Headin' South to Home (mid-August)

We last saw you at Dease Lake on the Cassiar Highway and we still have a ways to go.
Soooo!!

Mount Edziza is a stratovolcano in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. The volcano and the surrounding area are protected within Mount Edziza Provincial Park.  It consists of multiple peaks and ridges, with several glaciers flowing in all directions. The summit is topped by an ice-filled caldera which is almost 1 mile wide. The three main peaks around the summit caldera are the southwest summit, the southeast summit and the north summit. Ice Peak overlaps the southern flank of Mount Edziza.
Mount Edziza is Canada's highest volcano at 9,121 ft. However, Mount Silverthrone in southwestern British Columbia has a height of 9,396 ft and might be the highest volcano in Canada. But it has never been determined if Silverthrone's 9,400 ft high point is actually volcanic rock or not (it is covered by snow and ice), making Mount Edziza the highest confirmed volcano in Canada.  Whatever, it is quite a sight.

 More views of the Cassiar Highway, including PAINTED LINES.  We are back in civilization,
maybe.

It is a very pretty drive, except for all the traffic.

Yep, too much traffic, after almost an hour here comes another camper.

We got to Meziadin Junction where there was supposed to be a gas station.  There wasn't.  At the last stop for gas we paid over $9 dollars per gallon for gas.  Knew this station was here so we got enough to get here.  Also at that station we talked to other RV'ers who told us we needed a reservation for any of the RV Parks in Stewart or Hyder.  With all this information we decided to stay at the Meziadin Lake  Park.  No hook up and you know how much that bothers us.  :)  Water (having enough in our tank) was a concern also.  But not the first time on the trip.
So we parked the RV here and drove the Honda on to Stewart, B.C. and Hyder, Alaska.  No problem.  42 miles one-way would be a lot cheaper with the Honda than the RV anyway.  It was also a beautiful drive.

This one is on the way to Stewart, BC.

Here is a glacier that no longer reached all the way down.

And here is one that did.  It is Bear Glacier. 

Ice Pack on the river

One of the many waterfalls coming off the Misty Fiords Ice Pack.  The glaciers also started there.  With all this ice, you can easily forget that this is August.

Like I said, waterfalls.

We had Breakfast at the King Edward Hotel Restaurant.  This was their version of the carved bear at every door.  I think it is a law that you got to have a bear at the door.















From here we are going out to Fish Creek at Hyder.  When the salmon are running there will be bears--and the salmon are running.  Some people have reported that there are as many as a hundred bears at a time going after the fish.

And here we are at Fish Creek and look at all those Bears.  Look at all those bears.  



What Bears?

Here is the boardwalk above Fish Creek where you can see all those bears feeding on the fish.




What Bears?

By being up here on the boardwalk we are safe from the bears below in Fish Creek.






What bears?

Yep, the fish are here and the bears will be having a feast.





What bears?

The boardwalk above Fish Creek is very sturdy and the viewers of the bears are very safe from attack.
As I did, you are probably wondering where the bears are.  What happened, when the bears were to start coming out, the road right beside the Creek had a bunch of noisy construction.  That drove them off, except at night.  So that is when the bears come.  Also the days have been very warm, even hot.  I am not going to go looking for bears at night no matter how safe the boardwalk is.

To bad, the fish are here.  










Seeing the bears was a bust so we decided to go see Salmon Glacier. 

It is 16 miles up a dirt road.  A dusty, dirt road.

There were other things to see, like the Premier Mine.  

This tells about the mine.

There is the mine.  22 million dollars in gold came out of that hole.

More of the Misty Fiords Ice Pack.
All the melting water comes down this side of the hills is going into the Salmon River.

The toe of Salmon Glacier.

This tells you what a toe of a glacier is.  Plus information of Salmon Glacier.  

This is a close-up of Salmon Glacier.  This shows just how close we drive and look down at it.  It was great.

This is five pictures I put together to show the Glacier as it comes down from the summit.  As you know we have seen a few glaciers on this trip.  This was one of the top ones.   You can't get the idea of how big it is from the pictures, so I guess you got to go see for yourself.

Not often you get to stand next to a river of ice.  And you could hear it moving.

This is the road and the side moraine of the glacier.  This gives you an idea of how big it once was.

This is the Summit view of the Salmon Glacier.  Under all this ice is a lake of melted water.  Every spring the ice blocks the water from escaping and when it does the Salmon River will raise 4 to 5 feet in a matter of minutes and will last for several days.  This happens every year.

This is the sign at the summit.

This is a nice contrast, flowers and ice,  That is an arm of the Salmon glacier that has retreated to what you see.

Here is My Dear Bride above the ice.  Can you guess how warm it is if she is stand that near to all the ice without a jacket?  The glacier is not all that close.  She is standing next to maybe a 50 foot drop-off.


There are also ice packs right above the glacier.

This is the top of the glacier.  Quite a sight.

We took some more pictures of the ice, and rocks.  Notice the blue in the ice.  It is hard to believe that this was once just simple snowflakes stacking up.  







This Glacier drops over 4,000' in a very short time.  At one time it reached all the way to Hyder and the Portland Canal.  That has been a few years ago.  

On the way down we got this picture of the Salmon River going down.  You can see where the 
glacier once carved the walls and how high it was.

This ice from Salmon Glacier floating along in the Salmon river.

Care for an Ice cube in your drink?

