Jim & Mary Anne's Northern Adventure

Thanks Jim and Mary Ann, Love your stories and we are very interested in where you are going since our plan is to head to Alaska next summer.

Carol

 

Thank you all, we are having a wonderful time. I will write more extensively at another time but today was what we call "a travel day" . Just an example but also a day we needed to learn from. We started in the Cottonwood RV Park on the shores of the beautiful Kluane Lake this morning cold and hungry. Drove in last night in a full fledged rain storm, put up the side tent (a must in wet weather) and dove for cover in the cozy cabin with wet clothing strewn about the truck and side tent. It rained all night and into the morning. No way to comfortably prepare food and no where to stop for another 50-60 miles. That was the least of it. For days everyone had been telling us about the state of the road between Haines Junction and the Alaska border south of Tok. George Thorogood Is an amateur when he sings of "Bad To The Bone". I said I would write more about this leg later but the point I am finally coming to is this, the rain doesn't matter. The road doesn't matter. You just have to handle it. What matters, at least to us when we get our heads back on straight, is this beautiful piece of the world we are so fortunate to be able to experience. The weather is part of that. The "trail" is part of that. We had to remind ourselves that we were here to feel and experience this part of our earth, and when we did, everything was wonderful. Then we stopped at Buckshot Annie's and had a good lunch.
A quick note to Mike & Carol: your avatar shows a screened in backyard, bring it with you. I need to find a Blood Bank and make a withdrawal.
Jim & Mary Anne

 

Fantastic adventure. I think if I took your road and didn't face a little adversity, I would feel cheated. The stormy nights with no hot food, rough roads fit for Range Rovers only and mountains that would make an Alpine Sheep gulp are all part of the fun. Savor it all.

Next settlement you come to, pick up some travel food like locally jerked meat and fish, hard sausage, cheese, nuts, dried fruit and multi grained bread or crackers. They come in handy when weather and distance eliminate any opportunity for cooking or dining out. Sure saved our cookies on our maiden voyage.

Camp On,

Sue and Jim

 

Days 22-26, Haines to Tok

Below is the latest update I sent to our family on our travels with a couple of added facts. What I had written about the Top Of The World Highway was written from Tok and was based upon reports from other travelers that had just driven it. Well as Al said, everything is relative. The road itself was not at all bad except for the dust. If anything it had dried out too much. But the route of the road is truely spectacular, you are on top of the world. You climb to the top of a low mountain range (3000-4000 feet) and then stay there the whole way to Dawson. No smog, the air so clear you can almost see Russia in your rear view mirror. . Seriously, you can see a long, long way up there. Also, today we passed through 5,000 miles for the trip. Still not to Inuvik, will get there Wednesday I think and then, after a week or so, start the long drive home. Here is what I sent out from Tok:

This is a "do over", somehow in trying to save two pages of sparkling prose to Draft I managed to lose it all.  You know those Sock Gods that live in washers and dryers and demand periodic sacrifices of one sock?  I have come to understand they have relatives living in my electronics.  

Sunday morning in Haines we drove the truck up the 8 miles or so to Chilkot Lake.  This is a dead end road that follows the sound, or arm of the sea that both Haines and Skagway are on then up the river that flows out of the lake.  This is the same route the salmon take when returning to spawn.  There is a weir across the river that doesn't impede the fish but somehow allows them to be counted.  15,000 in June but they come in "waves" and we hit a lull.  Only a hundred or so the day before we were there, the count wasn't in yet for that day.  The river is fast, deep and wide and we didn't see any salmon nor did we see any of the fishermen, who waded into the chest deep current to stand on rocks, catch any.  Nonetheless we did see two brown bears (grizzlies) feeding on the roots of plants from the parsnip family (we have a little booklet on plants and trees).  The foliage was as tall as I am and they were hard to see unless they moved to a new place or stood up.  Hard to get a picture unless you got close which of course I attempted to do.  Later, back at the campground, someone who had seen us said his heart was in his throat watching us but was afraid to say something for fear of arousing the bears.  He lives outside Fairbanks and knows just how bad these bears can be.  No fear of man, aggressive, hungry and very unpredictable were his words. And, they prefer meat to salad.  We took it seriously and will be more cautious in the future.  Stupid and lucky, one of the dominant themes that seem to run through my life.  

