Mount Baker – Snoqualmie National Forest

Day 234 – Up the creek without transmission

The Vancouver weather was again outstanding, so after going out for a spot of breakfast in Gastown we found a nice patch of lawn by False Creek and did some Japan reading (better late than never).

As we were due to fly out of Seattle on Sunday (it was US$300 each cheaper to fly from Seattle, despite the flight being with Air Canada and going back via Vancouver anyway!) we had pestered Elliott and Kat into driving us down there.  As a sweetener we decided to do a spot of camping along the way.  So we headed back over to Mountain Equipment Co-op to hire some equipment for the weekend.  I astounded Erin by being able to quote our seven year old phone number when it came time to look up our membership number, of course I can’t remember the names of most of the people we lived with!

I spent most of the afternoon trying to find a good spot to camp on the way between Vancouver and Seattle, but was frustratingly finding out that most places were booked up (Washington State Park Service have an online booking system for camping and cabins in State Parks, whilst this makes it easier to find a camping space if you are prepared, it also makes it much harder to find one if you are trying to do it last minute). 

Elliott was slightly delayed at work so we set off a bit late, stopping for pizza just before the border.  Crossing into the US went the same way it usually does (slowly and unpleasantly) but we eventually hit Highway US5 south just as it was getting dark.  At this stage I finally made a decision about where we should head.  Along the Snoqualmie River in the Mount Baker – Snoqualmie National Forest (try saying that one five times fast) there are about half a dozen campgrounds, many with first in best dressed spots.

It was pitch dark by the time we found the first of them and discovered the campground full sign.  By the time we found the fifth full sign and realised that the car was starting to die (we’d used half a tank of petrol in about 100km and the transmission was acting funny) we were starting to get a little worried.  Abandoning the campground idea we went in search of a bush site.  When trying to restart the car after an unsuccessful bush bash in search of spot down a side road we were rather alarmed when the car wouldn’t budge out of park.  It was beginning to look like we’d be sleeping in the car when Kat had the bright idea to try shifting into 4WD.  Amazingly this did the trick and from then on we left the car in neutral and became less picky about a spot. 

Sometime after midnight we found a slightly lumpy patch of ground just big enough for our tent between the river and the road, quickly erected our tent, went through the headspin inducing  undertaking of inflating the airbed and quickly collapsed asleep.

Day 235 – Changing fortunes

We awoke in the morning to the sound of traffic (we really weren’t that far off the road) and surveyed our campsite, deciding to go in search of a less precarious spot.

Packing up campsite one, there is a steep drop to the river about 2m behind Kat and the main road about 5m in front of me.

We soon discovered that finding campsites in the daylight was considerably easier and about 5 minutes up the road came across a nice spot, well off the road just a bit back from the river amongst tall trees.  When we went down to inspect it the guys occupying prime position in the area (closer to the river, more secluded) were packing up, so all we had to do was wait for them and their two Pomeranians to vacate and the spot was ours.  Jackpot! 

Furthermore as the guys were leaving one of them said to Elliott and I, “There’s a bit of firewood down there, I tried to burn it all but I couldn’t, so you’re welcome to it”, “Thanks” we replied.  “A bit” of firewood was a major understatement, we didn’t burn it all either.  If we had, you would have been able to see the flames from wherever you’re sitting now!

After quickly re-establishing our camp we headed into nearby Robe to grab some supplies and have some (really greasy) breakfast at the town’s only diner.  From there it was a matter of spending the afternoon lazing by the river, playing cards and making some more s’mores! (S’mores: Biscuit, slice of Mars or Snickers, freshly roasted marshmallow and biscuit lid to make a sandwich!)

In the evening Kat decided to cook us up some damper, we disputed the correct method, whether it should be done over flame or buried in coals, and ended up doing both, resulting in decent damper twice over.  We also had tinned spaghetti and soup, cooked in the tin over the fire (no pots or pans you see), and of course jacket potatoes with onion and garlic, not bad all in all.  Eventually we retired for the evening, dreading our early start in the morning, and trying not to dwell too much on whether the car would get us to Seattle Airport in time for our flight (or at all for that matter)!