We stopped on the way down at Fish Creek again.  We drive right by it.  It was later in the day and thought maybe we might get lucky.  At least we got to watch the salmon.





 

And then there was a bear.

It was a small Black bear, but it was a bear.  It ignored us completely and went fishing.  You think anyone could catch a fish in this creek.  I think I could have.  

 He tried.

And he tried.  Somehow he has the same luck fishing that I do.

I never saw it catch a fish.  It kind of wandered off. maybe it will do better without an audience.


BUT WE SAW A BEAR. 

 We saw some log rafts in the Portland Canal which goes right up to Stewart.  (Some of you may be confused by the name 'canal'.  I was.  But this 'canal' is naturally formed, not dug by man.)  The Portland Canal is the southern boundary between Alaska and British Columbia.  It is 90 miles long and is Canada's northern-most seaport.  Hyder, just inside the Alaskan border, was first named Portland, until the US Postal Service told them there were too many cities named Portland.  

This is the Estuary Boardwalk in Hyder, going out for a spectacular view of the Portland Canal.   Lot of Interpretive panels telling you what you are looking at.







It was getting to be a long day so we headed back to the RV after buying a can of gas--just in case.

When we got there My Dear Bride caught me chasing bugs, reading and watching a thunderstorm come in.  And it did rain and thunder.










We pulled out the next morning, cleaner with the dust mostly washed off the toad.  But they were not going to stay clean.  It was a drizzly damp day.  Low on gas and out of water we carried on.

We got gas at Kitwancool, B. C.  They had two different prices for the gas, one for the Natives, or First Nations, or Indians.  (whatever you want to call them) and one for everyone else.  I could not convince them I was a member of the First Nation.  Incase you didn't guess it, we had pulled down into a reservations or what ever they call them in Canada.  The gas station had a lot of totem poles around it and this carver was going to add another.

This was not the chainsaw carving we had been seeing.  He was doing it all by hand with some very sharp tools.  A real craftsman.

This totem pole he's carving is in remembrance of a chief who died recently.  Next to it is one done a while back for a friend who died in the service.








There were quite a few others around.  I didn't ask if he did them all.  (he told me that totems were carved by many different carvers, and designed by others.)  I would bet it takes a while.

Relieved with a full tank of gas, we traveled through farming flat countryside on the way to Prince George, BC.  There we spent the night there and headed south again next morning.  

Newly harvested hay fields with round bales of hay herald the change of seasons--already!

 

 Saw a few log trucks with loads of small skinny logs.

Most of them were on the road; uh-oh!

Here we are at Williams Lake, B.C. which according to the statue, is a rodeo town.

Then we came to Williams Lake Tourism Discovery Centre.  This is a truly uniquely designed log structure.  Natural forked and curved posts, nature's oddities that are not normally used in log construction are integrated into the design of the building.  

Carved rafters

Had great displays inside like a completed log cabin built inside to be used for video viewing, meetings, whatever, all expertly designed and constructed.  It was truly a showcase.

This humorous construction exemplifies modern camping, with all the "essential" gear!

Or a fully loaded car ready to go camping,  I mean really fully loaded.

My Dear Bride got to go kayaking too.
Isn't she having fun....
















We got back on the road again after enjoying this truly fascinating building.  If you are ever near Williams Lake it is a must see.

We stopped for the night at Golden Trails RV Park in Clinton B.C.  We had their BBQ that we had seen advertised and it was not worth writing about so I won't.  (But being relieved of cooking after just arriving at 5pm, was nice.)






We are getting relatively closer to home now, and we are not stopping as much to take pictures or visit.

We did stop at the drier landscape of the Frasier River Canyon viewpoints.  It was worth the drive and the views.

We continued on and crossed over into Washington with no problems.  We drove on until it was later than we usually do, too late to find a Campground.  We ended up stopping at 9:45pm (dark, late, ugh!) at a Secured Rest Area at Maytown, Washington just south of Seattle.  

We were a bit tired.  We had driven over 12 hours and we were beat, and Portland weekend traffic loomed ahead of us.
About 430AM Mother Nature called, and so I used the rest area facilities.  As I walked back to the RV I realized we could get through Portland before the rush, if we started NOW.  So I got every thing ready on the toad and RV and hit the road.  Today we were going to be home.  

My Dear Bride was still asleep in the back not even realizing we were moving (not true), or at least she was not making any noise about it (yes, that's it.)  She was not making any noise about anything.  Then I wondered if she got out at the Rest Area too.  Nah, if she had she would have seen me getting ready, she had to be back there.  If not she was ten miles back at the rest area and I was in big trouble.  So I pulled over to check and as I entered the bedroom I hear "Are we there yet? Why did you stop?"  I told her to go back to sleep I we went on.  I took this photo as the sun came up behind Mt Hood.

We were back in Oregon.  I was joined later by My Dear Bride and we stopped for breakfast south of Portland.  We got home early that afternoon.  We made it.  The trip was over.  Nope, not quite.  

We still had to unload, clean up and chase the deer off.  This one came up in our back yard, and laid down as if she had been there many times, even reached over and bit off a plant.

She jumped up when Pauline opened the door as if to say "Oh no, you're home!" then she sauntered off.

As it began, so it ends--with clean-up.  We are home.  Time to remove all those very sticky travel souvenirs--a.k.a bugs--and buff & polish it up!











I want to thank every one who commented on our trip and our blog,  Your encouragement was needed and appreciated.  See you later.