Camping *Can* Be Good

There’s an old industry joke that goes something like this: A man works at the circus taking care of the elephants. Rather, he has to clean up after them. Day in day out, until months become weeks becomes years. After awhile, he’s sick and tired of cleaning up elephant dung and he starts complaining. He hates what he’s doing and he lets everyone around him know it. One of his coworkers overhears him grumbling and says, well, if you don’t like it, why don’t you just quit. To which our hearty circus man replies: “What, and give up show business!?!”

After hearing about our trailer tire-based mishaps in and around Clearwater, many people were surprised, nay shocked and horrified, to discover we were going camping the following weekend. Like, the same level of incredulity at the end of Black Hawk Down when Josh Hartnett exclaims to Eric Bana, having just run the infamous 'Mogadishu Mile' to escape that beleaguered city, "You're going back?"

I suppose on the surface it does appear pretty crazy: after having a week's vacation nearly demolished by two flat tires in rapid succession, we probably do appear to be gluttons for punishment. But the truth of it is, after the second tire repair, we still had a good time. 

Even on our way back from Kamloops the first time we stopped at the Artisan Antique Market in Louis Creek, near Barrier, which is a charming shop full of friendly people.

And on our journey home, we found a great place to stop for two nights. The Blue River Campground is just off Highway 5 and the sites are pretty close and not very treed, but the facilities are very well-kept, the bathrooms clean and the showers free, and the outdoor cooking area is not only a rain shelter, but full kitchen with stove, microwave and refrigerator, and well as a dishwashing station! 

We didn't use the outdoor kitchen as I had brought marinated pork chops that needed cooking as well as Babybel cheeses and charcuterie meat for making savory s'mores over the campfire.

The campground is just so tidy and friendly compared to many others we've stayed at, and there are lots of handpainted murals and decorations as well. Highly recommended, and we are likely to return next year to check out the nearby river safari and floating restaurant.

There is also a lake beach in town and an impressive set of rapids called Little Hell's Gate about 25 min south of Blue River.

This past weekend we joined my sister-in-law and her boyfriend for three nights at Paddy's Flat in Kananaskis Country, about 20 minutes southeast of Bragg Creek. There was a bear advisory posted on the website (a sow and two cubs) and we saw one as drove into the camp after sunset. 

Our late arrival was thanks to us having to turn around in Lacombe and head back after realizing I'd completely forgotten to pack my CPAP machine, despite remembering to lug along the battery to power it at an unserviced site! Thank heavens Glory was willing to drive out with it and meet us in Leduc which probably cut 80 minutes off our travel time!

The next day I saw another bear (or perhaps the same one again) after being warned by another camper in their vehicle that it was in the stand of trees about 25 feet from the outhouse I had just used. I locked eyes with him as I kept one hand on the outhouse door handle, but when a truck passed nearby, he disappeared into the bush separating campground loops.

This is not to say there was no animal activity at our campsite; far from it! We had many visitors:

Is it strange having massive wandering bovines stroll so leisurely through your campsite? Sure. Have we had worse intrusions on fewer legs? Also true.

Add to this the panic I created when I saw black fur in the nearby trees after sunset and warned everyone about a nearby bear cub, only to discover it was Vera's dog, Onyx. 

You see it though, right?

I had also made this error after spotting Onyx way, way too close in the bush after my outhouse bear encounter on Saturday.

It was pretty hot on Saturday as well, but we got some games in in the shade and I managed to type up last week's blog. On Sunday it was a bit cooler and I managed to get in some hammock time, which was quite enjoyable.

Vera's friend Charlene arrived at the site across the road on Sunday as well, and the three ladies got stuck in on a jigsaw puzzle Vera had started that day. Somehow they managed to finish it before sunset and Charlene's husband even found the last missing piece on the ground!

In terms of natural splendor, it is a short walk down to Paddy's Flat on the Elbow River, which is awfully scenic and tranquil (and pretty cold, being glacier-fed!)..

Monday morning, before packing up the Bride of Frankentrailer, Audrey and I headed out about 4 km down Hwy 66 to Elbow River Falls. A popular day trip for Calgarians, we got there before the parking lot was even a quarter-full, and 90 minutes later it was packed. Worth a trip if you are in the neighbourhood though!

I even tried my hand at a bit of rock climbing

(...poses). 

