Mel...
Thanks again for info...very valuable....still sorting out where I can simply walk up and buy tickets when I arrive at a ski area and not be forced into buying tickets on-line, if available...virus panic is in full bloom at ski areas and no end in sight...
Let me explain if I can my comments about last year’s negative contacts at Canadian borders. I have traveled in Canada many times over the years and these were the first negative crossings. Our cranky RCMP contacts were indeed an anomaly.
Going in [Porthill] RCMP Bardal [his actual name..like the oil supplement] kept telling me that I did not need a shotgun for bear protection in the interior since there were rangers there to protect us [I had the requisite permit]...I patiently explained we were off-roading it in non-park areas with no rangers within hundreds of miles, especially at O-Dark-Thirty... told him we had no way to escape the Hawk camper if a pissed off [early Spring..]Grizzly wanted in while we were inside; bear spray inside the Hawk would not be prudent...he advised us to take it back some 30 miles into USA and put it in a storage locker..but we were not coming back to that border crossing on our return.. on and on and on... I finally slid my completed RCMP required firearm permit and $$$ across the counter and stood there until he accepted it...30 mins of goofy-ness.
Next negative event for me was after we crossed into Alaska at Hyder. No USA border station going in. Those that don't know, that Hyder 'road' [dirt] is a dead end near a famous glacier...we encountered mud slides and then 2+ feet of heavy old snow across the road after many beautiful miles up that cliff side road...back we go to cross back into Stewart Canada...honestly, we did not see anyone living in Hyder going in or coming out, Stewart and Hyder are cool places, but talk about isolated! So as we approach the Canadian border and there is a very 'rustic' shack [weather beaten does not start to describe it] on passenger’s side with a stop sign and a window perhaps 6 feet above the road...I assume it is the border station...but do not see anyone in the window; waited briefly then pulled slowly forward: Siren! I mean big, frickin’, loud Siren! I jam on brakes and backup to find an RCMP [female] at my driver’s window; I lower the window...she shouts at me in her best enforcement scolding scream: "I don't know what 'stop' means in Oregon but here it means stop!" I say I did stop, she says “No you didn't and 'we' [ a fellow RCMP then appears in the window of the shack; he is very sheepish looking] were going to go in pursuit of you and that would have been a $2,000 fine”...wife, nudges me and I stop talking, except to answer her questions, all the while wondering if she would take a check..I was in law enforcement and can sympathize with her being stuck at a meaningless, clapped out, BFE border crossing; she must have really pissed someone in RCMP off to get assigned there; or she is in their witness protection program...her igniting and transforming into a living, fire-breathing Valkyrie was a real shock; it took me several days to de-stress. Funny now but not then...Did find out that Stewart RCMPs are not happy with residents of Hyder since RCMP does not have any jurisdiction in that corner of Alaska and Hyder folks get bounced often when they enter or pass through Stewart for supplies. Not a border war, but no love lost either.
Mel, did not know border was closed...more insanity, seems to be the new norm.
Phil
Edited by Wallowa, 03 November 2020 - 12:03 AM.