Monday morning we set off on the Haines Hwy. for Kluane Lake, the largest lake in the Yukon with a stop in Beaver Creek for lunch.  This road takes you through the Bald Eagle Preserve but we only saw one.  Then it started to rain AGAIN.  Every conversation we have had here in "The North", whether it be with other road gypsies or the locals, has centered around either the weather or the road conditions, invariably both.  The average temperature is said to be 10-15 degrees below normal and no one remembers this much rain in June and July.  Most of the roads are paved but it is a very thin layer on top of the permafrost.  It breaks up easily and often.  Under the asphalt layer is gravel and then the not so frozen dirt.  We pulled into Beaver Creek at noon towing a full sized clay model of our raindrop.  If the sun had come out and baked it on we would have had to chisel our way in.  Mary Anne spotted a RV campground with a "car wash" and we did what we could but it was still raining and we had further to go.  After a terrible lunch, we headed for Kluane Lake.  It was raining when we got there, it was raining when we left in the morning.  We did have a brief respite for an hour in the evening (evening lasts about 8 hours up here) and managed to heat some soup for dinner.  No facilities here other than a beautiful campground on what we are told is a beautiful lake.  We saw very little of either in the rain.  The clouds come down very low and visibility is extremely limited.  We did manage to set up the side tent which is a "must do" if you want to keep the cabin dry.  Never even unhitched.  In the morning the temperature was 36 degrees.  Stuffed the now sopping wet cold tent in the truck and took off.  I'm belaboring this a bit because we had a kind of epiphany in the next few hours as we debated the sanity of continuing.  Of course we would continue, that was never a real question, but to really enjoy continuing we had to look again at what we were doing, how we were doing it and what it meant to be this close to the real nature of the land we were in.  Rain and cold come and go, this beautiful wilderness remains.  We came here to see and experience all of it.  Mary Anne found a cranberry muffin in the truck and we had a good lunch at Buckshot Annie's.  We were prepared for this, we handled it well enough and life was good again.  Out of the Yukon and back into Alaska we stopped in Tok.  That was Tuesday, Wednesday was the 4th.  The parade was supposed to start at 11 but was delayed an hour because someone had to be medavac'd out and the emergency equipment made up most of the parade.  We set up chairs right on the Alaska Highway, they blocked it off at each end of town, and the parade finally started.  It was made up primarily of all the service vehicles that work out of Tok, all twelve of them, with women and children sitting beside the men that drove them.  Candy was thrown to the children but Mary Anne managed to squirrel away a pound or two.  We headed off to an open field with a small stage for the real festivities.  Food stalls, music, handicrafts and contests.  One and two man log sawing, tree chopping, moose calling, north woods stuff.  And it was fun watching people that work damn hard to just survive have fun.  And they did have fun, we could see it and hear it and even feel it.  It was great.  I asked about the fireworks and an amused chuckle arose around us.  We were invited back for them, it will be around noon on New Years Eve, it is warmer around noon.  "They" tell me they set the record for a low temperature right here in Tok, -83 degrees.  Don't know if that is just an Alaskan record but regardless, it makes me cold just writing it.  

A somewhat humorous note; if you walk into a store or office and see a life sized cardboard cutout of Sarah Palen, keep your opinions to yourself.  She is a rock star up here and most believe she was thrown to the wolves.  An apt comment in Tok.  Oh yes, a sign in the restrooms in Haines, "Please do not dye your hair in the showers".  In Tok they read "Do not wash your dogs in the showers".  

We were going to leave today for Dawson City but that is over the Top Of The World highway and the recent rains have made it worse than usual.  Thirty miles of gravel to the Yukon border once you get past Chicken then sixty miles of clay down to where pavement, such as it is, begins again.  Talked to some people that had come this way and they said it was very slippery, in fact a big RV slid right off the road and into a ditch leaving two wheels in the air.  So we explored Tok a little while letting the road dry out.

