Smithers, Dease Lake, to Whitehorse

Downtown Whitehorse, 9:30 at night!

Just north of Smiters where flooding is severe

 The road from Smithers up to Watson Lake was formally a poor unpaved road for adventurers only.  Half way to Dease Lake there is turn off that leads to Stewart, BC and the tiny Hyder, Alaska.  Hyder has about 60 residents and no paved streets.  In fact, going into Hyder, there is no border control.  My sense is that this lack of control is indicative of the place generally.  While Stewart has police, a border station, and even a school, its US neighbor seems more a haven for tax cheats, the wayward, and the dislocated.

The turn north. . .to the upper BC and Alaska

The road to Stewart and Hyder

Hundreds of views just like this.

A

Mom and the kids

 Up to Dease Lake about the midpoint on the Cassiar Highway, the road is now reasonably wide replete with center stripes, passing zones and shoulders.  The surfaced is fair to good.  Beyond Dease Lake, however, the old gravel has been covered with a rough asphalt.  The road is narrow, there are no shoulders, no markers, and the ditches are deep. All about, rivers are wild, mountains untamed, traffic nonexistent,  The wildlife reigns!  We saw more bear than cars.  I lost count at about twenty.  One moose wandered in front of us, and a badger showed his head above the ditch and then ran for cover.

We arrived!

In Watson Lake. Signs from everywhere.

Every stream is raging right now

Such grand traditions in Whitehorse.

  Day one in Canada was 388 miles.  The same distance for day two.  Day three we covered 462,  Today, getting up to the Alaska Highway and running, first to Watson Lake and a romp through the Sigh post Village and then to Whitehorse, we covered 453.  So we are averaging a little over 400 miles a day. . .but boy, are they different miles with road surface, critters, and weather all factoring in.  And then there is the fatigue.  The first few hours each day are exhilarating with great vistas captivating our attention.  By the end of the day, the same spectacle has less luster.  Tired eyes, hands, shoulders, and seats, take their toll.  Speaking of the day's length, the sun came up today at 4:39 and set 10:55.  Amazing.

A Whitehorse bulletin board

BBQ Salmon: new one for me

  

Williams Lake to Smithers

We were just leaving Williams Lake this morning when a yellow checker painted  '98 K1200RS pulled up along side of us.  The rider, from Vancouver, was interested in the sidecar and we rode side-by-side for about a mile talking back and forth.  With cars behind us, the rider signaled "coffee?" , I nodded, and we followed him another ten miles or so when he signaled for a turn into the parking area for a lonely cafe.  He turned out to be a realtor from just outside Vancouver who, as an avid long distance rider, was heading up to Ft. St. John, just above Dawson Creek on the Alaska Highway. . .planning to be back at work on Monday.   Armed with five fresh salmon sandwiches made from fresh salmon he had caught the day before, he had left home around midnight and had ridden through the darkness and rain to where we met him.   At the same cafe, we met a couple who had formerly lived in Smithers, our next destination, and an Evangelical  couple from the Williams Lake area who had eight kids, and were were survivalists.  These were all rugged folks.

Somebody was happy to be out of the weather!

With fellow rider, Brett Hammill, for a little coffee and conversation

 We enjoyed coffee, a bowl of corn chowder, and lots of conversation.  Over an hour later, we headed toward Prince George where he would turn NE and we would head NW.  It was a nice encounter and as a gift, we had fresh salmon sandwiches for lunch a few hours later compliments of Brett Hammill.  I bet we see him again someday!

Greg and Bonnie, friendly locals

It just isn't spring here yet

The Alpinman, watchman for Smithers

Snow melting off this mountain contributes to the flooding

A funky hybrid Petunia in a garden shop window

     When we left Williams Lake, it was cloudy, in the 50s,  and pretty nice, considering some of the extremes we had seen over the last few days.  As the day went along, however,  we got caught in hard rain, temps that wildly rose and dropped, and skies that cleared and darkened  whimsically it seemed.  I took my liner off when it got to 68,  put it back on in the low 50s, got warm a few miles down the road only to need electrics when we later saw low 40s.  Intense lightening and flooded roads were the precursors to the three inch deep hail we encountered.  While that was happening, we saw fields that were now lakes, streams that had overflowed their banks within feet of the road, and snow covered peaks within just a few miles.  The motel for the night is nice and food in town was very good. . .and all much appreciated.

Views From the Nest II

 After, as Lauria so perfectly put it, our pleasant respite (sunny second day in Seattle), we crossed the border and headed into British Columbia up the Sea to Sky Highway.  Absolutely breathtaking mountains and views.  Too bad it was chilly and rainy (on, off, on, off) all day. Passed Whistler, the Olympic site and ended in Williams Lake.

