How Quickly Things Change... VanLife Road Trip from the BC Ranchlands to The Rocky Mountains

Well, I despise cotton candy. However, when it's up in the sky it's pretty darn nice. We rolled into camp pretty late and it looks like we're not going to do any exploring this evening but when we get up tomorrow not entirely sure what the day is going to hold but we do need to cover more ground but that's also pretty hard to do when there's just so much to do up in this space here in the Chilcotin. We are going to get some rest because today was slightly stressful a lot of fun coming from the coast all the way back up to here on the Chilcotin Plateau so probably going to sleep like babies but we'll get some rest and see what tomorrow brings. What's up buddy? You ready for bed? Making guesses but we are having wonton soup. Shocker! It actually doesn't look the most appetizing. It looks like little brains. But it is delicious. Yeah. Get up there buddy. Get up. I don't know if there's room in here. Jump. You can do it. Come on. Woohoo! You did it! Good job. No! No! Diesel! He just ate all the cheese. Caught that in real time. Oh boy. Diesel! Boy loves his cheese. You're so fast. Like you're 10. Thank you ma'am. Enjoy. Delicious. We woke up this morning feeling a bit tired from yesterday. We were on multiple gravel rough roads which takes a lot out of us and Walt and so the plan today was to continue up the road to go check out another mountain do a little hike to the peak but we're looking up in the sky right now and it's starting to rain a little bit they look like snow clouds and it's still another 25 kilometers to this area where we can start the hike and so we don't really think it's the best thing we should do right now and we still have another half hour or so to get back out to the main road so we just kind of had a little bit of a slow morning today but we're gonna pack up and hit the road and just kind of move on to the next place that we want to check out in the area before we make our way towards Williams Lake. And by the end of the week we have to be in Calgary so from where we are now in the caribou we've got some boogieing to do over the next several days and so we were as Alana said the the bumpy roads kind of took a toll on us by the end of the day because we were we were driving all day coming up the hill at about Bella Coola and then coming down these roads it was just yeah it's a blast it's so much fun but after a while you're just like okay we're beating the crap out of our home and it's there's the rain I think it's but anyways yes we're pivoting today and we were gonna do some mountain climbing but it's uh I don't think it's gonna be mountain climbing weather unfortunately and the forecast is calling for snow so yeah we're gonna boogie and uh yeah this little wave of decision fatigue that we had this morning we're we're kiboshing all that we're gonna carry on and soak in as much as the caribou region as we can before we have to make it to the Rockies but I say have to make it to the Rockies it's gonna be amazing I can't wait to see the fall colors yeah Rocky Mountains and we did see there was snow on the ice fields the other day so that's just the time of the year and you're in the mountains so it's just part of the fun yes yes the adventure continues yeah here we a couple hours from the Bella Coola Valley that we were in last week to here in Farwell Canyon probably some of the worst washboards we've experienced in the van we put it all the way back up to full psi so it was pretty bumpy and uh we like to call these roads the ribbed roads definitely not for your pleasure but I think on the way back up I'm actually going to air down just for 20 minutes of driving on this however not complaining it's pretty amazing that there's roads cut out into places like this and a lot of history here we're on the eastern border of a little place called Gang Ranch and actually not small at all it's like a million acres I want to say and not even exaggerating of grazing land for cattle and this was once the biggest cattle ranching area in the world I want to say and a lot of those cattle ranching practices are still being done today because within 10 minutes of us pulling up to where we are now we saw several trucks come down the other side of the mountain and then up to where we are transporting the cattle to wherever they're going but I saved you the clips of the mooing and carrying on from the back of these trucks but that's the industry out in a place like this and we're pretty lucky to have roads although rough and bumpy cut into areas of the province like this that we can go down and explore but we're going to head up the road a little bit because the Chilcotin river is down there and we got a hot tip that there are some old decrepit cabins that we're going to go and try and find and check out for ourselves but we still do have a ton of driving to do over the next few days so we're going to get out there stretch the legs a little bit and then carry on down the road we're doing it it's a bit chilly this morning so this hike is going to warm us right up we were just coming down the path here blabbing away and then all of a sudden we got sidetracked by all of them just off to the