It started to rain a few hours ago and just stopped but we have worn out Tok so tomorrow is Dawson or a ditch.  
Jim & Mary Anne

 

This again is a trip report of our current adventure, this time relating the journey from Tok, Alaska to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories of Canada. This trip, or rather the roads we have to use, are very hard on both our truck and and our beautiful Raindrop. There is caked-on mud where no one has been since Ford and Camp-Inn built them. Don't know if I will ever get it all off. Nothing broken except the two lower front "running lights" on our 560 Ultra. They were both smashed by flying rocks and mud while on the Dempster to Inuvik. Will write Cary when we get home for replacements. I have Rock Tamers on the truck but I think I needed "mud flaps" set right behind the rear wheels as well. Also, the rock tamers allow mud from the rear wheels to be channeled or funneled right up the back of the truck and the rear window of the truck shell is "browned out" almost immediately on a muddy or dusty road. And of course, all roads are either muddy or dusty.

Tok To Dawson To Inuvik

Somewhere along the way I have lost track of the number of days we have been “on the road” so rather than try and “repair” whatever I did, it is now Tuesday, July 17 and we are happily ensconced in Inuvik, NWT. This was our “original” ultimate destination, but as with all adventures, opportunities present themselves along the way and you take advantage of them if you can. We now have added "goals" including the Dawson City music festival and bear watching in Hyder, Alaska while on the way to Vancouver. We plan to get "hyderized" while in Hyder (look it up) but first, Tok to Dawson City:

We left in the rain Saturday morning, 7/7 for Dawson going over the “Top Of The World” highway. Highway is something of a misnomer in that almost any road that goes almost anywhere in the North is called a highway. More often than not it is a lane and a half of dirt and gravel. The TOW is just that, use the center of the road most of the time but take to the (hopefully) wide shoulder when another vehicle comes your way or is passing you. We had been told horror stories for a week about the TOW and how much worse if was if it rained. It was all BS as far as we are concerned. Once you accept that dirt and gravel roads are the norm, then you rate them in those terms. The TOW was great by those standards and the rain stopped shortly after we left Tok. You slowly climb up on top of the mountain range and then stay there all the way to Dawson City (“THEY” just call it Dawson). The air is crystal clear up there with no haze (or smog) at all. You can see as far as there is something to see, invariably a distant mountain range way, way out there. Sorry Sarah, try as we might we could not see Russia. The world is VERY big from the Top Of The World Highway, and empty of any sign of “civilization” except for the road. That is until you come over a hill and down into a small valley to the hamlet of Chicken, Alaska. Population 15-20 year around, swells to almost 100 with the miners that come in for the summer months. Three little businesses, each selling food, gas and a flat spot to park a trailer or pitch a tent. No phones, no power except from generators, no toilets except outhouses. We stopped there for a great breakfast of eggs and raindeer sausage and simply watched and listened to the “townies” gossip. Seems it is a regular “Hatfield’s and McCoy’s” feud up there. One of the other businesses had just dropped their fuel price 3 cents a liter so the lady who owns the café where we were eating went outside and dropped hers 6 cents. The commentary about the other business owners was blistering. Well fed and amused we continued to Dawson.

When you come down from the TOW you end up at a ferry crossing the Yukon River to the town of Dawson. We came down to find the ferry actually waiting for us (they can see you coming down) and we rolled right on without pause. The river was two feet higher than normal because of all the rain and they had bulldozers on both sides constantly moving the dirt to allow getting on and off the boat. The ferry is free and they make it very easy. Had a lot of dust and some mud from the road so drove through town checking out the RV parks and headed to a gas station with one of those coin operated high pressure car washes. Do not picture rotating brushes and hard working attendants, rather picture rolling onto a mud hole with a hose and wand suspended from a swing arm and wading through ankle deep mud while spraying off the dirt (and each other). The pressure and velocity is so high it blows water, and the entrained dirt, right past the various rubber seals on your truck and trailer. This generally requires an hour or two of post-washing cleanup, if you are lucky.

