Even The Wildlife is More Civilised Than Me!

Well I guess that it's no surprise to some (most?) of you that I'm starting to realise wildlife is somewhat more civilised than me.

I've now got as far as Homer on the end of the Kenai peninsula. It's famous as a spot for seeing large quantities of Bald Eagles. The last time I was here I very nearly got an amazing shot of a bald eagle rising out of the sea with a fish in it's talons. It flew straight at me and I took a sequence of photos as it got bigger. Then the film ran out, and it was all over. Now I have a digital camera with a better lens, faster focus tracking and most importantly almost endless memory capacity.

Apparently though the 'Bird Lady' who used to feed them has since died and alot of the birds have moved on. I had to be content with a reasonable shot of a juvenile digesting its dinner.

On the way 'home' one night I passed a mother moose and calf living in town...

Like most mothers, moose females can be very agressive, but this one tolerated me hanging around taking shots of the two of them until I got bored. Then it was me that had to head out of town to eat and sleep.

Orcas!!!

While the road North is still iced up, I'm staying around the South West of Alaska especially the Kenai Peninsula.

I've only ever seen Orcas in the distance before, so I hopped on the boat into Kenai Fjords National Park from Seward and hoped for the best. Apparently the best times to see them in this area are between 5th May and 5th June! Being highly intelligent, presumably they all share a Google calendar to get the timing consistent.

It is a fair way out into the park, the whole trip is a 6 hour day. Fortunately it was a smooth day, otherwise I would have struggled to enjoy it at all.

As it was we were surrounded by whales right from the beginning. The only real disappointment was that the boat was very full of tourists. It was difficult to get good shots of the wildlife without hitting  a tourist with my big lens. Having the biggest lens on the boat had its advantages. Some were very helpful and got out of the way when they saw me coming. One guy even wanted a photo of himself posing with it.

This large bull Orca came straight over to check us out. He very quickly got too close for my big lens.

I've still yet to see either an Orca or a whale breach.

We also saw all the other stuff you generally see in this area: humpbacks, mountains goats, bears, porpoises, otters and glaciers.

I've Made it to Alaska!!!

WoooHooo!!

As usual my posts are a little bit behind where I am.
It has gotten a little worse as I've just covered 1600 miles since the last post...

All the way from Jasper, Alberta to Tok (pronounced Towke) in Alaska, via The Yukon. All done without Internet access. So it is still possible!

The official Alaska Highway starts in a place called Dawson Creek at Mile 0, but then everything else is in Kilometres!

As you can see it starts off nice and sunny. Alot further north it looked more like this...

Bike Rack to the Rescue

So that new bike rack I have been proudly featuring in some of my pics has solved a few problems.

On my previous trips, earlier this year and last year I really missed my mountain bike. It's a great bit of exercise, especially after a long day in the drivers seat.

I tried all sorts of combinations of bike inside the truck or on the back door with my ancient rack. But this new one leaves you with good access to the boot, and it all locks to the car. Truly amazing.

The other big problem I was left with when I decided not to buy a camper, was how to cook in the rain. Turns out the bike rack is good for that too...

Unless the rain is really heavy this configuration works great, and I have a tarp which (should) wrap around the lot for really bad weather. It's even possible to get from there to bed, without going 'outside' although I could get stuck.

Note the Trangia cooker I bought in 1991! How's that for re-use?

Canadian Motels are Expensive

The Motel up the road wanted $100 for a room with a view of the car park.

Just down the road I found this spot for nothing...

In the US I've developed the taste for Free camping in National Forests. It's one of the reasons I'm so keen on being able to kip in the truck. It means it doesn't matter what the terrain is like.

Fortunately the Canadians also have these vast public areas where you can camp as long as you bring your own facilities. This spot is right outside of Banff National Park. I can't tell you exactly where as the guy 100 trees over bought my silence with a beer.

A Wise Investment

While I still had a job I invested in a nice big lens. It cost a pretty penny, but produced some good stuff in Costa Rica last year. You can buy happiness apparently.

This was the first time I actually felt it made me safer...

Yup two Grizzlies scrapping away in Banff National Park. With a good lens and a bit of cropping they didn't even notice me.

I'm not sure whether it was play fighting, mating or what.

A Loooong Memory

A long long time ago before the InterWebs, when they'd only just invented mountain bikes, but not suspension, I worked a summer in the Canadian Rockies. Johnstone Canyon Resort, 15 miles North of Banff and run by the incomparable Nokes family, was a fantastic place to spend the summer.

