Tag: Kayak

Driving along the most scenic highway in North America

We made it to Alaska! Well not really, only for a few hours…read on. Stewart, BC is off 37A, a little 65 km detour off the Cassier Highway described as one of the most scenic highway in North America. From Stewart you can get to Hyder which is part of Alaksa the good ol’ US of A! It is interesting that there is no border crossing to go back into the US here but you have to go through customs to cross back into Canada. Luckily it was really simple, we were only asked a few routine questions and they scanned our passports. They don’t stamp US passports when you enter Canada unfortunately as I’d like to keep my collection going and get Zygi’s started.

Entering Hyder, Alaska

We took our time driving down 37A, it was breathtakingly gorgeous. The snow capped mountains rise on all sides and there are literally hundreds of water falls. We passed by Bear Glacier and took some pictures. We arrived at Clements Lake Recreation Site which was described as having spots for 5 RV’s. This time I took the bike down the dirt road to see if there was a spot for our huge rig. Success! We found one of the most scenic spots we had ever seen. It was facing a small lake with a huge, steep mountain in the backdrop. We could see several waterfalls coming down the mountain and we could even hear the largest one from 1000’s of ft away! There were only three real camping spots, only one of them big enough for anything more than a truck camper or something similar.

The next day we took a drive to see Salmon Glacier, the only glacier in the WORLD that you can drive to see the summit. We drove across the border to Hyder, Alaska which is described as “The friendliest little ghost town you’ve seen.” We first stopped at the bear viewing platform. A nicely build elevated platform about a river where bears come to feed on salmon. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any bears because the salmon had not made it down to the river yet (we were 3 weeks early). The man that was working there smelled like dirty old laundry but he gave us the automobile tour brochure that gave a little history about the area along the way to the glacier. There was a lot of mining done here and still is going on. The road to the glacier was a long, rough, gravel road full of large potholes. We were warned that the graters had not been on the road yet but we decided to go anyways. We had to see the fifth largest glacier in North America. The drive up itself was shockingly beautiful with beautiful steep mountains everywhere, tons of waterfalls, and clear blue lakes and a milky white river (glacier feed rivers are white from the rock being ground down). The road was about 20 miles but somehow Zygi managed to sleep on the way up despite the rocking and shaking of the tight truck suspension.

The next day we hung around the lake and enjoyed the view. It was another warm perfect day. I swam to the platform in the middle of the freezing lake. We also broke out the kayak for the first time on the trip and took Zygi for his first ride. He liked climbing around on it until he barrel rolled off it. He was upset for a bit after that but Victoria calmed him down. Unfortunately after we put his life jacket on he started balling and didn’t stop crying for the entire ride (which was a short one). We let him play with the jacket afterwards so hopefully after a few more times he’ll be used to it. Any suggestions on this will be appreciated.

After a couple days we decided to move on even though we could have stayed there all summer. It helps to know that the next place we’re going is going to be just as spectacular. Hasta luego mis amigos

Cat Ba Island

After the stunning scenery of Phong Nha National Park we decided to go see the Phong Nha of the sea, Ha Long Bay, another Unesco World Heritage Site. We heard Ha Long City was over touristic so we decided to head to Cat Ba Island via the port city of Hai Phong. This involved a three-day drive. The first day we headed to a small town off the Ho Chi Minh Trail called Bach Dai Dung, this was a pretty nice drive along the scenic and little traveled road. The next day we drove to Thanh Hoa, this was a much less pleasant drive with much more traffic and development. Both days we spent the night in small guesthouses for under $10 a night. The third day we drove to the port city of Hai Phong, the third largest city in Vietnam. This drive was even less pleasant, a ton of traffic, trucks, and construction and then we had a bit of trouble finding a place to stay. We finally found a decent hotel for $15 with a garage to park our bike.

The next morning we got up early to make the dusty drive to the ferry terminal. It was 120k($4.5) Dong per person plus an extra 30k($1.5) Dong for the motorbike. The ferries run every hour from 8 to 5 with a lunch break between 11 and 1, luckily we made it just a few minutes before it left, so no waiting. The ride was fairly scenic but even more scenic was the motorbike ride through the island to the town of Cat Ba where the hotels were located. This was high season so despite being less touristy than Ha Long City there were still plenty of people around, mostly people shuttled in from Hanoi. Even being high season we got a bay front room on the main strip up on the 7th floor for $15 a night. The food however was at least 50% more expensive than the mainland, still cheap but not like before.

The first day we just kicked it at the hotel after three days of hard traveling and enjoyed the view. The next day we got up and changed the oil and had our bike rack rewelded and then went and to check out the two public beaches. We decided on the second beach and ended up renting chairs with no mats and an umbrella for 120k dong. That was pretty steep considering we paid 80k in Nha Trang and had access to a resort and pool. However from the first few hours we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The water was also ridiculously warm, I would guess 92 or 93 degrees, not too refreshing! The last day we rented a tandem kayak for 200k($9) for the day. This was probably the highlight of the trip as we paddled through the amazing formations and even through a cave to our own beach, just like the movie. We also paddled to Monkey Island, where we saw no monkeys. We tried to make the climb to the top but it was a difficult hike that required scrambling and the rocks were simply too hot to touch in the middle of the day.

