On the Alaska Highway - Ft. Nelson to Muncho Lake [260617]

 (Posted 260707) Wednesday was scheduled to mainly be a travel day, but as usual we broke up the day by making a few stops - and saw some new animals along the way too!

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Wednesday morning we were awake at 8 a.m. and Tom tried peeking out the rear window shades to see if there was anyone parked behind us - only to be met with a uniformly opaque tan window.  The road spray mud was so caked on that you could not see through them at all!  The good news, though, was the the new black duct tape lining in the window shade seems to have done the trick; no more light bounced off it and the accordion shade this morning!

Our plan for the day involved showering in the T42 when we got to Ft. Nelson before dumping tanks, which meant heating water before we got there.  We were supposed to start heating water as soon as we got up so that it would be done by our planned 9 a.m. departure time (because we don't like having the propane/water heater on while driving) but forgot for a while so ended up leaving a little later than planned.

Shortly after pulling back on to the highway, we passed a black bear on the left side of the road, but there wasn't a good place to stop so we didn't get a photo of that one.  It's entirely possible given the location that it was the same black bear we had seen the previous evening - but we're still counting it as a separate bear since we have no way of knowing for sure 😉.

We drove 35 km north into Ft. Nelson and stopped at the Chevron for gas.  This gas station had nice long truck-length-handled squeegees and plenty of soapy water in their reservoirs - and no other customers besides us - so Tom cleaned every window on the van (although he was a little hesitant to use the squeegee on the acrylic awning windows - but we think they came out unscathed).  For the rear windows, Tom took a water-filled squeegee in each hand to do the cleaning and it still took 5 passes to dissolve and remove the bulk of the caked mud, and then a final one to get halfway decent looking clean glass.

We continued 3 km through town to the Ft. Nelson Visitor Information Centre where the free dump station was, and confirmed that everything looked okay:  two aisles with threaded black and fresh water hoses (although swarming with some sort of black flying insect).  We parked in the Visitor Information Center parking lot and lubed our dump port, showered, and washed our backlog of "dirty" dishes.

Then we went to the dump station for the dump/flush and fill.  Tom was wearing jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and his sweatshirt with hood over his head for bug protection - with the sun beating down - so he was kind of hot and sweaty again by the time everything was done.

We returned to the VIC lot again to do the post-dump-lube and wash hands, and then we were on our way!  Or so we thought.  5 km down the road, Tom realized that he hadn't put the screw back in the lube port, and we turned around and went back.  A Class-A was parked in our old spot, but they were very nice about moving for us so we could go fetch our screw when we explained what had happened.  With the screw back in (and Tom took the opportunity to try cleaning the Adaptive Cruise Control sensor plate as well, since ACC has been disabled for days with the "dirty sensor" message) we were really on our way.

Not too far out of Ft. Nelson, we spotted our second black bear of the day.  This time, there was a good spot to pull over so we were able to snap a couple of photos (albeit only with the 18-140mm lens, since that was what was on the Nikon at the time).

Then we continued on our way . . .

About 92 km west, we stopped at the Summit View Rest Area for photos.

Shortly down the road, this "face" in the rock reminded Christine of the Old Man of the Mountain that used to be in New Hampshire.

Our next planned stop was another 30 km west at the Tetsa River Lodge, for a highly recommended cinnamon roll.  Apparently, cinnamon rolls are a Big Thing up here, with some folks reportedly stopping at every cinnamon roll purveyor they can find on their route to try them all.  The Lodge was cute and we thought the cinnamon roll was okay - but not necessarily anything to rave about (the fact that it was the "drenched in butter, frosting-less" style kind of put us off, since Christine doesn't like anything drenched in butter and Tom likes his cinnamon rolls with frosting).  Tom may actually have enjoyed the free sausage samples just as much as the cinnamon roll 😉.

More random photos from the road:

There are supposed to be Stone's Sheep around Stone Mountain, but we didn't see any.  We did, however, see a pair of caribou hanging out by the side of the road.

 

More random photos from the road:

Our next stop was 75 km west/north of the Tetsa River Lodge at the "historic" Toad River Lodge for gas.  We never would've known that there was anything particularly historic about the lodge (it certainly doesn't look historic) were it not for the sign in the middle of the parking lot talking about it.

The gas pump was vaguely amusing, though.  It's in the middle of the parking lot mostly out of view of anyone in the lodge, and apparently not electronically hooked up to anything in the lodge either.  Taped to each pump are instructions for what you're supposed to do.  We wonder how often someone just pulls up, fills their tank, and leaves without paying.

Behind the lodge is a nice pretty little lake.

More random photos from the road:

At 5:35 that evening we saw our first moose.  It was a full-antlered male moose, but ran across the road and into the foliage so quickly that we couldn't get a photo of it - so all we have from the encounter is a really crappy screengrab and video snippet from our dashcam.

We stopped at a turnout to get a pano of the Sawtooth Mountain Range.

A little after 6 p.m. we reached our stopping point for the day: a trailhead at Muncho Lake (68 km west and north of Toad River), across the highway from the Strawberry Flats Campground.  This may be one of the most picturesque boondocking spots we've ever stayed in.

The plan was to eventually do the 2-3 mile hike that starts from here, but given the late hour we decided to just go for a walk down by the lake before dinner instead - particularly since rain was forecast for the morning tomorrow, so we might not get as nice of a view again.

Back in the T42 we set up the Starlink and then had a dinner of previously prepared tuna pasta.  Tom worked on and completed blog post #7, while Christine did planning activities.  Bedtime was around 1 a.m.

With any luck we'll be able to get a nice hike in tomorrow, before getting back on the road again.