One Lap of the Americas: Alaska Highway, Day 6: Chetwynd, BC to Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park, BC

(cross-posted to http://1lap.tumblr.com)

Today: ~540 miles from Chetwynd, BC to Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park, BC

Approximate Route Map:

View Larger Map

The Alaska Highway (originally the ALCAN Highway) runs between Dawson Creek, BC (yes, the name is correct) and Delta Junction, AK. Up until now, we had merely been moving north to get to the highway; today, we joined up with the Alaska Highway proper. The shortest route to Alaska from Chetwynd actually short-circuited a small chunk of the route, but there was no way that would do: we took a 20-30 mile detour to make sure we got onto the Alaska Highway from the very beginning.

Helpfully, in Dawson Creek, there's a very large sign board as you leave town, proclaiming the beginning of the Alaska Highway. There's a convenient turnoff right across the street from the sign - I suspect we're not the first ones to have pulled off right next to it!

We're finally here - no more roads needed until Alaska.

Traffic on the Alaska Highway is highly diverse. It's the largest road running through significant parts of British Columbia and Yukon, and for many communities and areas, the only road. There aren't a whole lot of locals, so the traffic is primarily passers-through. You'll get an interesting melange of cars, motorcycles, RVs, cargo trucks, logging trucks, and even the occasional bicycle. Of course, by interesting I mean "incredibly annoying to pass in an underpowered station wagon".

This motorcyclist was carrying four spare tires: two road and two dirt tires, among all his other gear.

Lunch was more peanut butter-and-beef jerky sandwiches at Buckinghorse River Wayside Provincial Park, where the most notable sight (other than a somewhat diminished river) was the incredible mosquito population. The pools of standing water that appear up here in the summer (from the ground melting) support incredible mosquito populations. Half my clothes smell like DEET now.

As we were leaving Buckinghorse, we spotted a worker's camp, probably housing loggers working in the area. The extensive use of prefab structures would continue along much of the highway:

Logger's camp in northern British Columbia

Along US-101 in Oregon, there was tons of logging activity (as evidenced by the logging trucks clogging up the road), but the highway itself seemed pristine, walled in by giant trees. In BC, the logging is much more obvious. There are plenty of trees, but there are also giant piles of logs just waiting for the logging trucks to haul them away.

It's Log, it's Log! It's big, it's heavy, it's wood! It's Log, it's Log! It's better than bad, it's good!

The drive up this first stretch of the Alaska Highway, past Stone Mountain and Muncho Lake Provincial Parks, has unseated the Icefields Parkway (between Banff and Jasper Parks in Alberta) as the most scenic and beautiful drive I've ever done. Muncho Lake in particular boasts amazing views from the road and from lookouts

A lookout over Muncho Lake and a river feeding it.

Muncho Lake

Standing on the shores of Muncho Lake

This night, we were camping, so no restaurants were going to be available. I had brought along three cans of chili, to heat over a campfire, but Nathan and JT were....less than enthusiastic about the plan. So, we stopped for gas in Fort Nelson, BC, and at the same time loaded up on supplies at a local grocery store and Subway. The grocery store was named Overwaitea, a name which surely bore no relation to the...bulk...of many people we saw in town.

Upon arriving at the Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park (LRHSPP for short), the first order of business was setting up a tent:

This tent claims to fit four, but really barely fits three.

Liard River supports a sizable mosquito population of its own. Did you know moose can lose up to a liter of blood to mosquitos, per day? Not only can I not make blood that fast, I seemed a bit allergic to the local mosquito variety. A bite I got in Chetwynd made half my arm swell up (a milder reaction than one I had in Alaska several years ago, which inflated my whole arm). To avoid any recurrences, I took some antihistamines and liberally applied Deep Woods Off.

The insects don't really respect repellent bottles, though:

Flies don't care about DEET

The star attraction of LRHSPP is, of course, the hot spring. It's a popular attraction - the campsite was full up when we arrived (good thing we had a reservation); consequently, Parks BC has done a good job of setting up facilities (changing rooms and a deck) by the springs. It's lovely, and the water is just the ticket after a long day of driving. In one corner, you can see the water actually boiling over a rock formation; the surface layer here is scalding (but you can get past by swirling the water layers). Temperatures fall until, at the other end where the other half of the creek joins in, it's merely lukewarm. We relaxed in the water here for an hour, maybe more; who can say?

The hot springs of Liard River Hot Springs Park

The downside of the water is that because it's geologically heated, there's a ton of sulfur (hydrogen sulfide, actually), floating around. You get used to the smell (useful when you're hanging around people who've also been sitting in the stuff), but it is chemically active. I wore my keyring into the spring for maybe 15 minutes before another visitor showed me the effects of the water on steel: a necklace, blackened. I quickly pulled out my keys to take stock. Aluminum carabiner: fine. Chrome-plated ring: fine. Steel key: now covered in a fine brassy sheen of iron sulfide. Inorganic chemistry at work.

The hot springs aren't just an attraction for bathing. The high mineral content leads to the formation of tufa, limestone formations coming from deposition by the water. The "Hanging Gardens" are a large tufa formation in LRHSPP supporting a wide variety of plant life. Much of the plant life in LRHSPP is seen nowhere else this far north. The heat coming from the hot springs gives the park an almost temperate climate and plant life which in places looks tropical - ferns and broadleaf bushes and plants.