On The Road Again

The last few days have been big driving days. You really need to manage your gas up here because gas stations can be few and far between, especially on this shoulder season when stations are closing. Twice in the last few days, we’ve been on E when arriving at a station. That’s no good for the nerves. We are taking a different route back and took the Cassier Highway. It’s a scenic route with few services along the way. There are literally a scattering of gas stations and if you miss one, you wouldn’t make it to the next. This highway is actually shorter than taking the Alaskan Hwy but more isolating. The north part of the road is two-lanes, narrow, without shoulders and without striping. It opens up more further south. The scenery was spectacular and it felt like we were driving on back roads. It was fun.

The first night on the highway, we stopped at a provincial campground on Boya Lake. It was a beautiful campground and one to remember for the next trip. We read the lake may be one of the great places to kayak in BC, and a map of the lake showed it weaves in and out of many small inlets. Cool. We took a short hike around part of the lake. Later, as I sat in the Casita looking out the door, I heard a chattering and a fat ptarmigan ran by. Mike was outside trying to photograph a group of them and, apparently, they didn’t like it.

The sun was out but the temperature was only about 50 degrees and a cool wind picked up, which made us pull out our poofy jackets for the first time. It was a nice evening.

Yesterday was a long day. We almost made it to Smithers, BC but were lured in by a campground called Glacier View. Now, if the clouds would lift, we might see the glacier.