 
Retrieving the beers from the fridge.

 

Men say ‘ugg’, what do women say?

Elliott and I may have added to it a little once the girls got it going!

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[Footnote – We’ve borrowed heavily from Marg and Jeff and Kat and Elliott’s photos over the last few weeks worth of posts.  Unlike in South America where we individually credited Hanneke and Maaike’s photos we’ve been too lazy this time, so instead a brief thanks here: thanks heaps guys, not just for the photos but for spending the last few weeks with us.]

The Inside Passage – Anchorage to Vancouver Cruise

Day 203 – Trapped in the floating city

This morning I got up early with Dad and went for a walk around “Deck 7”, the only deck you could walk entirely around the balcony outside without hitting a restaurant, swimming pool, casino or bar.  ‘Twas a little chilly but the views were awesome across the water and passing by a few snow caps.  Dad, as he always does, made us a friend, Paul from Minnesota and they chatted stock market and American schooling.  Just under three laps is a mile and we did as many as we could before breakfast.

We decided to hit the food court upstairs for breakfast.  That was a bit of a mistake as we all found the cooked breakfast way way too salty and greasy, so much so that poor Mum later had a reaction.

Today we were just cruising all day through Yakutat Bay so we had to find some stuff to do on the boat.  First order of the day, completing the “treasure hunt” which involved visiting certain shops and services around the boat and getting a stamp for your efforts.  We were going to tour the boat anyway, so we killed another bird for a chance to win free stuff.  We figured everyone else would think it was lame which would increase our chances of winning!  We entered our card and didn’t win anything but it helped orientate us a bit anyway, well Matt at least!  And we also learned that internet was 55c per minute with a minimum of 100 minutes – so no communication for a while!

After lunch we met up at the pool for a swim while we were waiting for the boat to arrive at Hubbard Glacier.  Right near the pool was the all you can eat soft serve and fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, so of course The Browns were lined up with all the kiddies to get in on that action.

We finally pulled up towards the spectacular Hubbard Glacier.  A little bit soggy from the pool we realised we couldn’t go outside to take photos because it was too cold!  After a quick costume change we were on the deck with the other 2,000 passengers snapping away:

 

Tonight was the first of the “formal nights” on the boat.  Mum and Dad had to bring a tie for Matt and we both did a quick run around in our last days in Colombia for proper shoes to be let into the dining room!  As we hadn’t been to the formal dining room yet, we had to be seated by the Maitre D’ and introduced to our wait staff, Jorge and Yvette and be explained the menu which involved any combination for four each of appetisers, entrées, mains and desserts.  Tough stuff.  The food had taste, and more importantly less salt and we enjoyed the whole experience wondering why we had been eating in the food court up until now!   There was even escargot which I surprised everyone by eating and enjoying.

  
Mum all dolled up.

We went to the on board musical called … hmm can’t remember, but I at least know where all my fellow dancing colleges who didn’t make it ended up!

 

Day 204 – Glacier Bay

This morning it was straight to the formal dining room for breakfast.  Another positive experience except for the fact we had to share a table of eight and make small talk with Southern American retirees.  They weren’t too bad, but typically lacking in sense of humour and stared blankly at my dad who they couldn’t even understand!  Dad was happy though because he said they laugh at all his jokes and make him look skinny!

Cruising again all day we checked our schedule of events and after pondering what the “Friends of Bill W” meeting was (I guessed AA) we decided to beat some Americans at trivia.  Our host, Marvin, was an over-the-top and outrageously gay Filipino entertainer who had all the old ducks eating out of his hand and competing to be his favourite!  Matt was sceptical at first saying, “What’s the bet all the questions are stuff like ‘What is the state flower of Florida and other Americanisms that we will have no idea about?’”.  Question number three was “The Orange Blossum is the flower of which state?” (Answer: Florida!) So naturally we pissed ourselves laughing and had the whole room wondering what pills the Australians were on!!  Later there was a question about the number of stars on the Australian flag.  The guy in front of us turns around and says to us “Hey, y’all should be excluded from that question” and of course Matt replies back what we were all thinking, “Well, you should be excluded from the other 19!”  We came second by one question, which of course bought on the determination to come back another day, Matt was no longer sceptical.  I asked Marvin who the “Friends of Bill W” were and he replied “For the peoples who are drinking drinking too much” whilst making a cup tipping action!

