Lava Beds National Monument, California

Mushpot Cave (the only lighted cave)

The lungs of the earth

So many cool textures! In the Golden Dome Cave, the golden ceiling is the result of light reflecting off water droplets that bead up on a coating of hydrophobic bacteria.

Sunshine Cave

The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel

Lava fields 

One of the many cinder cones in the national monument. Cinder Cones are the simplest type of volcanoes. They are built of particles and blobs of congealed lava ejected from a single vent. Cinder cones typically erupt only once.

Too often when we visit a National Park or a National Monument, it seems like the story is always the same: once, this beautiful land belonged to Native Americans and then, the settlers came, tried to shoo them away and ended up killing them all because they resisted. Now, you can enjoy this gorgeous pristine nature that we protect and interpret for your enjoyment... So the truth about this place is that the Modoc Indians lived on this rugged land for over 10,000 years and they moved freely across *their* homeland until we forcibly removed them. They called it "the land of burnt-out fires". Tule Lake and the lava beds were then, and are still today, the center of their world.

I couldn't help but cringe when in the Visitor Center video, you see park rangers pronouncing a speech in front of a crowd of Modoc to honor their presence on this land...  

I'll tell you about the Lava caves instead (there are over 700 lava tube caves in the park!), because they are not controversial and they were pretty cool!

I had never been inside a lava tube before and it was fascinating... We are talking about eruptions that happened 30 to 40,000 years ago! Lava tubes form when streams of hot, flowing lava start to cool. The center of the stream stays hot and continues to flow as the outside begins to cool and harden. The hot lava drains out, leaving a pipe-like cave. There are even multilevel caves created by multiple eruptions that ended up stacking caves on top of one another.

There is a lot to see in the park and I wished we had planned more time there. The caves are listed by least challenging (high ceilings, smoother floors) to most challenging (involving crawling, helmets, kneepads and gloves, as well as a detailed map to not get lost!). Must visit caves are Skull Cave, Golden Dome and Sunshine Cave (the best to take pictures since there are some sky lights. If you are up for a more challenging exploration, going from Helcules Leg Cave to Juniper Cave sounds like a great plan.

We found a great (free!) camping spot only 10 minutes from the National Monument entrance. I have reviewed it here.

Umpqua National Forest, Oregon

Harvesting Oregon grapes, which isn’t technically a grape at all, but a bush in the barberry family.

Also harvesting Salal berries. I love the taste of these berries (a complex mix of blueberries and blackcurrant).

If you press the stem side of a salal berry, the other side opens up and creates a beautiful fruit flower!

Salal berry gimlet

1 ½ oz London Dry Gin
1 oz lime juice
1 oz salal berry syrup

Shake 20 sec with ice, strain over fresh ice.

It was quite something to drive through the very smoky part of the Umpqua National Forest being escorted by a pilot car (with signs saying: Active Wildfires, DO NOT STOP). It was hard to get accurate information online about the air condition (it changed fast and the sites were not up to date) and we thought we could camp near the Umpqua River Trail and bike part of it (it's an epic trail), but most of the campgrounds were closed because of the fires. We came across this little gem of a campground just as we were starting to feel a bit discouraged. The air was so cool and fresh by the falls! Oregon is full of incredible places.

We ended up staying there 2 nights and except for a few people driving in to see the falls, stay 10 minutes and leave, we had the whole place to ourselves. We had hoped to go to the Umpqua Hot Springs, but the access road was closed and it was cooking hot anyways. 

Ruby Beach and South Beach, Olympic Peninsula, WA

South Beach

Trying to take pictures of whales is quite frustrating...

Reflexion of the orange sun from the forest fire smoke on the ocean.

Ruby Beach

Tons of green anemones.

Exploring the tide pools at Ruby Beach

Look at all these sea stars!

Hermit Crab.

Kelp crab

The sea star population was decimated a few years ago by a virus called sea star wasting disease. This sea star is dying. It has lost a limb already, a sure sign of the disease.

The good news is that in the last year, we see lots of baby sea stars, like this tiny purple sea star, which means the population is growing back.

From the Hoh Rainforest, we headed to the Pacific Coast of the Peninsula to Kalaloch Beach. We had made a reservation for an ocean front site there, but the site was too small for our rig and there was only 3G signal which was not good enough for work. The ranger sent us 3 miles down the road to South Beach campground where there was 4G LTE and some open sites. The campground is nicer and more treed at Kalaloch, but South Beach is right on the ocean. It looks more like a big parking lot than a campground, but at $15 per night, we didn't complain! And what was the first thing that we saw once we got off the bus? Grey whales jumping! We had no idea that South Beach is one of their stop on their way back to Baja where they go back to calve and nurse in the warm lagoons. They return in early Spring on their way to arctic feeding ground in Alaska. Somehow, across 4000 miles of ocean, they navigate precisely, on a predictable timetable!

We thought we had lucked out incredibly with our timing... until we found out through Ranger Meagan on the tide pool outing that for the first time this year, 200 whales stayed here all summer... things are changing for sure... She also told us that about 3 weeks ago, she was part of a rescue mission to help a whale that was life stranded on the beach. It took almost 48 hours for the crew to help her back to the water since the tides were not in their favor. They used a a pulley system to turn the whale so she could face the water and finally, it worked! 