I am glad we had a chance to have a less eventful camping trip following our travails in B.C., even for just a weekend. And although we are hoping to retire the Bride in a year or two, I hope we have a few more summers (and falls) of trailer camping left in us. 

And when we share the next set of ridiculous obstacles that hamper our enjoyment and people suggest we stay in a hotel or Air BnB instead, we can scoff and say, "What? And give up the great outdoors?"

Flattened at Clearwater! (Part 2)

After returning our rented tools and grabbing a handheld breakfast, we found ourselves on the road to Kamloops, where we had been informed that the local Kal Tire had a half-dozen of the 13-inch trailer tire we needed to replace the flat on Bride of Frankentrailer.

Highway 5 is a lovely drive, up and down the hills and mountains alongside the North Thompson River for about 90 minutes. It gets progressively dryer and more barren as you get further south, so by the time you reach the city, it’s almost desert-like. There is still a fair amount of vegetation but it is largely scrub, sage and prairie grasses, with very few of the enormous pine and spruce trees up in Wells Gray, where we still hoped to camp eventually.

As in Clearwater, the staff at Kal Tire in Kamloops were a delight to deal with, and had our tire fixed and mounted in maybe 45 minutes. I think the most time was spent finding it. We even toyed with getting an extra spare when Keegan discovered the right-sized wheel in their inventory, but it turned out to have only four holes, not the five we needed, so the spare spare notion was abandoned.

With a fresh new trailer tire loaded in the back of the Lander, we only had two more stops to make in Kamloops and the first was at Princess Auto.

My satisfaction at this experience bordered on the spiritual.

First, it was deliciously air conditioned, in direct contrast to the heat outside which I recall as being around 36 degrees.

Their immense inventory, even the fiddly bits like the individual socket I required, were all clearly labelled and neatly organized.

And once again, friendly, helpful staff were easy deal with and were only too willing to let me open a saddle adapter to see if it fit the 2-ton bottle jack I was contemplating (it did not).

It did not take us too long to get sorted, and within perhaps 15 minutes we left with the aforementioned hydraulic jack, which I figured might work better in the close quarters under our trailer, as well as an 18” breaker bar, a 3/4” inch socket for the trailer’s lug nuts, a 6” extender for that socket, and some “Screwloose” penetrating spray for loosening the nuts.

Our second stop was at the T’Kemlups Petro-Can for some more ice for our beleaguered cooler as well as some enormous slushy drinks. I swear I have never enjoyed one of these more; it was just so hot.

Before we even returned to the Country Inn RV Park, we knew we wouldn’t have enough time to strike camp and make it to Mahood Lake, especially using the route taking us an hour south to avoid as much of the notorious F.S.R. as possible. So we heated up some chicken chili, packed up what we could before bedding down, and slept with hopes of an early departure.

Packing up went pretty well the next day, and to save time we again grabbed some breakfast sandwiches (and still more ice) and headed out once more the Hwy 5 south.

And not ten minutes south of Clearwater, the other trailer tire blew out.

It signaled its departure from this mortal coil with an immense POP, followed by the slapping of shredded rubber against the asphalt. It was the starboard-side tire this time, so I was able to pull over safely to the side of the highway, and after a few moments of reflection as to whether we were cursed by the Almighty or had angered some powerful folk-magician in our travels, I got out to take a look.

And yes, looking at my second trailer flat in less than 24 hours, I experienced my share of disappointment and despair, especially when looking at the inexplicable two inches of additional fairing on the this side of the trailer (see picture), which would make this extraction even more difficult than the first one.

But I was also heartened, because this time, thanks to advice, experience, and our loyal Princess of Autos, I was prepared!

I quickly unpackaged the bottle jack, marveling at is tidiness and realized something I hadn’t noticed when checking it for the adapter I had considered: there was no handle in the box.

There should have been a two-part jack handle, but there wasn’t even one. Blessedly though, the socket for the jack could also accommodate a long-handled screwdriver or even the extender I had bought for the breaker bar.

I quickly tested my hypothesis, but remembered before getting too far that I must loosen the nuts before lifting the wheel. I got the breaker bar out, moved the extender from the jack to the socket and put the whole works together. Only a bit of the spray was needed to loosen them and that didn’t take nearly as long as the first time around.

And when I got the bottle jack to an appropriate spot on the frame, it lifted up easily enough even using my improvised handle, and there was just enough room to work off the spare and squeeze it under the lip of the trailer.

