The Alaska Highway South to Jasper National Park

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

It's been a long haul since leaving Whitehorse on Friday. Our goal from that location was to make tracks down the highway and reach the Canadian Rockies. Tonight we will sleep in one of the few sites left in the Wilcox Creek Campground in Jasper National Park. We are close to the Icefields Center, where people get the ice buses to travel onto the Athabascan Glacier. Tomorrow we will hike up from the campground for a view of the glacier from above the tree line.

We left Whitehorse early and traveled through territory we had previously driven on our way up to Alaska. Thirteen kilometers from Watson Lake we passed the turn-off for the Cassiar Highway, our route up from the ferry and Prince Rupert. We didn't go back down it to check out the bears at Fish Creek, and instead found a Yukon Government campground at Watson Lake and spent our $12 for a night back in the woods with the biting insects!

Truck remnant at the junction of the Alaska Highway and the old CANOL Road. The CANOL pipeline was built in 1942 to bring oil down from wells 250+ miles to the north. The pipeline was abandoned after only a year due to cost and mechanical problems.

Watson Lake

The next morning we fueled up and visited the signpost forest right on the highway. When the Alaska Highway was being built in 1942, a soldier started the forest by nailing mileage markers on a post. In time visitors have nailed over 70,000 signs onto posts, mostly celebrating their hometowns. Lots of the signs looked to be state highway signs stolen before their travels for this purpose. Signs are posted from all over the world. Interesting place to wile away some time.

Back on the road we looked for wildlife. The stretch from Watson Lake to Fort Nelson is the most scenic and wildlife filled. I think this is the day we saw lots of bears. The days tend to blur together when you are just making miles. We saw a half dozen black bears eating the lush grass along the roadway, and then discovered a mama grizzly bear with two blonde cubs lying down along the side of the road. Our travels the length of the highway revealed lots of caribou, bison, bears, stone sheep, ravens, and only one moose a long way off.

Black Bear

Adolescent Black Bear

Mama Griz with two cubs. The second one is hidden behind her.

Laird River rapids and whirlpool

Laird River bridge - Wooden deck

Muncho Lake

Bull Wood Bison

Mom and babies ready to cross the road

Baby Wood Bison just stood in the road and yelled at us.

Rare two-legged female Caribou!

Caribou

Female Stone's Sheep

Still shedding her winter coat. Momma and baby licking salt from the road.

That night we found an old abandoned provincial park in British Columbia that is still used by travelers. We pulled into the rest area along a river at Mile 115 Creek. After a walk along the creek and walking through the “drifts” of cotton grass seed heads, we spent the night with several other RV's including a large flatbed truck, and a fancy all-terrain RV from France that said “Around the World With Martin” on the side. It appeared to be a father and son.

Folded Sedimentary formations south of Watson Lake on Folded Mountain

Free campsite at Mile 115 Creek

Mile 115 Creek

Cottongrass in bloom

The next stretch took us over the highest part of the Alaska Highway at Summit Lake. We stopped for Stone sheep in the road. Then we came over the pass at Steamboat Mountain and the downhill into Fort Nelson. 18 years ago, we lost our transmission on the downside of this mountain and limped into Fort Nelson where we spent 10 days waiting for a replacement transmission. We were a little nervous as we descended to the flats at Fort Nelson.

Stone's Sheep

Road to Summit Lake. Notice the road cut into the roadface.

Ascending to Summit Lake, the narrowest part of the Alaska Highway

A safe trip down, a refueling stop, and we were driving out of Fort Nelson. It has grown, as everything has in this part of the world. We passed the campground we “lived in” and found it larger and fancier and more expensive. I think we spent $8 a night. We stopped to use the free dump station at the Alaska Highway Heritage Museum, but decided not to tour it. Greg and Kaylin visited it 18 years ago while I did laundry.

