39 - June 29, 30 & July 1, 2018, the Canadian Rockies, Currently in Whitehorse, YK, Walmart

Click HERE for Google Map

Driving on the Alaska - Canadian, or ALCAN, highway through the Rockies, we did not have any phone signal. Well, periodically we'd get maybe a random minute or so. We weren't able to post anything, but hopefully, you could see our location on our Garmin InReach Map. It's likely we'll be having more cellular "blackouts" in the coming days so don't be alarmed when I don't post anything.

The past couple of days we have driven through some of the most amazing scenery. Winding, empty, roads through valleys with enormous snow-topped mountains on either side. Lots of wildlife. Lots of swollen rivers, winding through the valleys. There was very little traffic, mostly other RV's and tractor trailers. Last night, I drove until I had to rely on my headlights to see. That is, I drove til about midnight. It gets dark so late! We were trying to make it to Liard Hot Springs for the night. We were both looking forward to a nice hot soak. We were just too tired after 18 hours of driving. We pulled off the road in a beautiful pull-off and fell asleep quickly. We were joined by two other fellow travelers. It's nice, there are many places to pull off the highway for the night, no charge. You just have to look for "no overnight parking" signs. No signs in our pull-off so we were good to go.
We were up by 7:30am and on the road in a few minutes. We were only 20 miles from the hot springs. We pulled in, but they weren't open yet. No problem, we just parked and walked the wooden boardwalk path to the springs. It was wonderful. Very clean and nice round pebbles on the creek bottom for easy walking. There were already 10 or so people there.
We were back on the road by 9:30am. We stopped for gas a number of times. We found out there was an overturned tractor trailer up ahead. It wasn't blocking traffic. The poor driver swerved to miss a bear in the road.
Basically, when our tank gets to half, we start looking. Gas stations are few and far between around here. There are no
"chain" type gas stations. Only Mom and Pop stations that don't stay open late. It's all very charming and very quirky. We had a nice, but expensive lunch at a nice little restaurant where we were the only customers. pulled in here to Whitehorse at around 9pm. I think you could spend all summer in an RV exploring this stretch of road.
Our first wildlife encounter was with a caribou. It was standing in the road as we came up the hill. We stopped. He just turned to look at us and eventually trotted off. We saw moose in the woods along the way and we saw a moose mama with her baby on the side of the highway as it was approaching dusk. Before that, there was a herd of bison on the road. Some on the left and some on the right. They seemed only mildly annoyed that we interrupted them. We saw 4 different bears, but only photographed 1 of them. All of them were alone and all of them were very busy eating everything in sight.