John Rachal's Blog

DAY 19, June 9, Sunday

Nothing fantastic to report for today. We drove up to Lake Louise, managed to get the last parking place in the lot, and took the dogs for a stroll partially around the lake. If you are seeking solitude, this is not the place. The hordes of people make it seem a little like Bourbon St. during Mardi Gras—well, not quite that bad but bad enough. The blue-green lake is nestled among—what else—almost grandiose mountains and is backed by the immense and famous Lake Louise hotel.

In the afternoon we drove over to the town of Canmore and had lunch. The temperatures are still only mid-fifties for the highs, and so leaving the dogs in the car is so far not a problem. After a Safeway visit, we returned to our campsite, took showers, and joined some folks for cocktails. We had met them in Custer State Park and they arrived in Banff today. They too are heading to Alaska and we expect to see them at least once more along the way. The wife is about five years younger than I am and went to Meredith College, barely half a mile as the crow flies from the house where I grew up in Raleigh. Weird. But cool.

I meant to say in yesterday’s entry that we saw several elk at close range near our campsite during what I call early dusk, around 8 or 8:30. The fact that we are at the end of the row and are more likely to see wildlife is the one advantage of being in a “shared” campsite—that is, a single pull-through with hook-ups for two small campers or tents. That would be fine if you were paying a lower rate; but in fact, you are paying the same rate as those with big RVs who have the whole site. This means that: Since we were second to arrive at the site, we had to back in rather than easily pull through; therefore the dump site is on the wrong side of your camper; and third you are butt to butt with your neighbor, who may be as close as four or five feet from you. The picnic tables were three feet apart. Val tells me that this problem encourages people with small campers to lie about their size, greatly inflating it so that they will get a full campsite. I told the folks at the gate that to pay the same price is not right—apparently they don’t get it since both halves of the site have hook-up. NOT the point. The point is that they are cramming two small rigs (tent or camper) into one space and charging the same price as those with a full-sized pull-through site.

DAY 20, June 10, Monday

With no particular regret we left Banff, heading north toward Jasper, about 160 miles. The car has AT&T wi-fi, but AT&T is not always available, and in fact unless you are close to a decent-sized town, chances are you are off the grid. The ride up 93 is scenic and hilly, given the surrounding mountains. One time Val turned on my bicycle Garmin and we were at 6600 feet, 200 and some feet short of the highest point east of the Mississippi River, Mt. Mitchell. The grade maxed at about 7%, and going down the car’s grade brake assist came on and put the car in such a low gear that it hit about 4000 rpms, and was loud.

Our goal today was Pocahontas Campground in Jasper National Park, a bit over 200 miles, and maybe 20 miles beyond the town of Jasper. It was a good day to drive: light grey clouds, dark grey clouds, grey road, dark and lighter grey mountains. It was a full palette of grey, oh, maybe 50 shades or so. The campground was perfect, with lots of conifers and birch trees—a real feel of being in the woods. Hot dogs and salad for supper.

We came across a couple of places with signs cautioning us of upcoming wildlife crossing areas. I just don’t understand why they put these crossings in heavily congested areas. Why can’t they put them where traffic is low? But Nooooo, they have to put them where the wildlife want to cross.

Saw numerous cyclists along the road, which had smooth, broad shoulders almost as wide as a regular lane. I chatted with one at a place we had pulled off, and he had taken three months off to do a trans-Canada ride, from Vancouver to Halifax. His bike had hydraulic-assisted brakes (but not disc brakes) and a cleated rubber “chain,” sort of like a fan belt. Now there is an adventure.

We went a few miles north of Jasper and got a site in Pocahontas campground in Jasper National Park. This is far more like northwest camping to me. We are truly in a forest, with birch and especially evergreens all around. The sites are reasonably separated, but not arranged in the long, repetitive rows of the Tunnel Mountain campground at Banff (though other campgrounds in that park may have been more pleasantly designed). Everywhere we are appropriately reminded to be “bare aware,” meaning keep your campsite free (bare) of anything that may attract bears. Here, we were reminded at the gate of this, and sure enough the woods are dense enough that bumping into a bruin here does not seem so wild a thought.

DAY 21, June 21, Tuesday

We built a morning fire and I cooked eggs and pancakes on the electric skillet, using the generator for power. The skillet draws strongly on the generator, as you could hear it ramp up when the skillet was turned on. I was also able to wash dishes outside the bathroom 75 or so yards from our campsite since there was a large stainless steel sink with hot and cold water for that purpose. It was another pleasant aspect of this campground.

On coming in yesterday, we decided that this was a good place to spend two nights, so I looked into hike possibilities, and the girl at the gate recommended the Sulphur Skyline hike about 10 miles up the road that began at the parking lot of the popular hot springs there. I had imagined sitting in natural pools with large rocks around, but actually it was quite commercialized and looked a lot like a system of swimming pools of different temperatures. I began the hike—a well travelled one—about 12:15 and almost immediately started mouth-breathing. The hike was eight kilometers or 4.93 miles, which I’m calling five miles. The elevation gain was 700 meters, about 2200 feet, and I pretty well knew from the get-go that the grade was in the teens. I did the math, 700 meters of elevation gain in four kilometers, and the average grade for the whole hike was 16.5% up, and 16.5% down. The last couple of hundred yards, clear of the tree line, were very steep, over 25% for sure, and going down for that section was memorable–you really didn’t want to slip. While I was passed only a few times going up, I was turtle-like going down, being passed probably a dozen times. I suspect I looked practically senile as others seemed to be on a sidewalk stroll while I practiced my new mantra, rocky rooty watch your footy. Rocks and roots were everywhere and I was impressed as others seemed to blithely ignore them, almost mountain goat-like. Speaking of which, there were five mountain goats down by the parking lot, and a small black bear hanging out in the picnic area.

Dinner was veggie hotdogs with trimmings. We sat around a campground until bedtime.

DAY 22, June 12, Wednesday

We departed Pocahontas around 10:30 and drove northwesterly for about 215 miles to Grand Prairie, a fairly large town with a Wal-Mart. Today was very warm with a high of 81. We had filled up with gas at Grand Cache, but we are both fretful about gas and water, so we filled up at Grand Prairie again even though we were still three-fourths full. Val is especially concerned about dropping below a half tank. We actually thought about bunking down in the Wal-Mart parking lot (we would not have been alone), but it seemed a little grim, not to mention hot in the camper without A/C, and so we put our hopes on Saskatoon Island Provincial Park having a vacancy, which they did. We had another campfire as most provincial parks provide wood, which you scavenge from enormous piles.