Dawson is great, we loved it. In fact, we are going back after we leave Inuvik for the annual Dawson music festival. Very small and compact, very old. Not old in European terms but most of the original buildings from the Yukon gold rush (1896-1899) are still standing and in use. Went up Bonanza Creek where the initial strike was made, climbed all over a huge dredge, Dredge #4, that chewed up most of the Klondike River valley outside of town and then chewed its way up the Bonanza. Big ugly things that leave long ridges of gravel tailings behind that haven't changed one iota in over 100 years. Actually this dredge finally shutdown in 1966. The people here really defend the dredges despite the giant worm castings they leave behind. Without the dredges there would not be any real roads, no airport and the various businesses could not have sustained themselves. But with the roads and the "tourists" the town is quite vibrant. Amazingly, there are still hundreds of miners and mining operations along the creeks and rivers around the area and they still bring in millions of dollars in gold every year. We saw the same statistics in both the Visitor Center and the museum. The town is full of small restaurants, a couple of bakeries and 17 bars. Oh yes, Diamond Tooth Gertie’s place is still open and still allows gambling and still has nightly stage shows (very old fashion but fun). Of course there are a half dozen or more gift and jewelry shops but also a nice hospital, a museum, a First Nation cultural center, and lots more. We went to the cabin where Robert Service lived and listened to a very good actor/interpreter tell the story of Service and recite many of his poems. We also went to Jack London’s cabin as well although it had been relocated to town from Henderson Creek. Actually only half of his cabin is here, the bottom half. The top half went to Oakland’s Jack London Square because they were willing to pay for the move and reconstruction which Dawson couldn’t afford. Both of the missing halves were rebuilt of course. We had a great time in Dawson and, as I said before, we are going back. We may rent a couple of pans and try our luck at one of the open claims along Bonanza Creek. Or just hang out in the big beer garden they are building for the music festival. The beer garden is the talk of the town in all the bars and greatly anticipated.

We left Dawson Tuesday morning, again in the rain, for the 2-3 day drive to Inuvik. Eagle Plain is the half way point and it rained all the way there. The Dempster was a mess. We got there late, found a place for our raindrop and went into the bar for dinner. It was still raining and we were asked which direction we were going? When we said Inuvik they looked surprised, it seems the road had washed out in 3 different places between there and Dawson and they were surprised we had gotten through. We must have just gotten past each problem area in time. It was terribly muddy and slick, our truck and trailer were coated with an inch of mud everywhere but we took it slowly and actually made better time than expected. They too had a “car wash” and again we pushed muddy water past various seals so had some more cleanup to perform. It rained all night but we didn’t even unhitch, just got up, had breakfast in the bar/restaurant again and left for Inuvik. The rain and mud were worse and I almost lost it on a straight flat stretch when the truck (and trailer of course) just started sliding to the side. I was in 4 wheel drive and was able to power out of the slide but what was disconcerting was that I had no idea what started it. Reasonably flat road, driving straight and carefully but then just started to slide. Crossed the Peel river on a ferry and then the Mackenzie River on another. That was tricky; again earth movers were moving a lot of muddy dirt to enable the various vehicles to get on and off the ferry. There was a big delay because a car got stuck trying to get on when the Peel ferry was on the other side. But the 4 wheel drive made it fairly easy and on we went. We crossed the Arctic Circle on the way so Mary Anne is now an official "Blue Nose". That is a Navy term for those that have crossed it and I had done it many times long ago in a submarine. This way was much better. We saw a really big grizzly on a ridge (as big as our truck) and later, a small herd of caribou (50-60). This is First Nation hunting land and after sighting the herd, which seemed kind of “spooked”, we went around a corner to find a pickup parked beside the road. Out on the tundra were two men dressing out a caribou. It is illegal to hunt from the road but there is no one to stop them. And they still live off of their land to the degree possible. The rain stopped shortly thereafter and we drove into Inuvik safe, sound and extremely dirty. I might also add, more than a little “itchy”. Mary Anne had needed a roadside rest stop and within seconds was attacked by huge swarms of mosquitoes. Running back to the truck she managed to keep out all but a couple of dozen. Driving these roads with one hand while swatting mosquitoes with the other is a recipe for disaster but we made it with only a few additional lumps to later scratch raw. If you go into a store in the States to buy bug spray it generally has 15-25% Deet in it. Up here you can get it with 98%. We bought two bottles while in Tok, Alaska. Trust me, regardless of your reservations about Deet, you will use it.

