It was up and at 'em for a buffet breakfast and a thermos full of coffee at Northern Rockies Lodge, then time to get cracking on a three-tank day. Tank #1 was backtracking further south on the ALCAN, which was kept interesting by:
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Tank #2 was the forest tunnel north to Fort Liard where, while rolling down mainstreet towards the left-turn to gas, I almost fell out of the saddle when walking the other direction was a group of 4 people including Jonny the hotel front-desk dude who sweet-talked me into staying at Muncho Lake last night. What the frig?! I whipped a u-turn and went back to figure out what sector of the space-time continuum he or I had pierced, only to learn that he had tagged along on a private tour with one of their clients, going by floatplane from Muncho Lake to Virginia Falls up in Nahanni, and now to Ft. Liard (where the owners' floatplane business started over 35 years ago, as you avid readers will recall). Maybe for my next Yukon trip, they can pick up Badger and I in Simpson, and fly us right over to Muncho to carry on north!
Tank #3 was killing the last of the gravel, then somehow weaving through the menacing rain clouds which surrounded me without hardly getting wet. The only way to describe it is that it was like picking the perfect line in between all of the raindrops, and then being lucky enough that someone had travelled back in time and built the highway exactly there.
Liard Trail wildlife count:
- Muskrat: 2
- Ptarmigan (running/flapping): 2
- Ptarmigan (stoic): 1
- Red-bellied hawks: 2
- Bears: 0
- Bison: YES
Also, I forgot to mention the other day that I saw a lynx (I think) strutting across the highway as I was southbound towards Skagway. Tall, slender, short hair, with a long tail too narrow to be a fox. That's the second cat I've seen this summer, the other being just inside the NWT border when returning home in May.
Day total: 780 km, 10h10m Trip total: 6,884 km | Start: Muncho Lake, BC. End: Fort Simpson, NWT. Soundtrack: Blind Melon "Tones of Home," plugs, "Ghost Riders in the Sky" (a cappella) |