On Saturday we spent the day driving over to Glacier National Park and back. After Alaska and the Canadian Rockies, Glacier National Park was somewhat of a let down. The scenery was subdued compared to what we recently experienced and the crowds and traffic were horrendous. Most all of the pullouts along the road were full of vehicles limiting opportunities to stop, and the visitor center parking lot at Logan Pass was over capacity. We had to take turns driving around the parking lot while the other one got out to look around and use the rest room. The literature claims there are two glaciers but we only saw one.

One of the more scenic views was of a lake.

Logan Pass is on the Continental Divide

The next photo shows how crowed the parking lot was at Logan Pass.

A point of interest was the road through the park. Some sections are narrow and carved out of the mountain side. There aren't any guard rails and only a precarious stone wall about two feet in height. Here is a photo of a section of the road on the west side of Logan Pass. The grade descends for over ten miles.

Here is a more substantial section of the wall and notice that a section must have crumbled down the mountain side and has been replaced with concrete sections.

It is now Monday morning and we arrived yesterday in Helena Montana. Our coach has been overheating now that we are back in higher temperatures. The most likely cause is a dirty radiator from all the dusty roads. We did a quick cleaning from the outside in Calgary but that did not eliminate the problem. Yesterday we had to stop twice on long grades to allow the engine to cool. The situation was exacerbated by a constant 20 MPH head wind. We will be here in Helena until Wednesday morning and plan to clean the radiator from the inside in the hopes that will solve the overheating. We also brought along a spare air filter and will be changing that. Our dogs have an appointment at Petsmart this morning for a bath and trim.

Turned out that Tom, Paula, and Van ended up at Calgary West Campground with us on Thursday night and Rich and Joan managed to find a spot about 20 miles south of Calgary. The three coaches at Calgary West traveled south together and caught back up with Rich and Joan at the welcome to Canada visitor center in Milk River. This is the same visitor center we gathered at two months earlier after crossing into Canada on Thursday, May 26. It has been a two month period of our life that we can reminisce about for years to come.  With the exception of the roads, it was a wonderful and exciting experience with good friends who helped each other throughout the journey.

We all camped in Shelby Montana Friday night and got together at a local restaurant for one more meal before going to different destinations on Saturday. Craig and Angie stayed in Canada for a few more days and we missed them at our get together. Tom, Paula, and Van will travel together for awhile longer stopping in Ogden Utah and the Grand Canyon. Rich and Joan are bound for Cody Wyoming to meet friends and Pam and I will stay another day in Shelby and drive over to Glacier National Park.

Shelby Montana is a small town just off I-15 in the plains south of the Canadian border. The town is a major railroad hub and many of the resident are employed by the railroad. Here is a photo of our campsite in a new RV park that is part of the Comfort Inn. In the photo the interstate bridge over the many railroad tracks is visible on the left of our motorhome. The yellow building to the rear is the Comfort Inn. The log building is the bathhouse and it is a very nice bathhouse with knotty pine boards on the walls and ceiling. Notice the lampposts are LED street lamps and the whole place is like daylight at night. Each lamp post has two security cameras and we felt safe. The WiFi is free and very fast and our phone had 5 bars of 4G service.

Shelby RV Park

How many of you remember the Sinclair Service Stations with the dinosaur. They still have those out west and we filled up at the one in Shelby after our long drive Saturday to Glacier National Park and back.

Put a dinosaur in your tank

On Wednesday we drove the car up to Jasper and back. We decided to skip the Columbia Icefields Discover Center so we could get back to the campground early. We all got together at Rich and Joan's motorhome for a fairwell dinner under the awning. Seems everyone had slightly different plans for their journey home. In the morning we had a magnificent view of Mt Robson but missed the turn off for a photo. We made a mental note to get a photo on the way back, but as luck would have it, a cloud had formed at the top. Mt Robson is 12,972 feet and the highest point in the Canadian Rockies.

Mt Robson in the afternoon

Further up the road we cam across Moose Lake and stopped for a photo.

Moose Lake

We had packed a lunch and decided to stop at the picnic area at Yellowhead lake for a break.

Yellowhead Lake

Thursday morning we left early for the drive thru the park on the Icefield Parkway. Just as we made the turn onto the parkway from Highway 16 a very large grizzly bear crossed the road just in front of us. Pam was not able to get to the camera in time for a good photo but he is still visible in the center of the picture. Notice the jogger on the right. Wonder what she thought when that big boy crossed the road in front of her?

Grizzly in center of photo

About an hour after seeing the grizzly bear we made it to the Columbia Icefield Discover Center and stopped for a few photos.

Columbia Icefields Discover Cener

Glacier across the road

Typical view from the center

The lakes we saw along the parkway after the center were mind blowing. Here are a few photos but they do not do justice to what we saw.

We stayed the night at Calgary West Campground and will leave this morning for Shelby Montana. If all goes as planned we should lay our heads down back in the USA tonight.

