ALASKA HIGHWAY - As Advertised (with gravel!)

Mile 496 - Liard Hot Springs, Liard Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada

June 4 - June 6, 2016

Alaska Highway here you are.  In all your full glory.

Starting a Mile 0 (Dawson Creek) until Mile 300 (Fort Nelson) - you just got to suck it up and drive.  It’s long, winding, never ending road of a lot of trees and bears.  But then…….wake up because you have a treat ahead for the next 200 miles until Liard Hot Springs. (and rumor has it, this just keeps getting better?) 

The Alaska highway - which is STILL in Canada - begins to wind its way through the Northern Rocky Mountain range.  Every turn is full of surprises.  Lakes appear, waterfalls, creeks, swamps and marshes along with birch, aspen, cottonwood and conifer forests.  But the most amazing part of this 200 miles is the animals! We saw it all.  Bears with their cubs, Moose Elk, Momma Elk and baby, and then there was the, “What the heck is that????” Stone Sheep.  Pretty cool animals that have adapted to this environment very well.  All these animals are so close and many times we have to wait for them to cross the street before heading onward North.   The scenery is still jaw dropping. Scenic vistas seemed to stretch for 100 miles in the distant.  I took 158 pictures in less than 4 hours.  Hah!  and that’s after I deleted lots.  

Stone Sheep

Every now and then the Milepost alerts you to “a must stop,” so we do.  And this didn’t disappoint in any way.  The Tetsa River Service and Campground.  We were just coming down from a wild, extremely high climb to summit and  and dropping into the the Tetsa River Valley.  We have seen no one for at least 40 miles.  Just nothing but mountains and trees.  and the here it comes.  Home of the Cinnamon Bun!  Really?  Apparently, World Famous Cinnamon Buns.  Well, darn we couldn’t pass that up. And there was no Sharing involved here.  WOW.

At Muncho Lake we began our “real Alaska Highway” experience.  The road now became loose gravel and big construction trucks.

This is when you just cover your eyes and hope that big rock doesn’t hit your windshield.  Dirty is the name of the game here.  Trucks are so dirty you can barely tell what color they are…and you should see our Airstream.  Well, we’re doing it Man!!! (PCT shout out).  So far we are doing fairly well, a couple of small rocks in the truck windshield, some little dings on the Stream.  I did take the time to start with my Yoga Mats.  They are going to be used to cover front and street side windows.

Now for Liard Hot Springs.  We are staying at Liard Provincial Park for 3 nights. This is the ONE PP that you should have a reservation at.  Another WOW factor here.  Definitely a favorite stop along the Alaska Highway.  Right outside of the camping area is a boardwalk that crosses a wetland which brings you through a really cool forest and then fern wonderland and ultimately you arrive at Nirvana!  I thought it would be similar to our hot springs out of Mammoth.  Oh No.  Canada!!!, once again you amaze me.  Needless to say, our days are spent soaking in the pools, reading and watching for bear, moose and buffalo. 

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Kevin has decided that he needs to get some long bike rides in, so off he ventured on the only road there is - The Alaska Highway.  Well, 2 hours later he came back a bit terrified as he told us that seeing Bears on your bike is a lot different than the truck window!!  He is equipped with Bear Spray and going to head off again today for another ride????  The rangers here encourage you to carry Bear spray at ALL times, as the bears are quite active within this campground.  This is where the Buffalo also hang for the next 60 miles.  Michael got a really great picture of this big guy rolling away in the dirt as he was exploring on his bike.  

There is absolutely NO cell service since we left Fort Nelson in this 200 mile stretch.  It is nice to know that there are 7 of us spread across this stretch for Emergency purposes.  We all have our radio’s and that seems to be helpful when we are in line of sight.  But, boy oh boy, if you have a breakdown, it could be a long wait before you get help.  

We are now light past 11pm and light beginning at 4:15am.  It’s weird.

I am worried about Shane.  I know he’s on a fire in the Sequoias, but not happy that I can’t find out how he is.  

Okay.  so this little blog took me almost 2 hours to download just this....it's not going to happen very often in the next week.  No internet, no cell, just a lot of trees and mountains and lakes and wildlife.  Can't beat that.