[at-l] Eau de DEET

[Bror8588 at aol.com]

Sounds like a great experience.  Thanks for sharing.  Also, with  all those 
pictures you have the makings for a great presentation at one of the  
Gatherings.
 
Skylander
 
 
In a message dated 2008-08-11 14:08:08 Eastern Daylight Time,  
spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com writes:

This will likely be longer than usual but those who  manage to get to the end 
may  
understand the title.  The format will be a series of  “incidents” that we’
ve encountered  
or experienced over the last few  VERY busy weeks.    
After camping at an overlook on the  Denali highway, we discovered that a 
ground  
squirrel had taken up residence in the frame of the  truck. Dislodging him 
was an exercise  
in stubbornness – we won, but barely.  It’s the first time we’ve ever been  
growled at by a  
ground squirrel.   
Waking up in a shelter on the Pinnell Mt Trail north of  Fairbanks to a grey, 
foggy and   
eventually rainy day.  The 27-mile trail is entirely above  treeline and we’d 
walked in to  
the shelter the previous day accompanied by high winds  (20 – 40 mph) and low 
temps  
(35 – 45 deg).  We got back to the truck just before  the deluge.    
Looking out over the Chena valley from Angel Rocks.  It was a relatively 
short hike, but   
typical of  Alaska (and  Canada) –  steep.  Afterward, we visited  Chena Hot 
Springs, but  
didn’t stay. At $145 for a half day  visit that was out of our comfort zone.  
  
Stopping for gas (at $6+ / gallon) in Chicken and having  to wade through the 
“Princess 
people” who were complaining about not  seeing any wildlife when we’d just 
seen 2  
moose a half mile back down the road.  “Princess people” are those who are 
on  the “land  
option” of a Princess line cruise.  We ran into them everywhere.  And we have 
no respect  
at all for “the Princess” – but I won’t expand on that  right now.  Oddest 
part of the   
Chicken stop was the poor kid standing in line for the  outhouse who was 
literally green  
due to extreme motion sickness.  
Driving the Top of the World  Highway – literally feels like the “top of the 
 world”.  The  
road runs along a ridgeline above treeline and you can  see for miles and 
miles ahead. 
Great views if the weather is good,  but it would be miserable driving in bad 
weather.   
Seeing moose every day – although not always close enough  (or fast enough) 
for photos.  
Moose move much faster than you’d believe when they want  to hide. But we’ve 
gotten a  
lot of good photos (and video) of  some of them.    
Touring  Dawson  City, home of the Klondike Gold  Rush, and for a short time, 
home to  
Jack London and Robert Service.  Those who aren’t familiar with the  names 
should  
become so.   Dawson  City is also home to Diamond Tooth  Gerties Saloon - 
dancing girls  
included.  Now we know why Robert Service and  Jack London liked this town.   
 
Getting 100 miles up the  Dempster Highway and  discovering that we had a bad 
tire.   The  
Dempster  Hwy is 450 miles of bad gravel road that leads to  Inuvik, NWT 
(well north of 
the Arctic  Circle) through some wonderfully beautiful country. We got as far 
 as the north 
end of the  Tombstone  Provincial  Park before turning back because of  the 
tire (and  
maybe partially because of the $8/gal gas).  Turning back didn’t help much – 
we  still  
didn’t find a place to get the tire  fixed until we got to Whitehorse –  250 
miles later.    
Doing the “Alcan Run” --- from  Dawson  City to Dawson  Creek.  Who  is this 
“Dawson”  
character ayway?  
Stopping at Liard Hot Springs for a long relaxing  soak.  The upper (beta) 
spring is  much  
less crowded.   
Stopping at the Northern Lights Center in  Watson  Lake – it was interesting 
because  their  
video presentations were based on spacecraft data from  programs that Jim had 
worked on  
in the past.  Good show.   
Walking through the  “Signboard  Forest” at  Watson  Lake.  It consists of 
probably 20  
acres of posts with signs that have been attached by  travelers starting back 
in the 1940’s 
when the Alcan  Hwy was being built.  The count as of last year (2007) was  
something  
over 65,000 signs.   We didn’t get pictures of all of them, but there were a 
few that were   
of particular interest.   
Finding a traffic jam on the way into  Jasper National  Park – and then 
working our way  
through the herd of bighorn sheep that were licking the  salt off the roadway 
and stopping  
traffic.    
Trying to find a campsite in Jasper in the middle of a  major Canadian 
holiday weekend  
was “interesting”.   We ended up in the Snaring  River overflow area for 
Jasper  National  
Park – there were probably 3,000  people out there – and maybe a dozen 
outhouses.   
Backpacking for 6 days from Jasper  to Mt Robson (about 120 Km) on the GDT.   
  
The trail was everything we were warned about -  it was wet, wild, rough, 
tough,  extremely  
beautiful and extremely buggy.  The mosquitos could only be described  as a 
Biblical plague.  So much so that we have photos and  video that clearly show 
some of 
the clouds of the little suckers.  Several photos have one huge  bug right in 
the middle  of 
the image  – they’d be nice pictures without  that.  We were sometimes 
off-trail  (“lost?”) 
for much of the  day in places where the “trail” simply  disappeared in the 
middle of the 
vast meadows of flowers.   The flowers, the mountains and  the sheer number 
of glaciers 
and icefields  made the hard parts worth the  trip.  The only real  
disappointment was that  
we saw no  bears, moose, caribou or elk.  Where did they go?  On the other 
hand, we had  
the longest period of sunshine that  we’ve seen since we left  Utah.   
Oh yeah  -  “Eau de DEET”   ----- we were  told that the mosquitoes would be 
minimal  
because it had gotten cold in the mountains.  So we took a “minimal” amount 
of DEET   
(about ½ oz of 100% DEET).  We used it VERY sparingly and brought  back about 
1/3 of  
that – and about a dozen mosquito  bites a day.    
This hike also emphasized the fact that Jim’s knee will  preclude any more 
long hikes  
until it gets “fixed” (replaced) –  this Fall.    
Being back in Jasper and trying to decide what to do next  – we’ll probably 
head south on  
the Icefields  Parkway.   We’ve driven it twice before, ridden a bus through 
it once – and   
walked the length of the mountains it showcases last year  on the Great 
Divide Trail. And  
it’s eminently worth doing  again.   
After that we know we’ll be going  to Head-Smashed-in Buffalo  Jump 
Provincial  Park, which   
reportedly has the best available  historical exhibits re: pre-Columbian 
Plains Indian life.   
We missed that last year – we won’t miss it  again.   
Y’all have a good day, 
Jim &  Ginny

http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/  =

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