It was cloudy for Ranger’s walk this morning, but the sun
broke through and made it a good day for traveling. We stopped in Whitehorse, about 20 minutes
along, to do some grocery shopping. As
we are now retracing our earlier route, we already knew the store’s location
and were somewhat familiar with it. Once
back on the road, we followed the Alaska Highway southeast for about 275 miles,
along streams, lakes, and mountains. We crossed
several big rivers (including the one at Johnson’s Crossing where we had camped
on the way up) and finally, after more than a month, saw another black bear
along the road. Still no sightings of
grizzly bears for the trip, and really very little wildlife seen in Alaska at
all.
We turned south on Route 37, the Cassiar Highway, just
before Watson Lake. Where the Alaska
Highway had been two lanes, paved, with lane marking, the Cassiar is narrow and
unlined with virtually no shoulder. The
first mile or so, while still in Yukon, it was rough and pot-holed, but once we
crossed into British Columbia, the road smoothed out considerably. It was, however, up-and-down, up-and-down,
like a roller coaster! There were no
signs of people, towns, or anything civilized, just miles and miles of spruces,
and for the first miles of road, they were all recently burned in a
wildfire. Very desolate scenery!
After about fifty miles, we turned into a British Columbia
provincial park at Boya Lake.
The guidebook described it as “unusually beautiful”, and
that was no exaggeration. We managed to
get a pull-through site right alongside the lake, so our side windows look out
on the view. The lake is clear, with
mountains on the far side, and in the evening the water mirrored the view
perfectly. To top it off, Dan identified
a new bird for his life list, a phalarope.
Dinner cooked on a campfire, an almost-full moon rising over
the lake (and being reflected in it)---life doesn’t get much better than
this. We’re going to stay another night
here and explore the trails tomorrow.
(Note: No cell service, no internet, so this will be posted
in a few days when we are back in touch with the world.)
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