Our Volksvegan Adventure

Well, I’ve got a bit of catching up to do recounting our adventures in Canada! After spending some time in Banff and the surrounding area, we decided to do a 5-day backpacking trip in Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park. As I mentioned previously, we hiked 2 days in, spent one day doing day hikes in the area, and hiked 2 days out. Hiking is the only way to get into this remote alpine wonderland, and the trek was well worth it!

Our hike started at Sunshine, a ski resort near Banff. We didn’t want to pay $50 to be shuttled from the parking lot to the ski village (plus they didn’t allow dogs on the shuttle) so we hiked the 5.7 km uphill to Sunshine Village, the trailhead leading into Mt. Assiniboine. From there it was a fairly flat and easy hike through beautiful and open alpine meadows. The area was full of ground squirrels (which Juneau loved to chase, unfortunately) and low-growing plants spotted with islands of little trees. And of course, it was all surrounded by huge mountains. We passed Citadel Pass and hiked down into Porcupine Camp for the first night after about 19 km of hiking.

From Porcupine we hiked uphill to the Valley of the Rocks, which was obviously full of huge boulders and surrounded by rocky cliffs. There we passed a group of women who had just gotten within 15 feet of a big grizzly bear, and warned us to make noise. So we proceeded carefully (and loudly) but didn’t get to see the bear. By the time we arrived at Lake Magog campground we were really tired, and it took a while to find a spot because the campground was really crowded. We were quite surprised how many people made the trek into Assiniboine, although we certainly couldn’t blame them, the mountains and lakes in the park were amazing!

The third day of our trip we got a break from our heavy packs and did two day hikes. Our first hike took us past Sunburst, Cerulean, and Elizabeth Lakes and up a mountain called The Nublet. It was a steep and rocky climb, but the view from the top was well worth it. We could see four lakes surrounding Mt. Assiniboine from the top, and other hikers had created a big peace sign with a tower out of rocks at the summit. It was really windy at the top, so after a snack and adding some rocks to the peace sign, we headed down for lunch. In the evening we hiked to Wonder Pass viewpoint. From there we could see the back side of Assiniboine and the surrounding mountains, and it was a gorgeous view.

On our hike out, we decided not to go to Porcupine again because the hike down to it and back up was steep, so we set up a makeshift camp near Citadel Pass. The pass was still a steep hike though, and boy were we exhausted! The ground was rather lumpy near the pass and we had a hard time finding a good spot to camp. It was so bumpy that I had trouble sleeping, and it was a cold night as well. The next morning we had a pretty easy hike out though, and we did a side trip to Fatigue Pass (even though I thought the name sounded very intimidating).

On the hike down the ski resort to the parking lot, we saw a big bull moose standing under the gondola line! We were far above him on the road, but we got a good view and he certainly had a nice rack. Other than the ground squirrels and a couple of deer, he was the only wildlife we spotted on our Assiniboine trip.

After Mt. Assiniboine, we said goodbye to Art in Banff and headed north to see more National Parks. We stopped at the beautiful glacier-fed Peyto Lake and Crowfoot Glacier on the drive from Banff to Jasper National Park, and then we arrived at the amazing Columbia Icefield. This icefield sits on top of a huge group of mountains and feeds multiple glaciers. It’s a 3-way continental divide, flowing to the Pacific, Atlantic, and the Arctic oceans. We got to see Athabasca Glacier and hike on it for a little bit. Sadly, due to global warming, the icefield and glaciers are receding and melting at faster and faster rates. We were impressed that the signs placed by Parks Canada actually made mention of global warming and how we could reduce its impact. As Art would say, Canadians aren’t afraid to tell it like it is.

We then headed into Jasper National Park. We were running low on diesel, but our gas gauge said we had plenty to make it to the town of Jasper. But it was wrong, and we learned the hard way that the gas gauge is apparently on crack. We ended up running out of fuel near a campground about 50 km from Jasper. We walked up into the campground to see if anyone could help us. The people there just told us to call a taxi, which we found out was going to cost $80 each way. So we thought we’d see if we could siphon some diesel from someone. We looked around the campground for another diesel and found one guy with a diesel truck. I knocked on the trailer door and asked if he’d be willing to help us out. He seemed hesitant and asked a million questions before finally agreeing to meet us down at the bus so we could see if we could siphon some diesel from his truck.