We drove into Inuvik at “high noon” although the clocks all said 8:00 PM. All the campgrounds were full so we had made reservations at a hotel with kitchenette rooms but were a day early. We had set this up from home expressly because we had not been able to get a campsite in town. They were all reserved early for the Art Festival, and we were so glad we did. On Friday the Inuvik town council put out a water contamination alert warning everyone to boil any tap water before using it. It is now Tuesday and the alert is still in effect. Dealing with that while "camping" would have been difficult. The hotel had a cancellation (many people were still on the Dempster Hwy waiting for the washout areas to be reopened) and simply added a day to our reservation. What luxury to have a small apartment all tricked out for a week’s stay. The opening ceremonies were Friday night and, since this is the Year Of The Drum that was the focus of the ceremonies with drummers and dancers in traditional "dress" performing for us. The art displayed for sale is absolutely breathtaking. Hundreds and hundreds of pieces running the gamut of Northern Art. Carvings, paintings, jewelry, drums, knives, bowls, etc. Saturday morning was the first day you can buy anything and that is also the first day of the workshops. You can take classes in everything from soapstone carving to hide preperation and decoration. Over 80 artists are here and the prices are said to be set by consensus of both the artists and independent evaluators. Compared to what you find in gift shops throughout the world, the prices are very reasonable. Perhaps too much so. We wanted to buy one "good" piece to always remind us of our adventure. To date we have four. Artists from all over the North working at their craft all day, music and films at night. It has been great fun. It is now Tuesday, tonight's entertainment is both a good local band and the Canadian Air Force Snow Birds (think Blue Angels). We have been worried about getting back down the Dempster Hwy since the Peel River Ferry has been out of service for the last three days but it reopened last night. That is good news for Inuvik, all the stores are running low of fresh food and meat and are completely out of bottled water. I saw this coming and got enough to last but may need to buy more beer to stretch our water supply. We will leave Thursday morning early and expect to be back in Dawson by Friday evening, road, ferries, caribou, bears and weather permitting.
Jim and Mary Anne

 

Sounds like a splendid trip so far; I am envious. I do have to ask one practical question, how many flat tires so far?

 

George,
1962 through 1969. Spent 3 years in Idaho at the test station and then made four patrols on the Francis Scott Key, SSBN 657.

Note: I was one of apparently very few people who did NOT make it to Woodstock.
Jim

 

Steve & Shirley,
I worried about the tires a lot before the trip and even more during the trip. I am worried now about the long trip home, particularly the 450 miles of the Dempster back to Dawson, which we will start tomorrow. But so far, zero (0) flat tires. I decided not to try and carry extra spares, only have one for the truck and one for the raindrop. I do carry those leak repair bottles and a pump. Oh yes, and my AAA card. Now if I could only find some cell phone coverage. Beware of the potholes in the rain. They fill up with water and just look like any other wet spot. Ever try and avoid all the wet spots in a heavy rain?
Jim

 

