chasingsummerp.00
Chasing Summer p.002
Report initially published in the Adventure Rider web site. For more interaction and comments check it out here
Day 4 - August 19th - Seattle to Vancouver
It was really hard to leave our friends who had been so welcoming and until the very end fed us with the best food you can imagine. We even left with some short ribs that we enjoyed on the road!
However the Big North was calling so while the rain paused we left at the end of the morning. We have again to deal with Seattle traffic but we end up leaving the 5 for some less crowded coastal road that was pretty nice.
Vancouver is not really far but we had the traffic to go there and had to deal with a long wait at the border. Not only the line was very long but the two of us also had to get out of the bikes to pass an interview, making sure that we had enough money to go to Alaska and back without getting stuck in Canada. “Standard procedure” they said for people that want to go to Alaska without realizing how far it is.
From what I heard, it just seems that the Canadians want to retaliate to the trouble the US borders started to give to the Canadians crossing the border to the US after 9/11.Anyway, we had not plan to stay in Vancouver since we wanted to put some miles and were not looking forward to another big city. However, it was already 4:30 pm when we finally entered Canada at that time of the day it just made more sense to sleep in Vancouver tonight. I called my friend Don who leaves there for recommendations and we’re on our way to Vancouver.
Wow, approaching Vancouver is quite something. We both immediately liked this city! No pics though since it was already late and we needed a place to stay. Don’s recommendation was a bit too expensive for us so we checked around the bus terminal and found this bar/hotel place that was quite 'interesting'. Special crowd for sure but the price was cheap! Unfortunately they had no vacancy. Meanwhile in front of the bar a Harley rider needed some help…
We used our compressor on his flat tire and with this extra air the guy was confident on being able to go home. Not the first time we help HD that way. Don’t they have electric plugs on their expensive machines???
We finally found a good place to stay and went to meet Don and his GF Tara. Nothing better than having locals showing you around! Teryk and I continued to be very impressed by how cool Vancouver seems to be. Don and Tara although liking their city very much told us about some critical issue for leaving there, mostly because of real estate prices going crazy while salaries didn’t increase much. There’s also a lot of real estate speculation and even though many apartments are empty it’s really hard to find a place to stay.
Well, all I can say is that as tourists it’s a great place to visit and we had a lot of fun!
Day 5 - August 20th - Vancouver to Prince George
I was really looking forward to riding the “Sea to Sky” highway (the 99); It goes North-East from Vancouver towards Whistler, along a fjord. Unfortunately, weather and traffic were again against us! There will be the Olympic Winter Games in Whistler in 2010 and so they’re making the road a 2x2. Problem is, the road is stuck between the water and a steep mountain so it’s a gigantic work and there are countless stops and flag poles.
To make things worse, the 640’s clutch cable breaks! Not ideal in a stop and go traffic…
Teryk had gone through a few of those cables in his machine so he had very smartly already installed a brand new cable along the previous one so if one fails it’s easy to switch the spare one.
The latest model has been improved so hopefully this new cable will last longer...
Thankfully, after Whistler the traffic finally cleared up and we were finally able to enjoy our ride.
A break somewhere around Pemberton...
It never poured on us too heavily and it was even sunny at times!
Every time we see a chance to take a dirt road that doesn't take us too much off the way, we go for it! It breaks the monotony, offers often better scenery and we're 'dirt addicts' anyway.
On the 97 North, the fancy gas station/town called "70 mile House". Yep, that's quite a name.
It's always an opportunity to check the bike and Teryk discovers that the bolt holding its side stand is gone. Vibrations on a big single are always an issue for that kind of stuff.
We finally arrive at Prince George after a long day of riding and check into a motel. Prince George is quite disappointing and we have to ask 2 people to really make sure that "yes, this is downtown".
Day 6 - August 21st - Prince George to Hyder
The best thing about Prince George might be that they have a KTM dealer there.
“Ready to Race”… looks like the owner knows a thing or two about that!
Impressive tires! They do ride their bikes all year around here.
A really nice guy took care of the side stand bolt and we bought a spare clutch cable. Then West on the 16. Skyping home...
Somewhere on the way...
Looking again for a dirt alternative we switch off the main road at New Hazelton to go North.
Hazelton is an Indian Community and I notice again how the “First Nations” people (as they call themselves in Canada) seem way happier and prosperous than the “Native Americans”. I don’t why is that but if was a real pleasure to see it.
Not sure if it’s a local thing but those mail boxes were surprisingly tough.
The GPS roads for Canada are not really detailed and it was hard to see on our maps if the dirt road would eventually connect to the main road. After 40 miles it became progressively narrower and my PCQ experience made me think that there was no chance that this road would go through.
Going back 40 miles was really not something we wanted to do so we start to explore every option but there was a big river between the trail and the road we wanted to reach. While exploring we found at one point a family camping along the river with Canoes and all. The guy looked like he had been in those woods for ever and told us where was the only access to cross the river, just a few Kms back. Relieved to not have to backtrack the whole way we found a very nice trail going just where we wanted (towards the 37).
Here Teryk stopped because he saw a good size black bear running on the trail ahead of him. We paused a minute and when we pursued it was nowhere to be seen.
Back on pavement, it was already late in the day so we hurried to the 37A towards Stewart/Hyder. The 37A is very scenic, certainly the best we had enjoyed so far! The road itself is nice and with twisties but the best part is to see the high mountains on both sides since it's a sort of canyon/valley.
And of course there is the Bear Glacier, although it's not really shinning in this picture at dark.
We finally arrived in Stewart, a neat little town, the last on the Canadian side.