The Amaroni is a cousin of the Negroni. Instead of the more in-your-face Campari that might not be love at first taste for many, this is a great introduction to the world of Negroni.
AMARONI
1 oz gin (I used Hendrick's, but use your favorite Negroni Gin, Plymouth is a good choice here)
1 oz Carpano Formula Antica sweet Vermouth
1 oz Mia Amata Amaro (or your favorite amaro, Averna would be a good mild introduction, Ramazotti would be more along the same lines as the Mia Amata).
Orange peel for garnish

Stir with ice for 30 sec and strain on new ice. Garnish with orange peel.

The Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park, WA

On the Spruce Trail

Uprooted Sitka Spruce

On the Hall of Mosses Trail

The Hoh Rainforest is located in the Heart of the Olympic Peninsula in the Olympic National Park. It is one of the most diversified national parks in terms of landscape. It is mind blowing to stand in the hot rain forest and to think that Mount Olympus and the Blue Glacier are a mere 18 miles away. We saw many people leaving for long treks on the glaciers and the girls were asking when we could come back and do it too. Another long hike to add to our ever-growing list!

From the Visitor Center (and the campground), there are 3 main hiking trails. The longer Hoh River Trail on which you can hike as long as you want and two shorter trails that offer spectacular views (where the photos above were taken), The Hall of Mosses trail (0.8 miles) and The Spruce Trail (1.2 miles). I highly recommend you hike both, but if you can only pick one, do the Hall of Mosses.

We came here on the Sunday of Labor Day long weekend thinking there was no way we would have a spot (all the sites here are first come first serve, so no reservations). To our surprises, there were still a few sites left that were big enough for our bus. Loop A is much less treed and offers sites on the river. We chose to be there for solar. Loop B and C are in the moss covered trees (Loop C has pretty tight turns, check it out on foot or with a tow vehicle first). And great news, there even was connexion on many sites in Loop A (very hit and miss 4G LTE, but good enough for JF to work).

I had no idea that the Olympic Peninsula used to be an island. In fact, ice-age glaciers have carved the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, separating the Olympic Peninsula from nearby land. Years of isolation means that there are over 20 plants and animals that are found nowhere else on Earth!

It was so hot in the rainforest that I wanted a tangy refreshing drink. So I created this.

The North Vanagon

1 ½ oz Hendricks Gin
½ oz St-Germain
½ oz Grand Marnier
Juice of 1 ½ key lime
¼ oz simple syrup
5 drops of Bittered Sling grapefruit and hops bitters

Shake with ice and pour on one big cube of ice.

Neah Bay and Cape Flattery, Olympic Peninsula, WA

How fairies are born

Hike to Cape Flattery

View at the tip of Cape Flattery

There are many caves at the Cape.

The beautiful rugged waters of Cape Flattery

Hobuck Beach

Green anemones in the tide pools

From Neah Bay, it is a short 10 minute drive to Cape Flattery, the northwest tip of the Lower 48. The hike to get the to the tip where the Cape is located is only 1.5 mile through a beautiful Coastal Forest. Since Cape Flattery is on the Makah Reservation, you need to get a permit to hike the trail ($10 per vehicle for the year). We got ours at Neah Bay's General Store. 

As for camping in the area, the options are limited. Hobuck RV Resort has 10 full hook-up sites with a seaview (but pretty close together) for $40/night. There is also a field down the road where you can camp for $20/night (access to shower and outhouses, but otherwise dry camping). It might be a good option on the off-season, but since we got there on the Friday before Labor Day, it was a zoo. The only other option was a new RV park called Hide-away RV park (that looked more like an RV storage lot than an campground), but they had full hook-up sites for $30/night (and a few dry camping spots for $20) and it was a short 100 yard walk to the beach. It was much more quiet there.

Keep in mind that the drive to Neah Bay from Port Angeles is pretty twisty and bumpy (frost heaves), so lock your cupboards and secure everything and take what you need for motion sickness. Take your time and enjoy the scenery!

There is a beautiful hike that can be done as an overnighter (you sleep on the beach!) to Shi-shi Beach or as a long day hike (it is part of the Olympic National Park). With Mara being injured (and with the amount of cars along the trailhead), we decided to keep it for another time.

Also, on a different note, I will publish cocktails here in some posts (you can find them in the cocktails category), but I won't publish them all (it's a traveling blog after all!), but you can access them all either on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag redbusdrinks (#redbusdrinks). My friend Catheline is translating many of them and publishing them on her beautiful site (in French only).

My Manhattan

2 oz rye whiskey
3/4 oz @oddsocietyspirits Italian bittersweet Vermouth
1/2 oz rosemary honey syrup
3 dashes orange sage bitters

Stir with ice and strain. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.

Gastown, Vancouver

Traveling from North Van to Gastown through the Seabus is really fun! 

The Paperhound Bookstore

Albion Books and Records (left) and MacLeod's Books (right).

Purebread has amazing everything! Try the crack bars and the giant meringues (right).

