Keep your camera ready when you're driving through the Yukon, you just might see some wildlife, perhaps caribou, or a bear. Oh, and remember to sleep with your bear spray at hand.
We’re on the Cassiar Highway, driving through northern British Columbia. We just spent the night in a beautiful little private campground on the shores of huge Dease lake. No cell phones or real towns within a hundred miles or so, but amazingly the guy who runs this place had an internet system set up with wireless. Even so, (some of you might scoff at this) camping there felt nearly as “wilderness-ey” to me as a backpack camp in the Wind Rivers.
We took a side trip to Stewart, thinking we could perhaps get a ski day in around there, but the weather wasn't that great. Fun checking out Bear Glacier however. I'm thinking a return here is in order.
The scale of the landscape up here is astounding. I’d heard about it and thought I could perhaps picture the vastness in my mind, but no way. Everything is jumbo and actually feels somewhat surreal, like you’re viewing an Imax movie or something like that. You drive by lakes that go on for miles, rivers that appear equal to the Colorado, and mountain ranges rising all over the place.
Sunset in the Yukon wilderness.
We seem to finally be out of the rain zone we’ve been in for a week. Puffy clouds around here and there, but mostly bluebird. The road here is mostly paved, but somewhat rough; average speed 45 mph for a while. We’ve still got a couple of days to ski if we can find anything with one-day access in Alaska. Anyone up there know if we could still ski up on Turnagain Pass?
We’re a little road weary, but feeling like we’re on the home stretch to Anchorage. We’ll stay there a few days and do our last prep for the Kahiltna. Mainly, we have to divide the food up in some sort of logical fashion, and check that we have all our group gear. We’ll then pick Colby, Ty and Joe up at the airport and haul them up to Talkeetna.
I’ve been enjoying the crazy videos that Louie, Jordan and Caleb have been producing, and hope all you Wildsnowers out there get a laugh out of them as well. Interesting what happens when you’re isolated in the Yukon, isn’t it?
Jordan and I were checking out the sunset on the shore of Dease Lake, and he got this shot, around 11:00 PM.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