In the afternoon we cracked one of the bottles of wine we had snuck on board and watched out the windows as we cruised through Glacier Bay.  Mum had it right when she said it was like a postcard that changed every minute.

   

Day 205 – Ruff ‘n’ Tumble

At about 6am this morning we were woken up by a pleasantly toned “Doong doong doong… We have now arrived in Skagway…”  So seeing as we were awake, we got up and going. 

Mum and Dad had booked themselves into an organised tour taking them up through the White Pass.  Still getting used to the price of things in North America and needing some exercise, we opted to go for an explore.

 
The Island Princess parked at Skagway.

Just behind the town of Skagway was a set of walking tracks straight up the hill.  We first decided to take it easy and walk up hill 30 minutes or so to do a lap of Lower Dewey Lake.

 
The view over Skagway from part way up the hill.

The stream leading into Lower Dewey Lake

Lower Dewey Lake

With some time left before heading back to the boat for lunch, we decided to head further up the hill to Icy Lake and the Upper Reid Falls. 

Icy Lake

The top of Reid Falls.  The paraphernalia was due to the fact that this also is the Skagway town water supply.

A local.

After viewing the top of the falls and emerging from the “No Trespassing area” containing the water supply paraphernalia, Matt gave me the alternative of taking the path back around and down to the Lower Dewey Falls and back to town, or his more “direct” route down to Lower Dewey Falls.  Me being the dutiful partner of almost 10 years could see on Matt’s face we were taking the direct route.  All was going slowly, a little bit exposed and scary, but well, until we got to within about 100 metres of the main path again.  To get down there was almost vertical and very mossy and leafy.  Matt made his way down, skipping across a ledge and made it look easy to get down and throwing in a small controlled slide to get to the path.  I, on the other hand, decided I wasn’t going Matt’s way, wasn’t going to get across the ledge and would not be sliding anywhere in my new jacket.  I yelled this out to him, but I was wrong.  At that moment I slipped, slid down about 50 metres bumping rocks and screaming all the way, completely missed the path, went over the next edge and stopped clinging to a tree.  So it turns out I had no choice!  I was only bleeding a bit from the scrapes on my back and I had a hole in the butt of my pants, but no serious injuries….  So anyway, all to get to here:

Lower Reid Falls

We headed back to town, thankfully on a path, and back to the boat to clean up and have lunch.  I almost needed two showers as I had bark and dirt in all kinds of places!

Back in town there wasn’t that much of interest unfortunately.  The cruise companies had done a pretty good job of buying up all the real estate and turning most of the main shopping strip into jewellery and souvenir shops.  We did manage to find “The Alaskan Fudge Company” next door to “Skagway Brewing Co” so we were both entertained for an hour or so with some samplers.  There were also some interesting local clothing to purchase!

 

 
Guess its to keep out the cold?!

 
There was also a cool vintage train.  It took us a minute to work out that that is a snow plough on the front.

Back on the boat we heard about what a fantastic day Mum and Dad had taking the White Pass Rail up into the hills, exploring the Yukon and Bove Island, the beautiful scenery and in particular visiting the sub-artic tundra and a husky camp.  All while we were served another yummy 4 course meal by Jorge and Yvette.

Here are a few from Mum and Dad’s day as well:

 

Day 206 – Upside down trees

This morning we had pulled up in Juneau, the capital of Alaska.  We were up and out again reasonable early as we had to be back on board by 3pm to set sail.  This morning we caught the bus out to Glacier Gardens, set up by a local couple who own a nursery in town and needed some more space for growing.  A large part of the property is forested and part of the tour involves being driven 800 feet up a winding path through the forest to a lookout.  A very pleasant morning!

