Today would be my day to pick a spot I wanted to stay – and that spot was Summit Lake which is the highest spot on the Alaska highway. We had stopped at this lovely little campground on our previous trip but I had been so mad at the arrogant person who was looking after the park, where we had stopped for lunch and might well have considered staying – if this person hadn’t been so rude – but that is past history…for now we pulled out of Laird Hot Springs, this now being the Monday of the long weekend, and set off on the highway…
it didn’t take very long to run into animals (not literally!) – at almost the same spot where the Wood Bison had been the day before, today there were Stone Sheep…
and since this is a species only found in these northern climes, you’ll have to bear with me while I post quite a few pictures – in fact this whole posting is going to be pretty much animals… above one of the young ones…
here with mom….
they are licking, I assume, salt from the roadway….
this guy was completely relaxed right beside the road…
and we’ll leave it with this female and a couple of young ones…
stopped at the look out that over looks the north end of Muncho lake – you can just make out a lodge in about the middle of the picture – this place has the distinction of having the highest priced fuel on the entire Alaska Highway – unfortunately we had to ‘top up’…and pay the price!
a bit further along we came across another ewe
and lamb….they were quite happy with us out taking pictures….
but the moment that Ernie went to get Shantz out of her crate – they were off like a shot!
there they go! and if he hadn’t had a firm grip on Shantz, she would have been right on their heels – lesson learned! although knowing Ernie, probably not.
Negotiated the narrow winding road along the edge of Muncho Lake and had just reached the far end when…
Caribou! After hoping to see Caribou while on the Dempster, it would turn out that today would be a ‘Caribou’ day on the Alaska Highway! Of course these are ‘woodland’ caribou but they really don’t look any different from those that live on the tundra.
they too were feeding on minerals at the side of the road…
and since you only find these guys in the north…you’ll get a bunch of pictures of them as well!
quite the set of antlers on this male…
I tried to get a few pictures that looked like they were other than at the side of a road….
continued on….here is ‘Folded Mountain’ – unfortunately the lighting doesn’t show off the rock formation very well…
we continued to see Caribou along the route. It wasn’t until I downloaded these pictures that I realized how thin and stressed out this poor animal was! Something must have been after it although I didn’t see anything. It was up on a hillside…
We passed this pretty spot….there had been a number of RV’s parked in I guess a ‘known only to locals’ camping area at the far end of this spot…looked like a great place to do some canoeing….
and yet more Caribou…
this being probably one of the better pictures….we would reach our destination of Summit Lake Provincial Park by mid-afternoon, and I’ll save it for part b because this site gets unhappy if you try to upload too many pictures in one posting!
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