Yukon Trip 2009 - Day 25 Part 2 - Liard Hot Springs

Continued along, on June 16th, now heading towards the site of the Smith River Forest Fire.....
This was one of two large fires burning in the area.....

in fact the highway had been closed for a few days previously.....and crews were still fighting the fire as we went past.

This was one of many areas where evidence of the fire could be seen.....

it was right along this stretch of the highway that we spotted another Red Fox!

and since we just don't see Red Fox down our way....you get a few pictures of this particular one.

one more 'Fox' picture. Just before we reached Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park Campground...we saw another fox - it was definitely a 'red fox day'! The campground at Liard Springs isn't extremely large and reservations are accepted there, so we were lucky to find a spot. There is a private RV place across the road and some over flow camping over there as well so I guess no one is turned away from this rather busy spot.

After supper we left the dogs in the truck and took the boardwalk out to the hot springs. This is the entrance to the boardwalk - I'm not sure what bear in it's right mind would hang around here because even this early in the season it was a very busy place!

this is looking across the marshy area at the start of the board walk. If you put your hand in that water, it is almost bath tub temperature.....

despite the heat (warmer than any aquarium I've had), there were fish living in the water.

also a variety of bird life....here we have another shorebird in a tree....this one is a Wilson's Snipe

This interesting member of the Orchid family was growing beside the boardwalk - I think it might be a Northern Coral Root....but not sure about that.

The vegetation back at the Hot Springs themselves is very lush....these Yellow Monkey Flowers were all over the place.

something moved right at the edge of the boardwalk and my heart skipped a beat for a moment until we realized there were several baby marmots there.....these would be Yellow-bellied Marmots

an example of the lush vegetation, more reminiscent of the west coast........

this is the further of the two hot springs....this one is quite deep and was unoccupied when we got there, although it didn't stay that way for long.

this is just part of the lower, and larger hot spring.

on the walk back this mother Mallard and her family of about half grown ducklings were busy feeding in the warm 'soup'......

a closer view of the busy ducklings.......completely unperturbed by everyone standing watching them.

Campground fee: $19 Total Distance traveled to date: 6,031