HEADING TO THE ARCTIC CIRCLE - Jeep Overland Expedition // EFRT S6•EP3

In last week's episode of the epic family road trip we made it across Canada to the mountains of British Columbia. We then headed into the backcountry to camp by the beautiful Bugaboos mountain range. This week we continue on our overland journey to the arctic circle in the Yukon territory of northern Canada. After a great sleep we packed up camp and drove back closer to town to find a cellular connection so we could upload last week's video. Has everyone had a chance to get a rock? What do you got? Let's get moneys rocks. I don't want to throw this thing. I can stir it. Okay. I've got a couple. One, two. All right. Caroline's up with two. Two for two. One, two. Good. Beat the sea. Beat two. One, two. One, two. One, two. Oh. Everything. All right. Can't wait. Lefty. Lefty. Ready. One. That's a piece of wood. That's a piece of wood. One, two. Okay. Two for two. And one, two. At least it's the farthest skip. That's it. Two for two is all we got. All right. So we just filled up our nice shower bag with some beauty river water. It's going to heat up on the roof all day as we drive to our next camp and hopefully by the time we get there mom can take a nice hot shower. Out here in the bush we don't have any ice but we got the next best thing. Freezing cold glacier water that's running down in the stream so we just filled up our cooler with that to keep some of our drinks and other things cooler while we're driving. The next morning the skies were hazy with a thick smoke that had rolled in overnight from the forest fires burning to the south of us. On our way north we stopped for the night at a beautiful camp next to Waitabit Creek. Hey guys it's Tuesday the 15th of September and we are now parked along a tributary off the Columbia River. This is the headwaters of the Columbia River and uh in the background here you can see this crystal clear blue beautiful mountain water. But we have been driving all day so when we left off last week we were up near the Bugaboos and now we're just west of Golden BC. So we were driving along and we checked on our app iOverlander app to see if there's any camp spots around here and sure enough there this one was marked and it's a rec site in BC. They call them recreation sites and it's free camping but there and there's a few little services like there'll be a fire pit and a picnic table and maybe a restroom but just a gorgeous spot again and it's really quiet here. There's a logging road up here we haven't seen any logging traffic or anything but there's a logging road there that we got in on and there's a lot of sites so if you're ever up in this area keep an eye on this one of course we'll mark it for you. Right now we're just making some food and we're on our way north so we're working our way kind of west and then it'll start working north. We're going to try to get to Prince George and keep going farther and farther north and we have cell phone access here so we're going to check the status of the border going into Yukon. It changes or they do an update every week on Tuesday so today's the day we're going to check it out. Hopefully they've laxed it off a little bit we can get in there without doing a 14-day quarantine but in the meantime I can smell something cooking back there in the kitchen. Smells delicious. We've got a fire going. Dan's doing some homework. Caroline's doing some editing. Me and Pete we're just going to sit by the fire for a bit and make some plans and check our maps so yeah gonna have a good night here and then we'll see you on the road tomorrow heading north. There were young sockeye salmon swimming in the cold clear waters of the creek just downstream from our camp. You can see in the distance the mountains covered by well they're misted out pretty good because of the smoke from the fires down south so it looks like mist or whatever but it's actually smoke. Last couple of days we've been battling some pretty bad smoke situation. I could hardly breathe the other night it was so bad but it's clearing up now you can see the mountains definitely have a nice clear view of the river. We're gonna make a note of this we just walked along the river and we can see salmon red salmon so they're spawning in there but we found this spot and this is nice and it's a little bit hidden but we'll mark it on gps for you guys. What a camp spot this is my goodness. Ours is great too but this one's even more remote. It's a little driveway here that's not part of the rec not officially part of the recreation area but it leads to this so multiple fire pits not bad not bad. We got an osprey over there taking a dive at some of the salmon big guy. The next day we got back onto the Transcanada Highway bound for Wells Gray Provincial Park where we hope to see the salmon run. See that huge waterfall? Hey guys we jumped back on the Transcanada Highway and we are now in a place called Rogers Pass and I mean there's smoke in the distance unfortunately but it is starting to clear up but what a spectacular place mountains in all directions big glaciers hanging up in the mountains there just wonderful if you ever get up this way. Transcanada Highway on between Golden and Revelstoke and there's a little nice little pull-up right at the summit but yeah mountains in all directions I tell you this is gorgeous country here hopefully the smoke will clear up in the next day or two and we'll be able to see more of the scenery and it's starting to clear up a bit in the smoke we see some blue sky and this is gonna be awesome. We entered Wells Gray country we were excited to explore some of its breathtaking natural wonders where mighty rivers flow across this vast alpine wilderness born from volcanoes and carved by glaciers. Once we made it to the park we set up camp for the night so we could drive to nearby Bailey's Chute the next day to watch the salmon making their journey to their spawning grounds. All right so last time we were talking we were here in the Radium Hot Springs area in the Kootenays of BC which is way on the east end almost on the Alberta border and today we drove or actually yesterday we drove all the way up here and around and stopped just before we found a nice campground on the river just before getting to Glacier National Park which by the way is absolutely spectacular and hopefully we captured some of that there was a lot of smoke in the air but let's hope you can get an idea of how beautiful that place is and we carried on and by this time we're getting into central BC the terrain is drying out and it's a different look and feel than up here in the mountains and it's very beautiful in its own right and then we headed north of Kamloops to Clearwater and then drove into this provincial park and that's where we are tonight. Tomorrow we're going to drive back out and start heading up towards Prince George and then hopefully way up to Yukon and Lando wants to go for a run right buddy. Some super nice water here cool way to get it too nice pure drinking water. Huge. The hike into Bailey Chute was beautiful as we walked through the old growth inland rainforest and the mighty cedar trees. Bailey Chute is a small but powerful waterfall on the Clearwater River. Each fall salmon swim over 600 kilometers from the pacific ocean through lakes up strong currents and powerful rapids to get to their spawning grounds where they finally spawn and die allowing the circle of life to begin again. To be able to witness a part of this battle against all odds was a powerful experience. Before continuing on our journey we hiked to Spahat Falls. Spahat Creek rises from snowmelt and natural springs in the mountains and flows 15 kilometers west before plunging out of a narrow hanging gorge where it cascades about 80 meters or 262 feet down to the Clearwater River below. There was so much more to explore in this beautiful area but we needed to keep heading north. After driving for several hours we stopped for the night near Vale Mount British Columbia at the Canoe River Campground. Even look at this, what would that have been for? All right after having a great time up in Wells Grave Provincial Park looking at some waterfalls and absolutely beautiful beautiful scenery we then left and headed this way all the way up here to Vale Mount where we are tonight. Today's plan is to carry on as far as we can up here towards Prince George or beyond and then it starts heading north. We'll have to get a different map for that or maybe let's see yeah here's the back side so it's a cassia highway that goes up to all the way up to Yukon we'll see what happens when we're there. Stay tuned for next week's episode of the Epic Family Road Trip as we continue on our overland journey north to the Yukon. And in the meantime, we'll see you down the road!