Brace yourself, sit comfy and have beverages handy, you will see 210 pictures.....
Please, do NOT copy those, they are my property.
We drove the Trans Canadian Highway One (TCH1) through Calgary, noticed all the Olympic installatons. We did not stop in Lake Louise, missed the exit. Entering the national park in Banff we had to pay $ 9.00 because our Golden Age Passport was not valid in Canada.
We settled for the night in the campground Monarch, near the city Fields. We are already in British Columbia. The mountains around are very high, ca, 12000', without Panorama or Zoom fixture in my camera I did not take any other pics than this. Banff Ntl. Park is one of the Heritage Sites of UNESCO. Flora and Fauna are awesome in its beauty. We saw a huge elk nearby..... The person who took this picture of Dieter and me was not a good photographer.... Until we got to Dawson Creek, we observed 2 Grizzlies, drove to Avalanche Tunnels and Snow Bridges. The landscape overall very alpine. After Kamloops the landscape changes, only single small firs, desert like terrain, mountain peaks very serated and many salt lakes. The route is 97 - -Williams Lake ( we had our brakes replaced there). Quesnel, Prince George, Dawson Creek. No pictures taken on that entire awesome stretch of land. I was so fascinated by the sceneries, that I rather enjoyed it and forgot my camera. At that point I had no idea that I became a blogger, an author. The fact of missing pictures and missing notes is the reason why I am not writing another book, about this trip... You will see that I took enough pictures where we stayed longer or where we made excursions. The page Postcards gives you an impression of the beauty of all the landscapes in British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon Territory. |
Tetsa River Provincial Park, BC
We had a camperfriend driving with us north in his Winnebago. His was an Itasca Adventurer and ours a Winnebago Itasca Suncruiser. the motorhomes looked almost the same. We had met up in Sulphur Springs, Montana. He did not feel well and parted from us later on in Watson Lake, YT, to drive back to the US. Muncho Lake is a lake in northern British Columbia, Canada. The lake is part of the Muncho Lake Provincial Park and located at kilometre 681 (mile 423)[1] of the Alaska Highway. The lake is about 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) long and its width varies between 1 and 6 km. It reaches a maximum depth of 223 meters (732 ft). The surrounding peaks (the Terminal Range of the Muskwa Ranges to the west and the Sentinel Range to the east) reach altitudes of more than 2,000 meters (6,600 ft), while the lake lies at an elevation of 820 meters (2,690 ft). It is formed along the Trout River, a tributary of the Liard River. The jade green color of the lake is attributed to the presence of copper oxide leached from the bedrock underneath.[2] Its name is derived from the Kaska language in which "muncho" translates as "big water".[3] |
Liard Springs Provincial Park.
Please, refer to the postcards for a picture of the Liard Hot Springs. Please, click on the following link to read and know more about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liard_River_Hot_Springs_Provincial_Park We enjoyed the walkway to the springs through lush and almost tropic vegetation and flowers and soaked in it for 15 minutes, by then we felt the heat in an uncomfy way.. |
The bear looks so small here, but in reality it was pretty big.
Sign Post Forest is a collection of signs at Watson Lake, Yukon and is one of the most famous of the landmarks along the Alaska Highway. It was started by a homesick GI in 1942. Visitors may add their own signs to the 75,000 already present. We parked in Downtown RV Park for 2 nights, to be able to spend a long time amongst all those signs. |
Finally, we reached Alaska, parked just across the border in Scottie Creek, at the gas station. We could get an electrical hook-up. And we decided to stay for 2 nights, just to rest a little and clean our motorhome and the car.
"But just with as little water as possible!" Only per bucket, not per hosing.....quite a task. |
I had asked this man to post with Dieter for a picture, because I admired him for his achievements.
He is a native of Nome ( really the edge of the continent...), comes from very poor upbringings and all his siblings were alcoholics, having no work and no outlook on life whatsoever. He parted from his family to find work in the lower Alaska. He worked hard in this gas station and found the complete trust of the owner. He was managing the entire station, including the adjacent parking areas for RV's, all by himself. Both men, Dieter and he, talked for a couple of hours... Sorry, I forgot his name after 9 years. I never made notes. |
In Palmer again for one night. Mountain View RV Park has a homely feel to it, we liked it there very much. At this time, Matanuska Mountains are almost bare of ice....
We wanted to stay at Walmart in Anchorage, but Walmart did not allow campers anymore to park...so we moved on to Palmer - 272 miles overall for that day. |
Pull-out near Denali Ntl. Park, where we had to stay overnight on July 16th because a massive Low moved in. We could not see the mountains anymore, rain drizzle started and the thermometer fell at a pace you could see. It was getting very cold and it started snowing and it rained ice, all at the same time.
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We drove very carefully to the Denali Visitor Center to inquire about the weather. No forecast to the better for 3 days...We bought a handful of cards and left. The highway was still wet and careful driving was indicated. Living 16 winters in northeast Pennsylvania provided good training for mastering wintery road conditions.
We could not see the Demali even from the Visior Center. |
None of the original steamboats from the gold rush era have survived. But the S.S. Keno comes at least close, having been built at Whitehorse in 1922 the S.S. Keno represents a typical vessel from her time and is one of the few remaining historic paddlewheel steamboats in the US. The Keno was moved to her present berth on the Dawson City's waterfront in 1960.
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Clearly, at that time the era of steamboats had found an end. The S.S. Keno was the last steamboat on the river and when moved downstream to Dawson in 1960, the crew even had to dismantle the top deck of the steamer to clear the Alaska Highway bridge. The Road has replaced the river in means of transportation, trucks had replaced the riverboats, very obviously.
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Carmacks is situated at the confluence of the Nordenskiold and Yukon Rivers, approximately 180 km north of Whitehorse and 360 km south of Dawson City on the North Klondike Highway. It is the site of one of the four bridges over the Yukon River. The Campbell Highway also intersects the community and carries on to Faro, Ross River and Watson Lake, providing a gateway to the Canol Road and some of the Yukon's most spectacular scenery.
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Excursion with our little Chevy to the Salmon Glacier. The Salmon River had a strong currant, loaded with ice blocks and wooden debris.
The edges of the narrow gravel street ( Granduc Road is more of a path than a street ) was already damaged and pieces broken off, and we were wondering whether the street would be still there on our way back. |
The Salmon Glacier - the fifth largest glacier in North America. Looking down upon the Salmon Glacier and along the valley below you can see how the glacier is continually transforming the landscape and itself. The road starts in Hyder, Alaska, at sea level and follows the Salmon River to its birthplace - the Salmon Glacier. 4,300 ft. (1,100 m) up in the alpine located back in beautiful British Columbia.
How To Get There: Drive through Hyder on the Granduc Road for approximately 25 miles and you will soon find yourself gazing at one of the most spectacular sights around. Please note that the road is not always in the best of conditions, so make sure to take a reliable vehicle - or better yet, take a tour! |
Sure enough, when we came back to the location where we noticed the street edges breaking off - -the street was not passable. We were stopped to wait until the bulldozer cut out a pass through the bushes. It took a while. If there would have been solid rock at the side we would have been lifted out of there via helicopter - probably.....That would have been something else......
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Also a water slide there.....
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