But when I tried to put the fully inflated spare into place, it became very apparent that so long as it was full of air and a larger diameter than the flat, there was absolutely no way I could even force it into position.

Despite the bottle jack’s ease of use while crouched under a listing tent trailer, its maximum lift of 7&¼” meant that there was not a single place under the trailer where it could elevate it to a sufficient degree. Standing the jack on the block we used for the nose of the trailer would potentially raise it an extra 4” but put it above the frame and metal pieces of the trailer, and there was no way the aged wood of our 1974 Bonair would support the weight on the jack surface that perhaps an inch across.

It was about this time that I felt burning pinch on my right wrist, and jerked my arm up to discover a red ant with its mandibles sunk into my flesh. After brushing it off and noticing more ants upon my person, I rolled over and discovered I had indeed situated myself directly upon an anthill. I mean, why not? At this point the circumstantial evidence supporting an angry witch was becoming overwhelming anyways.

Once again, I began to despair, and once again, Audrey came to the rescue. “What about the scissor jack from the Lander?”

I shook my head in frustration. “Even with more lift, it starts out too flat to give the trailer enough clearance.”

”Yeah, but it would fit better on the block, wouldn’t it?”

I blinked and squinted at the shadows under the trailer. She was, of course, completely correct; the additional 4” from the trailer block made it a simple matter to fit the scissor jack under the frame, and also gave more room to put the windlass-like jack handle to work. There was soon more than enough room to fit on the spare, finger tighten the nuts, lower the jack and tighten everything back up.

 It did take us long enough that a friendly driver stopped to make sure we were okay, having passed us on his way out of town and seeing us in the same spot upon his return, and another compassionate soul asked if we needed help as well.

But we were able to return ourselves to the road all by ourselves and were soon headed back to Kamloops for the second time in 24 hours.

We weren’t going to make it to Mahood Lake by nightfall again, but when I called the reservation line, they confirmed my suspicion - after our being a no-show, our entire 4-night reservation had been cancelled anyways.

There was enough coverage along Hwy 5 for me to use Audrey’s data and book us a site at Blue River, maybe an hour north of Clearwater and as far as we could get along our homeward route and still cook dinner.

When I walked into the Kamloops Kal Tire with the flat, one of the techs from the day before gawked his eyes and said, “There is no way that blew already!”

I agreed and informed him it was the other, and as he took it back to get replaced, he assured us we should be good to go in 15-20 minutes.

As they worked on it, I reflected on the rotten luck of a second flat so soon after the first and realized it probably wasn’t luck after all - there was no chance that the starboard tire didn’t take some degree of damage during our initial highball run up the FSR. In retrospect, we were probably lucky to have gotten as far as we did! And I still could not recall wronging any houngans or brujas or warlocks at any rate.

Once the tire was fixed, our tech not only mounted it onto the spare bracket for us, he also retorqued the tire I had just replaced. We had many miles yet to go before nightfall.

Next stop was at Princess Auto to swap out the handle-less bottle jack for a dedicated scissor jack that would live in the Bride of Frankentrailer so that our next flat wouldn’t requiring unpacking so much of the Lander, since that one is stowed under the cargo area.

And once again, the heat of the day required slushy drinks to progress, so we stopped once more at T’Kemlups Petro Can and this time got some hot chicken for lunch, which, for gas station chicken? Was pretty decent.

We also drove around the area a little bit and found an immense and beautiful powwow centre, as well as Canada’s most notorious residential school, where they first discovered 215 unmarked graves of Indigenous students - a heady reflection on vacation, but we both think we will return for a tour at some point in the future.

The rest of the drive passed without incident, thank heavens! At one point, while we were driving up the side of a mountain perhaps two or three hundred feet higher than the river, Audrey spotted a bald eagle flying alongside us. When I turned my head, I didn’t even have to look up - the enormous avian was at eye level, thirty feet away from my window and perhaps 20 feet from the cliff side, gently flapping alongside us as we drew past him at 70 km/h. Amazing!

The private campground at Blue River was closer to the highway and train crossing than we might like, but was very well kept and tidy. After a Wednesday night dinner of grilled pork chops and cacio e pepe pasta (from ramen style cups), we were finally beginning to relax for the very first time since leaving on Monday.