Nelson the Seagull has amazing bread, lemon custard marzipan croissants and delicious Flat White Coffee (and Avo toast for $9 too... but that's another story... don't get me started on Avo toast...).

And a walk through the Chinatown, of course. Lizard popsicle, anyone? The funniest thing was that amidst all these Chinese stores was a really cool vegan store that totally clashed with its surrounding. There is also a really funky store called Space Lab (with a totally hipster barber shop at the back) worth a visit.

Edgemont Liquor is one of the best places to find specialty spirits, beer and wines in North Van (not Gastown). I was so excited to find the Mia Amata Amaro from Odd Society Spirits, the Kina Tonic and that Sour Wheat Gose was amazing (still haven't taste the Kaffee one).

And last, but not least, a little hole-in-the-wall pizzeria called Emilio FInatti in Langley that has one of the best pizzas I have eaten in my life (and I LIVED in Italy for a year). Seriously. I am still dreaming about it. Not all their pizzas a great, but this one is AMAZING. It's the Capo Piquante with calabrese, chorizo, curried butternut squash, goat cheese, jalapeno, arugula and mushrooms. Oh, and a great selection of board games to play while you wait (it's mostly a take out place and there is a lot of action!).

Other locations that are not depicted and that are worth mentionning:
The Modern Bar Tender, where they sell a huge variety of bitters and syrups, but even better of herbs to make your own bitters for a fraction of the price. The great thing is that they have testers of every bitter for the clients to taste. 

A really cute consignment store called Hunter and Hare.

As for camping in the Great Vancouver Area, it is very limited. The only legit place to camp for free is in North Van by the Walmart in the street (not the parking lot). It's not the greatest neighborhood and it's not leveled, but it's free and only 2 km from the Seabus to Vancouver (Gastown). In Vancouver per se, forget it. We asked at the Costco in Langley if we could spend the night after shopping there and the manager said yes (always make sure to write down his/her name), but when we came back to the bus after less than an hour in the store, there had been an attempt to steal Mara's bike (a grab 'n go thing, but the thief didn't notice the big Shwab chain and the bike was hanging from it). So, we moved to an industrial area in Langley in front of the garage where we had an appointment for the Westfalia the next morning. It wasn't a great neighborhood, but JF had the good idea to switch the bike rack onto the bus, so the bikes would sit just behind our head as we slept. Late that night, as we had just fallen asleep, JF heard voices and opened the curtain to see 2 guys who literally had their faces in the bikes. That's when Stout heard them too and barked his powerful bark. It was pretty funny to see them scamper away like little boys!

So, like any big city, Vancouver is not camper friendly. The closest RV park is in Burnaby and charges over $50 per night. There is also this RV park that looks nice in North Van that would be closer to the Seabus to go visit Gastown. It's still probably your best bet for a safe quiet location to visit Vancouver.
 

Alice Lake Provincial Park and Squamish area, BC

The Coastal Forest is just magical... You cannot help but smile when you walk in it, feeling like pointy elf ears are gonna pop on your head or that wings will appear on your back. 

Alice Lake Provincial Park is a beautiful campground in that gorgeous forest. It's a popular family destination, so it's not unusual that the 108 sites are all reserved (and they don't have First Come First Serve sites). There are tons of beautiful hiking and mountain biking trails in the park and four lakes (only Alice lake is OK for swimming), but the hiking around Stump lake is beautiful. Dogs have to be kept on a leash everywhere and are not allowed on some trails and on the beach.

Nairns Falls Provincial Park and North Arm Farm, Pemberton, BC

North Arm Farm, in Pemberton.

Picking blueberries at North Arm Farm.

The twins are both injured (bike crashes), so they are taking it easy instead of biking and climbing as was the plan for this area...

The Farm store and Café, a wonderful place!

After driving through a very smoky sectors from Prince George to Clinton and seeing vast expanses of burnt (and still smoking) areas, we turned onto the Sea to Sky Hwy and the landscape completely changed. We could not believe how many vehicles were parked along the highway at Joffre Lakes Provincial Park and a quick search revealed why. There is a gorgeous 10 km hike that leads to 3 different green and turquoise lakes that look incredible. We'll be back another year outside of the busy season (and early on a weekday!). 

The grades are pretty steep before arriving in Pemberton and the bus brakes overheated (and smoked) quite a bit. When we arrived at Nairn Falls Provincial Park (our destination for the night), the campground sign indicated Full. We still went in and asked and got the last available site! The hike to the fall was beautiful, especially at sunset (make sure your wear proper footwear and not worn Birkies like me, the rocks are pretty slick towards the end). There is a well-hidden beach where it is safe to swim (the Green river is pretty strong). More info here.

We rode some of the bike trails the next day (they are OK, but not great for the area). Aisha had a crash and ended at the Whistler ER (it's not broken!). The waiting room was mostly populated with other mountain bikers, full face helmet under their arms, limping their way in... All you could here on the interphone was: Bike crash coming in. 

We also visited the magical North Arm Farm just North of Pemberton (40 km north of Whistler) and picked organically grown blueberries and raspberries. We also ate wonderful homemade food at their beautiful Café (breakfast tart made of croissant dough topped with homemade pesto, a farm egg, goat cheese and caramelized onions) and had their gelato. Everything was very decently price, especially for this area. 

