Camping at the Co-housing

We travelled through a strange dry valley between the Rockies and West Coast mountains of British Columbia.  

The last Cinnamon bun

Joffre Lake on way to Whistler - Billy Elliot eat your heart out

After taking a wrong turn just before Whistler we saw this dog running loose on the road, a strange sight as dogs aren't allowed off the lead by law.  He narrowly missed getting run over a couple of times and there was no sign of anyone around so we stopped and he came running over, obviously very pleased to see people. He was very affectionate.  We knocked on someone's door and they rang the number from his collar and after a bit Jake was collected by his owner and off he went in the front of a pick up, he was such a cute dog, I half hoped he had no owner and we could keep him!

On the way back in to Vancouver to drop off our hire car after our 2 week Rocky adventure we somehow (Ralph's navigating and the massive amount of road works) went massively wrong and were helped out at at gas station by a lovely chap with this cute pic on his van.

Ralph in his natural habitat

We left Canada on the train from Pacific Central station in Vancouver to Bellingham, Washington, US.  There were lots of passport checks and I managed to smuggle 2 potatoes out of Canada.  The US border guards were as aggressive as ever.  They came down the train grilling everyone as to the purpose of their travel into the US and made the man in the seat in front say how much cash he was carrying.  We were met in Bellingham by a great chap called Gary who we had met mountain biking in Whistler.  He lived at a really cool co-housing where everyone has their own house but gardens, workshops complete with every tool imaginable, bikes, kayaks and orchard are shared and managed by everyone.  They have a really cool renovated farmhouse which they have functions/big meals in.  We camped in the orchard.

While setting up the tent we were visited by three white tailed deer, two males with antlers in velvet and a female, she's hiding behind the clump of grass at the back of the picture!

Bellingham co-housing

A huge can-o-worms with a specially adapted pedal mixer

The gardens contain lots of edible plants, everyone is expected to contribute 9 hours of their time a month to various tasks such as gardening/general maintenance.

Renovated farmhouse for functions, childrens playrooms, library.  We borrowed bikes and cycled to town where the farmers market was on.  There was a cycle route which went out over the sea on a raised boardwalk/pier.  Its a really great place.

A lovely lady Carol, Garys neighbour, dropped us off at the Alaska Marine Highway terminal ready for our trip north through the inside passage to Alaska.  We got there early so we could bag a good spot on deck as we were sleeping there for the next 3 nights.

black bear bonanza - getting close to Cody's cousins

On the way back to Vancouver from the rockies we took a scenic route, the Yellowhead highway.

The poster shows grizzlies which is a bit of  trading standards issue as they then told us when we were out on the boat that they never see grizzlies as they stay away from people up in the hills and don't venture down to the river bank like the black bears do.

One of the main reasons for us turning off the road for the bear trip place was the crazy driving that was going on.  The Yellowhead Highway is a long winding single carriageway and everyone was getting frustrated by slow RV's and doing really risky over taking manoeuvres including the lorries.  After one horrible experience of a lorry nearly running us off the road during a failed over take attempt Ralph sought refuge by turning off towards Blue River Bear Safari.  The mosquitos were so bad they had massive industrial strength fans blowing mosquito repellent across the car park, sustainable development in action!

The boat trip up river was brilliant.  There were black bears patrolling the river edges for scraps left by bald eagles.  They must have been teenage bears which couldn't  hold territories elsewhere with richer pickings such as berries.  We saw 5 different teenage males (not sure how many of them I got photos of).  They reminded us of Cody (Harry and Mhairi's dog) especially when they were rootling in a rotten trunk with their noses all wrinkled up. The only downside were the viscous mosquitos who munched on us throughout the trip, they were all around the bears - I really don't know how they put up with it.

That evening we stayed at a b and b run by a crazy German lady, she had 2 cats one of which was named "Robbie get down" as every 5 mins he jumped on a shelf, table or wardrobe and was shouted at for doing so.

looking cool - I hope they call me if they bring Howard's way back

On the way to the bears and a heavy dose of mosquito brutality

Something yummy in the log

camel hair blanket

Fiona with "Robbie get down"

the b and b

He's not drugged I just forgot the flash was on

The worlds largest cross country skis - genius!

an average trailer, they all look like this

skating on thick ice/it's a lock out

We were booked into a hostel near Jasper just a short distance from Edith Cavell mountain and glacier, also known as White Ghost.  The road to the hostel was steep and winding but newly tarmaced. On our way up we stopped for some hitch hikers, hoping to go someway to repaying our karmic debt for all the free rides in San Juan. The hitchers were two teenage lads with skate long-boards, they were on their way up so they could enjoy the long newly smooth and refurbished descent back down. One of the lads had done the ride before and it took him about an hour without stopping, which sounds super fun but tiring. He also had a sports camera on a hockey sticky to film the whole thing.

