We spent several days in Banff, Calgary, and Jasper and then headed to Hinton, Alberta.
We drove from Hinton to Dawson Creek to start the ALCAN at mile 0.

The first day on the ALCAN was a bit uneventful overall.
Dawson Creek was pretty cool.  Lots of history about the ALCAN. For example, 10,000 workers built the Alaska Highway in 1942 in merely 8 months! We are really grateful that they did. It’s a beautiful continent we live inhabit.

There was literally nothing on the ALCAN other than a giant beaver in Beaver Lodge, BC and lots of trees for most of day. Gas stations are sparse until you get to Fort Nelson, British Columbia.
Fill up your gas tank in Dawson Creek before you head out for Fort Nelson.

Fort Nelson is pretty small with a couple hotels, campgrounds, a grocery store, and a few food stops like A&W, but they have a movie theater, which shows one movie each day at 7 p.m. We missed it, but that is ok because we found the Canadian version of America’s Funniest Videos and it was hilarious! It didn’t get dark until after 11 p.m. and even then, it was super bright outside again by 3 a.m., so we didn’t get to see the northern lights.
Most places close down early, so make sure you have food for your evening meal if you will arrive late.

Gas up in Fort Nelson before you head out to Whitehorse as it is a long way to Watson Lake.
There are a couple gas places on the way to Watson Lake.
More on all of that when we make our ALCAN post about Day 2.

Today, we ventured off into the great outdoors of Jasper National Park. In total we only hiked about 6 miles because most of the picture-worthy sites were not far from the Ice Fields Parkway.

We saw awesome mountain lakes –

We saw waterfalls –

We saw glaciers and ice fields – We hiked Parker Ridge to see the toe of the glacier. And we learned that when you’re thirsty and you forgot to bring your own water, it’s all good if you can find clean snow. It’s super important to clean off the top layer before you put any in our mouth.

We saw black bears – lots and lots of bears

It was a very cool day.

Well, this was a fun morning.

We tackled the Manitu Incline just outside of Colorado Springs, CO.

It was a blast, but pretty tough as you go up over 2000 feet very quickly.

Ben says it was horribly awesome.  He hated quite a bit of it, but was super proud once he made it to the top.  The news of a 3 mile hike down was a bit of a shock, but he had a blast.

Elgin was a really good first stop for our annual summer trip, and we got to see our good friends the Coyle’s

We spent the first day hiking in the Wichita mountains, until we went a place to eat where I ate about 2/3 gallon of ice cream. Then we watched the last Finals game (I really hate Stephen Curry), and I was very disappointed in Jebron Lames. The next day we went swimming in Lake Lawtonka and then in Medicine Creek, where we saw a water moccasin and Wyatt freaked out(JK).

We didn’t want to leave, but we did have to move on if we want to make it to Alaska.

Wiliwilinui Ridge Trail in Oahu

The condo our parents rented in Oahu was awesome.  We will post information about the VRBO experience and about the condo we used in the Waikiki Lanais in a separate post.  The owner, Sana, was awesome and really made our stay great.

Our parents asked about hikes and Sana suggested the Wiliwilinui Ridge Trail.

We are a hiking lot with 5 seasoned hikers and backpackers so off we went.  The youngest brother in our group of 3 is Big Willie or the Wilverine as he likes to call himself.  We had to do a trail of the same name.

Here is a map of the trail from Google.  You will take Laukahi Street from H1 / 72 going east from Waikiki or Honolulu.  It is easy to find and very near Diamond Head.  You will drive for what seems like days and finally reach a guard station.  The trail head is located in an upscale gated neighborhood.  We felt very comfortable leaving our car.

The guard was super nice and gave up a parking sign for our car, after scanning my mom’s ID.

There is a parking lot at the trail head and plenty of parking.

The trail starts off pretty calm and for about the first 2 miles, it is scenic and calm.

There were some amazingly large trees on the trail.

The last half mile is roughly 700 feet of straight up incline.
Wilverine is only 5 and he hiked the whole thing, while persistently chattering about the geneology & hierarchy of Bionnicles. (That was fun…)

We were bouldering and rock climbing with ropes for much of the 700 feet.

There is a cool swing at the 1/2 way point.

It was fun and every one of us survived, but it was tough.

The entire hike was about 5 miles and it took up easily 4 hours.
We took a few breaks, but this hike takes a while.

Was it worth it?  For sure.
This was our top hike in Oahu.
We hiked Diamond Head, Koko Head, Makapu’u Lighthouse, and the Manana Trail to the Waimano Falls/Pools.
If you are in Oahu, make time for the Wiliwilinui hike.