Tombstone Territorial Park

Last week we took a break from the river and went up to Tombstone Territorial Park in Yukon Territory, Canada. We got to the visitor center and got a photo copied map of the trail we were going to take which also happened to be the only full trail in the entire park. The trail "followed" Grizzly Creek up to Grizzly Lake (wonderful place to go camping in especially minus "Ol Bangy"). So the hike up turns out to be a lot harder than planned rising 2000 feet in under 2 miles over every sort of terrain you can imagine but after 7 miles we eventually end up in our camping spot. The next day we lazed around nearly the whole day but as evening approached I decided that I should get some exploring done and set off at 9:00 pm to explore the lake and surrounding areas. The next 4 hours can only be described with such cheesiness as "complete bliss..." please don't make me finish. I ran up big rock piles, jumped streams, drank straight from the flowing water, took some "action shots" of my wanderings, almost died or caused myself major injuries (a big rock fell on my hand and I immediately repented of all the bad things I ever said about Aron Ralston) and topped off the whole evening by finding a natural water slide coming off a glacier a ways up. Natural water slides are not things easily passed up so I took a look around, stripped naked, and ran to the top and slid down. After I was able to breathe again I quickly dressed and ran back to the tent before my fellow backpackers came looking for my corpse. I got back 45 minutes before they had decided to go looking for me and received only a mild tongue lashing for my thoughtlessness of telling no one where I was going. Sometimes, however, you have to run up to the mountains with out letting the cavalry know and just accept your fate that if you get killed you died doing something you loved.

P.s. I took a video of my water slide and probably am gonna post it on Facebook, the edited version of course.

Real Canadian

Real conversation heard by me while walking past a hotel.

Carla-"We are travelling through and would like a shower, how much would it cost to use your hotel to shower?"

Canadian-(Imagine in your best Canadian/Minnesota accent) "Oh jeez, uh, I don't know eh, uh, you should, uh, probably come back tomorrow and talk to the manager about it eh?"

I know the full beauty of the moment could never be fully captured in text but I figured I'd give it a shot.

Dawson, Tombstone and Banjos

There is nothing better than when you are miles of civilization and seeing signs of a fresh meal that you don't have to prepare. We were floating down the river and saw a sign sure to get our attention, "Bakery and Campground." As we strolled up the grassy knoll, I couldn't help but hear the telltale sounds of the Deliverance banjo ringing through my head. To most, that is a clear sign to immediately abort, but when you've been on the river, your judgement is hazy (did you see Deliverance?) at the prospect of a tasty "meal". As we walked up, it was already too late. We had already been sucked in by the tractor beam suggesting that we HAD to purchase something at this point, be it a $7 loaf of bread, or a $5 "jumbo hot dog". (Not so jumbo, or hot for that matter.) After narrowly escaping this backwoods plot, we travelled successfully to Dawson City, where the real adventure began. I will probably live in Dawson at some point in my life.

Carmacks

So the trip up has been pretty great so far. We drove from Portland to Whitehorse in 3 days. Anyway we were happy to get there. Soo on our way up we saw a bunch of bear but since we have been on the river we have pretty much only seen fish, moose (giving birth to another moose, I might post the picture later), beaver, and tons of birds. The river has been great and the weather has been pretty good too. We put in on the river at 10:45 at night because guess what it never gets dark here. I had always heard people talk about how it is light here always, but you don't really understand until you experience it. So our basic day goes like this wake up, eat, row, eat, row, eat, sleep. Sometimes we mix it up and skip one of the eats and just row. Right now we are in the thriving metropolis of Carmacks, Yukon Territory and are looking at putting into the river any time now. Our next stop will be Dawson hopefully in 5-7 days.

Fishing for marlin with a bear. Wait, is that right?

So I have alluded recently in the past to an upcoming trip in AK. Well to the uninformed this trip will commence actually in Canada (I know, I will probably hold my breath the whole time until back in America) and then will continue down the Yukon until we reach the Pacific Ocean. This is real deal, huge, man-eating, scary, bear country. So since I'll be living among these beautiful beasts and since they have huge claws, teeth, and muscles not to mention super human smell and heat vision, (I may have made up that last one) I thought it would only be fair if I evened up the playing field a little bit by taking along a new friend of mine. Although we have yet to be officially introduced I'm sure we will get along fine.
Her measurements are:
Caliber 45-70
Barrel 18 inches
Capacity 4+1
Beautiful isn't she? So to people that may not be as gun savvy as others the 45-70 is a little smaller bullet than the one used by Tom Selleck's Character in "Quigley Down Under." Quigley used a 45-110 and this is a 45-70 (think of getting hit by a train with 11 cars behind it rather than just 7.) The 45 is the next size down from the 50 caliber. Even with my new friend I think I would rather still just not see any bears. They are big and scary.

I guess a little ranting never hurt anybody. As long as it is just a little bit.

So for one of my classes I have to make a survey and document the results. I chose to do mine on adventure, go figure, and recently sent out my surveys to 100 unsuspecting students of BYU-Idaho. So basically the survey asks what people do for adventure, who they seek it with, etc... One of the questions I asked was something along the lines of where do you seek adventure.
HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART
one of the people answered "In my house on my computer." Really? Really? that is the best you could come up with? Now I know I'm not any sort scholar on adventure (is there even such a thing?) but I do know that if you want to have an adventure there has to be some form of risk. Does this guy really think that his fake, imaginary character on his video game puts his life in some sort of risk? I mean even trying a new restaurant involves some risk. How would it feel to have you whole life lived in virtual reality? At the end of my life when I meet God (hopefully, and hopefully not too soon) when he asks me how I enjoyed life I'll get to say to him "I loved it. I loved seeing your creations, I loved using my muscles to reach mountain tops and canyon bottoms, I loved spending real time with other people, I loved the whole experience. Hell, I would probably be up for the experience again." Let me end here with a little quote from one of friends, maybe you've heard of him maybe you haven't but John Muir said, "No right way is easy in the rough world. We must risk our lives to save them."

As the snow around town kind of starts to melt and the snow up at the resorts turns more and more into ice, the obvious signs of spring are evident. As much as I have loved this winter I am pretty super stoked for summer. So now for my top ten reasons I'm looking forward to summer.

10. Growing an enormous BYU-I unapproved mustache
9. Chacos
8. Listening to the rain with the door open
7. Camping all the time
6. Not wearing full length pants
5. Not wearing shirts
4. Finding ridiculous sunglasses and never taking them off
3. Running shorts (mine are shamefully short)
2. The way the air feels late at night
1. Oh did I mention that I'm going to ALASKA!!! WOO HOOOOOO!!!

But as the joys of spring/summer approach I can't forget the happiness that comes with winter like...

10. Wearing wool almost constantly
9. Building snow caves
8. Sleeping in snow caves
7. The cold on the only part of my exposed face below my goggles and above my scarf
6. Hot chocolate
5. Talking to people on ski lifts
4. Watching people slip and fall on ice
3. Fresh new powder
2. Following beginner snowboarders
1. Watching everyone hiding from the cold in their houses and packing my skis out for another day of skiing