Deciding to try to make Dawson Creek and the end of the Alaska Highway that night, Greg, the driving machine, continued on. The road from Fort Nelson south was very good, but we started to see evidence of the oil/gas industry and fracking. Once we reached Fort St. John, we discovered a rapidly growing boom town filled with businesses to supply the industry, including lots of new housing, mostly aluminum ATCO buildings, to house the workers. We made another refueling stop, and pressed on. We were now in the flatlands, having left the mountains and wilderness behind. Reaching Dawson Creek and the end of the Alaska Highway, we pulled into the Mile 0 municipal campground, and secured one of the last sites. We noticed increasing haze as we descended from Steamboat Mountain, and asked the host if there were fires nearby. He said there was a bad one west of the town, and we would be able to smell the smoke and have ashes on our rig in the morning. We had originally planned to head in that direction, but I woke that morning with a new plan to go south instead of west. Now I knew why!

Caribou

One of several deer that crossed the road

Wildflowers lining the roadside. Lots of purple fireweed.

Oil or gas well south of Grande Prairie (Wrong placement of photo. Read on...)

We grabbed our now very needed showers, and tried to stay cool. Only a few days before we were at Denali in the 40's and rain. Now it was in the 80's. We slept better being a little farther south, and having shorter daylight. The next morning after a really long wait to dump, when we discovered that travelers were coming in from the Alaska Highway to take advantage of a free dump and tying up the dump we paid for, we left the Alaska Highway for the last time and began the journey towards the Canadian Rockies. 18 years ago, after sitting so long in Fort Nelson, we had to eliminate visiting them from our trip back to Maryland.

Alberta considers this a bridge capable of handling all the huge trucks!

After crossing into Alberta and leaving British Columbia, we pulled into Grand Prairie on the way to Jasper National Park. Another boom town! We needed to re-supply our food. Pulling into the WalMart, we discovered that even though it was Monday, it was mobbed! The Canadians have two long weekends a summer, and we had just run into the second one. Everyone recreated on Sunday, and did their shopping on Monday. Our quick visit turned into a really long wait in the check-out. Theme for the day- Waiting!!!


Finally, about 4 pm we left Grand Prairie and drove south on Route 40 to reach the Yellowhead Highway into the park. There was one town along the road, and we anticipated a nice drive through the wilderness. Oh, Alberta, what have you done! We knew about the tar sands and the devastation you have done to the boreal forests, but little did we know that you are also destroying the little bit of the Rockies that are within your boundaries. We saw gas/oil activity, fracking and timbering activity everywhere, even in the wilderness areas and wildlife refuges. Huge trucks for all the industries were tearing up and down the roads. Many new dirt roads into the wilderness had been built, and the dust was everywhere.

We found a free campsite for the night, at a user maintained Alberta park. It was far enough off the road to muffle the truck noise. Although it had 14 sites, most were filled by Albertans who left their rigs there for the summer. We noticed other boondocking and free campsite areas where other locals, and men working at the gas fields and fracking sites were living for free. A few other travelers filled the rest of the campground for the night.

We left early to continue the drive south on Route 40, past more resource extraction. Today we found the open pit coal mines and the coal fired power plant. Finally we reached the Yellowhead Highway and turned west towards Jasper. The traffic was heavy going into the park and the mountains in front of us were obscured by the haze of smoke. We turned into the town of Jasper, hoping to top off the fuel tank and visit the information center. The town was completely filled with cars and dozens and dozens of RV's parked in all the available spaces. We continued out the other end, and calculated that we had enough fuel to make it to the next fuel stop.

At Jasper we drove onto the famous Icefields Parkway that goes south through the Rocky Mountains through Jasper National Park and into Banff National Park. The traffic on the two lane road was heavy, everyone but us seemed to be exceeding the speed limit. We got passed constantly, even on the solid yellow lines. Greg had to concentrate on driving and was missing the spectacular geology, but frankly with the smoke haze, there wasn't as much to see.

 Jasper National Park

Climbing the Icefields Parkway

We knew that most of the campgrounds were first come-first served, and with the huge amount of visitors, we decided to try to get in Wilcox Creek Campground near the Icefields Center around 2:30. We got one of the last available campsites. Time to catch our breath and figure out what to do next. The weather is cooler here, only in the 70's instead of 80's, and we have a hiking trail starting here, so tomorrow we will hike, spend the night and then work our way down the Icefields Parkway and over to Yoho National Park west of Banff. Hopefully it is not as popular as this park, and has several features we are interested in exploring.