 
The Gardens are famous for these upside down tree flower baskets!  They were beautiful and very creative.  Steve, the owner, created them after a landslide went through the property and he was doing some fixing up to stop resulting water damage.  He had rented a bobcat to assist and on the very last day of its rental, crashed it, resulting in a few thousands dollars damage.  He was so mad that he picked up a tree with it and rammed it into the ground.  Voila!  He then came up with the idea of beautifying them from there and then charging people to come to the nursery to look at them (to repay the damages!)

The path up to the lookout.  The golf carts struggled a bit!

 
Gnarly trees!

After the gardens it was straight to the Alaskan Brewery for a few samplers.  You get to taste 6 of the beers for nothing!  It was excellent beer so we bought some to smuggle back onto the boat and after getting chatting to the young girl serving, I think we had more than our 6 free samples in the end.  The brewery was started by a couple in their twenties and grew from backyard brewing….hmmm…..

We ended up running to get back on the boat in time!!!

Tonight was another formal night and after dinner we decided to have a little look in the casino. Well, it started with just looking.  Matt got enthralled with the poker table, I think mostly because it was completely electronic – no dealer and no real cards!  Dad’s poison of choice was roulette, while Mum and I became completely obsessed with a game that involved shooting quarters to try and win more quarters, and if you played long enough, $50 in one dollar bills stacked and teetering on the edge ready to fall into the bucket!!!  No we didn’t win, but boy were we agro when the boys disappeared and we had run out of quarters, another lady jumped on the machine when we went to get more and got our money!!!!

Oh!  And Mum and Dad had another awesome day, whale watching and taking a plane ride over the Medenhall Glacier.  Mum and Dad have some great whale pics, which we shall put here when we get a copy!

Day 207 – The Belated Birthday

We sailed again last night and landed late this morning in Ketchikan, the last of the land stops before Vancouver.  It was nice to have a sleep in as all this action was exhausting! 

The boat parked at the end of the main street in Ketchikan!

It was raining when we hoped off the boat this morning, but that wasn’t going to stop us from escaping for a while!  We walked across town to the Native Totem Centre to learn all about the Alaskan natives and their custom of carving huge totems for all kinds of reasons – even shame poles!

After that we went for a walk around Ketchikan near the harbour down a street “Married Mans Lane” where all the old school brothels were, Creek Street which is now all souvenir shops but built on a board walk over the water.  There wasn’t much else happening around town so we went back to the boat for a feed, grabbed the laptop and reconnected with the world at a bar called The Asylym! 

When we returned back to the boat for dinner, we had balloons and a sign saying Happy Birthday outside our door.  On the website when we were booking our ticket, the booking questionnaire asked if we had any special celebrations while we were on board.  We thought we should just say our anniversary was during the cruise to get free stuff, but it turns out you can celebrate any event 30 days before or after which legitimately included my birthday! 

 

We were ready for dinner early, so we went to the Wheelhouse Bar first for cocktails and to listen to a Big Band play and then on to dinner.  At dinner the celebrations continued, with Jorge and some other staff singing me Happy Birthday and making me the richest chocolate cake I have ever had.

The dessert that night was also special being a Baked Alaska and so all the chefs came out and did a dance around the dining room while we all waved our napkins!  We finished up dinner with a yummy dessert wine and rolled to bed!  On our way to bed though we heard some Aussie accents in the hallway.  Of course the four of us turn around and say hi straight away and say how pleased we were given we hadn’t met any other Aussies.  They were happy to and say to us “Well there are some other Aussies on the boat too, they sounds really interesting and have just come from South America and done this and that…”  Matt and I chuckle and admit that that may be us!!!  It turns out the Americans were listening after all – and word spreads fast!

Day 208 – Need new pants

Today was our last day of sailing before landing in Vancouver early tomorrow morning.  Because we needed more food, there was a big cake show in the food court, followed by an “Iron Chef” style cook off between the Head Chef and the Matre D’ in the theatre.

Today was a pretty lazy day in the end, we did laps of the deck, read books and played mini golf!

 
Dad in his favourite spot, comfy chair looking out over the water.

We were sad to pack our bags that evening because it was so nice to have the same place to come back to each night, have our stuff spread out, our own bathroom and to not have to think about what to eat!!!!  But we were also very excited about the next part of our trip.