By the way, check out this fun graphics of us and many vanlife nomads at Mighty Goods. It's just too bad that they didn't include the girls and Stout in it, but still love it! Can you find us?

The Big Pig Bike Race at Boer Mountain, Burns Lake, BC

Our beautiful free campsite at Kager Lake Rec Site.

Wild blueberries are the best. But picking them in a lesson in patience.

On the downhill section.

On the pump track section.

Finishing the cross-country section.

Cookie medals are the best!!

Really cute piggie cookies.

Race face on.

Creepy pig bike light. Nightmare material.

They finished in first place!! They did 7 laps of 10 km in under 5 hours. They are the only team that did 7 laps! 

Downhill race on Charlotte's Web.

Downhill race on Charlotte's Web.

Downhill race on Charlotte's Web.

This incredible little boy was doing the race and his daddy was following behind. 

The Four Cross Race was quite a show!

The Four Cross Race was quite a show!

Keeping with the theme, of course!

The Blood Sun (yes, that's the sun!) created by the smoke from the forest fires.

We have so much history here (just do a search with #burnslake on the home page)... A broken arm, mechanical problems, meeting friends, moon rise watching on the dock in our sleeping bags, bonfires and berry picking... It’s no surprise when a local comes and knock at the bus door, happy to see us returning once again and offers us a shuttle up the mountain.

I wasn’t excited to come back here again this year. You see, I long for discoveries and new places. All the time. My family likes a mix of both and the girls were *really* looking forward to come back here, especially for the Big Pig Bike Race that we have missed for the last two years since we left the Yukon too late... But as unexcited as I was, it didn’t take long for the magic of this place to hit me! I love Burns Lake. The bike trails are amazing, the community of riders is incredibly friendly and the camping is FREE right by the trails and by a gorgeous lake.

The BC Bike Ride event was here just before the Big Pig and they wrote a great article (with beautiful pictures) about this great place and the amazing mountain biking community.

So this year was the 10th year of the Big Pig Bike Race, which is the premiere mountain biking event in Northern B.C. It’s a family friendly festival, with kids events, downhill races, 4 Cross races, an epic cross country race and cross country events.

On Friday, Mathilde took part in the Pump Track, the Downhill and the X country challenges in the 10 to 12 categorie. She took the first place int he Pump Track challenge behind 12 yo girls and came in 2nd in the other two events! 

JF and the twins did the Dante’s Relay, a timed event in which teams or solo riders race to complete the most number of 10 km loops in a five hour period. For the past 9 years, one lap of 10 km was added every year to the Dante’s Inferno course. It culminated with a grueling 9 Rings of Hell last year (for 90 km). I remember reading Dante’s Inferno (in Italian!) when I went to school in Italy at 17. To describe it as dense and intense piece of work is an understatement!

Stewart, BC/Hyder, AK + Salmon Glacier

Lake Clements Rec Site is another free camping paradise, 13 km from Stewart, BC.

So many thimbleberries! Thimbleberries taste like raspberry yogurt. We LOVE them.

Waiting for bears to come and eat salmon along Fish Creek in Hyder, AK.

Can you see the salmons in the water?

Salmon Glacier.

If you look at the map of Northern BC, you can see that Stewart, BC, really is the end of the road. There is no US customs to enter Hyder, Alaska, and no customs again as you reenter BC to get to Salmon Glacier. Hyder really has this end of the road feel. A lot of houses are unfinished or abandoned. We have seen a few buses turned into houses with structures built on top of them. This must be the only place where you can enter the United States without identification.  The reason being, is that once you are in Hyder Alaska, there is no place else to go except back to Canada. (You will need a passport or Canadian ID to get back into Canada).

This article published in the NY Times really gives an accurate portrait of Hyder, AK.

For $5 per adult, you can go see bears catch salmons along Fish Creek. At this time of year, you are pretty much guaranteed to see them since the salmons are running.

If you keep driving up towards the mine, you will eventually reach Salmon Glacier (people might tell you that the road is rough, but it's not; you can get there in a 2WD vehicle). Trust me, it's well worth the drive. The view of the Glacier is stunning. And well, it might not still be there in 50 years. You can see here how much the glacier has retreated since 1975. 

**You can see on the map that I circled the places I talked about in my previous posts for reference.

Morchuea Lake Recreation site on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway

Beautiful Mount Edziza in the distance.

Picking fireweed to make a tea mix.

Picking mossberries for syrup. These berries are very juicy, but not very tasty on their own, but once cooked with a bit of sugar, they turn into a delicious syrup. A great addition to Gin & Tonic.

Clouberries are also called salmon berries or baked-apple berries. It's hard to get lots because every plant only has one berry. Again, this pretty berry's taste is pretty disappointing raw, but once cooked with a bit of sugar and cinnamon, they do taste just like baked apple!

The Stewart-Cassiar
1 ½ oz Port Chilkoot Distillery Gin
¾ oz Lillet Blanc
½ oz lemon juice
½ oz real maple syrup
½ oz rosemary syrup
3 dashes of homemade lemongrass-cardamom bitters
1 egg white

Dry shake, then add ice and shake again. Add a rosemary twig for garnish.

