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Published: July 27th 2011
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Monday, July 18, 2011 Yukon River Campground Sunny and 55 degrees. Mileage at 11945.
Hit the ferry wrong again this morning, and had to wait until 2 crossings were completed before we had our turn. The ferry really isn’t very big—maybe 6-8 vehicles at a time can be transported, depending of course, on the size of those vehicles.
We stopped just outside of town to have an RV/auto parts and repair place replace a rod in our water heater as it was almost corroded through. We found out about the corrosion when one of the RTers was showing us about the water heater and how to drain it for winter. We could have replaced it ourselves , but didn’t have the huge size socket wrench it required plus the sealant to put on the threads of the new rod. The guy only charged us $10 to install it and the new rod cost was $17 so not a big expense for the 10,000 miles we have so far driven her. My door needs some work as it is sticking and is hard to open, but we will wait for a Chevy dealer to look at it.
A
ways out of town, we turned north up the Dempster Highway that goes into the Northwest Territories, and ends way beyond the Arctic Circle at Inuvik, 739 km away. As we turned, a sign stated that the next services were 278 km away. We are planning on driving about 70 total miles up this road to Tombstone Territorial Park to spend the night and then to drive further up inside the Park to look around.
This park, named for the Tombstone Mountain Range, protects a wilderness of 2,164 km. It contains boreal, alpine and arctic environments and is, therefore, rich in its variety of plants, birds, and animals. The mountains, peaks, and ranges are somewhat similar to the ones we saw in Denali National Park in Alaska—absolutely stunning in their wild beauty. These, however, were not formed by glaciers.
The road started out chip-sealed, but then quickly became dirt/gravel. About half way up the road, it started raining with, we think, some small hail mixed in with it. Two big trucks then passed us, one after the other, and the back of Rosie is the dirtiest she has ever been. This road is so terribly busy that we
saw 6 cars and the two trucks in the 45 miles that we drove to the campground, plus the one car in front of us.
We reached the campground at about 1ish and had lunch of lentil soup with a ½ can of carrots added to it. I am writing this as Valerie takes a nap. It is still raining and it started out today with clear blue sky. The weather here changes quicker than it does in Atlanta. The rain fall is slow—more like the Oregon and Washington kind.
It sort of cleared up in the late afternoon, so we drove further up the Dempster Highway to the northern end of the Park about 27 more miles. We were looking, as usual, for wildlife. I saw 3 harlequin ducks swimming/floating in the fast flowing Blackstone River. Valerie couldn’t see them down in the River from the driver’s side and they were gone before she could park to look at them. Harlequin ducks were on my list of things I wanted to see in this part of the world. They are different than most ducks
as they live in fast moving streams and not lakes or ponds.
We looked at a number of ducks in various lakes and ponds along the road. At Chapman Lake we turned around and drove back down toward camp and had dinner looking out at Two Moose Lake. Of course, there wasn’t one moose in the lake, let alone two. On the way back to our campground, we did spot a yellow leg sitting on a metal pipe and some sand pipers besides the many pond ducks.
Pulled back into our camp spot for the night. Still raining.
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Wendell
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photo of Tombstone Mountain
Great photo! You have some great shots all the way round, but that one is especially good.