Heading North

Heading North

One month after returning home from my van's maiden voyage through the southwest, I loaded it with supplies and got back on the road. My last two road trips were to the south… but this time I was heading north.

In order to avoid the most intense summer heat, my initial plan was to head to Alaska and slowly make my way south as winter approached. But, considering I wouldn’t be on the road until late-July at the earliest, the northern winter started feeling pretty close and Alaska was still really far away. So I scrapped that plan, considered my options and, seeing as I loved the San Juan section of the Colorado Rockies so much, figured I should check out their northernmost sibling—The Canadian Rockies.

My plan was pretty simple: beeline it through eastern Oregon, northern Idaho and Montana, cross the border into Canada, head north along the eastern side of the Canadian Rockies and then loop back down the western side on my way south. From there I’d meander my way through Washington and Oregon as I head back to California.

It was a perfect plan.

But… wildfires and smoke quickly imperfected that plan. So, instead of cutting northeast through Idaho and Montana, I ended up heading northwest—driving along the coast in search of clean air. It really is a lovely drive and I was excited for it, but unfortunately it appeared that every single person on earth was also taking the coastal route to escape the smoke. My vision of a calm, coastal drive quickly turned into a “let’s get through this as quickly as possible” drive.

I stopped to enjoy the scenery a few times, but ended up powering through most of Oregon and Washington in a day, eventually finding a beautiful little campsite deep in the woods on the outskirts of Olympic National Park. Ahhh, after a long day of driving my nervous system could finally relax.

I was checking the AQI in the Canadian Rockies religiously, but the smoke was still looking pretty bad, so I decided to spend a few days exploring the Olympic National Park and the greater Olympic Peninsula, mostly hunting for local waterfalls to photograph. I found them.

Warning: lots of waterfall photographs in your future. 

My initial plan was to visit family in Seattle after the Canadian Rockies, but my new route had taken me so close to the city that this became the obvious opportunity for a visit. So, after a few days on the Olympic Peninsula, I drove my van onto a ferry, crossed the Puget Sound by boat and spent a few more days in Seattle. 

It’s pretty hard to beat summer in Seattle and I could have easily stayed longer, but before long the winds shifted and I started to see green dots all over the AQI map north of the border—the smoke had cleared! Recognizing my opportunity to make a final push north, I said a gracious goodbye to my family, fired up the van and crossed into Canada for the first time in my life. 

The initial part of my northern adventure didn’t quite go as planned but part two was about to begin and I couldn’t wait to see what it had in store.

"Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape." — Unknown