After two flats, two tire replacements, being stranded in remote areas, spending six hours on the road between Clearwater and Kamloops without actually getting anywhere, nibbled by ants, and enduring a diet one meal short of being exclusively fast food and road snax, we finally, actually felt like we were on vacation.

Jasper 2024 - Rocky Mountain Heartbreak

We had booked a campsite for our recurring late-season trip to Jasper back in early July, looking forward to what we were calling Campsgiving Weekend.

By the end of the month though, wildfire proximity had prompted the evacuation of the entire townsite and many structures in the town and surrounding area were lost, including some in the Wapiti campsite where we were booked. 

In late August, Parks Canada refunded our fees and cancelled our reservation, but with word that Miette Hot Springs might reopen before the end of the season, I booked a campsite at Jasper Gates, just west of Hinton.

Sure enough, Miette announced they would be open until Thanksgiving weekend, so we loaded up Bride of Frankentrailer and hit the road Friday, but the trailer got a flat on the Henday before we even reached St. Albert. 

We called Tuber Towing because I wasn't about to change a flat on that thing beside Edmonton's fastest roadway, but they also told us the other tire wasn't looking great. So we ended up leaving it at Trail Tire so they could replace both of them - the tech didn't think the other would even get us out of the city... They hoped to get us underway late the next morning, but once we got home I transferred our reservation from the campsite to a motel room on the same property (Jasper Gates was so nice about it too!) so we could get to the mountains on Friday after all.

After cooking French toast in out kitchenette and visiting the hot springs (perhaps our favourite spot in the Rockies), we bought a park pass there and drove into the townsite. We wanted to see for ourselves just what was left of a place all three of us knew from our childhoods.

It is about a half-hour from Miette Road to Jasper, following the Athabasca river for the most part. Along the Yellowhead, the visible destruction was limited to the burnt trees you could see on the mountain slopes across the water. As you got closer to town, however, there were burnt trees on both sides of the river, some of them very close to the highway. (All the photos are Glory's.)

The eastern entry way to the town was closed so we drove on to the western one on Hazel Avenue that comes off of 93A. Last year we had seen an immense grizzly bear lounging in the shade of the trees by the intersection - almost all those trees were now gone, a few scorched trunks all that remained. 

Heading up to Connaught Drive, the main drag that parallels the train tracks, I audibly gasped - almost everything west of Hazel Avenue was gone, starting with the gas stations that had been on the corner, and all the homes that had been beyond it. My eyes dampened and I questioned my presence there.

On Connaught itself, the damage is less visible save for a gaping hole where a building housing some businesses or another used to exist. Presumably, firefighters knocked it down to save the neighbouring structures.

Looking across the tracks, the proximity of the fire from the other side is visible as well, and a ridgeline of burnt timber is particularly haunting.

We turned up Pyramid Lake Road, noting Bears Paw Bakery, a staple of prior visits, is closed. Patricia Street is currently one-way, so we went up to Geike Street and hung a left, noting that everything east of us looked largely intact.

But a few blocks down we came upon the burned out remains of Jasper Anglican Church, and a sign on the fence surrounding it warning of asbestos in the ruins. It was consecrated almost a century ago, in 1929.

Turning left on Hazel so we could proceed down Patricia Street, we saw a fire-damaged garage that was still standing and probably reparable, but with no obvious burning of the adjacent house - miraculous. Past that street though, there were almost no structures standing.

Just before Patricia Street, north of the Esso station, I think this was a steakhouse or Greek restaurant with a retro blue and white sign - almost nothing remains.

On Patricia Street we saw a section of stores and restaurants where the bottom floor was largely intact, but the roof and upper floors were gutted, with exposed roof beams silhouetted aginst the bright blue sky. But of course, even if this building doesn't require demolition, all the contents are undoubtedly wrecked by smoke or water damage.

All in all, a pretty disheartening visit. So much damage, so quickly, and impacting thousands if not tens of thousands of people. How does a small town come back from the edge of destruction like this? I had hoped we could shop or grab a light meal there, and even though I knew such an act would be fine, it still felt ghoulish somehow, so we headed back to our motel near Hinton.

But before we left, Glory wanted a picture of her with the cartoon bear namesake of the town, and I was happy to oblige. 

Somehow the fact that this statue had survived gave me a glimmer of hope, as did seeing the mountain sheep and elk so prevalent on the way out of town.

From the highway, the signs of the fire are much less visible, and in time, I hope the townsite will look more familiar as well.