We found lots of gentian! I use the root to make bitters.

Mathilde's Boreal tea mix: Labrador tea leaves, raspberry leaves, pineapple weed, fireweed flowers  and red clover flowers.

Our friends were traveling up the Cassiar and we met at Morchuea Lake for a night. Here, the girls were doing the dishes together.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love a good free campsite. With the bus, we don't need the services that a campground offers, but we long for the quiet of the wild, so recreation sites are the perfect solution for us in BC where campsites are pretty pricey (and busy!). Morchuea Lake is located just North of Iskut on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway and has 8 campsites (2 that are closer to the lake). There were quite a bit of bugs (black flies, deer flies, mosquitoes...), but the gorgeous lake with Mount Edziza as a backdrop (and a kitchen tent!) made it worth a 2 night stop. 

Mount Edziza is an icon of BC culture and Canada's second largest young volcano. It is surrounded by lots of cinder cones. It is not accessible by road and the best way to get to Mount Edziza Provincial Park is by plane from Telegraph Creek. There is some spectaclular hiking to do around it and it's an area we'd love to explore more one day.

Boya Lake Provincial Park, BC, the Bora Bora of the North!

I mean, look how clear this water is!!

Picking Saskatoon berries on the trail to the beaver dam.

Isn't that place spectacular or what? OK, there are some leeches in the lake and lots of deer flies, but hey, Bora Bora has dengue mosquitoes and sting rays, so we're even. 

For more info on that campground, read my review on Campendium. Make sure your fridge is full of groceries and your tank full of water, because this is quite far off in the boonies. 

In the garden, in the kitchen and on the road we go!

Mom, I picked all the carotts!

Having fun combining my interest and knowledge of mixology and botanicals.

Making rosemary lemon syrup for our cocktails

The Aurora Borealis

1 oz. Lillet Blanc
1 oz. Yukon Aura gin (a gin little Boodle or even The Botanist would have worked well here, anything that is not too crazy on the juniper or spruce)
1 ½ oz. freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
3/4 oz Odd Society Spirits Bittersweet Vermouth
1 bar spoon of homemade wild rose syrup
½ a bar spoon of homemade rosemary syrup
1 spring of rosemary and 1 lemon rind for garnish

Shake all ingredients (except for garnishes) together in an ice-filled cocktail shaker for about 25 seconds, and then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The Provençal sour

1 ½  oz Bourbon
¾  oz Benedictine
¾  oz lemon juice
¾ oz homemade wild rose syrup
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
2 dashes of homemade lavender-grapefruit bitters
½ an egg white

Dry shake. Add ice and shake again. Top with dried lavender.

Harvesting wild sage along the Yukon River.

Wild sage

Harvesting juniper berries.

As you can see, our last few weeks in the Yukon were spent harvesting, picking food from our friend's greenhouse, cooking and playing with herbs to make cocktail bitters. What are those, do you ask? I remember when I first read about bitters in cocktails... I thought they sounded so fancy and so hipster... Bitters are a maceration of bitter herbs, citrus peels, spices and other ingredients in alcohol that you add to cocktails (often just a few drops) to give them depth. The combination is limitless and I had a lot of fun preparing my own. I have currently many in the cupboard that I will test in a few weeks (lavender grapefruit bitters, orange wild sage and juniper bitters, rhubarb, chamomile and ginger bitters, lemongrass-cardamom bitters and more!). Yes, it is quite addictive! A fun combination of plant knowledge and kitchen/cocktail fun! It's like magic potion making for adults! And now, with berry season, I am also playing with liqueur/cordial making (I currently have haskap liqueur and black currant liqueur macerating). Those cocktails will just get better!!

We're off down the Cassiar-Stewart Highway for the next few days and will reemerge on the other side after 3-4 days without connexion. Just what we need after an exciting summer full of friends and activities.

 

Carcranked Bike Fest

Pre-race meeting at the Carcross Commons on Saturday morning.

Felix and Louis, getting ready for the Enduro Race.

And the climbing begins (10 km of it!).

I love that all the trail signs are in their native language too (yes, that's the least. Montana Mountain is the Carcross/Tagish First Nation sacred mountain).

Stupid race. I can't even ride with them...

Finish!

Filling up their Explorer Cards, trying new trails on the mountain.

It's always great to end a riding day at the beach!

We showed the kids some old mountain biking movies on Saturday night at the Bistro (on VHS, on course, on a real old TV). Who remembers Cranked and Dirty Dreams??

Enduro races are fun because the climbs are not timed, only the downhill sections are, making it a relax and social event where riders wait for their group before every downhill section. JF, Mara, Felix and Louis had a blast on the short Enduro course. There was also an Explorer punch card with stickers to collect everywhere on the trails and some trail work with the Singletrack to Success team was planned, but had to be cancelled at the last minute for family emergency. If you haven't seen the documentary Shift yet (made about the Singletrack to success project), make sure you do! It won the people's choice award at the Banff Mountain Film Festival and many more. It is a half-hour documentary about the indigenous youth from Carcross, Yukon, who have spent the past 10 years converting traditional trails around their town in to a world-class mountain biking destination -- and transforming their community and themselves along the way.

