Bonanza Day of Animal Sightings

We set off for Fort Nelson and alas the weather cleared. We endured another day of dusty roads under construction but we were treated to some of the best wildlife sightings of our trip.

Bison

Not too far out of Liard Hot Springs we came across a small herd of bison grazing along the side of the road.





Stone Sheep

A short bit later we saw a sole stone sheep standing on a rock part way up a hillside. We were able to pull over and watch the sheep for some time. He expertly climbed down the hillside and was licking the minerals from the road.












More Bison

Not 5 miles later, we came across another herd of bison. This group was definitely in the mating mood.



Isn’t the baby bison cute?



Woodland Caribou

Later we passed several groups of woodland caribou along the road. Notice how the second and third caribou still have velvet on their antlers but the first one does not.








I'm still hoping for a good picture of a black bear and a wolf to round out our summer.

The road contained several passes of up to a 10% grade so we were burning diesel at a fast rate. I was a bit worried about running out of fuel before we reached Fort Nelson but our extra fuel tank ensured that we made it safely. We can carry 30 gallons of diesel in the main fuel tank and an additional 40 gallons in the auxiliary tank. On days like today where we travel over 100 miles between fuel stations, the auxiliary fuel tank really helps. (Now when we go to fill those tanks, watching the fuel pump go ‘round and ‘round is a bit painful.) Diesel in Fort Nelson was $1.59 Canadian per liter. Ouch!

To Fort Nelson

Robert, Wednesday, September 10

I got up this morning at 8:00 a.m. as I normally do on a travel day. Leslie was still in bed when I informed her that there were either small pixies dancing on the roof or it was raining. And the outside temperature was 47 degrees. It quickly became apparent that this was not the morning for the hot springs. We ate breakfast, packed up, and headed for Fort Nelson. The road yesterday was as good as we have seen it in months. It was fairly smooth with very few bad places and it was fairly level. As I was waiting for Leslie to get ready, I read that the road yesterday was a great improvement over the road today. I had been thinking that as we got further south, the road would steadily get better. No such luck! Today the road was “twisty,” hilly, and rough. On the other hand, we have been seeing signs along almost all of the roads in Alaska and Canada to watch out for wildlife. Before today I took that as a joke. Today we hit the jackpot! We saw bison, stone sheep, caribou, and Leslie saw a moose off to the side. All the rest were right beside the road or they were on the road. In all cases we saw animals multiple times. We got pictures of all except the moose. I had been figuring that we would need to refuel in Fort Nelson. I hadn’t counted on all of the hills we had to drive over. Hills can cut the milage a lot and when we got to Fort Nelson, both fuel tanks were almost down to fumes. We found a campground and setup. Then we went looking for fuel. After that we decided to eat out and have pizza, something we haven’t had since before we left Colorado. After that we came back to the trailer, wrote blogs, and crashed.