side here and they kind of just all stared back at us we stared at them and then they kind of ran away they blend in so well yeah they're just going up they're the exact same color as the landscape it's wild how neat is that nature just started the hike and we're already seeing all the stuff let's play a little game of where's Walter see him yet i'm sure most of you by now know that our van's name is Walter which is a little unorthodox i realized because i think most people name their vehicles after a woman's name but first person that can tell us the reference as to why we named our van Walter maybe we'll throw in a sticker or something we'll send you a little something but only once Canada Post is back up and running so you might be waiting a while freaking out of breath aren't you glad we ate breakfast this morning no it's just a quick hike we're like we're just gonna go for a quick jaunt it'll be fine but we went right down into the valley bottom and now we're up on the other side but yeah we're getting our steps in today what a little show-off well take it from Diesel another great life lesson as soon as he sees a landscape that he enjoys he just plops down and just takes it all in stop and smell the roses you can still see new and the old cattle trails all along the river's edge this land was so good for the the grazing of course but because it was so close to water the conjunction of those two things just made it the perfect grazing ground so many acres of land for cattle to roam and they still roam the land even today but as far as this couple of cabins down by the river's edge i don't see any remnants from up here and i've tried zooming in with the camera to see if i can see anything and i don't see anything it's a long way down to go and scale the river so i feel like if we scale the top for a bit we have a better chance of finding something if it's down there but what an absolute crazy change from the coastal bellacoola valley to essentially desert dry lands there's a lot to see around here a lot to see not enough time definitely got to watch out for all the landmines when hiking through this terrain as well last night diesel got a pretty good size cacti in his paw and in dad mode i ripped it out with my hand so it got stuck in my right hand and so between my left and right hand getting stuck on each side we finally got it off but yeah they hurt i don't feel very good our map shows us one more black dotted line just a short one but i just have a feeling it might lead to something it's there for a reason it's got to lead to something you see anything oh false summit well no cabin just another stupid viewpoint huh i know but it changes like the whole perspective yeah it's just so many carvings crazy yeah pretty breezy up here but these side trails just kind of lure you just a little bit okay i believe we've spotted the cabin however it's really far down there and it's on the other side of the river but that must have been there for a very long time because it's it's ready to fall any day now by the looks of it thanks for listening to us heavy breathe for the last few minutes but we got to start motoring back to the van home sweet home we're gonna head out to the ferry in need of right now so looking forward to freshening up and then we're gonna make our way to jasper national park early in the afternoon so we'll just get cleaned up and then just put in some driving time today and see how we end up tonight you just look like a bigger version of our you're just a bigger version of diesel okay bye much better condensation and i'm looking outside it looks like the tables and everything's got a layer of frost on it i'm sure there's quite a few of you that are probably wondering why not just put a diesel heater in the van and you know i wish i had a solid answer for that question but the dilemma has been we've looked into it several times and to get the good brand name one um it's like over a thousand bucks so every time it's just the kind of the financial part has kind of just put it off to the side and we do have really good winter sleeping bags plus a couple down quilts and wool blankets so sleeping has never been an issue we're always warm it's just when we wake up yeah it would be nice to you know get some work done hang out and have a coffee and not have to fire up the van to stay warm essentially so we are going to look into it however this winter we are going to be migrating with the season so we are going to go south and find more comfortable temperatures to hang out in whereas last winter that's what we were supposed to do but we ended up staying up north and i don't know time flies so we just never ended up installing anything so it's coming it's uh definitely necessary if you're going to be traveling all year around you know because even when we go south there's no no guarantees that we're not going to find freezing temperatures but we pulled in pretty late last night hunkered down and we're going to carry on to mount robson today one of our favorite places i can't wait to go and see the rockies especially this time of year anyone else remember the first time if you've seen them the rocky mountains it's a pretty spectacular experience i must say i remember the first