The Trip

I guess I'll pick up where I left off.

The first day my travels took me from Wasilla, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Other than a little rain and and a mid day temp in the upper 40's - low 50's. I saw one moose and one back bear. The dielectric grease I put on my front spark plug cap solved all of my problems when it came to my troubles with the from cylinder cutting out when it rains. One thing that I did not account for in my travel times was construction. I spent approximately 2 hours making no progress. I made it to Whitehorse by about 11 PM. I was already able to notice my daylight diminishing.

Day two I headed out from Whitehorse with the intention of spending the night in Fort Nelson, British Columbia. As i was riding I decided to make a change of route and I took British Columbia Rt 37 "The Cassiar." It was mostly a 2 lane road with minimal guardrails/lines on the road. It cut through some of the most amazing mountains I have ever seen. It was truly the middle of nowhere but it was still amazing. It struck me as rather weird that I had not seen any Ski Resorts and that is when I realized that all of the skiing in the area was via helicopter. Around sunset I came to a section of road that the brush on the sides had been cleared. In the course of 20 miles I saw at least 11 bears. This was rather disheartning considering i was only 20 minutes from where I was about to set up my tent for the night. Luckly the campground I stayed at was run by the providence so they had bear boxes and food caches. When I arrived I just cought the ranger station before it closed. I ended up throwing my tent up under a pavilion because of an impending thunder storm. The winds were picking up so I had to strap my tent to the pillars of the pavilion.

When I woke up there was no wind at all and the ground was dry so that was a plesant supprise. Day three I finished my ride down the cassiar and jumped on BC rt 16 and started my journy towards Jasper and Banff. Once I was off the Cassiar, signs of life were a lot more abundant. Overall the day we rather uneventful. It was the end of the day that was a little more action than I had Anticipated. As the sun was setting I was still about 2-3 hours outside Jasper national park. The roads were wet but I didn't hit any direct rain. This became interesting when I cam to a freshly paved stretch of road that lasted about 20 miles. The wet roads without lines were a less than pleasurable experience but it only got better. As I entered into Jasper it actually started to rain and apparently the route I was on has heavy tractor trailer traffic at night. I couldn't see exactly what was going on because of the road spray and the lack of lines on the road but i do know that there were several instances that I could see a rock wall to my left and nothing to my right. I have no idea how far down it was but needless to say I was excited to get to my campground that evening.

On the fourth day I awoke to blue skies and Amazing mountains. It was probibly in the mid 40s and it took a wile for everything to warm up because the sun had to peek over the mountains. I can not begin to describe the views in Jasper and Banff. As I continued my ride I zig zaged back across British Columbia and headed toward Vancouver. I made it to the US border just at sunset and crossed in some small town in Washington. Seattle was probibly one of the prettyest cities I've seen at night. My campgound was about 30 minutes from Portland, Oregon. Because I didn't get in until around 2:00 AM I ended up just throwing my tent up and paying in the morning.