We went back to the bus and got a hose (from our grease pump system) and a container for siphoning. The guy who promised to help us was taking forever, so we walked back up to the campground to get him. He was on the phone and acted weird when we walked up. Finally he came down to the bus and we tried to siphon some fuel. Our first attempt didn’t work so we got another hose. It started to work but we couldn’t get enough suction. The guy kept saying it wouldn’t work and didn’t seem like he wanted us to keep trying, even though we offered to pay for the diesel we took and only needed a couple gallons. He drove over to a tow truck down the road instead and came back saying the tow truck driver would be willing to take us into town to get diesel. Seneca went with the tow truck driver while I stayed with the bus and Juneau.

A little while later, a cop car pulled up to the bus. I thought maybe he was there to help us out, but the he let Seneca out of the back of the cop car! We found out the guy who had helped us had been calling the cops from the campground phone. The cop said he’d gotten a report of “suspicious activity” and had to check us out. He ran our driver’s licenses and talked to us for a bit, and of course realized we weren’t suspicious characters, just hippies who needed help.

Seneca ended up getting a ride into town in the back of the cop car and got diesel fuel. It took him forever to get back, and when he finally arrived back at the bus, he pulled up in a taxi with a hippie couple that had been hitchhiking across Canada! They wanted to go to Nelson, and since we were heading that way, Seneca had offered them a ride. Katie and Tom looked like Rainbow Family types and were really nice, so when Sen had run into them at the gas station they immediately hit it off. So the journey continued with an even more crowded bus.

We drove to a campground for the night and the next day headed up to the town of Jasper where we filled up (grease has been hard to come by in Canada so we’ve been mostly running on diesel). We drove up to the north part of the park to see Pocahontas, an old abandoned mining town. We walked around the town’s ruins and then headed south again. We stopped to see Athabasca and Sunwampta falls, both of which were beautiful falls in limestone canyons that had been carved over time. We camped for the night north of Lake Louise.

In the morning we made a big breakfast in the campground cook shelter and headed south once more. We traveled west from Banff National Park into Yoho National Park. (Yes, there are a lot of National Parks in the Canadian Rockies, and we had to get our money’s worth for buying the parks pass!) In Yoho we stopped at Takkakkaw Falls, the second tallest waterfalls in Canada. They were really impressive, spilling off of a massive cliff and spraying us as we hiked up beneath them. We continued the journey through Glacier and Mount Revelstroke National Parks, stopping at a few spots along the way to hike in old growth cedar and hemlock rainforests. We kept going south and got into Nelson just before midnight.

Nelson seems like an awesome little town. It’s known for being a hippie town where many draft dodgers from the US came to escape the Vietnam War. We fit right in! Organic food seemed to be the norm, and one of the first things we saw driving in was a huge co-op (which we were sure to hit up the next morning). We walked around for a bit and decided to hang out in a bar that had live music. We were delighted to find out that all the beers on tap were local AND organic! Katie and Tom displayed their uncanny ability to get by with no money by befriending a couple of people and getting free beer. After some yummy beer, we parted ways with Katie and Tom for the night.

We had a hard time leaving Nelson. There were organic coffee shops, a raw vegan cafes, yoga centers, and natural food stores everywhere and I haven’t seen so many dreadlocked people since the Rainbow Gathering. But we wanted to get down to Glacier in Montana while our friend John had some time off, so we said goodbye to our hitchhiking friends, stocked up at the co-op, spent the last of our Canadian currency on a raw, organic, and vegan lunch, and headed out of town and back across the border.

Once again the border crossing was a piece of cake (although they did ask for passports this time) and since we’d been running late from overheating problems and waiting for a ferry, we camped just south of the border and headed toward Glacier this morning.

We’ve been having a bit of trouble with our cooling system while in Canada, and after the bus nearly overheated a few times in the past few days, we found a leak in our reserve coolant tank. We replaced the main one, but now the reserve one has a hole! Seneca patched it up and we’ve been watching our fluid levels carefully, adding coolant every day. We also found out that using two different types of coolant could have led to a build up of sludge in the coolant system, which is contributing to the problem. So we plan to get the coolant system flushed as soon as we can, and replace the reserve coolant reservoir. Hopefully that will be the end of the overheating problems!

It’s hard to believe our visit to Canada is over. It was great to spend time somewhere different, and just being in another country (one not run by the Bush administration), felt good. We loved the vibe in Canada and made some great friends, so we’d love to return, perhaps in the winter when those Canadian Rockies are covered in fresh powder! Of course, the journey will go on – next up, we’re heading back through Idaho for a family gathering and to visit friends before heading to the west coast.