July 7 Fort Nelson to Liard River Hot Springs
Today was a great trip, beautiful scenery and lots of wildlife! Mom kept remarking how much wildlife there must be at dusk if this is what we had in the middle of the day. Mom said she didn't want the day's travels to end it was so much fun looking for wildlife! Driving, Dad didn't feel the same! The only trouble was all the pictures are through the motorhome windshield chock full of bugs and sometimes even side screens, so please excuse Mom's less than stellar pictures!
First we stopped for fuel at a card lock station the campground told us about where we could get a PIN number on the spot for our MC for Fort Nelson as well as Watson Lake and Whitehurst. Dad said he would tell anybody going to check into card lock cards well in advance, most are signed up like a credit card, so too late. We do have Flying J/Pilot, but those aren't as plentiful out here! the park was fine, Mom and Dad said they'd skip the restaurant at the campground next time!
Right off the bat off the bat we saw a cute black bear, medium sized just hanging out on the side of the road. The pic quality is awful, but it IS a bear so we had to post!
The scenery was pretty the whole way, much prettier than yesterday. First up was the Kleedo River, a tributary if the Muskwa River
The road had some steep climbs and descents of 8-9% grade! but the road wasn't bad. It was nice having the a Milepost book (we are finding this us the Alaskan Hwy bible for good reasons) tell us what was up next
Around Mount Saint George (peak 7419 ft) in the Stone Mountain Range, the Milepost said to watch out for Caribou and like clockwork, there they were!
next we passed by beautiful scenery in the Summit Lake region
We crossed the MacDonald Lake Bridge, one of many metal grate bridges!
Next we hit Toad River as it meandered beside the hwy, followed by the Toad River airstrip with a 3000 ft runway
Finally we reached the beautiful Muncho Lake, Mom said she'd like to stay there next time. Muncho means big lake in the Kaska language and it was! The lake, known for its deep blue and green waters is 7.5 mi long, 1 mi deep at an elevation of 2680 ft. The colors are attributed to copper oxide leaching into the lake.
Over and over, the Milepost talked about the Stone Sheep that are indigenous to the mountains if northern BC and southern Yukon. Darker and slighter than Ricky a Mountain Big Horns they are often mistaken for gaits but no goats are in this area. Finally we saw them, not a great pic, but made it to the wildlife list!
We had just seen a sign to watch out for buffalo and what did we find...a mama moose and her calf!
The road and the Trout River made a pretty sight as we made our way toward Liard.
Next up, those famed Buffalo as we neared Liard Hot Springs and our Provincial Park for the night
The Liard River Suspension Bridge us cool looking and the only remaining suspension bridge on the Alaskan Hwy., the 1143 ft bridge was built by the American Bridge Co in 1943.
We picked our park for the Hot Springs. A 0.4 mi walk leads to the 108-126 deg F sulfur springs.
Supposedly good for your health and relaxation...Wayne played the part well!
So with all the water, mosquitoes are everywhere and Mom is allergic and hates them but they love her! Since we could only run the generator from 6-8 pm, we had windows open but the windows aren't airtight for sure! After dinner and a generator a/c cool down, we went out in search of more wildlife. Since it stays light all night dusk is rather late so it was a bit early after 8pm. We went with Mom and Dad, we don't usually get to do so but they didn't want to leave us behind without ac.
Immediately Mom and Dad saw a wolf and a bear, but too fast for pics so on we went! Soon we found another bear, Mom's favorite, followed by a buffalo!
In all we saw 6 bears and a couple of herd of buffalo! what a night!
About 9:30pm Mom took pics of the road, gosh it's sooo light!
Mom said she would skip this park next time, too many Mosquitos, they got in the coach no matter how hard we tried to avoid, next time she'd stay at Muncho Lake, looked so pretty!
July 8 we left Liard River Hot Springs for Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. I snuggled down looking cute and pitiful! First we saw a pretty rainbow thanks to early morning showers.
We immediately started seeing bears and bison, Mom quit counting bears at about 6, we didn't get pics of all of them.
The other things was some horrible construction, oh my are we dusty now!
We reached Yukon Territory
And then the famous Signpost Forest, started in 1942 during construction of the Alaska Highway! Today signs are over 75,000!
And look what Mom found...
We arrived at baby Nugget, Mom says never again, 50a, no sewer, but $50 for what was supposed to be new, it is not new!
On to Whitehorse, Yukon and another adventure tomorrow!
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