The next day we had to get up early to make sure we caught the ferry. There was a tropical storm coming and it was likely that the ferries would be shut down later in the day. Luckily we made it off the island and then made a mad dash to get as far inland as possible.

 

Dinosaur National Monument

With the help of freecampsites.net, we found a spot to boondock off Harper’s Corner Road (GPS coord.40.282358, -108.983808) near Dinosaur, CO. The dirt road is very rough but we managed to get our 35 ft fifth wheel back there. If you come here, you will want to pull off at the first left turn or camp in the flat area next to it as the road gets worse the further down you go. Amongst the sage brush, there is an amazing view of sandstone formations and vast high land desert. We have AT&T and Verizon data/voice service here too which is always a plus. For a free, HOT, shower, drive to the park with dinosaur statues across the street from the Colorado visitor center in Dinosaur.

On day one we hiked to Ruble’s point, a 9.5 mile hike to an awesome view of Split Mountain Canyon. It is really easy until the last mile where the ground is more rocky and steep. Within the first mile of the hike we saw prairie dogs and horny toads.

On the second day we drove to the Quarry visitor center to see some real dinosaur fossils. It is really cool how they built a warehouse type building to protect the sandstone wall that still has dinosaur bones in them, to show people what the excavation process looks like. You can touch most of the bones, they are real! The first skeleton was found in 1909 and they have found numerous types of dinosaurs in the area. We hiked two trails that linked together, the sound of silence and desert voices. Even though these trails were only a mile from the visitor center, there were no people on the trail except us. It is one of my favorite trails I’ve done, probably because of the extreme change in scenery (been in the mountains for a long time now). I learned that the semi-arid desert in which we were hiking is quieter than a recording studio, less than 20 decibels, hence the name “the sound of silence”. It was really neat to be in an area so quiet that you could hear the wind coming before you felt it. We saw a prairie dog, a fox, horny toads (some were little babies) and many, many rabbits.

Due to inclement weather we decided to leave the next day, even though we had already obtained our free permit to kayak the Green River through the park (only two given out per day). We dumped and loaded the RV for free at the CO visitor center in Frutia (awesome, thanks sanidumps.com for the tip!) Within the past month we have only stayed at a campground one night. The solar panels gives us electricity and we need to fill our water tanks once a week. We go ahead and dump our grey and black water tanks when we fill the fresh water tanks even though we could probably go longer without dumping. To dump and load (as I have coined the process) from our experience out west costs any where between $0 to 10. So at the most we spend $40 a month on utilities while boondocking. Nice huh? Next stop is one I have been looking forward to since we started this trip, Arches National Park.

Hell’s Gate State Park

After Washington’s wine country we continued our trip east and our next stop was Hells Gate State Park in Lewiston, Idaho. It is located on the Snake River at the entrance the Snake River Gorge, the deepest gorge in the US. The parking spots for the RVs were very large as were the sites themselves, you never felt crowded. Although it was a very dry area the park was very green with many trees from the constant watering. It felt like an oasis. Depending on your spot they had full hookups and an obstructed view of the river and surrounding hills.

Surprisingly it also was the most technologically up to date park we’ve stayed at. It had wifi internet that actually worked(There is no router in loop A so stay in B if you need access). It was provided by an outside company and cost $3 a day, or less the more days you purchased. They even had a yearly pass you could buy that was good for any Idaho State Park that provided internet for $20. I wish more parks would charge a couple bucks for internet and actually provide something useful rather than offer it free and be so slow you can’t even load a web page much less upload photos or watch a video. Another cool feature was the signs at the start of their trails had a Q code that would download a copy of the trail map to your phone. What a fantastic idea!

The trails within the park lead you up to the top of the surrounding hills and then down along the river for a total loop of about 5 miles. It was quite scenic but it was so hazy that we couldn’t see for much distance. Apparently the entire Northwest is currently on fire and the smoke from those fires is what was causing the haze. The fires also caused us to divert up north to get around them for our next stop.

We also had to go kayaking on the Snake River, of course. I didn’t want to have to use a shuttle service so I came up with the plan to chain our bikes down river at the pull out. That way we could just ride the bikes back to the truck and then go pick up the kayak. This was a great option because there is a bike path all along the river, it’s a great area for a bike ride. The water was surprisingly warm, a balmy 75 or so. It was refreshing to jump in but not so cold that you couldn’t breathe. Although I chained the kayak up, Victoria was afraid that someone would steal it(We had someone steal both our kayaks a few years ago). This turned out to be a great motivator for her, I’ve never seen her keep up such a great pace, lol.

I’d also like to give shout out to Commercial Tire in Lewiston. The brakes on the trailer were squeaking so I brought it there to get checked out before we headed into the real mountain roads. They jacked it up, took a look, said they were in great shape, greased the bearings, and then didn’t charge us for any of it.

Next up, bookdocking in the wilds of Idaho 🙂