Mountain biking, hiking and fishing in Carcross, Yukon

Reading aloud around the bonfire.

Emerald Lake

Drawing plans since 2007!

Getting ready to ride on Montana Mountain.

Ending our ride right on the beach by Bennett Lake.

Her first catch! A beautiful 5 lbs lake trout! She got a second one that was a little smaller!

Fish anatomy lesson with Philip.

Hiking up Nares Mountain. Steep, but beautiful!

Lots of board game time!

The Carcross Commons

Mountana Mountain is a mountain biking mecca and people come from far away to ride these beautiful trails. Be warned though, that this is not the best place for a beginner rider. The riding is technical and steep in places, but there is plenty to keep the comfortable intermediate busy. For a longer ride, ride Mc Donald Creek or Nares View. For a quick afternoon ride we like to combine Maggie's Run, Sporting Wood, upper Dei Kwan, Sam McGee and AK DNR (then Mossy all the way to the beach on a nice day). Another good combo is Holey Roads, upper Dei Kwan, Lower Wolverine and Fox. Upper Wolverine will delight the more advanced riders, so will Black Bear and Goat. You can shuttle up or ride the nice uptrack (or do a bit of both!). Get more info on the trails here.

There are two places to camp in the area (on top of an ugly pricy RV park): the Carcross campground is right in town, but in a nice wooded area (that's where we like to stay, riding and walking distance from everything, good cell signal, free wood, included in our Yukon camping pass). There is also a new territorial campground 10 minutes out of town called Conrad. It's also treed and more quiet, but there is no cell signal and you need to drive to get anywhere.

There is the famous Carcross desert where every tour bus coming from Skagway (AK) stops, but there are also some beautiful (and hard!) hiking trails that rewards you with beautiful views of the area after only 10-15 minutes of hiking (no need to go all the way to the top, but we highly recommend it!). I especially recommend you hike Nares Mountain, Caribou mountain or Sam McGee (also called Mountain Hero), 2 km passed Conrad Campground. Bring your bear spray and make lots of noise, we have seen bears on these trails every year we came to hike them.

Carcross is a really cute little town with one of the most beautiful (although often very windy) beaches in the Yukon. The new Carcross Commons is a cluster of tiny houses with Tlingit-inspired facades featuring artisans, an amazing coffee shop, a gelato shop, an authentic maple products shop, a bike shop and lots more. There is also a delicious restaurant called The Bistro. 

There isn't much in terms of supply in Carcross. A corner store with pricy crappy food, a laundromat at the RV park (and that allowed us to fill our water jugs there) and dump and fill for $10, no propane, so make sure you come prepare and grocery shop in Whitehorse before coming.

By the way, for those interested, I think my love affair with the Fujifilm x-100t is already over. I miss the bokeh of my Nikon 24-70 mm (on the D700). I know I cannot ask this little camera to do it all well (as my friend Michel says, it's not a grand piano, it's a synthesizer, it doesn't do everything, but what it does, it does well). It's a great second camera, but since I cannot afford 2 cameras, I'll go back to my super heavy work horse. Maybe the xt-1 + the 56 mm f 1.2 would be the answer, but I would need at least another lens (23 mm?), which adds up...

Adäka Cultural Festival

Adäka means “coming into the light” in the Southern Tutchone language. The Festival is a gathering of many First Nations (mostly from the Yukon, but international First Nations are also featured) to celebrate their vibrant cultures. It is NOT a show put on for white people and the vibe is completely different than the wanna-be-politically-inclusive skits we see First Nation performs at official ceremonies. It's a real celebration by First Nations for the First Nations to which everybody is invited to participate. And it truly feels like an honor to be invited to such a wonderful event. 

We hear it all the time: First Nations are so proud of their heritage! But to see it in action is very different. I have had the chance to work with children from different Canadian First Nations last summer and this summer and I felt that pride more than ever in the youth. It was heartwarming to see so many young people perform as dancers and drummers. We could feel the strong connexion and the pleasure they had to be together. 

There were also 4 traditional boats being built during the festival and we got to talk for a while with a Maori carver from NZ who was working on adornments for a Tlingit dugout canoe. I loved this excerpt about that project called Dań Kwanje ’Á–Nààn: Voices Across the Water.

Our cultures were overtaken by colonization in the centuries following first contact with newcomers. We persevered in reclaiming our lands, autonomy and cultures. Today 11 of 14 Yukon First Nations are self-governing, exploring new pathways to sustainable prosperity. 

Resilient and resourceful Elders survived tough times, preserving our languages and cultures. Honouring them we are building four watercraft ~ a moose skin boat, birch bark canoe, dugout canoe and quyaq ~ for Canada’s 150th anniversary. Like the watercraft of earlier days we have arrived at a new destiny – a place of pride and celebration as independent Indigenous peoples. It is in this spirit that we join with other Canadians – young and old, new arrivals and long time settlers, to commemorate Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation. 

