Fort Nelson - Liard Hot Springs: What a fabulous day of driving we had yesterday. Beautiful scenery and some interesting animals – two that we had never seen before. We left Fort Nelson at 9am, and an hour later we were up a mountain driving into thick fog. Thankfully it didn’t last long. However, just minutes after we entered the fog, we saw a cute roly poly black bear cub only a few feet from my window. It was climbing from the edge of the road to the mountainside. It all happened so fast and we were so excited, yet despite having my camera switched on and ready to go, I didn’t get a chance to take a photo! We couldn’t stop due to the fog and the danger of Eric running into the back of us. Not to worry, within 12 minutes the fog had cleared and then we saw a bobcat or lynx. Apparently a rare event. That was the first sighting of an animal we had never seen in the wild before. You can pick them by their dark stubby tail – see the dark blob of a tail in the photo. Next we came across a single Stone Sheep (the second animal that we had never seen before), and later saw 3 rams of the same species right on the edge of the bitumen. Ten minutes later we saw a black bear ambling along the tree line beside the road. We were able to pull over and get several photos of him as he wandered away.
Eric needed to fill up with fuel, and the next stop happened to be the Muncho Lake Lodge, the newest log cabin building on the Alaska Highway. As he was filling up, his wife Marie decided to check out the log chalet and discovered it had a nice restaurant overlooking Muncho Lake. We quickly followed her in and enjoyed a soup and sandwich meal with a hot coffee, then wandered down to enjoy the aura of the lake.
By 4pm we arrived at Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park, and checked into our adjoining campsites in amongst the trees. So tranquil. Our first campsite of the trip with no hook ups. That's right folks - no power, no water and no sewer. We donned our bathers and walked 700 metres along a boardwalk to the natural hot springs. The first natural pool was too hot, as was the middle pool and we ended up in the furtherest pool from the spring. It was so nice to be in warm water while the outside temperature was quite cool. As we walked back to our campsite, we chatted to a man who had visited here twice before, and both times he had seen moose as he walked along the boardwalk – moose love the swamp environment. We searched and searched, but no moose to be seen. We each prepared our dinner (turned on the generator to use our convection microwave to cook our pizza), and sat together at the outside table to eat. We then pulled our chairs up around the campfire and toasted some marshmallows and tried to come up with a few campfire songs. After Eric & Marie left I took this photo at 10.10pm – the photo is not doctored in any way, so you can see how light it is. I woke at 4.20am the last 2 mornings and it was just as light…getting closer to the land of the midnight sun! Next stop - the Yukon.
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