Wild ranches of Montana

A very pleasant evening on the balcony of our motel with a bottle of local wine, watching the sun set over the mountains in Radium Hot Springs.

It was soon time to leave Canada and head into Montana (border crossings, compared to Asia, are a complete breeze these days) - immediately the scenery changed to dry yellow fields; ranch country;

The ranch terrain provided wildlife for our entertainment - deer jumping fences alongside the road, and bounding alongside for 10's of metres before leaping back into the ranch from where they came - fab.

Ranch-land soon ran out, as we turned North-East for Glacier National park, and more pine covered mountains, glacial rivers, and scenic twisty roads - spoilt !!

Snowy Jasper

Leaving a chilly, but sunny Jasper for a blast through Jasper National Park to Radium Hot Springs, via Lake Louise, scenery was stunning as usual, and there was a light dusting of snow around.

By the time we had climbed up to 2000m at the Athabasca Glacier, it was chilly enough to stop for a coffee, and watch the American/Canadian attempt at glacial tourism - taking a 6-wheel drive, 52-seater coach up and onto the glacier - YUK!

Once over the summit, things started to warm up again, and the snow dusting disappeared. We stopped for a quick bite to eat at Lake Louise, and stared up at the ski pistes carved into the forested hillside. I'm still not convinced about these North American ski resorts - give me the alps anytime.

Back to civilisation

After crossing the continental divide, the scenery changed quite dramatically, the autumnal colours disappeared, and farms started to replace the rugged forested hills.

Through Fort Nelson, and Dawson Creek and the farms are getting bigger and more commercial, the prairie style farms have immaculately trimmed lawns, and post and rail fences. After the junk yard gardens we have become use to in Alaska and Yukon, it's quite refreshing to see cared for properties.

There is still 100's of miles between towns, and when you do come across towns, they are featureless grids of streets.

Even the roads through the forests are starting to get a little tedious;

Then before everything got too desperate, we turned into Jasper National Park :-)

....and more wildlife;

After another taster of long straight roads, and grid cities, I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the trek across the states - let's hope I'm wrong.

Wildlife spotting in BC

Heading south and east at last, means we are heading in the right direction for New York. In some ways the ride had the potential for being a little tedious - it was far from that!!

A great ribbon of tarmac threading its way around glacial blue lakes, through valleys, and around mountains - welcome to the Canadian Rockies. Oh, and we saw a few animals too!

Caroline was our guide for the day - each time she spotted wildlife, the brakes came on hard, Scott and I spent the whole day looking for escape routes up the verge to avoid the stationary abandoned motorcycle in the middle of the road !

First off, Buffalo - and lot's of them - herds with calves, couples, singles, you name it they were there;

Then we were treated to mountain goats (they are just bloody sheep Caroline - you can see them in Wales)!!

Then Caribou - herds of them;

and finally, a bobcat;

Oh, and there was the odd little bit of scenery too;

Yukon wilderness

Leaving the remote town of Faro, it was straight onto dirt roads, and into the wilderness. A detour to Ross River was required to cram the fuel tanks at a deserted looking fuel station;

With fuel tanks crammed we then had a rollercoaster ride along remote dirt roads for the remaining 360km to Watson Lake;

We saw nothing but remote landscape and very few other people or cars, certainly no buildings. Others were more lucky - spotting cougar and bears :-(

It's been a long trek through the remote Yukon, it's given us a great insight to how people survive here - with harsh winters, labour intensive mining and lot's of liqour to relieve the 'suffering' - in fact you can draw many parallels with Russian Siberia.

Next, it's back into British Columbia - destination Jasper.

From a real Gold Rush Town to sleepy Faro

A wild night was had by all in the real life gold rush town of Dawson City - the 2nd largest city in Yukon (population 2000), the streets are all dirt streets, the buildings (seemingly) havent been touched since the 1920's, and the gold is still coming out of the hills (10 gold millionaires in the last 6 years)

The night started off in the salubrious Westminster Hotel;

and ended in Diamond Tooth Gerties gambling hall, where the gold prospectors were playing in a big poker tournament, the dancing girls were dancing, and the brits were loosing at black jack and dirnking beer;

A slowish start the following morning and a misty ride over the hills out of Dawson City, then more gravel graded roads twisting through the Yukon hills - trees, trees, trees, lake, lake, trees - lovely.

Top of the world Highway

After the tedium of yesterday, today we would ride the 'Top of the World highway' to Dawson City (an old gold boom town)

The highway follows the ridgeline from Alaska into Yukon, the first part of the road was hard packed dirt, offering great panoramic views of the rolling mountains below;

Before long we spotted a detour to the gold boom town of Chicken (!);

It was in chicken that Scott spotted his latest business opportunity (not sure it will do too well!);

I think he'd be better off renovating the gold dredger, and trying his luck at panning;

Once the entrepenerial brain had slowed to it's usual dormant state, we continued towards Canada;

All too soon we approached Canadian customs (a fairly remote posting), and declared our weapons;

Once into Canada, it was a quick blitz down the mountain range to the ferry that would ship us into the sleepy town of Dawson City;