I looked the place up on the InterWeb and found that it is now being run by one of the brothers that was there at the time. So I just could not resist dropping by and saying "Hi".

The beginnings of this years summer staff were there opening and cleaning the place up. No sign of anyone I knew but one of the brothers - Geordie, would be on his way back in a short while. So I checked the place out. I had been a burger chef (voted best in the park - even now) and cabin cleaner. The kitchen looked the same. The diner and dining room looked the same, although some of it is now used for a bigger gift shop.

Out the front there was still the Gas pump that worked when I was there, but not any longer.

The pump only went up to $9.99, so you had to count the number of times the counter went fully around the clock. Extra tricky when the customer has a truck with a big tank on the other side too. We were provided a Mickey Mouse calculator to 'help'. Yes it had Mouse pictures all over it, but was the worst one I've ever used. As a Computer Science student I could see it didn't do 'operator precedence' properly, but the customer was never impressed by that excuse for his bill coming out too high!

The swing door into the kitchen looked the same as the day I marched through and got a cream pie in the face.

While I was busy reminiscing Geordie appeared and he remembered me immediately. He even remembered my name. 29 years later!!! With a fresh crew every summer. Either, I did something wrong (we did get into trouble over a chicken), or I did something right, or he just has an amazing memory. I didn't ask and I'm going for the last option.

No Need to go Further

On one of the ferry rides through the San Juan Islands, I overhead a fellow passenger, also struck by the beauty of the the place, say "It's just like an Alaska cruise". And yes it felt that way.

Then I stayed for just under a week with some good friends in Vancouver. Amidst all the pessimism of us Humans destroying the planet, Vancouver is one of those places where the wildlife is returning.

While I was there we heard that Beaver had returned to Stanley Park. 'Beaver Pool' has been empty of beaver for quite a while... until recently. So myself and Darren headed out beaver hunting just the other night. It was more successful than usual!

I'm starting to think that there's no real reason to travel into the wilder places. Maybe I should stay in the urban areas and let it come to me.

Vancouver even has art!

Now I'm headed for the Rockies.

The Only Casualty was a Pig!

Getting a taste for island hopping I then headed for the San Juan Islands as they are already seeing Orcas this season.

Besides being on a ferry between the islands makes this feel like a holiday ;-)

I ended up on San Juan Island which was the center of a territorial dispute between the US and Canada/Britain. An agreement had the division between the US and Canada a little ambiguous leaving both side claiming sovereignty over San Juan Island. This was fine until 1859 when an Irishmans pig ate some Americans potatoes who then shot the pig. The dispute escalated until US and British troups were dispatched to the islands to spend the next few years goading each with insults and trying to get the other side to fire the first shot. Nobody did and the arbitrator, Kaiser Wilhelm I eventually awarded the island to the US.

So only the pig was a casualty of this 'war'.

The English and American Camps are still there as Parks and tributes to solving a dispute without a human dying. They couldn't tell me who ate the pig.

In my unbiased opinion the the English Camp was by far the nicest.

Didn't see any Whales of any kind, but did get to see a family of foxes playing one afternoon.

Finally Heading North

Well after all this faffing around I'm finally heading north.

The first day I managed about 500 miles and stopped just south of Eugene Oregon. I confess... I used a motel!!! By the second night I made it to Whidby Island just east of Seattle. Now the scenery is fantastic. So Tuesday night I camped at Deception Pass.

Beautiful location in the middle of nowhere. Right on the waterfront but right next to the local Air Force base. Fortunately the lads were in the pub and not shattering the stillness.

My Blood is Sooo Thin

After a few years in California and a couple of extended trips to the Tropics, I reckon my blood is alot thinner than it used to be. I used to be very tolerant of the cold - quite enjoyed it really.

So when I casually turned up at the rim of Bryce Canyon, I got quite a shock. It is definitely a Dawn location, so you need to be there really early - especially it's particularly popular with photographers.

So there I am at 6:30AM (Pretty good start for me), at 9000ft on the rim waiting for the sun to come up in the howling wind. The trouble with the spot being popular is that you need to claim a spot and not move. The wind was strong enough that there was a chance of the tripod being blown over.

So an hour later when the sun has risen sufficiently for reasonable coverage of the bowl I am as cold as I can ever remember being. This is my excuse for this particular shot not being my best of the place...

