Tuesday 25 June 2013

Ain’t no valley low enough…



 
We find ourselves at the end of day two parked in a quaint little campsite situated right beside the Sikanni River, the perpetual sound of icy cold water is broken only by the occasional passing vehicle on the Alaska Highway to our right.  It’s been a wonderful day of travel, learning and adventure.  Thus far the Alaska Highway has served us only a few low-lying mountains and two or three deep valleys to pass through, no major challenges for our little 2.7L quite yet.  We were quick enough to spot the sign for the Old Alaska highway (not realizing it was at mile 21 just outside of Dawson Creek) and got some footage of our little red truck crossing the historic Kiskatinaw Bridge, a 531ft curved timber bridge, the only one of its kind still in use on the AK-HWY.  Before we departed from Mile 0 we stopped in at the Alaska Highway House to see what this highway thing is all about and learn what it actually means to build a 1523 mile highway in 9 months, pretty incredible to say the least.
 
Alaska Highway House
Currently I (Alex, the other writer on this blog) sit here surrounded by hovering mosquitos, hoping the repellent that I’m drenched in will not give out.  Alison has pulled her Hoodini act again and left me with tent setup and dinner duty (she’s gone off to ride up the 9% grade hill on the other side of the river that we descended earlier).
 


Still no wildlife to be seen. We were shied off of going for a hike at Pink Mountain by the locals when they started asking us questions like, “do you have a dog?”, “do you have bear spray?”, “do you have a gun?” Some advice from an oil worker was spoken like this, “drive to the top then walk around above the tree line, then you can see the bears.  I wouldn’t go into the bush without a rifle.” OK! FINE! We won’t go for a hike…jeeeeeze!

Tomorrow we go for a long haul, hopefully pass Muncho Lake and Liard River Hot Springs and arrive somewhere between Fort Nelson and Whitehorse.

Adventure on!

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