Last Leg – Hyder bears, Jasper/Banff/Kamloops

Hyder is known for the bears who come to feast on the spawning salmon. The state has actually built a platform for viewing and safety. Since the bears are independent, working for no union nor Disney, sometimes they show up, many times they don’t.  They say they have had as many as 30 bears show up at one time and as few as none. We didn’t get to see 30 but we saw an awesome mom and cub.

I’m not even sure what was going on here.  Was this a love bite, a scolding, some form of teaching – I don’t know.  Below is a zoomed in shot.

There was no growling or snarling and soon both went about their business.

Near by an eagle was getting his fair share also.

And a little salad to go with the salmon sushi.

 

 

O.K. kid, here is how you do it!

Just FYI, this is a grizzly.  She looks sweet and cuddly but capable of huge harm. Sure is pretty though.

 

So it was good by to Hyder and on to other adventures.  This was our last touch with Alaska – kind of sad but oh so many great adventures.

Kind of to wrap up the trip back to the U.S., we stopped at a British Columbia Provincial park on a Lake called Meziadin, how can there be so many pretty places?

Near by river we fished and just soaked in the beauty.

We stopped at a place called Burns Lake along the way.  Nice shot of 4 Hitchhikers along the water.

Then it was on to Jasper and Banff.  Sad to say that for us, as marvelous and beautiful, and magnificent as these parks are they were a slight dssapointment to us.  Perhaps we had seen so much raw, unspoiled magnificence, perhaps we had lived with so little population and traffic, perhaps we were just spoiled.  Both parks were pretty crowded and pretty touristy, especially Banff.  Certainly gorgeous so we partook, enjoyed, and then left the crowds.

Here a sampling of Jasper.

We were able to watch this magnificent bull elk scratch his antlers.  I mean if you ever, ever had an itch, you would so much appreciate this poor guys malady.  The velvet on the antlers starts to itch and they find a tree to scratch on, the poor tree may actually end up dyeing from this process, but it just has to be done.  We watched for almost an hour – very fascinating – and what a beautiful specimen this big guy was.

Next stop was Banff.  On the way we drove through snow, that white stuff that happens in the cold in winter!

One of the highlights for us was Lake Louise, great spot for sure.

And also near by Lake Moraine.

(Stacy, and others interested, this is a vertical stitched panorama) 

Our next stop of note was almost our last stop in British Columbia and in the Kamloops area.  The area was partly chosen since my parents took me up to Kamloops fishing as a little kid, probably when I was 10 or less.  Kamloops is a fantastic area, within 1 hour drive of Kamloops there are over 100 lakes. We chose Roche Lake, just south of Kamloops and thought we might try Horseshoe Lake, just before Roche.  Issue being a) it was labor day week end, b) no reservations accepted and c) Horseshoe Lake only has 4 camp spots.  We trudged on, driving south of Kamloops, then 7 miles of rough dirt road and then 1.5 miles of awful, terrible, pot holy, muddy road – no place for a decent sized trailer at all.  We somehow made it (at this point it was Walters and McDoles only) and low and behold there were two spots (out of 4) available.  Next challenge to get in, but we did. After a day or so the other two left and we had the camp site and the entire lake all to our selves.  Wow, what a way to end our trip!

 

 

 

 

Some of the road, it doesn’t photograph any where as near as it was bad.

 

 

And from the other side of the lake.

the little white dots are our rigs!

We did manage to catch the elusive Kamloops Trout, a local species variation of the rainbow trout.  Great fighter, wonderful trout.  And the meat was nice and pink, almost like a salmon and so very wonderful barbequed in the great outdoors!

We traveled over 11,000 miles, pulled the trailer over 8,000 miles, set up and broke camp over 60 times. It was literally a trip of a lifetime. Thanks for sharing part of it with us.  We loved it phenomenally and are starting to plan for a return trip, hopefully, in the near future.  What a great land we live in!