time we drove out here and alana had actually lived in calgary so she had seen them already but when we first came out together back in the suv days it's pretty crazy you you roll up to calgary and it's just a faint line kind of across the horizon and then as you get a little bit closer and closer with every kilometer they get bigger and bigger until you're driving through them and they're just these giant peaks surrounding you from every angle but no matter how many times you do it that feeling never gets old it's always just as exciting as the first time it's just in front of mount robson just on a leisurely stroll there's literally a black bear right ahead of us yeah i think it's the same one from a couple years ago really oh my god we don't have bears it's a diesel and this black bear that we almost just stumbled into are literally doing the exact same thing diesel is grazing and chewing grass and so is the bear i guess we're not doing a loop we're gonna head back the way we came oh yeah just because there's a parking lot a visitor center and a restaurant over here they're uh they're still here too hey bear hey buddy we're currently trying to recreate one of our favorite pictures of diesel from a few years ago i think we got it got it good posing today big driving day today but we have made it jasper and we are back in the rocky mountains which is a cool feeling and we're gonna call whistler's campground home tonight and it's kind of funny because you know like a hotel or a motel would be kind of a luxury but now when we're traveling full time on the road coming to a campground and especially here in jasper after all of the fires last year i mean you can see the campground is entirely scorched the whole perimeter but it's uh bounced back really really well and all new buildings throughout this campground like beautiful shower facilities and bathrooms there's power there's water all those luxuries where you know when you're going through towns you can get all those things but you usually have to go to different spots to re-up on all those separate items so to come to a place and spend a little bit of extra money still forty dollars you know that's extra money i suppose but it's worth it it's definitely worth it we get a hot shower and uh water and all that good stuff so we are going to hunker down here tonight and sun has already gone down behind that mountain so it's chilling down quite a bit already but um we're allowed to have a fire here so we're gonna have ourselves a little campfire this evening there's also free chocolate covered almonds everywhere you look all over the ground it's amazing so we're just hanging out in the van right now i'm in class just on break and kyle's doing a little bit of editing and we're just kind of deciding on what we want to do for dinner tonight and in the campground they have a food truck and they're serving up some mexican food so kyle was just about to head over there to see what they had and we just heard an elk vocalize screech screech i guess yeah not really sure what the term is but um it was quite loud and sounded very close so kyle looked out and they're pretty much where he needs to go so we do know that they you know live here of course and uh they're uh in their mating season so i'm a little aggressive on the bowl for the bowls but you'll be fine might wait a couple minutes just wait a few minutes but yeah that was really cool what an almost terrifying sound those animals make uh they let us know at the front when we came in that there there is the family that lives in here and it is mid-fall so they are in the rut right now so the male the bull elk uh they're full of piss and vinegar this time of year and extremely dangerous if you get too close so i do want to see them but uh i got the big lens so still from afar well they blend in insanely well and i'm right beside a child's playground and right over here look at this look at this handsome fella i'll get a little closer with the big lens here just sitting waiting for a burrito bowl or something i'm just walking to and he's right there just looking at me this is insane i love it i'm a very good distance away but i'm changing the lens behind a picnic table so just in case it's just crazy to me we're just we just coexist in places like this this is their home but they don't seem bothered well that's a bummer we were told it was open till eight but it's looking like it's pretty closed so i guess we're digging through the fridge to see what we can come up with tonight being extra cautious on my way back because they blend in so well they're like the exact same color as all this brush and deadfall from the fires so i could walk right into one if i'm not paying attention we're attentively looking for them and listening to them and we just caught the male a little bit off in the distance uh let out a nice uh loud bugle and you'd see its breath too yeah he's trotting along it before it was like every 20 minutes you'd hear the the sound and then now it's like every couple minutes he's just going for it we don't know much about their behavior but kyle noticed like he's just kind of like moving his head a little bit so i don't know if that means he's gonna he's getting ready he's getting