I had a long hot shower after that.

Maybe I'll change my plans and go to Hawaii next year rather than Alaska. Hopefully I'll survive England at Xmas.

What Planet is This?

This is my second time to the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico, but the weirdness of the rock formations still amazes me.

This photo could easily be of another planet.

It is particularly spooky wandering around there by yourself. You do wonder if there are Alien eggs in there somewhere waiting for the right opportunity.

It gets even spookier because the best (read weirdest) rocks are about a half hour walk from the car park. And of course the best light is around sunset. And the location is miles from anywhere. So the walk back to the car is in almost complete darkness.

It's actually one of those times when a GPS is really useful for hiking.

The White Rim Road

I have been to Canyonlands National Park a number of times. There's lots of very high viewpoints, looking deep into the canyons. Of course I wanted to get down there and explore. Just as soon as I had enough time. Dead Horse Point State Park is right next to Canyonlands and it has one of the best views in the area. See that road down there it's called White Rim Road. 100 miles of 'off-roading', meaning you need a couple of days to do it and camp down there.

So I dropped by the Park office and got my camping permits. I also got lots of dire warnings from the rangers about rockfalls and ice on the road and questions about do I have enough fuel to get back out the way I came if I get blocked. 100 miles or so doesn't sound very much and on the normal road I'm getting a range of about 500 miles. But when you go off-road fuel consumption skyrockets. On a steep hill in 4Lo I've seen it go under 5MPG, at which rate I wouldn't make it round. So it totally depends on road conditions. I didn't want to have to buy extra fuel canisters, so I thought I'd wing it.

One of the campsites came highly recommended by the Park Ranger because it had the tree! The only facilities were what you brought with you. This campsite had a rock.

Alot of the road is fairly smooth gravel, but there are some very interesting spots where 4Lo is very handy. When it's very steep and rough, crawling along slowly is the only way to go.

Sometimes it doesn't look like there's enough road for even one car. Plenty of river though. That's the Green river, the biggest tributary of the Colorado.

But why is it called the White Rim Road? Seems like there's more red than anything else, right? Well here's another view of it from above...

If you like you isolation, I can highly recommend this trip, I saw one other 4x4 and 2 bikes in three days. Take a copy of Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" with you.

Wish I'd Ignored my Geography Teacher

My last exam in Geography (a long long time ago) was the worst exam I ever did. My sole remaining memory of the course was learning why Heathrow Airport was located where it was over and over again. But if he'd taken me to places where Geography came more alive I'd probably have pursued it further. The desert South West is somewhere every budding Geographer/Geologist should be taken.

If you have difficulty believing there are huge forces involved, there's Waterpocket Fold, where the strata have been broken and forced above the surface. You can drive along it for miles, although the best views are from the air.

If you have difficulty believing water can erode the landscape dramatically over eons giving us the Grand Canyon. There are smaller versions such as this in Canyonlands National Park, where you can 'help' the process if you trip over the wrong rock.

The whiter rock on top is the hard stuff, and the red rock is is like a very soft sandstone. Note the columns on the left where the red rock is eroding underneath the white, eventually the whole thing completely collapses.

On the way it creates some wonderful shapes.

But as you wander about taking photos, you can't really tell what is underneath you. Every now and then you realise you've crossed a crack like this. Any stones you drop in just completely disappear. So does mean you're standing on one of those columns?

The Wave

Well enough commentary on the 4x4, time for it to get me out there and see the world.

One of the most famous photography Spot in the Desert South West is The Wave. Not known by everyone, but serious Nature photographers pretty much all know it.

It is a whole area of the Coyotes Buttes region in Northern Arizona, just full of weird and wonderful rock formation. Many of them petrified sands dunes like the wave.

These two girls had come a long way to try and get in, but access is limited to 20 per day, with 10 available by lottery the day before. They'd been staying in the area for days trying each day to get in. The day I was there, they finally got in and screamed the place down.

The Wave is a major focal point of the area, but it is full of many other weird and wonderful rock formations.

Car Camping (in the car)

I was pleased to find the 4Runner is big enough to sleep in. Either put the front seat down flat, or flip the back seat down. I've never actually slept in a car before, always setting up a tent, even when I couldn't see where I was. I presumed I'd need curtains or something to even get to sleep.

So somewhere in the wilds of Utah I found this spot and got out a few home comforts ...