Despite not posting for almost two weeks we are still out here in the "wilds of northwestern Canada". We left Inuvik and The Great Northern Arts Festival on Thursday, 7/19 again in the rain to drive the 450 miles of the Dempster Hwy. back to the Klondike Hwy and then back to Dawson. On the way up it had rained most of the way and we had stopped at Eagle Plains overnight. On the way back we stopped again at Eagle Plains, again in the rain, with the intention of staying but after a late lunch I decided just sitting in the cabin in the rain for the rest of the afternoon and all night was just too much of a "not so good" thing and we pressed on. There are other places to camp further south but the problem is the MUD. The truck and trailer get literally covered in a thick layer of the stuff and you can barely get out of the truck without getting it all over you. Even the door handles are coated. We needed a car wash so we drove all the way back to Dawson arriving around 8 pm. Even the locks on the Drop were filled with the muck. Anyway, we wanted an adventure and the bad comes with the good. Got into "our" RV park in Dawson, the Gold Rush for four more nights which was very fortunate because the music festival started Friday night and ran through Sunday. Met a gold miner, Klondike Steve, who has been on the "Gold Rush" TV program twice. He and his lady, Kathy, took Mary Anne and me all around the area visiting various claims of working miners including their own. He had us panning promising gravel from two different claims and was ecstatic when flakes were found in both samples. What a fantastic opportunity to learn from a real expert. We didn't realize that $millions are still taken out of there every year. Of course it is no longer simple panning and rocker washers beside a stream. Now it involves stripping off the soil with big earth movers, digging through the permafrost with big drillls and exposing the gravel layer laying on top of the bed rock. Then the fun begins with good claims getting 4 or more ounces an hour from large trommels (rotating separation cylinders). Quite an unforgettable experience. Had fun at the various music venues but the best was at The Snake Pit, just called The Pit by the locals. This is considered THE dive bar in town and was the host to some great Blues bands including Jimmy Lang. Look him up on Wiki for some interesting background and history.

Left Dawson Monday morning following the Yukon River down to Whitehorse. We stopped at the Five Fingers rapids and stood there amazed at what the "Stampeders" faced in self built boats in 1898. Many lost their lives here and many more all that they owned. Yet they kept on coming.

Whitehorse was fun, we spent two days there then continued south. We came down the Cassiar Hwy, which we had heard was very rough but found it quite tame in comparison to what we had travelled on. On a map that is Hwy 37. We turned off onto 37A, the Stewart Glacier Hwy and stayed a few days in Stewart. The Glacier Hwy is breathtaking. I mean that, signs warn of Avalanche Danger "year around". The mountains and the glaciers (and the snow pack" come right down to the road. Stewart is on an arm of the Pacific and borders on Hyder, Alaska. Hyder is why we really came down this "cul de sac" because it is an excellent place to see the bears feeding on the spawning salmon in Bear Creek. The salmon were there, the bears were there and so were we. What fun.

After a few more days of travel and camping we are now in Whistler. What a beautiful place this is. Very much back in "civilization" but still in the mountains and it still feels remote. It was expanded quite a bit, or at least refurbished, for the 2010 Winter Olympics and everything is clean and shiny. Well not everything, our Raindrop may never be completely clean again. Eight weeks of hard use has really tested her and she has come through with flying colors. Nothing on the Drop has failed. Not even the tires. We do have two broken running lights (the lower ones) from the rocks on the Dempster but that will be easily repaired at home. We do gauge the roughness of the roads by how many cabin cabinets we find open after stopping for the night, the most has been three. And the door and hatch locks are still a little sticky despite numerous applications of WD40. I need to use silicon spray but will wait until I get home, I want to get as much grit out as possible before applying the silicon. more later,
Jim & Mary Anne

 

There you are. We hadn't heard from you in a bit and Jim was worried about the bad weather and muddy roads you were facing. Jim says, "After two weeks of you not being on the forum and your last posting being something about Dawson or a ditch, we figured you found the ditch, but the search party hadn't found you."

He's such a caring guy.

Don't suppose you got any pics of your raindrop and car covered in mud, did you? That would be a hoot to see.

Anywho, glad you made it down and didn't add to the Grizzlies menu.

Camp On,

Sue and Jim (says)

 

