Yukon Trip 2009 - Day 35 - Last day

Woke up on the morning of June 26th, decided to walk down the trail beside the campsite, just to see what was there......
This is the North Thompson River.....

The sun was catching this Tiger Lily growing beside the trail, perfectly.....

there was also some Pink Wintergreen in flower

and back on the Yellowhead Highway heading towards Kamloops. This is the scene of the massive 'Barrier' wild fire from a few years back.....that is the Thompson River down there....

another view of the wild fire....this looking back towards the town of Barrier

through Kamloops and headed to our 'home away from home' - Tunkwa Lake for the last night of a perfect trip. I've waxed poetic about Tunkwa Lake in past entries so won't this time other than to say we didn't do any exploring this time, just set up out on the 'spit' and sat and enjoyed our last night on the road, before heading back to civilization.

for Tunkwa, it was actually pretty quiet, bird wise....there were a few American Coot.

and quite a few Lesser Scaup - this is a duck species that I find confusing. They are obviously 'paired up', yet the males are out of their brilliant breeding colors, yet I know from past years that we won't see the females with young until mid summer.....

closer view of a male in his 'non-breeding' plumage.....

and this one, just 'cause it is a sort of neat shot.....

no doubt that the males are the boss as they move these females along......

at the lakes edge there were lot's of Killdeer - 3 young ones in the above shot, along with an adult.

Some Canada Geese, and this pair of 'odd balls' that are found at Tunkwa each summer.....

there just seemed to be one lone female Barrow's Goldeneye - remember though that we were looking at just one very small part of the lake.....

We had packed the inflatable kayak with us the entire trip, and this was the first time it got wet. This American Crow seemed to find it a good perch!

Ernie got some good shots of a Savannah Sparrow while walking Shantz.....

The next day (June 27th) we packed up and headed back to reality.......

Campground fee: $15 Total distance traveled to date: would you believe I forgot to write it down?! but 8,500 km is close enough!

Yukon Trip 2009 - Day 34 - 2nd to last day

Our second to last day of this trip, June 25th, went for a final walk before hitting the road.....above, one of the paths leading to the Snaring River, from the campsite....

took a few last wildflower photos - this interesting, creeping type Aster was just coming into flower

found this lovely bunch of delicate 'Harebells'

and another bunch of 'Black-eyed Susans'

drove into the town of Jasper, and since it had clouded over and was cool enough to leave the dogs in the truck, did a bit of poking about in various shops......

finally it was time to point the truck west and head towards Mt. Robson where we stopped to give the dogs a break and take a few pictures......that is Indian Paintbrush in the foreground of the above shot.

Mt. Robson had it's head shrouded in cloud - which tends to be the usual state for this mountain - if you want a clear look at it, go back in the archives of this blog to the start of the Alberta trip last year.

From Mt. Robson we turned south on the Yellowhead highway with a stop at Avola to visit Snowpak Siberians where Shantz got to say hello to mom 'Peaches' and dad 'Coco' and assorted brothers and cousins etc.....not to mention her favorite people in the world.

After a nice visit, we proceeded on to the North Thompson Provincial Park just south of Clearwater. It was fairly late (8:15 pm) and we were surprised to find the campground almost full, but did manage to find a spot to spend the night.

Campground fee: $15 Total distance traveled to date: 8,051km.

Yukon Trip 2009 - Day 33 - Missed Pictures

OK, so here is the row of pictures I missed from the last entry.....we've finally reached the end of the main trail.....looking across at Angel Glacier....from here on in it is sort of walk where ever you can......Ernie and Shantz reading the information signs.

'giant' Willow aren't limited to the tundra....note the pussy willows on this little guy.

an 'ice berg' on dry land......

more ice bergs...and for size comparison, that little black dot in the middle beside the 'lake' is Ernie - you might think we were the only people there, but that wasn't the case at all - I had to work really hard to get pictures that didn't have people in them!

a wall of ice.....and now you can go back to the prior entry to get the rest of the story - sorry 'bout that!

Yukon Trip 2009 - Day 33 - Jasper

June 25th, took one last picture of the lake at Pierre Grey Provincial Park .........
and headed down the highway towards Hinton, noticed several other provincial park campgrounds on the way that bear investigation in the future as this looked like a really nice area......

it was a relatively short run. Didn't take long for us to arrive in Jasper National Park......

In the Rockies - again......

and to our favorite campsite, Snaring River, the first campsite you come to when you enter from this direction, and far enough out of town to be nice and quiet......the above is the area between the campground itself and the Snaring River.....

the early wildflowers that flourish in the area were over, but there were these Black Eyed Susans.....

and some Blue Flax

Since we had all afternoon, we decided to do something we hadn't done for years, and that was to go up to Mt. Edith Cavell to walk to the glacier.....this is the road that twists and turns it's way up the mountain....without a doubt this was the WORST road we encountered on this whole trip!

there is a very small viewpoint about 2/3 of the way up, this is the view looking back towards Jasper......

and this is Mt. Edith Cavell, just as you start out on the hike that takes you to the foot of the glacier.....

the path, as it starts out....it is actually paved for a long ways so wheelchair accessible, although I'd hate to be pushing one up there....it is a steep climb! I was much younger last time I did this!

stopped to take a picture of these little Anemones or Windflowers - it was a good excuse to catch my breath.....

close enough now to see 'Angel' Glacier - so named for obvious reasons.

one of the little plants growing in this harsh environment....

White Mountain Heather too - remember we'd seen this growing on the tundra.

Still working our way up the trail - the parking lot is way back there somewhere, you can just make out the flatter, return trail snaking along at the base of the hill.

OK....I seem to have skipped a whole row of pictures when I was uploading.....so all of a sudden there are Ernie and Shantz looking at a cave in the glacier......I'll upload the rest of the pictures that belonged before this, in another entry.

this is looking directly up at Angel Glacier....this was as close as I was going to get because every now and then a chunk falls off!

I just thought this ice shelf was interesting....it was a lot bigger than it looks in this picture...I can tell you walking here was not an easy task!

as we were starting back, a Clark's Nutcracker flew into this little tree......

further along the trail we came across this Yellow-bellied Marmot......

I guess he was used to being 'on camera' because he wasn't at all perturbed by everybody watching him.....

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels were all over the place as well.....

finally....we arrived back at the parking lot

there were quite a few Clark's Nutcrackers in the parking lot, including this fledgling.....

and this one was busy on the roof of our camper! Made me wonder just what on earth it looked like up there!