We mentioned in the previous post that we had rearranged our itinerary to include a stop near San Francisco, which we’d talk about later. That will be this post. There is also a post titled ‘Skyline‘ that I wrote during our trip two years ago that provides background that is relevant to this one.
In the Skyline post, I talked about my Aunt Ami and my Uncle Dick. A few weeks ago, as we were driving off the ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, the phone rang. Ami was calling to tell us that Dick had passed away.
Vancouver Island is about 1.5 times the size of Vermont in both area and population, with a comparable amount of geographic diversity. Remembering that we’ve chuckled about travelers planning to visit Vermont in 2 days (‘It’s so small!’), we allotted 10 days to explore Vancouver Island and found it wasn’t quite enough – there’s so much there!
The coasts, the ferries, the forests, the farms, orchards and vineyards… The small towns, the city of Victoria… The hiking, kayaking, biking, surfing… (Surfing?) The rainforest with giant cedars, Douglas firs, ferns and moss, the palm trees… (Palm trees?) Here’s more on the lower part of the island…
With a week or two left for exploring before we need to start heading toward Vermont, we decided to spend some of it on Vancouver Island. We got passage on the MV Coastal Renaissance, one of the largest double-ended ferries in the world and radically different from the 6- to 10-vehicle river ferries we boarded while in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The height of our camper required that we board the truck deck – 6 lanes wide and seemingly a mile long, filled with trucks and other RVs. On an absolutely gorgeous day, we spent the 2-hour trip on the immense upper deck, trekking back and forth and all around as we took in the sights. From the departure dock at Horseshoe Bay, we could look back on the Sea to Sky Highway hanging off the mountain, splotchy with low clouds. Islands in all directions looked like mountains popping out of the ocean, many dotted with small communities along the shores. We looked back on the city of Vancouver, beautifully situated on the ocean, as more mountains came into sight on the horizon – Vancouver Island.
We debarked in Nanaimo, a pretty city on the east shore of the island. Without a plan, we headed north toward the most remote part of the island. Little did we know, the moon was soon to enter the seventh house, and Jupiter would align with Mars, and we were about to get a unique Vancouver Island experience…
South of Williams Lake, we needed to choose among four routes heading further south through the mountains of southern BC. Though all four promised amazing views and mountains and crazy roads and funky towns, we could explore only one. We’re at that time in this year’s trip where we need to think about weather and getting back to Vermont before it snows (too much…)
Based purely on sentimental reasons, we decided on the Sea to Sky Highway. We’d drive it just for the name! As hard core skiers, it would be enough that this highway passes by Whistler-Blackcomb, the largest ski resort in North America, rated one of the top ski areas consistently since the 1990’s. It was also the site of one of the infamous annual ski trips of our early adulthood with friends Pat, Geoff, Harry and Karen. That was in 1997…
There are only two roads through British Columbia that will get you to or from Alaska – the Alaska Highway and the Cassiar/Yellowhead Highways. We came north on the first one, so we headed south on the Cassiar.
The Cassiar Highway is a relatively remote, 725-km (450-mile), paved, narrow, two-lane road through the Cassiar Mountains connecting Watson Lake (pop 1600) to Kitwanga (pop 400). The road mostly follows the river valleys and we were always within view of lakes and mountains of various shapes and sizes. Still, there were hints everywhere that there was more we weren’t seeing… occasional, brief glimpses between the trees of high, snow-covered peaks and avalanche signs everywhere. Also, heli-ski operations in settlements like Bell II (pop a handful plus seasonals) and a brochure for Provincial Parks with glorious mountain photos and instructions for how to access them, by air. Hmmmm…
Nonetheless, we found the drive to be quite pretty, imagined what we couldn’t see from where we were, and enjoyed a few remote campsites near lakes and rivers with great mountain views.
You might be thinking by now that we have a perverse infatuation with dead-end roads to out-of-the-way places. Ok, maybe we do a little – and we’ve been to some outrageously cool end-of-the-road spots – and sometimes there’s more to it than that. While at the Folk on the Rocks Festival last year in Yellowknife, we chatted with some folks living there who came originally from Inuvik. They loved the town, and they also told us that the Mackenzie Delta was the most beautiful place on earth. That was certainly enough for us to put it on our list.
So, who’s ready to hear about another 1600-km (1000-mile) road trip on a mostly great dirt road that totally rocked? It’s actually quite different from the last one. True, Alaska’s Dalton Highway – which we drove in June – and the Yukon/Northwest Territories’ Dempster Highway both provide overland access north of the Arctic Circle. They both involve about 1600 km (1000 mi) of unpaved roads through the wilderness with spectacular wildlife, and they are both the northernmost roads in their respective countries as well as the first (Dalton) and second (Dempster) northernmost roads in North America. They’re both legendary for broken windshields, flat tires and, oh, yes, you could die. Other than that, everything was different.
When I first looked at a map of the Kenai Peninsula, there was a small dot on the northern edge labelled Hope. I looked a bit more closely and, sure enough, there was a road to it. Ok, we have to go there. Hope there’s something to see…
A few weeks ago at Salmonfest, we of course saw a lot of people wearing T-shirts. About 50% of the festival-goers understandably were wearing their t-shirts from prior Salmonfests, but the next largest group had shirts from the Seaview Cafe & Bar and Campground in Hope, AK. Hmm… We asked around and yes, downtown Hope has a cafe and bar with live music daily, there’s a campground, and yes, we should check it out. Then Duncan highly encouraged a visit to Hope. Good advice!
Seward is a small, picturesque city on Resurrection Bay at the base of Marathon Mountain at yet another Alaskan road’s end. It’s totally surrounded by tall, steep mountains wearing a shawl of glaciers that make up Kenai Fjords National Park. Seward is predominantly a commercial fishing town, also a destination and embarkation point for tourists in the summer. It’s the northern terminus of many cruise ship lines as well as the southern terminus (aka Mile 0) of the Seward Highway to Anchorage, the Alaska Railroad to Fairbanks, and the original Iditarod dog sled trail to Nome. Heavily damaged by the 1964 earthquake, the rail yards and fish processing plants directly on the bay were not rebuilt where they’d stood; the land was instead converted to parks with hundreds of campsites, enabling travelers to soak in the views and get to the mountains.
We left Whittier to drive straight through the Kenai Mountains and across the Kenai River Valley to get to Salmonfest on time, which allowed none of our usual poking around to see what there is to see. No worries, though. There’s but one road through central western Kenai Peninsula, and we knew we’d have to drive back that way, so poking around could wait for the return trip.
So we poked our way up the Kenai River. The Kenai River captures the glacial meltwater from the Kenai Mountains in eastern Kenai Peninsula, creating the screaming bright aquamarine colored Kenai Lake. From the lake, the river meanders through lowland lakes and forests which evolve to predominantly flat wetlands, enroute to Cook Inlet and the Pacific Ocean.
D’oh! No, not that Homer – Homer, AK. It’s a small town in a stunning location at the road’s end on the west side of the Kenai Peninsula. It’s situated where the Kachemak Bay empties into Cook Inlet, feeling cozy and protected by the Kenai Mountains interspersed with glaciers to the south and east, and the Alaska Range with its four towering volcanoes to the west. A key geological feature of the town is the Homer Spit, a terminal moraine left by the glacier that filled and carved out the Kachemak Bay 15,000 years ago. The Spit is a long, narrow, natural gravel bar that sticks out 4.5 miles into bay, now dotted with campsites and shops and people fishing.