Yep, I'm camping in luxury these days, with table and chair! Always had beer of course.

Note the table was specially selected to be compatible with the 22 year old Trangia Stove. Meaning it doesn't burn easily.

Later on the advantage of having windows in my tent really struck home.

Using ALL Those Buttons

So I headed out to the White Mountains to see the Bristlecone Pines. This time I'm headed directly for the Upper Grove which is along enough of a dirt track to stop my M3 - believe me I've tried. One of the reasons I knew I needed to go back to a 4x4.

The usual route up their from the town of Bishop is to go roughly 15 miles south then 15 miles east on the highway then 15 miles north, alot of it on dirt roads. Then I found another option - going directly east for about 15 miles. The difference is that the climb is very steep and on a dirt road - Awesome!

So I get to use all of the buttons on my new truck...

The green icon means 4x4, yes it seems like everyone has that these days. "4 Lo" - is an extra low gearbox for pulling up steep hills or heavy engine breaking, and is the big differentiator between car-like AWDs and 'real' 4x4s and the main reason I went for a heavier truck rather than one of those modern mall-terrain vehicles. Below that is the diff-lock on icon, meaning there should be less wheel spin. "VSC OFF" means Vehicle Stability Control Off - ie. you're in charge now. The "D" for those in the UK means 'go forwards and wake me up when we get there' in American ;-)).

The start of the trail was quite innocuous, although it did include a few surprise river (well stream) crossings. Then I passed a National Forest sign requiring "4 Lo" and "High Clearance" for the second half. It suddenly got really steep, with big drops to the side - well the route description did say "Exhilarating". It certainly was. I wasn't even stopping to take a photo.

At the top of the very steepest part the view was superb. That's the valley below, and you can just see the trail near the left edge by the dark hill. Tough to show just how steep it is in a photo (from above, anyway).

I have to say I was pretty impressed with the 4Runner, the trail was similar to some of the Land Rover driving we'd been doing in Costa Rica. I'd say it handled the trail just as well, and with more comfort too. It will be interesting to see how well the engine braking compares on the downhills. (I went home the easy way as it was dark.)

By the way there is another button I haven't mention - more to come later. Just a hint - It's why I bought a new(ish) 4Runner and finally accepted an Automatic.

M3 9538 points, 4Runner 11800 points

A few years ago when I bought my convertible, my little brother scoffed at what he saw as a City Slickers car (who me?). So I sent him a picture like this (but with the convertible in the same spot). It shut him up for a coupla minutes.

Ellery Lake just the other side of Yosemite, 9538 ft high.

I got both of them up in to the White Mountains to see the Bristlecones...

Trees so ancient they used them to correct Carbon Dating. There's 2 groves of them, the Schulmann Grove then the Patriarch Grove, higher up. The road to the Schulmann Grove is paved, so they both got there no probs. I tried to get the M3 further up but the pavement stops and the road gets quite bumpy. I got so far but the amount of rocks bouncing off the underside made me stop and turn around.
No such problems with the 4Runner of course. I had made it up to the Patriarch Grove in 2001 in my Jeep, but I'd stopped on the way to catch Sunset light on trees on the way up, and arrived in the dark.

In fact I got quite a bit further, all the way to 11800 ft, right to the start of the trail to the top of White Mountain. It's nice to be able to go anywhere again.

In this case those points don't mean prizes - they're vertical feet.

Finally - Resolution to the Big question in life (well mine anyway)

So my plan after Costa Rica has always been to get a truck to 'live in'. Or out of. The big question of course was which kind of truck.

Being a Brit of course means you have-to-have a Defender for an expedition. Ray Mears himself said  "There's something reassuring about the Defender. You see one coming and think everything's going to be alright".

But being a Brit in the US of A means the market it is rather different and the search is very frustrating. This is your typical Defender (NAS) in the US these days:

Normally a V8 petrol engine, and automatic. Great for posing about on California beaches, but not exactly great for long distances. It is quite a gas guzzler and usually has a soft-top. The longer 110 version is even rarer. Both are very expensive.

Driving Landys and other 4x4's in England, Africa, Iceland, US and Costa Rica has really reinforced my preference for a nice diesel with a manual transmission. So I was excited when I saw this.

Diesel engine, AND manual. Cool air intake. But pretty old, very high mileage, leaks underneath and VERY expensive. I pass it by often on Sunday mornings and 8 months later it is still unsold.

