Our Life Behind Bars – Father & Son Doing Time in The Northern Frontier (Mile 328 to Mile 919)

Days 2-3 (June 30 - July 1, 2013)

The next couple of days we got no reprieve from the heat and humidity. The heat wasn’t so bad, but the high humidity made for uncomfortable riding.

We left Downing Provincial park intending to camp at Purden Lake, anther park just outside of Prince George on the Yellow Head Highway. Along the way we learned that the park was full due to the Canadian holiday weekend. So we planned to camp in McBride (about 1 ½ hrs south). Which we did.
 

 Along the way we took a road near 70 Mile House off of Hwy 97 towards Green Lake and up to Hwy 24. Green Lake and the other lakes in the area were superb. I had never been on these roads. We did take quite a bit of video. However, at one of our stops, I must have forgot to put my camera bag away and I lost the bulk of my GoPro gear. All I had was just the camera, as it was mounted to my helmet. All my cables, cards, extra batteries and the LCD screen were lost.









Johann at Green Lake









It's going to be a bright sun shiny day and HOT!!

We ended up on the Little Fort Hwy and passed by a bunch of small lakes including Sheridan and Bridge Lake, all of which made for a nice casual morning ride.

 

Once at Little Fort, we headed north on the southern portion of the Yellow Head Highway through Clearwater. We stop for lunch and gas in Clearwater.  The high noon sun was prominent in the sky by now and we were both suffering from the heat and humidity.  It was in the mid 90’s by now.

Green Lake is Beautiful

 





Avoiding heat exhaustion

 We stopped at Blue River totally exhausted from the heat. We found a nice sign with an overhang, advertising for Helicopter Skiing. It has cool grass and shade. We hydrated and took a nap there.  After a snack we proceeded up through Valemount and arrived at McBride.  We stopped several times to admire the waterfalls and the high mountain views. All-in-all a pretty uneventful day.

This was typical of our stops

 

Looking good on the Yellow Head Hwy

 

The views were fantastic.. glacier topped peaks were icing on the cake

Our camp at McBride ... They had Showers and Horseshoes!!

  The next day was looking nice and we packed and headed out before the heat set in. About 2 hours into the ride, we were suffering from heat. Aside from the heat, the ride was enjoyable and scenic. At one point we say a wolf run across the road like a greyhound at full speed.  A couple of stops for rest  and water….  we finally made it to Prince George.  

Strange graffiti we found near a rest stop.. A msg about logging?!!?

 

Boeing Road

 Just outside of Prince George is an interesting road named Boeing Road. Interesting to me that is, as that is the name of my employer back in Seattle. We stop and get a soda and a burger before heading on. Oh, and we did find a Future Shop to replace some of the bits of my lost GoPro. We were now back in the video business.

Both of us just outside of Prince George

We made the decision to ride up north via the Cassiar Hwy instead of the Alaskan Hwy. This meant that we had a long, somewhat boring ride between Prince George and Smithers. I say boring, because the road is all 2 lane hwy and is rather featureless without much to see. We passed through very small towns like Vanderhoof, Fraser Lake, Topley, etc…  It was still miserably hot and humid. We had to stop many times to ease the fatigue. Eventually we had dinner in Burns Lake. The weather to the west began to show signs of rain. We were actually excited to have it cool off. The winds came up and it began to drizzle. At one point we spotted a black bear along the road eating garbage that someone had thrown form their car... which was disturbing to us.

Another typical rest stop...

Darn heat made us pretty exhausted

We rode into a town called Houston (they claim the have the worlds largest Fly Rod which is on display in the town center park) when the sky opened up and it began to rain hard. We decided that it was time to get a room for the night. So our first non-tent night began 3 days into the trip. Just as planned.

 

Thanks for riding with us. Stay tuned for more.