San Juan Island-The Right Kind of Centimeters

Thursday, September 07, 2006

San Juan Island-The Right Kind of Centimeters

San Juan Island – August 2006

Having barely unpacked after our month long trip to Alaska, Super Rogelio and I packed again for a 3 day mini-vacation to San Juan Island. Joining us were Sister the Elder and Sister the Younger. The ferry that took us from Anacortes to the San Juan Island was named the “Yakama” – a good omen as Sister the Younger lives in Yakima, WA.

After lunch in Friday Harbor, we traveled to the west side of the island for camping at Mitchell Bay. At check-in, the owner brought out papers to be signed and directed me, Sister the Shorter, to a bench behind the oversized counter for signing. The owner had built the bench for a vertically challenged employee and found it convenient for vertically challenged customers like me.

Must Have Cell Phones

We settled into camp and then went for a hilly bike ride at American Camp Nat’l Historic Park. We walked out to the lighthouse at Cattle Point and went down to the beach in search of tidepools. We were rewarded with harbor seal sightings. Driving back to Mitchell Bay, we stopped at a bluff overlooking Haro Strait and watched the sunset.

View from bluff

Tree hugging at English Camp

On day 2 we discovered that Reuben Tarte Park, set in a small but scenic cove, was a perfect spot for a picnic lunch. Then, being non-discriminatory, we visited English Camp Nat’l Historic Park. Once upon a time both Britain and the U. S. claimed San Juan Island as their own. They set up competing camps on San Juan Island during the “Pig War”, precipitated when an American settler shot an English pig. Despite a military build-up on San Juan Island and much macho posturing, the dispute was eventually settled diplomatically. The only casualty of the Pig War was the pig. I think the moral of the story is that life would be a lot more peaceful if we weren’t such hogs. Anyway, English camp was enjoyable, particularly the hike to the top of Young Hill.

Reuben Tarte Park

Back at the campground, we were lucky in our camper neighbors. On one side was a woman and her kayak. She introduced herself as Madonna without the money. (Donna) On the other side was a woman and her daughter. They were very forgiving after Super Rogelio confessed that he “borrowed” their salt while they were gone. Of course, it helped that Super Rogelio brought over cookies to sweeten them up. Nearby was a foreign couple who sized up Super Rogelio perfectly. Sister the Younger was jumping in an effort to close the topper window on our pick-up. Super Rogelio saw her futile efforts, reached up to close the window and boasted, “You need a real man for that”. The foreign woman responded, “No, you just need the right kind of centimeters.”

Roche Harbor had 3 things going for it. Public showers! (There were none at the campground.) A fine production of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” in an outdoor venue. And a large sculpture garden where you can get exercise and culture at the same time. The sculptures were quite fun, bringing out our opinionated selves.


On the last day, we went on a kayak tour on the west side of the Island. I was paired with Sister the Elder in a tandem kayak. We must have thought we were in bumper boats at an amusement park. No other kayak was safe from our errant ramming. We also really got our money’s worth. I think Sister the Elder and I went twice as far as anyone else. We zigged and we zagged and we zigged and we zagged. Meanwhile, Super Rogelio and Sister the Younger kayaked in a straight line and led the pack. Thankfully, we did better on the second half of the trip. I don’t have the right kind of centimeters and my arms and shoulders were telling me so!

Smooth sailing to all!

North to Alaska, The Glacier and Grizzly Tour

Friday, August 25, 2006

North to Alaska -The Grizzly and Glacier Tour

Super Rogelio and I spent our summer vacation traveling north to Alaska to help our daughter and son-in-law remodel their house and garage. On July 10, we departed from our home in Central Washington and four and a half brutal days later we arrived at their house near Palmer, Alaska. The first thing we had learned is that our “neighbor” state is a land FAR, FAR away. Believing in living dangerously, we purchased a 1996 F250 pick-up less than a week before leaving, then drove 2400 miles up to Alaska and 2750 miles back. Whew! The pick-up was a gas hog but performed without a glitch. The purpose of the trip was work but we did get to enjoy some productive tourist time, which I have dubbed the Grizzly and Glacier Tour.