Sue, Jim,
Thank you for noticing our absence from the forum. Not sure if we have pictures of the mud, keeping it off of us and out of the trailer seems to dominate at the time. I'll go through all our pictures and post a photo journal after we get home. I have never mastered doing that on the road (posting pictures to the forum). Something I meant to emphasize before though comes to mind now. For anyone considering long distance travel in remote areas pay special attention to how you set up your tow vehicle. I already had a 2006 F150 4X4 when we got our raindrop. All I did, and I did this a year ago for the trip to the "Mothership" to pick-up the trailer, was to add Rock Tamers which attach to the hitch. For this trip I added a very hefty "grill guard" and had the truck serviced (including the brakes). But that was all. I had no concept of how much debris, including mud is thrown up by my truck. And the position of the rock Tamers seems to act as a funnel or chute for much of what comes off the back tires. The rear window on the truck's camper shell was always immediately covered in dirt or muddy water no matter what the weather. But the Tamers do keep the majority of the rocks off of the front of the trailer. What they do NOT do is protect the sides of the trailer. As noted in our updates, both lower running lights have been destroyed on the trailer. That is because of the design of the truck. I have 20" tires on the truck and even with the Tamers fully extended out to the sides, rocks still get past them on the sides. And of course the front wheels are turning from side to side which offers even more exposure. I needed LARGE mud flaps immediately behind all four wheels that extend out beyond the tires.

The other thing to consider is a quick weather shelter that will allow food preparation, and the ingestion of same, in wet windy weather. Setting up shelter tents in wet windy weather just wasn't on my radar screen. People from the Northwest will laugh if they read this, that must be a way of life for them but not for us. And by "windy" I mean winds that destroy RV awnings if left deployed. I am sort of picturing something like a sailboat "dodger", the kind that fits over the companionway and is made to withstand strong winds. Perhaps it could fold up and be put away when traveling but be attached to the rear bumper and the raised galley hatch when set up. Just having a place to stand and drink a hot bowl of soup would be heaven. I will talk to some boat awning folks when we get home.

But please everyone understand that this has been a great trip. We wanted a real adventure, a journey that took us to places that only having our CI would allow with some modicum of comfort. And we have certainly had that. I only emphasize the very few negatives to try and help others. I had a lot to learn and still do but that is the very essence of an adventure.
Jim

 

Jim and Mary Anne I have enjoyed reading your posts - Thank you.
The mud does sound like a real challenge it is great that there is enough that is enjoyable that you can look beyound the mud.

 

Jim and Mary Ann great stories and glad to here you are having the adventure you set out to have.

 

Jim and MA, this sounds like the adventure of a lifetime. We're going up there next summer but I don't think we'll challenge the Dempster. It looks bad enough on IRT but I can see what those roads would look like after the thaws. Regarding the Tamers, did you have any issues with heat from the exhaust damaging them? I'm going to get them but the web site mentioned exhaust deflector nozzles if the Tamers get too hot.
Can't wait to see your picture posts.
Safe Travels,
Mike

 

Jim and Mary Ann,

Well done, thank you for keeping us posted.
Can't wait to see the photos.

All the best, J&B

 

We are now back in the US after almost ten weeks and slightly over 10,000 miles.
Still not home but this old horse can smell the barn. I will write a more complete synopsis of the last part of this trip later but to date we have had no flats, no breakdowns, no tickets. I had gotten used to following the general speed limits wherever we were (well, within reason, sometimes i confused KPH for MPH) but coming back into California with its 55 mph for towing was a bit of a downer. The CHP seems to arbitrarily enforce it on trailers but not on trucks. Certainly not on trucks! Regarding the Rock Tamers, my F150 exhausts to the side so exhaust heat is not an issue but talk to others and read what I said about mud flaps. On those far "Northern" roads, gravel and dust when dry, gravel and mud when wet, you need both. And I mean WIDE flaps, they need to extend beyond the width of the tire on both sides.

I will write more on both the trailer and the accessories in detail later but just know that I cannot imagine a rougher trip overall than we took and everything worked flawlessly and continues to do so. We do have some "binding" in one of the rear stabilizers from either mud, grit or rocks. Probable a combination of all three. Cannot seem to clean it out laying on my side but will disassemble it at home. Still works but with more of an effort. Saw other rigs with exposed stabilizers that the owners had put small drawstring bags over to protect them. Looked like a good idea.

