Tetsa, Muncho and Liard.

 

Wednesday we had a slow morning.  We had some coffee, breakfast, did dishes and showered before dumping tanks.  We then took on a tank of fresh water before heading out.  

The driving was slow, I don’t think I had the truck above 60.  The only thing consistent with the road conditions was that it was inconsistent.  Nothing horrible and most of the really rough spots were marked.  It stayed around 37* and we ran into some snow, heavy snow at times.  

The drive was beautiful though, even with low clouds and fog in some areas.  The wildlife was abundant and he had to slow and stop many times.  There were woodland Caribou which are bigger than I imagined, deer, Stone Sheep (one magnificent ram) and Katy is pretty certain she saw a moose on a hillside.  

Muncho Lake Provincial Park has to be one of the top 5 beautiful places we’ve driven through.  The only thing that would have made it better would’ve been not having 20” of ice on the lake.  It is a beautiful blue, I guess seeing it in pictures will have to do.  

We stopped at Toad River Lodge to check it out and fuel up.  Diesel was 2.09 a liter, it was 2.49 a liter at Tetsa so pass on their gas if you can push a little further.  We also stopped at the Northern Rockies Lodge.  Beautiful area and lodge on the north end of Muncho Lake.  It’s definitely worth a stop if you are passing by.  They said they’ve been super busy and have already called in summer staff.  The restaurant wasn’t open for sit down meals, but they had a pretty good takeout menu.  We just looked around, talked with the owners and marveled at the hand carved wooden map of the area.  It is to scale and shows where they fly people in to fish and explore.  It also shows their fly in lodges.  Katy asked how long it took to make it and the guy said they were billed for 1,000 hours.  It’s impressive!  

We landed at Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park for the night.  It was $16 CAD for dry camping that includes day use passes to the spring.  I’ve never been in a hot spring until now.  The other springs we have been to smelled too much like boiled eggs.  Liard didn’t seem as bad to me.  I think I spent an hour in the water with anywhere from 12-18 other travelers.  There is room to spread out and definitely worth the stop.  The area around the campground is protected by a large electric wildlife fence, but there are still signs to lock up your food, etc to keep the bears out.