Wednesday 7/11 & Thursday 7/12
We’ve spent the last two days and nights along the Campbell Highway. The Campbell is a 360-mile long wilderness road. Most of the road is dirt and gravel. The first 100 miles of the road were pretty good. The next 150 miles were frequently brutal. Lots of sections of washboard gravel (really slows the Admiral down)--many strategically placed potholes (and camouflaged so you have to be VERY attentive)--billows of dust (we’ve determined that the Admiral is NOT hermetically sealed—we’re finding thick layers of dust EVERYWHERE—inconceivably we even find dust in our toothpaste).
Since we don’t keep track of time, it’s hard to be sure, but my guess is for the last 2 days, we’ve averaged around 25 mph. Feels a little like Groundhog Day, trapped on the Campbell Highway, each dusty mile looking like the last dusty mile, when will it end? Or will it ever end?
So far the Campbell has been mostly gray and gloomy with a little bit of rain. Frankly the rain is great because it cuts down the dust. We elected to take the Campbell rather than follow the AKH because it’s the “road less traveled” and a wilderness road where we expected to see a lot of wildlife. It is CLEARLY the road less traveled. Over 2 days and 250 miles, we’ve seen less than 2-dozen other vehicles. Sometimes stretches of 10 miles or more without seeing another car, camper, or truck (we’ve seen no other Class A RVs). It also clearly is in the wilderness—the population of all the towns along the 360-mile long road is less than 1,000—but there have been virtually NO animals. Not a single moose, caribou, or grizzly bear. Not a wolverine, skunk, or porcupine. Not a wolf, lynx, or fox. Tally for the first 250 miles? 2 snowshoe hares, and 5 artic ground squirrels, which look a little like very dwarf groundhogs.
I’m making the Campbell experience sound negative, and it has been, but only in a relative sense. Nancy and I agree it’s been worthwhile, and if we hadn’t done it, we would have always wondered what we might have missed. We haven’t seen much mammalian wildlife, but we have identified 7 new birds: Lesser Scaup, Long Billed Dowager, Rock and Willow Ptarmigans, Lesser Yellow Legs, Rusty Blackbird, and Eared Grebe.
This morning we had a chance to shoot all of our guns. Plinking away at cans and plastic bottles (you never know when you might be attacked by a vicious Diet Coke can)--fun for me and even fun for Nancy. She had a little trouble with her aim though, consistently high of the mark. She’s decided that if we’re attacked by an animal, she’ll aim for its private parts and hope to hit it in the head.
Yesterday was also a great fishing day. I grab my fly rod and wade across Money Creek. Icy cold, pristine water, cascading over slippery rocks…I lay the silver and yellow streamer against the far bank and watch the current carry it swiftly down stream...BAM!…the Artic Grayling hits with the force of a line backer and peels off line as it tries to escape with the current…I fight the valiant fish fiercely, and after a tiring (OK brief but exciting) battle, I slide the fish on shore--a pound and a half of fluorescent dynamite with a turquoise dorsal fin that’s reminiscent of a sailfish. I’ve never had a more exciting fishing experience. Later in the day, by the culvert of a nameless creek, I catch and release 4 more Grayling in the same size range with the same courageous heart. Spectacular experience!
The scenery in the last 50 miles or so has improved. We’re in an area of mountains that were missed by the glaciers so there are lots of craggy rock formations. The road area is also wider so we have a bigger sky and broader view of the surrounding country. It was particularly beautiful at the confluence of the Pelly and Hoole rivers (if you’re ever on the Campbell, plan to spend the night at that site—we couldn’t because it was usurped by a couple of wilderness canoers), and as we crossed Lapie Canyon (think: major league bungy jump). Early in the evening the sun broke through the clouds. Seriously, it was cloudy all day until about 9:30 PM when it turned sunny. Weird. Also weird is the position of the sun. As we were driving more or less straight north, Nancy noticed that the RV shadow was completely encompassing the Cheap Jeep. We’re driving north, at 9:30 PM, directly into the sun! We’re truly in the land of the midnight sun…last night we passed the local golf course, and people were still playing at 10:30 PM.
We’re spending the night in Faro, Yukon, a mining town with a population of 391. We’ll fuel up here tomorrow. Faro was recommended to us by MIP 10, a bank teller in Watson Lake. When we told her we were planning on driving the Campbell Highway, she told us we HAD to stop in Faro. She’d been there just a week ago to see a baseball game and REALLY liked the town. If you consider that Faro is 250 miles and 10 hours of gut wrenching gravel roads from Watson Lake, you have some idea of this lady’s passion for our national pastime (what would she be willing to endure to see a HOCKEY game?). As it turned out, however, it wasn’t the baseball that made her so excited about Faro. “You know”, she said, “You can drink in public in Faro. Walk right down the street with a beer in your hand! I had plenty, and by the time the game started I was pretty drunk. Screaming at the umps. Got in a little trouble for that.” Typical bank-teller conversation. She also gave us some advice about the road to Inuvik (we’ll be on that road in a couple of days). She called it “the Gong Show” of roads. We can’t wait.