Coffee Shop! Great pie.

Relaxing

Front of the coffee shop

R

Oh ya

Loved this kitty relaxing in the sun

Seattle flowers

More seattle flowers (hee)

They have trees in the middle of the street!

Crossing the border-Vancouver

Sea to Sky Highway

Ulysses, Penelope and Telemachus enjoying the ride

Love those hairpins!

My pics don't capture the grandeur

Sleeping in Seattle

     After the visit to the Redwoods, we wandered up the coast into Oregon and Coos Bay.  This whole ride is based on a National parks Tour, the Gold version of the Iron Butt Association's challenge.  In addition, and a nice way to break up long runs is the Grand Tour hunt for towns that have water in their name.  We are up to 21 such places.  Both of those we've already discussed, but now a new one to further complicate the record keeping.  The IBA has a new ride based on collecting lighthouses.  The basic task is to find 60 lighthouses in one year.  Higher levels of this game include getting examples on both coasts,  multiple countries, and higher still, from multiple continents.  The big one gives you three years to find 180 lighthouses, which must include examples from both coasts, the Gulf of Mexico, and two continents.  We'll see how far we'll go with this but a trip to New Zealand next year is in the planning stages.  That would take care of the second continent. . .so who knows.  In any event, we have managed to find a couple of lighthouses and we have plans to catch a few more of the low hanging fruit variety.  Same with water named towns.
     From Coos Bay, we moved inland and up I-5 through Eugene and Portland to Seattle.  In Portland, we got held up for half and hour waiting for a lift bridge to come back to Earth. The lady in an explorer one lane over engaged us in chatter.  Turns out she was a beer distributor.  She didn't have beer samples, but she did have baked goods from one of her delivery spots.  Next thing you know we  had a gift of some funky organic bread produced by a company owned by an X-con.  I think the bread is called Killer bread. . .not sure what he did time for but the name suggests this was a guy you don't want returning to his earlier proclivities.  Bread was pretty good.
   By Tuesday night we worked our way to the top of the Olympic peninsula where we found a great spot overlooking the harbor in Port Angles.  Dinner and a walk through this working/tourist town was fun, especially since the shops were closed and Robin was limited to window shopping.  An early visit to the Visitor Center of the National Park gave us our Washington NP stamp.  On our way back down, the plan is to go back out there for a longer stay and a decent investigation of this remarkable NP.

Violent river mouth in Oregon

Scot's Broom. . .pretty but not native

Not a display!

Large herds near Rt. 38, oregon

View from our motel down to Port Angles

Wild cats!

The ferries to Seattle run every hour or so from Kingston to Edmunds, just above Seattle. We crossed the lift bridge, rode into Kingston, and straight onto a nearly full ferry that pulled out two minutes after we boarded.  Splendid timing!  An hour south and we were n downtown Seattle, in the rain, and at the Klondike NP commemorating the launching site of many prospectors during the gold rush.  A second NP stamp, a nice visit with the staff, a look about, and off we were to the Ride West BMW shop where I had an appointment for oil change, new front tire, and a general once over service. All that went well though clutch slipping symptoms had started and the tech confirmed that clutch failure was up the road a piece, maybe where nothing was. With the bike up on two lifts, it was also easy to see that the sidecar tire needed to be replaced also. Hummmmm.  No tech time until next Tuesday was the bad news.  Good news: they had the necessary parts.  We began to plan a four day stay in Seattle when the Service Manager (Mark, originally from Fairbanks) thought it all through and offered to do the job himself if one of his assistants was able to come in today.  All that worked out, we got the sidecar tire replaced at a car tire chain, and we stayed the night across from University Village near the U. of Washington.  Most of the evening was spent at Barnes & Noble, right across the street from our motel.  And, Robin had a discount coupon!  Seattle is expensive so that was a real plus to the budget ledger which was about to get clobbered by the clutch replacement. So, here we sit right now (2:15pm, PCT, Thursday) in a nice coffee shop waiting for the clutch replacement to be completed.  The Ride West staff couldn't be more helpful and the shop is big.  They claim to be the US number one retailer though it seems that only four techs (plus the Service Manager) are working.  But they have apparel specialists, two assistant service managers, and a legion of sales people.  If there are no hangups, the bike will be ready in a couple of hours and we'll head north toward the border which we'll probably cross tomorrow morning.  With some good fortune, it won't be long before the real Alaska trip begins in earnest.  The sun is shinning!

Some service work with sidecar rigs is no issue for these folks.

New front tire and oil change work!

The sidecar had to come off for the clutch replacement

Retired adventure bikes in the showroom