If you're scared of heights, I highly recommend you cross the Canadian Rockies in the dark.
Early start to the day allowed me to make it into Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. Thankful for the good weather, because the news today is showing parts of Saskatchewan (which I drove through) getting hammered with a blizzard. In the Yukon, it's clear (and cold), with decent road conditions.
Turned out to be a little colder than I expected crossing the Rockies. Yep, that's -40F you see on the thermometer. It was actually colder than that, but I found out my thermometer in the truck only displays down to -40F, below that it shows "OC".
Today was the wildlife day I had been waiting for. I did see some moose, too, (no pics) but it was a little dark for pictures, and they turned out too blurry. Next up was some Elk. Still a little dark, but good enough to post these two pics above.
Sunrise presented a great opportunity to show some of the scenery along the route. God's creation is magnificent!
Then I learned how to share the road with herds of wild bison.
Beautiful animals up close, and they're not shy about exerting their claim to the roadway. Seeing these animals free-roaming, using their noses to push away the snow from the grass along the roadside, was certainly the highlight of the day. The dash cam has some great videos of the bison, but I'll try to upload those to FB since it seems my past videos haven't been working on this site.
Then it was into the Yukon Territory, with a first stop at the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake (below).
Normally you can walk around Sign Post Forest, and see the signs up close. Today it was evident (by the few feet of snow piled up) that no one has walked through that forest in a few months, so I admired it from afar. I didn't bring a sign of my own to post, maybe next time.
Tomorrow, God Willing, I'll drive the rest of the way home (and then sleep for two days).
So what will be the first thing I do when I get to Wasilla? Probably replace my windshield, mud flaps and bug deflector, cause they're all trashed.....but they did their job.
Busted up windshield....expected, practically mandatory at this point.
Bug deflector now in three different pieces.......not expected, but not surprising either.
But the damage to the mud flaps took me a little by surprise. I guess the -40F temps coupled with lots of rocks on the mountain pass just ate them up, and even bent up the metal support strip. Custom Truck Accessories will be glad to see me again.
Random thoughts for the day:
#1 - Bison are real road hogs, and clearly have no understanding of the law of gross tonnage (or maybe they do).
#2 - When a 6 ft sheet of Styrofoam comes flying out of a semi at high speed and careens into your windshield, you'll hear a grown man scream like a little kid....then feel real stupid as the Styrofoam shatters harmlessly into a thousand pieces and flutters away. (Who carries Styrofoam on the ALCAN, anyway?)
#3 - Canada has done a great job of putting up signs explaining how to drive in snow, with detailed information about tire type and such.....but you can't read them because all the signs are covered by....well, snow.
#4 - Lanes are clearly advisory in nature on the ALCAN.
#5 - Nothing brightens your day like seeing a momentary peek of the center-line stripe underneath the snow-pack, confirming that, "Yes, you are still on the roadway."
#6 - Dwight Yoakum's song "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere" never made more sense to me than it did today.
#7 - On the 8th day of my trip, XM Radio FINALLY plays Willie Nelson's "On The Road Again", just in time for me to be ready to be OFF the road.
#8 - Sometimes snow plows are the most welcome sight on Earth.
#9 - A "Rest Area" covered by 3 feet of snow doesn't provide much rest.
#10 - When the Canadians advise you to take a curve at 70 kilometers per hour, take it at 60.
#11 - Don't tell Dino, but my plan if we became stranded in the -40F temps was to cut him open and climb inside like Luke Skywalker did.
#12 - Fuel at Muncho Lake costs $8/gallon, but more importantly, THERE IS FUEL AVAILABLE at Muncho Lake (and I was happy to buy it).
Home, James, and don't spare the horses!
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