The first day we traveled through communities named 70 Mile House, 83 Mile House, 100 Mile House, 108 Mile Ranch, and 150 Mile House, and so forth. We saw no Kilometer Houses. We stopped around dusk at a campground near Hixon, B.C. Posted on the toilet stall in the women’s bathroom was an out of order sign that said there were pit toilets in the tenting area. Not realizing there was another toilet stall available and operational, I headed off toward a wooded area to use one of the pit toilets. It was getting dark, there were no tenters, and the trail to a ramshackle pit toilet was quite overgrown. But you gotta go when you gotta go so tinkle, tinkle I went. Immediately there was a loud rumble below me. I bolted upright and out the door as a rather large animal bolted up and out of the toilet hole. It was too dark to see what kind of animal I had showered with acid rain but the loud racket it made suggested it was a lot bigger than a squirrel or chipmunk. I left quickly, happy that I didn’t get bit in the butt. When I got back to our camper and told Super Rogelio about my adventure in the toilet, he said that the animal must have really been pissed off at me. I now have another phobia – fear of pit toilets.

The next day we headed east across the Rockies to hook up with the Alaska (AlCan) Highway. Then the highway went west, back across the Rockies. (Does this make sense?) British Columbia is the land of big water with huge lakes and rivers that dwarf our 55 mile long Lake Chelan. Excepting the scenic climbs and descents through the Rockies, we drove through miles and miles and miles of gentle rolling hills dotted with dwarf trees. This was pretty but it became a bit monotonous.

Muncho Lake, British ColumbiaGoing west in the northern Rockies, we encountered our first Grizzlies. We spotted 2 grizzly cubs browsing in the ditch and pulled into a convenient rest stop. We got out of our pick-up but stayed close and kept an eye out for mama. The cubs kept coming closer and closer, causing us to jump in our truck as even the little guys have big claws. The bigger and bolder cub came right up to our window. Grizzlies are king and these 2 acted like royalty.


Grizzly cubs in Northern British Columbia












We finally made it to the Yukon during day 3. We camped near Haines Junction that night and figured we could easily make it to Palmer the next day. What we didn’t know was the Alaska Highway was about to become a minefield of potholes and bumps. The Kluane Lake area is beautiful - thankfully because we got a good look at it as we traveled along at 35 mph. At the border crossing, the U.S. custom’s agent said “Welcome Home” and we hoped for better roads. Shortly thereafter, Alaska greeted us with a sudden and unsigned drop in the road, which I flew over like I was on the Dukes of Hazzard. Back to 35 mph.

Kluane Lake, Yukon

We camped that night in a park blessed with a view of Matanuska Glacier. We arrived quite late but it didn’t matter because it was still light out when we went to bed sometime after 11. I was taking pictures of the huge valley glacier at 11 pm and there was plenty of daylight!

Old mine buildings at Hatcher Pass
Glacier baby

Matanuska Glacier

We arrived at our Celestial daughter’s the next day and began the 2 ½ weeks we would spend remodeling and playing with our delightful 5 month old granddaughter. We took a half day off to go to green and beautiful Hatcher Pass, where my daughter had an outdoor wedding on a 5 degree November day. We also spent part of a day returning to Matanuska Glacier for an up close and personal look. My granddaughter became hungry while we were hiking on the glacier, prompting her mom to breast feed her while on ice. I don’t think many people can say they have a glacier-fed granddaughter.

Our time in Alaska had some surprises. We weren’t carried off by giant mosquitoes or eaten by grizzlies. Rain was the exception rather than the rule. Alaskans say that summer is over when the fireweed is done blooming. I don’t think summer ever begins. Spring arrives, and with it the season of day and night light. Time seems to stop when a day doesn’t end, when afternoon shadows don’t announce the dinner hour, when it doesn’t warm much during the day or cool much during the night. I liked the light of summer but don’t think I could cope with the night of winter.

Portage Glacier, Kenai Peninsula
During the last day of visiting my daughter, we all went down to the Kenai Peninsula where we went on 1 hour cruise to Portage Glacier. The day was fabulous with rare blue sky over the Kenai. Our eyes feasted on the incredible blue ice of the Portage Glacier. After the cruise and lunch at Whittier, we did a short but sweet hike up a valley to view another glacier and grand Alaskan scenery all around.

Denali from highway viewpoint

We took an elective detour to Denali National Park on our return home. We were fortunate to get a view of Denali (Mt. McKinley) on our drive up. The next day we took the bus ride into the park. In the distance we saw Dall sheep and caribou. We got a closer look at a moose and several grizzly bears, one a mother with 3 cubs. Another grizzly mom went down a steep cliff with her 2 cubs and then crossed the road right in front of our bus. The mom then crossed the Toklat River but her cubs were reluctant to follow. They ran up and down along the bank for a while and finally took the plunge, struggling to make it to the other side. When they succeeded, everyone on the bus sighed in relief. Super Rogelio and I got off the bus and went for a hike for a couple hours or so. The bus driver said that no person had ever been killed by a grizzly in Denali so I was less nervous that I would end up being lunch. There are no trails in the interior of Denali Park so you just head up one of the wide, gravelly river valleys or find a slope that isn’t too brushy. When we asked a ranger where to hike he just said to pick a pretty spot and go. By that definition, we could go anywhere.