We are now camped at Irvin's RV Park in Valemount, BC. This campground is about 70 miles west of Jasper, AB and we feel like we just checked into a five star hotel. The campground facilities are some of the best we have seen in two months with a great place to walk the dogs. We have 4G phone service, the WiFi is good, our satellite television works, and we have full hooks at 50 amps. This is all on top of great views with a level campsite.

Our camp site at Irvin's RV Park

Our view from the dog walk

Today we will take the car and drive up to Jasper and maybe the Columbia Ice Fields Discover Center. Tomorrow we will drive the motorhome on the Ice Field Parkway with the destination to be determined. This is a three day weekend for the Canadians and finding campgrounds with availability is a problem.

Yesterday was the first day we have had internet or phone service for about seven days. The trip from Valdez to our current location of Telkwa, British Columbia has been a long hard grueling trip with the worst roads we have traveled. Granted part of the way was a repeat of our trip to Alaska but two new routes, the Glenn Highway and the Cassiar Highway, were big disappointments. We were under the impression that those two routes were easy traveling with beautiful scenery but that was not the case. Not only were there numerous frost heaves with broken pavement, pot holes, long dusty or muddy stretches of gravel and construction, the weather robbed us of any vistas that might have compensated for the drudgery. We are glad we had this once in a life time experience of driving to Alaska and back, but any future visits will be via plane or cruise ship. Never again will we submit our own vehicles to the abuse required to travel to Alaska.

Here are some photos of our vehicles as they appeared on the second day of travel on the Cassiar. The first photo is what the car looked like after we washed the windows so we could see to drive it. The second photo is what the motorhome looked like.

Our car

Our motorhome

The first morning on the Cassiar did offer up some rewards for our travel. This photo is the sunrise we were greeted to behind our motorhome while camping at Boya Lake Provincial Park.

Sunrise at Boya Lake

We don't think our vehicles will ever be the same after this trip and we will probably need to spend a month cleaning them after arriving home. Imagine driving an accumulated mileage of over 400 miles on roads so dusty that sometimes you could not see where you were going. There is dust in every compartment and many of the cabinets. The windshields on both vehicles have rock chips and new squeaks and rattles appear frequently. Not only are the sections of dirt and gravel dusty or muddy, they often have a washboard surface.

We are now back in the populated area of Canada and conditions are significantly improved. Today we will spend some time cleaning the vehicles and tomorrow continue our travel toward Jasper and Banff. Those are the two main areas we plan to visit as a group and then we will separate and  start our individual journeys home.

Yesterday we arrived back in Tok at the same campgroud we stayed at almost one month ago to the day. We spent a whole month sightseeing in the state of Alaska. If you count the five days we spent in Skagway and Haines then a little over a month. Remember those two communities are located on the strip of Alaska that borders British Columbia and the Yukon. After our visit there we traveled back into Canada before entering the main landmass of the state of Alaska.

We spent the last two days traveling from Valdez to Tok on what seemed like some of the worst road we have traveled. Although 99 percent of the road was paved, or sometimes patched, a very large portion of the highway undulated in a wave similar to a roller coaster. Occasionally we hit spots were two force vectors worked against forward travel; a vertical motion with the undulation and and a sideways motion with a tilt affect. We don't think anything in the cabinets were left undisturbed. The tricky part was that some of the road was reasonable enough to travel at up to 55 MPH and then all of a sudden chaos set in. We finally learned to just keep the speed down in anticipation of the next bad spot.

Our reward for that awful highway was supposed to be magnificent scenery but the weather was cloudy and wet masking all the views. We did not pick up the camera one time so we have no photos to post. Today we will journey back into Canada retracing our previous path until we reach Watson Lake. In Watson Lake we intend to branch off onto the Cassiar Highway and head to Jasper and Banff in the Canadian Rockies. We anticipate long periods without internet and phone service so this may be our last post for awhile.

Thursday afternoon we visited two museums in Valdez and learned how the town was completely devastated by the tsunami that resulted from the 1964 earthquake. The old town was in a location prone to flooding from snow and glacier melting so the decision was made to move the town. The present location of Valdez is about five miles from the original town. After 52 years one does not realize the town was ever at a different location.

Craig and Angie caught back up with us yesterday and at 5:30 PM we took them out to Solomon Gulch to view the salmon. That turned out to be fortuitous because a young grizzly bear showed up to feast on the salmon. This was the first grizzly bear Pam and I have seen in the wild. The night before only a few small black bears showed up and they remained in the woods. The sun was still shinning bright so we manged to get some quality photographs and a few videos.

Grizzly after fish

Grizzly catches fish

Yum yum

Look at those claws

We got about five minutes of video of this bear at close range. Here is approximately one minute of that video and we will provide a link to the full video.

 

Here is the link to the long version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gBitb-k9Is&feature=youtu.be