If I ever set my mind to rate the days on the road 1 to 10 but I don't because they all would get a 10, today surely would deserve a 10.
The day started at magnificent Boya Lake Provincial Park in BC with the sun rising over the mountains across the clear blue lake right before our eyes. What a view! What a good decision on my part to cut the drive yesterday short and camp there again, although I knew it would set us back a day. Trade offs.
And the drive down 37, all 440 miles of it? Wow. I discovered a new way to get to Alaska, by way of heaven.
When we approached the Yukon and the Alaskan-Canadian Highway (ALCAN), I was still undecided if I wanted to take the easy route thru Whitehorse or take the risky, rough 226 mile remote and empty dirt and gravel route 4, the Campbell Highway. I literally made my decision at the intersection, and off we drove to the Campbell, which starts at Watson Lake. Considering the risks of driving such a rough and empty road, the one factor that weighed heavily in my decision was that I never recall taking the easy road in my life.
If ever my taking a risk was rewarded, today was that day. What an absolutely exquisite road. My vocabulary is too limited to describe it, so I will not. Over the first 226 miles of the 362 total, except for a handful of road construction crew members at mile 60 or so, only one vehicle passed us and only four in the opposite direction, three of which were mobile mansions fleeing the cold north. After 4:30, we had the road completely to ourselves for the remainder of the day. The views on the road were out of this world, and the road, as narrow, rough and in places treacherous as it was, was precisely what I had in mind when I created my Latin motto for the journey, Canes, Natura, Via, Solitudinem. We stopped for Donner breaks every 90 minutes, and paid a visit to the marvelous two Yukon camps on the road. And what camps they were! Both empty except for one hardy soul at Frances Lake and I felt guilty interrupting his or her solitude.
For the first 100 miles or so, I could not take my eyes off the views. For the remaining 126, I could not take ny eyes off the road, as it twisted and turned, climbed steeply up hills, and passed culverts with narrow shoulders without guard rails that dropped off steeply tens of feet and more. I had hold the steering wheel tightly with both hands all the time to prevent the Defender from coming out of a pothole and continuing its journey in the direction of the wheels at the time, straight over into the culvert or the elevated road.
And to think we have 136 more of this timorrow before we get to a paved road. Wow.
The Defender performed marvelously the entire journey, saga really. In fact, listening to Wagner - and dramatic music ever does not get any better - was not up to drive. I shut down iPad part way into the drive and simply listened to the sounds of that precision machine of mine on four wheels, it eight pistons exploding away like a well-rehearsed orchestra, its two massive differentials working effortlessly to keep all four wheels and two axels in sync over the challenging road, it's new transmission humming away as if saying, this is what I was meant to do, it's four huge BF Goodrich Mud Terrain tires either dodging or taking on potholes fearlessly, tossing chunks of gravel one way or another, sometimes even up to the undercarriage, and even the modest heater wiring hard to provide some level of comfort to the Defender 's two guests. During our rest stops, as the Defender idled alone, I could almost feel that it was basking in the glory of doing what it was meant to do.
As if the morning camp and day's drive were not enough, we finished the drive at 7pm, despite the Garmin telling us we would arrive at 9:39, with less that 1O miles of gas in the tank. The only camp at Ross a River is Lapie Canyon Yukon Park, an isolated camp about 14 kilometers from the small town of Ross River on a fast rushing river winding through a deep canyon. We managed to snag the best campsite in the place, mainly because we are the only ones here, campers that is, since I cannot speak for the bears .Even the attendants don't live here. We got everything done with about three minutes of usuable daylight to spare, which I put to good us by filling the gas tank with the two cans of gas I brought along just in case.
It is damned cold in the tent now, probably 40 degrees. I just hope that the Defender starts tomorrow morning and the bears think it's too cold to look for campers' food. If they do come out, I hope Donner reacts to them as he reacted to every other non-human creature he has met on the trip. But my guess is that he is too zonked out from being flooded with all those new smells he encountered on his multitudinous walks today. Besides, if the bears do attack the Defender as their southern cousins in Tahoe did two years ago, we will not hear them since the sweet melody from the gushing river just feet away from us is overwhelming.
Tomorrow, after 136 more miles of Route 4 we head for Dawson City, where we will camp on the Yukon River, and then head over the 150-mile Top of the World dirt and gravel highway to Alaska.
Photo is of our 
camp here at Lapie Canyon.
camp here at Lapie Canyon.Ed and Donner, from on the road
P.S...I apologize and take full responsibility for all typos, errors and ambiguities in this message. I do not have time to edit or even proof my messages. Please do the best you can to interpret what I wrote.
Ed and Donner, from on the road
P.S...I apologize and take full responsibility for all typos, errors and ambiguities in this message. I do not have time to edit or even proof my messages. Please do the best you can to interpret what I wrote.
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