Denali National Park views
Back in Canada, we stopped at a grocery store in Whitehorse to replenish our supplies. We went to grab a grocery cart and there were just a couple remaining and they were locked. As I walked to look for another, a woman asked if I needed a shopping cart. I answered yes and she asked me if I had a loonie. I was going to reply that I had my husband but instead stammered no, not understanding the loonie conversation. In the meantime, Super Rogelio had tried to relieve a customer of their emptied shopping cart and almost got a fist in the mouth instead. It turns out that a deposit, the Canadian dollar coin which has a loon on the back, is required to use a shopping cart. The loonie is refunded when the shopping cart is returned. What a loonie idea! This was the closest we came to culture shock in the not so foreign, but loonie, country of Canada.

Bear and Salmon Glaciers
Moving on, we turned off the Alaska Highway just before Watson Lake and headed south into B.C. on the Cassiar highway. We had a bumpy ride until after Kinaskan Lake Park where the road improved. Scenery was nice, especially after the Coast Range came into view. We turned at Meziadin Junction to go to Stewart because it appeared on the map that glaciers were fairly close to the road. We saw both black and grizzly bears on the drive from the junction to Stewart and got a good view of the Bear Glacier. Waterfalls were cascading off the high, green cliffs. We arrived at Stewart, B.C., looked around a bit, and then proceeded a couple miles to Hyder, Alaska. After a short time in Hyder, we decided to continue on our journey home. We had to pass through customs to return to Stewart, even though the only road to Hyder is from B.C. My old bladder demanded that we stop in Stewart so I went into the Information Center there to use the bathroom. I noticed a brochure describing a driving tour to the Salmon Glacier. (This time my bladder helped us out!) So it was back to Hyder and onward and upward to the Salmon Glacier. The Salmon Glacier did not disappoint. It is a huge valley glacier that looks like a massive river of ice. We drove beyond the Salmon Glacier on a mining road and saw more spectacular glaciers.

Grizzlies at Fish Creek
The Salmon Glacier brochure also mentioned a wildlife viewing area at Fish Creek so we stopped there on the way back down. There was quite a crowd gathering at the viewing platforms, everyone waiting for the bears that often come to feed on the spawning salmon in Fish Creek. We waited and waited and more and more people came but no bears. Then, just before dusk, a grizzly and her 3 cubs entered the area. From the safety of the viewing platform, we were able to watch the mom go fishing. Even though the stream was thick with spawning salmon it did take some effort for the grizzly mom to catch a fish. After succeeding, she would take a few bites and then leave the rest for her cubs. They would eat until mom caught another fish. Then they would drop the partially eaten fish and rush to mom to get her even fresher catch. The bald eagles would eat the leftovers while the seagulls waited impatiently for their turn. Watching the grizzly fishing in her natural habitat was awesome. We talked to people who go back to see the bears at Fish Creek year after year despite the fact that Stewart and Hyder are far away from anywhere with a sizable human population. The bear experience is that incredible.

Greenlake, Whistler, BC
Birch Bay, WA

A couple days later we were in southwestern British Columbia where the terrain and vegetation made us feel like we were back home. We went on the short but challenging hike to the beautiful upper Joffre Lakes. Starting at 5 p.m. we headed to the upper lakes, scrambling as if we were being chased by Grizzlies, in order get back down before dark. The next day, worn out, we spent a relaxing afternoon in Whistler. Having just driven through the Yukon and Northern B.C. on what seemed like endless roads to nowhere, Super Rogelio was initially skeptical of the Yuppiedom bustle before us. He warmed to Whistler as he discovered excellent baked goods, a central business core designed for strolling, an extensive network of biking and walking trails, and numerous parks and lakes. We biked between 15 to 20 miles on the trails but felt like whussies with training wheels compared to the young males who were bombing down the ski hill, flying off the jumps and doing tricks.

Our welcome home to Washington was a nice sunset at Birch Bay. As always, we felt happy but a little melancholy to see the sun set on our journey.

-Top photo: Middle Joffre Lake, British Columbia