Alaska 2008

We had rain for most of last night with some strong downpours in the mix. This made me a bit apprehensive about doing the last 150 miles of the Cassiar Highway to its intersection with the Alaska Highway.

When we got up this morning the sun was breaking through the clouds and I was feeling a bit better about heading north. It turned out that Mother Nature was fooling with us. We didn't get too far north when the clouds closed in and we had occasional rain for most the trip. About five miles north of Dease Lake, we hit a 15 mile stretch of loose gravel... the Cassiar Highway I remember from our last trip here. The rest of the trip on the Cassiar was awful. The road was full of pot holes and frost heave damage, sometimes for miles at a time. There were a few other stretches with loose grave, some of them recently groomed. The speed limit through this stretch of the Cassiar is 80 Km/H (50 MPH) and we achieved that speed only on short portions. I would slow down whenever I saw a red flag warning of a bump or rough road and after passing the rough stretch I would just about get it back up to speed when we encountered the next stretch. Ignoring the road conditions (difficult to do), the 150 miles from Dease Lake to the Alaska Highway junction offers some spectacular scenery. It winds its way from one river valley to another, passes some beautiful lakes and mountains. In the entire 150 miles we encountered only a half dozen vehicles going our way. I wouldn't want to break down on this stretch of road as help would be a long time coming. It is also not a road to go on with less than half a tank of fuel since the only station between Dease Lake and the Alaska Highway closed down recently.

Once we made the turn on the Alaska Highway it was a lot easier going. The road is wider and smoother, although it does have some spots of frost heave damage. We were able to maintain the speed limit of 100 Km/H for most of the 150 miles we had to drive to Teslin. The weather has not improved much, with showers for most of our trip, although the sun was trying to break through the clouds. It is also quite cool, with the temperature ranging from about 48-58 degrees. The Teslin campground is on a peninsula jutting into Teslin Lake. If a wind comes up tonight, I suspect the temperature will drop into the low 40s... thankfully, we have a heater that keeps us warm. This campground has WiFi so hopefully I can upload five days worth of travel. Interestingly, we wound up in the same campsite that we had in 2005.

Once again, the local wildlife has eluded us. In the 300 miles we drove today, we saw nothing but a few ravens. In looking over my commentary from our last run through this area, I note that I made very little comments about animal sightings. We did, however, have better weather and got a few good photos of some of the scenery of the Alaska Highway.