ready to mount yeah we haven't really seen any other ones though but did you hear there's one way off in the distance there yeah they're kind of talking to each other back and forth so nature how neat is that it's just walking up the road right now towards some other campers but you can hear them all throughout the campground just kind of like talking to each other like they're close to the people this is amazing well the elk party continues it uh pretty much went all night and we just kept the fan on in the van to kind of kind of drown out the sounds just for white noise but they're still going out at this morning we got a pretty good display of mother nature at its finest first thing coming out of the van this morning the poor cow looked like she'd just been running all night just being pursued by the bull elk but yeah pretty wild to see we're in a pretty crazy place just to be so close to uh all of this happening so cool what a special place we're gonna head into the town of jasper in a little bit we're just uh capitalizing on all the amenities uh gonna get some dishes done in the sink you know it's a heated bathroom showers can't argue with that it's pretty awesome but um yeah some big big driving days the last several days and i kind of got me thinking i remember a long long drive used to be from for all my ontario viewers out there from grimsby ontario up to perry sound and that three hours just seemed like the longest drive ever but it was always such a fun drive once you get north of toronto and it was like that feeling feeling of freedom you've escaped the city grind and then going up north and that that feeling of going north or you know traveling and uh you know finding that freedom on the open road per se it hasn't really gone away so yeah the drives have gotten longer but i really just never get sick of it it's so fun especially when you're out here in places like this i mean how how do you get sick of views like this and uh it just so happens we get to do one of the best i say this often i know i do the best drives i'm gonna say in the world it's a bold statement but i'm pretty uh pretty positive that it's true we're gonna head down the icefields parkway today and i'm really looking forward to that from jasper down to banff it's uh something special for sure jasper was short and sweet but we got our goodies oh gosh okay well we got a bag of white chocolate raspberry scones absolute favorite i would literally just come to jasper for these um so we i got two and then kyle got a raspberry chocolate white chocolate scone in a sticky cinnamon bun so those are some treats i'm not gonna promise they'll be they're not gonna last yeah they're not gonna last they're not gonna last but gorgeous day sun is shining perfect conditions for a drive down the ice fields so let's go see the stars and now they say they stay still when everything else spins can i know the way of their heart can i know the way time i'm saving but i don't even know it i don't even know it so call me chasing money chasing dreams and chasing hearts and everything greetings from calgary alberta it's cold today it's cold yeah weather network is calling for 20 centimeters of snow here and i was actually kind of excited to wake up to a winter scene here in the cabela's parking lot but uh we got next to nothing so that's honestly that's okay we got to drive to the airport this morning alana is heading out for work for another week so just a week though just a few days yeah it'll be quick it'll be a quick one but yeah it's chilly got down to negative three so the scraper had to make its first appearance for the season so and even when we left canmore yesterday it was so windy driving from canmore out to the rockies it was scary yeah this was the first time where i was actually scared driving with the roof because we have the canoe we're like almost 12 feet tall with the canoe up on the high roof and we've driven in quite a few windy situations but this was like the wheel was turned on a 45 degree angle and just coming out of the rockies you just hit these wind gusts and you just you feel all of it now with that extra height on the roof so regardless we made it to calgary and uh we're gonna head to the airport this morning you're a pro at that now so we just took a little detour at the airport we're going through arrivals right now because there was a sign that said 3.9 meters going towards departures and kyle just had a moment where he's like oh my god like are we gonna fit are we not gonna fit under the thing so we just pulled over in arrivals just double checked everything because we're 11 and a half feet tall which works out to like three and a half meters so this one's 3.9 so we should be good so we're just looping around right now we got a little bit of wiggle room yeah but you just like never be too sure that was one of the concerns we had with getting the high top and the canoe on top but we really haven't had any issues since so it's just one of those things to like think about so that was like a game time decision he's like i don't think i get it man just a last minute panic attack but we're good we're looping around feast in 400 meters your destination will be on the right hey guys see you in a week