Alaska Highway or Bust- BC Bound

Today we left Grande Prairie early in the morning and headed out to Dawson Creek, the starting point of the Alaska Highway- Milepost 0:


The beginning stretch of highway looked like the road up to Bemidji- rolling hills and lots of evergreens, but with mountains in the distance.



We found a new arrangement for the cats- we were pretty sick of their screaming while in the carriers, although it got more bearable as they lost their voices and started croaking instead. The constant movement out the windows seemed to make them upset, so we piled stuff in the back and sides to block the view, and put them on the seat in the middle. They liked it a lot better, and spent the time grooming each other and practicing their WWF moves- notice Mr. Darcy's stellar headlock:


We drove and drove and drove through the mountains in British Columbia, and were really disappointed with the lack of wildlife. We looked and looked, and started worrying that everyone was making things up when they talked about the animals they had seen on the road The scenery was beautiful, and we tried taking pictures, but they just didn't do it justice, it was so much more beautiful than what the camera captured. We did see a lot of road work, and it was a white-knuckle drive. There were long stretches of gravel road through mountain passes, and a pilot car drove us through- it was so difficult to see the car in front of us due to the dust, and it was scary because a wrong move could be disastrous. The road work really slowed down the drive too, because it was one-way, so we were stopped for long periods waiting for our turn to go.



Summit Lake was by far the highlight of the drive. It was also the highest point on the Alaskan Highway:



Although the pictures appear to be in mid-afternoon, it was pretty late at night, and we were in the middle of nowhere. The highway was completely empty, we didn't see any cars, and we still didn't have a place to stay. The last RV site we had driven by just didn't give off a good vibe, and we were miles from the nearest town. The road was covered in a gravel coating, and so it looked like we were driving down a minimum-maintenance road. We hadn't seen any exciting wildlife all day, and had been on the road all day, so we were feeling a little disappointed. All of a sudden, we turned down a sharp curve in the mountain and bam, right in front of us were a mama and baby stone sheep:


Then a moose ran by- he was huge with long legs. Two caribou appeared on a ledge above us- one stayed on the ledge, and the other one jumped down and ran alongside the car on the road:



It was so fun having the road to ourselves, we could stop and enjoy the animals- we saw more caribou and deer, but the pics turned out blurry. Finally we came to Toad River Campground. It looked ok, and we were 80 miles from the nearest town, so we stopped. They only had 2 sites left. Our tent site was BEAUTIFUL. It was right on the Toad River, and a beaver dam/house was right in front of our site. We could see their little heads while they swam in the water. There were only 2 tent sites, and we were together in a fenced area, sharing a sink. The other tenter was a really nice guy driving to Anchorage from Arizona- he was moving there for a job too, and it was fun talking to another person.

We all stayed up playing cards, and the place was completely silent and peaceful. We couldn't light a campfire here. BC has currently banned all fires. We learned that the area we were in was fine, but there are some big fires south of us, and all the firefighters in BC are down there fighting them right now. Because of that, no other fires can be lit, because there is no one available to fight the fire if something goes wrong.

It was a wonderful campground- our best night so far! Just before we were going to bed, we heard a coyote in the mountains crying. It was really eerie, even more so because it was the only sound, and there was no answer to his calls. The cats, sitting in the car, really perked up though. I went to bed with spine tingles. It was amazing, and we were so so happy to have seen wildlife finally, after the long, beautiful drive that day.

Campground:


(Thanks so much for the comments guys! We really have fun reading them when we update this, you are all in our thoughts! )