May 22 - to Liard River Hotsprings Provincial Park

No Internet, so this isn't getting posted until May 23rd.

Just where do I start Wednesday night.  The rain and snow stopped about dark Tues. night (close to 10 pm).   I don’t know what the temperature was this morning when we got up, but it was about 55° in the front of the mh.  I’d gotten cold during the night, so pulled the heater into the back with us.

John from NY read in the blog that we were saving on propane by not using the furnace, so he sent us an email explaining that we had a heat pump.  Ok, I think I knew that.  But he explains that it works off electricity, and doesn’t use propane.  Now, I didn’t know that.  He  didn’t explain if we needed 50 amp service to use them (like you do the A/C).  Through power of experimentation, we found you do.  They worked for a while, but then blew the circuit for all the electricity at our site.  Fortunately we were packing up as there was no circuit breaker on the post to reset it.  

Just to stay with the topic, we are in a provincial park tonight with no utilities, so we kicked the generator on (during the appointed hours) and the two heat pumps did a much better job of warming the whole mh than the little electric heater.  THANKS John! 

Now to figure out where the water came from that got on the top shelf under the sink.  Nothing obvious is leaking, so we will have to leave this puzzle for another day.

It was 38° this morning, when I started the engine to raise the jacks.  I don’t think the jacks like cold weather.   I got an error message and the jacks were still down.  David wasn’t sure what wire did what on this little box he learned the existence of from Spike (another owner) in Dawson Creek, but playing with it sounded better than crawling in the mud to reach the jack with an electric drill.  He jumped something, which cleared the error code.  It took multiple attempts, but the jacks went up a bit each time, and we finally had a Eureka moment.  Now it might have been what we did, or it could have been the fact the temp went up to 42° during our efforts.  I don’t think David’s demeanor could have heated the ambient temperature up that much, but the idea of climbing under the wet, drippy mh in all the mud out there was generating some heat.

We were on the road again and oh, what a ride.  Still very overcast but only a small amount of rain and one snow flurry when we stopped in Tetsa Lake for cinnamon rolls.  {Side note: save your money on the rolls.  Can you imagine cinnamon rolls without nuts?}  Everything was just gorgeous.  Loved the snow tipped trees.  The pictures don’t do some of the areas justice.  Where you could barely see through the clouds, looks all white is some of the pictures, so take my word for it.  It was a day of incredible scenery.

We finally saw our first bear off to the side of the road.  A short distance away we saw another with 3 babies up in a nearby tree.  Other animal sightings today were moose, buffalo, goats (or were they sheep) and caribou, heron and some sort of swan.

Our first bear

Cubs are in the tree.

Three cubs in the tree

 

Tetsa Lake

The Tetsa Lake stop was about noon to try their supposedly wonderful cinnamon rolls.  It was 41° with a bit of snow as we were finding our way into the log cabin store. 

On the way out with our $5 buns, we both laughed at the sign on the gas pump… “No Sniveling”.  Now who would snivel about paying $1.79/liter of fuel {about $6.90/gal}. ?  Diesel was a bargain at only $1.69/liter  {about $6.51/gal}.   The $1.32/liter we paid in Dawson Creek seemed a good bargain.

We didn’t get very close to Summit Lake, but it looked incredible with the snow on the water.  

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Muncho Lake was more accessible.  It was 56° when we stopped.  The ice was breaking up and made interesting formations.

Can you see the ice he is holding?  Looks like broken glass.

--> There was evidence of animal life at Muncho Lake.  Anyone want to identify the scat? 

Nothing like a picture of someone taking a picture.

Pretty sure these are Stone Sheep

Our first bison sighting.

 

Baby bison in the grass.

The bridge over the Lower Liard River is just over 335'.  It is the only suspension bridge left on the Alaskan Highway.

Back on the road.  More bison up ahead

No wifi tonight…  Keeping warm is sort of like home when I don’t like to put the heat on, but no wifi is truly camping.   A whole new definition of “roughing it”.    

All secured for the night.

Our final stop of the day was at the Liard River Hotsprings Provincial Park.  It was 47° when we parked.  Hopefully stopping here instead of somewhere with hook-ups wasn’t a mistake.  You have to love their sign.  They list “Local Hazards” as:  Bear, Bison & Moose.  We could probably keep it warmer in here if we covered all the windows, but it is so nice to look out and see all the trees.

Campground sign.

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We walked down to the hot springs, but it was crowded (over 3 other people to me is crowded).  Also there were a lot of kids in the water.  Decisions, decisions.  The water smelled bad (like sulfur).  I could imagine at least some of these kids peeing in it, and all these bad organisms flourishing in the warm water.   There was only a public display dressing room.  It was cold out and the wind was blowing, so the half-mile walk to the mh would have a bite.  Lastly was consideration that if I got my stuff wet, I’d have to find a way to dry it.   So I did a limited immersion.   I did touch it; it felt warm; I was done. 

Hwy 97 through BC is incredible.  Funny to drive all day and the GPS says GO STRAIGHT.  No turns onto other highways.