Arctic Adventure Day #18

We slept in a bit longer than we wanted… Rolled out of bed around 8:00 or so. Kim took a shower and then we hit the road.

Today we went down the Cassiar Highway. On my last trip up here, we saw tons of black bears on this stretch of road. Today we saw none. However, we saw a large car go across the road. At first we thought it was a small cougar. But as we passed it, it turned out to be a giant lynx.

We did take one small detour today. We took a turn that was marked as a rest area, and it led down a narrow dirt road. It kept going and going, to the point that we thought we made a mistake. Eventually the road was blocked off at a river and there was a small rest area. So I took a picture of the Jeep.

Last night we were looking at the weather forecast for tonight’s camping spot. It looked like it was going to be pretty neat, so we decided to book a room at the Bell 2 lodge. The room is probably the nicest we’ve stayed at this trip, but it is very disconnected… No TV or cell coverage. Internet is $10/hr (they give you a free hour) and only available in the lobby.

We’ve already had one good thunderstorm roll through before dinner, so we made a good choice.

Going to head down to dinner pretty soon. Afterwards, we’ll head back to the room and play some cribbage in front of a fire.

Going to have two fairly long days in a row after this… Tomorrow is on to Prince George, and then home on Saturday!

Alaska Ride – May 31st – Day #6

Slept in till 7a this morning. Checkout time at the RV park is 11a, and we were not in a super hurry to get going anywhere. Our attitude is changing from go, go, go to let’s slow down and enjoy the ride a bit more.

It rained last night, so se walked over to the porch area of the campground to stay dry while we made our breakfast. While eating, one of the other campers stopped by and struck up a conversation about Creationism. Neither of us has met (to our knowledge) a Creationist before. We didn’t debate or argue, just asked question to better understand exactly what he believed and why. At the end of the day, I’m still a firm believer in evolution.

After our little discussion, we finally got around to breaking camp. We hit the road around 11a. The road out of Stewart was just as cool leaving. There was one stretch (I have it on video, but will have to wait till I get home) where you were going straight at several spectacular waterfalls, and then you turned 🙂 The Cassiar north of the turnoff is just spectacular. Words and pictures just can’t adequately describe the majesty of the mountains. While the early part of the road disappointed, the middle section has exceeded our lofty expectations.

We stopped for lunch and gas at the Bell 2 Lodge. In the winter, the lodge is used for heli-skiing and boarding. The lady working the counter moved from Austria to work at the lodge – if she isn’t working and there is space on a flight, she gets to join along. Outside the door was a hummingbird feeder – the hummingbirds were thicker than the mosquitoes!

We finally saw bears today…lots and lots of bears. My dad was leading the way most of the time, so he would act as a spotter. Before lunch he saw two small ones together (not sure if they were cubs?), but I missed out. I didn’t miss out on the rest.

This is the first bear we both saw. He just looked up when we rode by and then went back to eating. We looped around to take a picture, and stopped on the side of the road. Probably not the smartest thing, there really isn’t much of a shoulder on the highway. Fortunately no logging trucks went by…

My dad looped back to get a video.

This is the biggest bear that we saw today. The campground we are staying at tonight was off by ~2km on my gps. This bear is standing on top of the spot my gps was telling us to go. I’m not sure how well I’m going to sleep tonight…

We saw a total of 6 bears today – they were all just along the side of the road. Half of them just stared at us as we rode by, the others took off running as soon as they saw us coming.

Then the hard part of the trip…pulling into the campsite. Turn at a very low speed and cut the corner a bit (it was banked, can’t tell from the picture), and over she went. Had to get a pic, then realized fuel was leaking out onto the hot exhaust. Took both of us to get it back up.

The pannier took the brunt of the fall. The rack smashed in the side a bit, but it would still snap into place. After we set up camp we banged it out a bit.

We are staying at Kinaskin Lake Provincial Park. By far the best campground of the trip so far (except for the giant bear living right down the street). We strategically picked a campsite a couple of places down from a guy with two dogs :). This is the view of the lake from our campsite.

and this is our campsite.

Tomorrow, we should make it into Yukon Territory!