One other thought; for all those miles, for all the adventures big and small, we only "scraped the surface" for what those remote places have to offer. We are going back.
Jim & Mary Anne

 

Below is the last thing I wrote after finally getting home from our adventure. I owe the forum a synopsis of what worked and what could have worked better, what we did wrong and what we would do better next time but understand this, our 560 Ultra worked perfectly ALL the time.
Jim

It was with mixed feelings when we pulled up to the house, parked the trailer in the garage and started unloading a ton of clothes, food and equipment from the truck and trailer earlier this week. On the one hand it felt wonderful to be home after having experienced, and accomplished, so much over the last 10 weeks but on the other hand it felt, I don’t know, something like a “betrayal”. For the entire 10,000 mile journey the truck and trailer performed flawlessly, Mary Anne and I were an experienced team who worked together day after day without making too many mistakes and there was still so much “out there” yet to see. We got home Tuesday so I waited a few days to write this to try and organize my thoughts and feelings but what keeps running through my head are places we didn’t get to see, didn’t get to experience. Obviously machines are not sentient, at least not yet, but we treat both the truck and the trailer (and our GPS for that matter) as if they were. “They” were ready to keep going but we were not, at least not yet.

We left Vancouver last Sunday after only a two night stay with the realization that we needed at least another week to even begin to understand how much that big city has to offer. We have all heard “Location, location, location”. Well that might have been coined expressly for Vancouver. With the Puget Sound and various rivers wrapped around and through it, Vancouver is a patchwork quilt of islands, communities and cultures. We will go back. And for you campers, there is a very nice RV Park right under the Lion’s Gate Bridge in North Vancouver. Depending upon traffic, you are downtown within 15-20 minutes.

We traveled down I-5 from the border but then headed east on I-90 until we were in Central Washington and then south again on US-97. We stayed south of Yakima, WA that night where it was 105°F just before sunset. We used the air conditioner that night. It was on to Bend, Oregon, one of our favorite places. Again, an exquisite location, surrounded by the Sisters Mountains with woods and rivers everywhere. There are a dozen micro-breweries in and around Bend so we had our work cut out for us. And the Olympics were on so that often dictated another round at a given pub just to see the end of an exciting “match”. Counting Crows was on tour and playing an outdoor venue in Bend one night so of course we went. Beautiful setting on the recently restored Saw Mill pond.

Got out of Bend with most of my liver intact and moved on to Lake Shasta in California. We have often talked about spending some time at Lake Shasta but a boat, rented or otherwise, would be a “must have” item. Very nice campground, it would be fun to have a boat there. From Shasta we went to my step-mom’s home in Oroville for a couple of nights and then moved on to the coast to meet a friend at Pt. Reyes. We had never been there before, it is a area of National and State Parks, nestled within the very expensive arms of Marin County. Small little villages with good restaurants and wine/cheese shops, lakes, rivers, woods, trails and a magnificent coastline. I grew up with the friend that met us and who knows the Pt. Reyes area well. He was even in our wedding some untold number of decades ago. He teaches the “sciences” in high school with an emphasis on biology but took his students out of the classroom as much as possible and showed them first hand how much the world around them has to offer and how what they were learning was so much more than just words in books. He did the same for us. On a hike through the woods to the coast at “Arch Rock” he kept up a running dialogue of the terrain, the plants and trees, and the small creatures that lived among it all. Above all else he reinforced for us how much we can miss when we just walk a path to get somewhere. This was the same “mantra” we had taken to heart before we started the trip and, hopefully, continued to reinforce ourselves throughout the journey. The objective was not to “get” to a given place, the objective was to enjoy the journey and to be prepared to deviate from “the plan” if warranted. To see and feel and experience the world we were in at any given time. Most of the time we did that. Our friend was just one more excellent example of that ideal.

After an overnight stay in Morro Bay, another favorite of ours, we made it home (north of San Diego) Tuesday afternoon. One more “weather/temperature” comment: It was 113°F out on Hwy. 101 just north of Morro Bay when we turned off onto Hwy 1 to get to the coast. It was 58° when we got to the bay. A difference of 55° in less than 30 minutes or 20 miles.

I will try and organize some of the hundreds of pictures we took and send out either a short synopsis or a link to a website where I can post more photos. Have fun out there, do not put anything off that you don’t absolutely have to, life has a way of changing your priorities, and in some cases your abilities, rather unexpectedly.

Jim & Mary Anne