Dań Kwanje ’Á–Nààn: Voices Across the Water carries messages for all of us and for people around the world. We have only to listen, to learn and to share in this time of reconciliation – moving forward together safely into the waters of tomorrow. 

The 24 Hours of Light Bike Festival

Passing the bâton... or the timing bracelet.

Balloon popping with a partner game!

Less than two hours to go!

On her last (and 9th) lap, Mara came back just 1:38 after noon and her lap didn't count!

The amazing Mountain Goats!

Twenty-four hours is a long time. But a 24 hour bike race under the midnight sun with some good friends? It goes by pretty fast... at least when you race (not so much for the support parents!). There were only 2 junior teams this year, The Mountain Goats (our all-girl team) and School's Out (all boy team made of the brothers, cousins and friends of some of the girls!), so you can imagine that there was no competition at all!! Both teams did incredibly well and showed great sportsmanship. The 6 km junior course was pretty hilly with some technical sections. The adults (solo up to teams of 8 and a family category) had a 12 km course. Some teams came all the way from Texas, Colorado, Ontario and Alaska to participate. 

It's such a fun event, especially in a small town like Whitehorse, where most mountain bikers know each other. To spice things up, from midnight to 6 am, if you race your lap naked (and I mean COMPLETELY naked, except riding gear: socks, gloves, helmet and bike shoes), you get an extra lap for your team! Needless to say, it was darn cold by then, hold-your-beer-with-ski-gloves cold! You REALLY do not want to encounter a bear or crash your bike in your Adam suit! 

The kids stopped and slept from midnight to 5 am, then it was game on till Sunday noon. At 6 am, Mara came back from her lap with a missing shoe! She had fallen off her bike and lost her (probably not tied properly) shoe in the forest and couldn't find it! JF went back and found it later. Some girls were getting too tired to ride more than one lap on Sunday, and Mara was the last one to go just after 11 am and when she came back from her lap nobody wanted to go again so in a snap decision she went out again with less than 26 minutes to go before noon. She needed to pull a fast lap to make it, but that second lap in a row this late in the race made her miss the cut off by less than 2 minutes. As usual, she finished with a smile. Aïsha won the prize for the fastest lap by a girl on the youth course.

This was the girls first experience of a longer race with a team and they had a blast. Soon they will be hammering down the full course by themselves and won't even need to freeze their bum to ride many laps. To many more fun events like the 24 HOL. 

A weekend of camping by Kusawa Lake and paddling the Takhini River

There was a lot of reading aloud by the fire. This was a great book called Zlata's Diary: A child's life in wartime Sarajevo.

Cooking grilled cheese for 25 on the stove.

2 am on Kusawa Lake

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.” 
― Leo Tolstoy“

We had been stationary for more than a month and I was itching for an adventure. When our friend Edith invited us to join them for a weekend of rafting on the Takhini River, I was over the moon. JF was going to Alaska that weekend to hike/run the Chilkoot Trail in a day (yes, that's the hike we did in 5 days last year, 54 km/33 miles). He did it in 12 hours by the way!! Woot-woot!

The girls and I left in the rain on Friday morning and had a wonderful time just being together in the Westfalia, reading by the fire, cooking and enjoying this magical place that we mostly had to ourselves at that point. By 8 pm, people started arriving and the plans were set for the next day. We woke up to a mere 3 degrees Celcius/37 F) and found out through a friend that had just arrived that there was 4 cm of snow on the ground in Haines Junction, about 40 miles from us and that the famous Haines Junction to Haines Alaska Bike Relay had been canceled because of that... So... we decided to wait for the rain/hail to stop and see if the afternoon would bring us better weather. Bringing a bunch of kids on a freezing river with the risk of falling in in that weather was not very appealing.

We were all crammed in the shelter around the cook stove in search of warmth, but the sky finally opened up and by 2 pm, the sun was back!  We blew up the rafts and went on the river. What a wonderful ride it was! We did part of that same run the next day. By 3 pm on Sunday, everybody had left and only our friends Edith and Trevor who had organized the weekend were still there. We had to boost the Westy since it had died and as I got it to run and prepared to back it up when the shift stick stayed in my hand. Literally. And I knew right there that I was in big trouble. We were out in the boonies with no cell reception for 30 miles, at the end of a 25 km dirt road... And JF was on the Chilkoot. I was out of food, almost out of water and out of dog food. Edith gave me some pasta sauce, milk, orange and yogourt and since Mathilde had to be in town the next morning for her canoe camp, she brought her back to town. 

A mechanically inclined friend assessed the damage, tried the screwdriver trick (to stick it in the hole and use it as a shift stick, but we decided that it was not safe to drive anyways and put wood blocks around all the wheels so the Westy wouldn't move). The campground was quiet again and the twins and I had another slow night by the fire together, making banana boat with the last few squares of chocolate and mushy bananas. Our campsite neighbor spent the evening burning what seemed like a lifetime of important documents: letters, race numbers, old certificates... He had a few boxes of those with him and looked at each document before putting it in the fire. It felt very ceremonial and we spent a fair bit of time making stories about him.

