Back to the Dempster 2011 – Part 23

In real time it is an absolutely horrible miserable February day….so probably a good time to post this miserable section of this trip.  If all trips were like this, no one would go on them!  Fortunately most trips are far more pleasant!

Left Buckinghorse River and headed towards Fort St. John – the above picture looks more like a painting than a photograph but shows the flatter terrain as you get into this part of the country.  The original plan had been to stay at the Rotary Club RV park in Fort St. John.  This is a nice RV park and we’ve stayed there a couple of times before, but since it was only 11 in the morning when we reached Fort St. John and it was already getting hot…and the city seemed like it had doubled in size since we’d been there 2 years before, we decided to carry on to Dawson Creek and the end of the Alaska Highway. 

A number of years before we had stayed at Swan Lake Provincial Park, east of Dawson Creek, late in September, so decided to head there.  Stopped for some groceries…it was now 28 degrees….and then headed to Swan Lake – only to find the park gates up and a ‘closed for the season’ sign on it!!!  Thoroughly fed up we retraced our steps back towards Dawson Creek and turned south towards Tumbler Ridge, somewhere we had never been before.  We thought there must be somewhere between Dawson Creek and Tumbler Ridge where we could stay….discovered the whole area was bustling with giant wind farms in the early stages of construction.  Found a spot to pull off to give the dogs a break and to feed them since it was now late in the afternoon and hadn’t gotten any cooler.   Large signs promoted a community RV park, so headed there, only to discover it was now a construction camp for the large numbers of workers now drawn there between the wind farm project and the mines, both new ones and re-opening ones…  It is now about 6 o’clock, we are hungry, hot and tired….so now what?  Head towards Chetwynd we guess.  There is a supposed to be a provincial park with a campground about half way between the two towns….just start down the hill out of Tumbler Ridge….

and oh joy!  There is a Lion’s club campground beside this Flatbed creek!  and it is open!!! in fact it seemed like there were a lot of workers living here too, but there was room and we gratefully pulled in.  This is the river where dinosaur tracks were discovered by a couple of little boys not so long ago that started the whole ‘dinosaur’ craze in this town.

Ernie took a picture of the ancient river bottom where the tracks were first discovered.  We also discovered that it was a good job we hadn’t continued on to the Gwillim Lake provincial park because apparently the bridge to the park had washed out in the spring floods and hadn’t been rebuilt so the park had been closed the entire season!!!

When we left the next morning, after going back into town in hopes of going to the Dinosaur Museum (you guessed it – closed for the season)…we found a spot along the highway we could have spent the night….not actually a campground – this is Bullmoose Marshes – a Ducks unlimited spot…

It being another hot day we continued on the Chetwynd and then turned south…only to find we were now in road construction with lengthy delays….some of the construction caused by the massive washouts the area had experienced in the spring, but others ‘just because’….It was another long, hot, frustrating afternoon when we reached….Tudyah Lake Provincial Park and it was actually open!!!! but not exciting and we had planned on staying at Whisker’s Point Provincial Park only a few more kilometers down the road….so headed there – only to find ‘closed for the season’ – so turned around and headed back to Tudyah…

I think we actually were camped in the day use area but at this point do you think we really cared!!!  We were definitely not the only frustrated traveler there that night!

It was a nice enough little lake….very calm in the late sunshine…

Next day wouldn’t be much better…now determined to get back ‘south’ we got through Prince George and spent another night a Lac la Hache….it was still very hot…and with still a weeks holiday time left, we had pretty much had it with this trip!

Back to the Dempster 2011 – Part 22

Having a sort of ‘blah’ day today in ‘real time’, so probably a good time to report on a sort of ‘blah’ section of this trip…in fact the rest of the trip with the exception of the last stop will be sort of ‘blah’…

We left Summit Lake in the morning, negotiated our way along the highway, through the northern end of the rocky mountains and out the other side…now heading to the Peace River Country….this is the general terrain as we carried on towards Fort Nelson

took some pictures of the late season grass’s and various types of vetch in flower…

some others here…

there was a lookout point just before the town of Fort Nelson…we pulled in, planning on getting out and stretching our legs…

when we spotted this guy in the same rest area….

needless to mention we didn’t get out of the truck…but we did manage to get some of the best Black Bear pictures I’ve ever got!

he checked out the ‘bear proof’ garbage containers – yes they really are ‘bear proof’…

and ambled about….thought about our camper for a minute, but then changed his mind…the truck was idling so we would have changed his mind for him if he hadn’t.

continued on to Fort Nelson where there is a dump station at the visitors center.  The center is closed ‘off season’ but the dump station was accessible.  It was hot and I had the windows down and could hear something ‘tapping’….there is only one lone tree in the middle of the parking area by the dump station and this young Yellow-bellied Sapsucker was on that tree – sort of goes to show you just never know when you’ll see something!

Pulled into Bucking horse River Provincial Park campground…..

and decided to spend the night.  This isn’t a very exciting campground but it was open (self serve) and we had the place pretty much to ourselves…

there were some Gray Jay’s here that were obviously used to people – mind you there is a very large work camp just the other side of the road from the campground so no doubt they really are used to people.

this is the river that gives the place it’s name…

only other thing of interest was this Soopollie bush – absolutely covered in berries.

The next day would be the most frustrating and miserable day of the entire trip….and the next not much better so I’ll probably blend the two….

Back to the Dempster 2011 – Part 21 b

Reached Summit Lake Provincial Park by mid-afternoon and got a nice campsite right on the lake.  This is a lovely little alpine lake…but as it turns out, this would be the last night it would be open.  This is something that makes me furious about B.C. provincial campgrounds….I can understand not having a host at sites in the off season, but must they be gated!!!!  Why not just leave them until nature shuts them down.  People do travel in September, even way up here and need a place to park….and things weren’t to get much better as we headed south!

I was standing on a foot bridge at the outlet of the lake to get this picture.  You can just see the back of our camper and the Alaska highway as it runs along the far shore.  There was a steady stream of RV’s heading east along the road, all the long weekenders heading back home to Fort St. John!

spent the afternoon wandering along the trail that ran on the far shore of the lake….there were also a network of trails that went up the hill and on to further spots – but wasn’t up to the climb.

contented myself with getting other shots…like the above…

and this one showing a Creeping Raspberry ‘raspberry’ – something I’d never seen before!

there were also Wild Strawberry ‘strawberries’ something you rarely see as someone has usually eaten them!

It was just very pretty….

Here are some even better ‘raspberries’…

a late flowering anemone – I imagine this hillside is pretty spectacular in spring with wildflowers…

Ernie decided to try his luck at fishing for a bit – didn’t catch anything….

this was a late evening shot…also from the outlet of the lake..

Birds were virtually non-existent…but I did spot this Lincoln’s Sparrow…

and there were obviously some rather industrious Beaver in the area.

Back to the Dempster 2011 – Part 21 a

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!