Cumulative mileage: 1018
In the morning we crossed over the continental divide drooling over the ideal off-trail hiking among rolling rocky ridgelines and beautiful streams. The sky above was sunny and blue, and yet it was somehow still raining on our car! We suspected yesterday’s raincloud had dispatched a follower to linger just above the Subaru. We were a bit concerned about dwindling fuel as distances to functional fueling stations in this landscape are unpredictable and can be up to 100 mi or so.
Wood Bison!
We arrived nice and early at Liard Hotsprings, about 3pm, and after the obligatory shot of Scotch (the Canadian ‘zero-tolerance’ law regarding alcohol and driving had left us with some catching up to do), we headed to the hotsprings for a much needed soak. The forest around the hotsprings is quite diverse with typical boreal forest shifting to a warm wetland rich in minerals. The warm, humid microclimate created by the hotsprings allows for a unique plant community to occur including a particular fern that is peculiar to hotsprings. We were impressed that the natural character of the hotsprings had been maintained, instead of being “improved” as so many are.
Soaking
In the morning we crossed over the continental divide drooling over the ideal off-trail hiking among rolling rocky ridgelines and beautiful streams. The sky above was sunny and blue, and yet it was somehow still raining on our car! We suspected yesterday’s raincloud had dispatched a follower to linger just above the Subaru. We were a bit concerned about dwindling fuel as distances to functional fueling stations in this landscape are unpredictable and can be up to 100 mi or so.
Easy alpine hiking around the continental divide
Jutting cliffs followed in the descent into forest beyond the rolling alpine of the divide
We descended through changing vegetation and geology, finding our first Pines (Lodgepole?) and jutting cliffs (wish we had a Roadside Geology for Canada!). To our surprise, shortly after passing a “Caution—Bison” sign, we were indeed confronted by a group of ~25 Wood Bison lounging and munching grass on the roadside. Bison were extirpated in BC in 1906, and reintroduced in 1995. The population has increased from the 49 introduced individuals to 100 in 2007—still a far cry from the >168,000 that roamed NW North America in the 1800s. These animals reach about 2m in height and 2000 pounds. In a second group we saw, a pair crossing the road behind us were clearly taller than the car!
Caution: Bison
Wood Bison!
We arrived nice and early at Liard Hotsprings, about 3pm, and after the obligatory shot of Scotch (the Canadian ‘zero-tolerance’ law regarding alcohol and driving had left us with some catching up to do), we headed to the hotsprings for a much needed soak. The forest around the hotsprings is quite diverse with typical boreal forest shifting to a warm wetland rich in minerals. The warm, humid microclimate created by the hotsprings allows for a unique plant community to occur including a particular fern that is peculiar to hotsprings. We were impressed that the natural character of the hotsprings had been maintained, instead of being “improved” as so many are.Soaking
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