Heart Lake
Heart Lake campground was okay, but there was no water available. I had to get it from the lake. It doesn’t sound too bad, however there was only one campsite that had access to the lake and it wasn’t mine. Fortunately, a couple of nice guys from eastern Canada had it and told me I could use their access. They were young, sweet guys out in BC having a great summer. We chatted while I filled my containers with filtered water and I left them to their evening.
I had an enjoyable night, though the mozzies were thick! As I said, the long hours of daylight messed with my sleep some, but I was excited to get on the road in the morning. Once I came out of my tent, I saw everything was covered in ash from the fires in British Columbia. Nothing a California girl isn’t used to, but still sad. I got packed up, loaded Kymani and got her right off the kickstand in spite of the hill I was on. Sweet!
I made it down the dirt road and back to the 97 toward Dawson Creek. I felt good, like I was getting into the groove of the riding and camping. I had a boost of courage from managing on the dirt road to and from the campground. Things were going smoothly.
More bears
Of course, these things are a series of up and downs, and today I was dealing with thick smoke while riding along. It led to coughing in my helmet and a slight headache, but eventually the rain came again and cleaned up the air a bit. Over the course of the day, I saw 4 black bears just grazing near the road. I didn’t stop to take their photos. As I said, the shoulders weren’t big enough for me to park on and I didn’t feel it was a good idea to just stop the bike in the road.
The campground I was thinking I would go to was about 8 miles down a dirt road, in the rain, and had only 12 sites, with no reservations available. As I was riding about 370 miles, I wouldn’t get there early enough to guarantee a site. Given the rain, I decided to just find a hotel in Fort Nelson, BC.
My days have been quite long, so I have decided to shorten them up some. I’m sore and tired and I am not sure I’ll be able to complete the trip if I keep these long days up.
Hotel
The hotel was nice and I met a guy named Keith there who was also on a solo motorbike trip to Alaska from Connecticut, his second attempt. His trip wasn’t my idea of a good time. He rode all the way across Canada with plans to only go to Tok, the first “town” after the border. I mean, if I rode all that way, I’d want to see some of what Alaska has to offer. That said, I was having my own struggles with fear and wear and tear on my body from the miles, so I wasn’t really the one to judge his trip. He was in the hotel for a couple of days, and it turned out, we were headed to the same place the next day. Maybe we’d run into each other again.
While at the hotel, I looked at my current plans and tried to decide how to best shave some miles off my days to make things easier on myself. I came up with some potential ideas and decided to play it by ear. This would be particularly helpful if the weather stayed so bad.
After a pretty restful nights sleep, I loaded Kymani and headed out. I needed to stop for gas before I hit the road. While at the gas station, I saw this guy. He had a trailer that was made from a car! I didn’t get a good photo of it, as he’d pulled out of the spot before I could get a shot, but it was hysterical to see the back half of a car being towed by a motorcycle.
A car as a motorbike trailer!
Today I would be hitting Liard River Hot Springs and I was so looking forward to the hot springs. All these miles were getting to me. I was sore everywhere, but mostly my hips, back, and knees. A soak in the hot springs is what kept me going! I couldn’t wait and was super excited.
Hot springs!
It was cold and rainy when I started out, and that never quit. In spite of the cold and rain, the ride was beautiful. I saw deer, bunnies, a moose, a caribou that was confused by my motorcycle, and a huge herd of bison. There were also several unknown hawks. It was cool to see a all these animal and it kept my spirits up.
On the way to the hot springs. Super marshy and a bit sulphery smelling
The start of the boardwalk leading to the hot springs. As you can see, everything is wet.
The hot springs campground is surrounded by an heavy duty electric fence. Apparently this fence was installed to combat bears, as Liard River Hot Springs is the sight of the most deadly bear attack in north America. My BFG looked it up and told me about it. It apparently happened in August 1997 and two were killed and two injured before the bear was shot. The campground has a path that leads to a boardwalk you take to the hot springs. It was raining the entire time, so I didn’t get may photos, but it was really pretty and the water was wonderful. I overheard a bunch of people complaining it was too hot, but I thought it perfect and I probably stayed in way too long.
The rain didn’t let up, at times coming down so hard I wasn’t sure the fabric of the tent would hold up. It did, and it maintained its waterproofing, but everything was wet. Hopefully, today things would dry out. While the hot springs was wonderful to soak in, I was about done with being wet!