The following day we had a further opportunity to balance out our karma by helping two californians in distress. They had locked their keys in their car. We delayed our hike up through Edith Cavell meadows and decided to drive them to the bottom of the mountain to the pay phone - not nearly as fun as skating down it!

The two skaters set off for their hour long descent!

The troll by his ice cave!

Ice cave 

Edith Cavell Glacier

Ice on the glacial lake

Calling the AAA at the bottom of the mountain

Eeeeek, finally close enough for a Pika picture

Angel glacier

Lunch stop and an add boiling water curry pouch 

It doesn't look steep now but it was...

Alpine pussytoes

shale of the century

Fi had researched the Yoho area before we arrived and realised it was the home to one of the most important fossil discoveries ever, the Burgess Shale. The mountains in the area are home to 515 million year old fossils once on the shallow tropical seabed and now pushed thousands of feet into the air when two continents collided  and produced the Rocky mountains.  We apprehensively booked ourselves on a guided trip wondering if we could manage the 22km round trip to visit the site and had to declare that we were fit enough and had no phobias for some reason!

The walk began at 7.15am, bit of a shock to the system, given the length of days as you can imagine we've not been getting up all that early recently!  We woke to the sound of pouring rain on the tent at 5am and thought oh well at least it will have cleared in an hour.  No such luck, when we emerged from the tent an hour and a half later there was a pond underneath it!  We had to forgoe breakfast due a series of incidents and having to dig a drainage channel to reclaim the land the tent should have been on.  We arrived for the walk hungry, wet and freezing cold.  The ranger's prediction was that it could rain for the next six hours of the ten hour walk and also warned us that when the rocks are wet it can be difficult to see any fossils but it was up to us, she was happy to go if we wanted to - though the fact that she kept repeating this phrase slightly suggested otherwise.  There was one other chap who turned up, he was wearing jeans and one of those festival ponchos - think bin bag but red and thinner.  She tactfully turned him away suggesting tomorrow may be better weather.  No one else who had booked on had turned up due to a rockslide which covered the trans Canada highway (equivalent of our M1)  round the corner, it was closed for the next 2 days so I guess we got away quite lightly with our floating tent.  We decided we should go for it- we later realised that each other thought the other one wanted to go so we ended up going by mistake really but it was mainly to avoid having to go back to the wet tent.

Anyway all turned out fine, it stopped raining and we warmed up as we started walking up the massively steep hillside.  We walked past fresh bear poo on the trail, up for a snack stop at LittleYoho lake and on until Claudia who was guiding us stopped and on our left just uphill from our trail were a group of mountain goats! This completely made our day as I had spent ages scanning the hillsides to this point in the hope of seeing a speck of a mountain goat and here they were having a sit down making the vertical rock look like Sofa World. One teenage male (we could tell this as any older males would be out on their own and they were too big to be this years) was sitting with his long bony legs tucked under him on a tiny rock ledge trying to look comfy then he got up, moved to a new rocky outcrop even lumpier than the last and set about getting his legs tucked in and ended up with some sticking out from under him but he pretended that he was really comfy and enjoying it.  There were two mums with little ones from this year, some teenage males and some older females, about 10 altogether.  This was really lucky to see, not many people get to see them this close up.  In the winter they grow fantastic white coats with cropped trousers and beards.

At lunchtime among the rocks we saw our favourite Pikas again and many ground squirrels and chipmunks.  Then the sun came out for the final zig zag uphill through the snow to the Wallcott quarry where Wallcott chipped away the hillside where there is a metre wide band of shale rich in fossils.  The story goes that he and his wife were horse riding up the Burgess pass, the same trail we had just walked which had been created by Canadian Pacific rail workers exploring the valleys adjacent to the newly emerging railroad that was making its way across the Rockies.  The horse kicked a rock which split revealing a fossil and Walcott an enthusiastic palaeontologist began searching the area and spent the rest of his life collecting fossils from this rich seam.  

The way up

half way at lake Yoho

Hobnail boot, possibly one of Walcott's

Mice tunnels that used to be under the snow

check out how much the mice poo (when they're under the snow)

Entering the fossil zone

Those white things are mountain goats, it was great to see them.

Fresh bear poo on the trail (we seem to have a lot of scatological photos!)

This is so cool, the Pikas cut up vegetation and put it in neat little piles to dry out so they can store them and eat them through the winter.

Nearly there, but it is difficult to see in the snow

Alpine hunk 

"I think its a rock" - Fi has had to wear this helmet at all times of the holiday just in case she hurt herself

Trilobite

Another trilobite - most of the other fossils were amazing but too small to photograph, hence the dearth of trilobites (trilobites were not the most common fossil at this site)

This is 2 pieces of the species below