the daylight hours, but we were on our way to drive the Ice Fields Parkway and stay in Jasper for the night.

The Worst Anchorage Christmas Ever (no offense)

It's been a while since I updated the blog, and at the top of my posts list was a draft from last Christmas. The desperation in the title made me laugh out loud, but seriously, climate change in Alaska is no joke. Let's hope that this winter is a little snowier.

Dash and I survived another warm December in Anchorage, but this year was much worse than last year. To start with, there was only an inch of snow. This quickly melted into ice as it began to rain every day. The trails were impassible, and hiking at higher elevations was not an option because of 60+ mph winds most days. It became so icy that we couldn't even enjoy a hike around town. We did however get in a few days of ice skating.

The Big Thaw, watercolor

Tok at Winter Solstice, watercolor and ink

Hatcher's Pass, watercolor and ink

Pufferfish Antler-mobile, caribou antler painted with acrylic, grouse feathers, string (by Dashiell Feierabend)

Rear view 

Birch Bottle, plastic nalgene painted with acrylic