The sensible thing in the US is to go with the local market and accept automatic, and maybe even buy a Toyota. There's a local company that builds campers to go on the back of 4x4 pickup trucks. And when I realised one of my photo heros has one, then I thought perhaps my photos would look better if I got one of these...

I even went up to their showrooms near Sacramento and spent a few hours playing around in them. Very compact, but very comfortable with bed space for 3 and cooker and fridge. Ideal for my style of rocking up in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night wondering where to put the tent.

So getting one of those was my plan as I left work.

Then I arrived in Costa Rica to work with Raleigh International and spent the next few months driving around in these...

Ooooh. Brilliant. Yesss torquey diesel, and of course manual - like the rest of the world. And I met this German guy traversing the length of the American continent in one of these...

Yes that is a tent on the roof - a style much favoured for overlanding in Africa as you are up out of the way of the critters. He was very pleased with it, even considered it highly reliable. So I thought if it is reliable enough for a German, the reputation they have (especially in the US) may be outdated. I even thought about buying something like that down there and then driving it all the way through Central America to the US.

Then I get back to the US and realise 1) The lead time on the build of those campers had doubled 2) It was getting expensive and 3) I'd already spent alot of my budget.

So I start thinking - cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. Just around the corner I see one of these. I left a note on the windshield to get the owner to call me.

And he did! Yes it's 4x4, it has a built in bed, manual and a crawler gear. He didn't even want too much for it - they're rare especially in 4x4 guise. But the man himself told me he considered it more of a bad road car than off road capable.

So, in the end, after all that I went out and bought one of these...

Only 4 years old, and yes it's an automatic. A Toyota 4Runner (very similar to the Hilux Surf in the UK). But it is big enough to sleep in - I can either put the back seat down forwards and sleep in the back, or, put the front seat back and sleep in the front. It has no kitchen but it does have an Aux input to the stereo and a sunroof. It doesn't drink quite as badly as other 4x4's and it is very quiet. I'll have to buy a Land Rover as a 2nd car one day.

Jungle Trekkin' Cattell Style

I met this cool dude in Costa Rica, his video editing is brilliant.
Around 1:30 in to it, there's me me trekking in style.

Thanks Matt, you've inspired me to give it a GoPro.

In California even the rain is dry

Just in case anyone is inclined to accuse me of sitting still for too long I left San Francisco again for a few days in the Sierras. A spot of mountain biking, hiking and photography around Tahoe and Yosemite.

A Raleigh mate was over from England so we rented a car (the Beemer is a bit sick and will be traded for the right truck) headed for Tahoe and nearly got caught the wrong side of the Sierras in a snow storm.

So I haven't got wet yet in California, as even the rain has fallen dry. Yup after being damp for nearly 4 months, I'm pretty dry now - niice.

We drove over Tioga Pass in a snow storm which cleared just in time to have a hike around Tuolumne Meadows in the sun.

Back in SF

It is sooooo good to be home.

Weather was way too hot for me though - my sweat glands need a rest for the next decade or so after the Tropics. Temps were in the 100's all over the Bay Area.

Then yesterday, the fog rolled back in, blew the tourists away and restored the place to how it should be ;-))

Went for a ride over that bridge and blew all the cobwebs away.

Amazing Technology

Being big into technology I thought I knew how it all worked. But then this happened.

Driving along, these rocks appeared at the side of the road and the GPS said "Alert: Falling Rocks"

It's only blurred from the shaking caused by the falling rocks. Nothing to do with poor photo technique - of course.

Ooooops

What not to buy just before National Independence Day in a Central American country...

Just in case you don't recognise it - it's the Spanish Footy shirt. I bought it just as a tough shirt to wear in the jungle - a cotton T just doesn't cut it, and this was the least offensive - at least to me.

Everything for Sale

Yep you can even buy your own tourist bus here...

For Sale

There's so much property owned by foreigners in Costa Rica, sometimes it seems a shame the locals don't get more of a look in.

But then you see this 7000 square metres at $17 per sqm. Plenty of room for my tent...

We could all get together - there's a whole hillside of lots available.

Life on Life on Life

You really get a sense of the vibrancy of Nature here in Costa Rica. Animals live on animals, animals live on plants, plants live on plants etc etc ....

Even when you are really small, there are insects looking to live on you. This Poison Dart frog is about half an inch long.

Still there's an insect ready to live on him (her?).