The night felt long and I was a bit worried about JF. I had no idea how his very long day on the Chilkoot went, if everything was OK, if he was back, if Mathilde had someone with her to help her get ready for camp the next morning, if she was worried too... It's a strange feeling to be far out in the woods with no way of reaching anybody and not way to get out. You have to experience the North to completely understand it. There is just nobody around, no houses, no nothing for miles and miles... As I laid there in the semi-darkness of 2 am, I remembered the first time we left on a road trip to Alaska with the twins when they were only 14 months old (and I was pregnant with Mathilde). Mara had had a croup attack in the middle of the night the day before our departure and the idea of driving for 8 or 9 hours and to be in the complete middle of nowhere with babies felt scary all of a sudden. Nature had always been a safe place for me, but confronted with so much vastness, I felt panicked. What if something happened? What if we needed urgent care? It's just not something you have to think about in the South. 

So when we woke up the next day, we had no idea when JF would come... we played board games and read some more, but the rain was back and the day dragged on... We had run out of propane by then, so there was no way of cooking or warming up water for tea. We were cold and decided to nap like a pile of kittens on the bottom bunk of the Westy... and got woken up at around 3:30 pm by JF knocking on the window. Rescue had come! He had borrowed a friend pickup and towed us back to town. I felt very tired all of a sudden. The kind of fatigue that comes with relief. I sure had had my adventure!

Rock climbing, kayaking and mountain biking in the Yukon

The girls have been helping with school groups coming for a rock climbing day with Equinox Adventures, the company for which I worked last summer. It's been pretty amazing to see them be in charge of students, guiding them on the climbs, teaching them how to belay, etc. They were already used to setting up and pulling down the ropes from last summer, but this year, they have really stepped up their game and are incredibly confident and competent around the students. They honestly blew my mind. I wasn't sure if they were ready for this, but their maturity was obvious and most teachers were very surprised when they found out that the girls were actually the same age or younger than their students! During lunch, the teachers would have conversations with the girls, asking them about their peculiar lifestyle and it was a treat to watch from the sidelines.

One day, Mathilde was guiding a group of 9th graders through a GPTeaming course (a combination of orienteering with a map + GPS and team-building activities), when the group got a little out of hand in the forest. She ran to the front of the group, stopped them and said: I am a staff and you have to listen to me! She said they all stopped in the track and actually listened to her from that point on. If you know her, you can totally imagine her doing that. And you can also see the glint of pleasure in her eyes... On another day, she lit a fire by herself without paper or dry wood. My girl.

Mathilde is doing a regatta ready 2 week long kayak camp this June and will be competing in Regina at the beginning of July. She is pretty excited about that! She is also planning to volunteer at the animal shelter. My baby sure is growing up and it's beautiful to watch.

The 3 girls are also doing the mountain biking camp like in the previous years and are attending orienteering meets. The Yukon has so much to offer for kids... and grown ups too!

Yukon Spring

Still frozen lakes... this type of ice is called candle ice and the sound it makes when it moves is totally amazing. 

10:30 pm light in late May.

10 o'clock in my bedroom in late May...

Gardening with our friends.

That's my favorite summer cocktail. I am pretty proud of that creation that I call the Ubach Especial, since I created it first for my good friend Antonio (from Tucson). Recipe below. 

The girls did an orienteering workshop and had a blast. They will be going to the orienteering meets of the club this summer.

Eating bearberry flowers (uva ursi) on a hike. These are a spring delicacy.

There is discomfort for me in staying put. I thrive on new adventures and new places to discover. I know I’ll never outgrow my wanderlust, but I need to learn to do ordinary. I want to. Every time I come back to the Yukon, I struggle with the transition from in-movement to no-movement. It’s like I wait for people to come up with plans, dinners, activities. I feel clumsy in this life of calendars and organized weeks.

There’s lots of shoulds in my head that I am trying to shush right now (you should just appreciate this down time after all the wonderful adventures of this winter, you should be grateful for the lack of busyness this summer, etc.). But balance is necessary in all things. Just like night makes you appreciate day light, slowness makes you appreciate a faster pace... Too much of anything doesn't feel right and I am adjusting and fine tuning this balance as we settle back in for the summer. It's a fine act, but I am slowly finding my groove.

I added a new search by locations/activities tab on Road it up website, so it is easier to find the information you need in the archives of the site. You can also do a search on the Home page with Moab camping or Oregon rock climbing to get more specific results now that I have added tags to the posts (thanks, Audrey, for that suggestion!). Note that I am still going through every old post and tagging it, so it will take a bit to have everything in there.

Ubach Especial

For 1

1 oz Vodka
2 oz fresh grapefruit juice
1 oz simple syrup
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
1/4 oz red vermouth
1/4 oz Campari
1/2 egg white
1 dash of Angostura bitters
Candied grapefruit peel (or plain old grapefruit strip)
2 oz Soda water

Combine the 8 first ingredients in a cocktail shaker without ice. Shake vigorously for 30 seconds, open carefully and add ice. Shake again for 30 sec, then strain into a chilled rocks glass. Top with 2 oz of soda water. Add candied grapefruit peel. Note that you can replace the Vermouth + Campari by 1/2 an oz of Italian Bittersweet Vermouth.