I spent last night at Liard Hot Springs. I ended up renting an old log cabin with no running water, but it did have electricity and a woodstove. I unloaded my cooler and food, then had a fire burning in the stove within minutes. Love that spruce! I had wanted to make Toad River Lodge, mainly because I stayed there on my first trip up the Alaskan Highway. I remember watching a plane land on the grass runway alongside the highway then taxi up the road to the lodge and parking out front. That was what I wanted to see. The pilot got out and then went into the cafe for breakfast.
I decided not to push it to Toad River last night in the dark due to the bison on the roads. The first one I spotted caused me to mentally ask myself, “Why doesn’t that boulder have any snow on it?” Then I quickly realized that it was no boulder, but a large lump of shaggy buffalo. I’m glad I did pull over, because this morning I spotted several small herds of the big beasts on and alongside the road. Caribou were everywhere, I must have seen hundreds today and I expect to see more tomorrow. Throw in about twenty big horn sheep and a black fox and you have a great wildlife viewing day. Crazy.
