Jade City, BC, Canada
Yesterday was a simple driving day. We left Skagway midday (a late start for us) and headed back up the hill for Carcross. It was a short drive, but we wanted to stop for pictures at some of the turnouts we'd "saved" for the return trip. Well, that's a lesson learned - don't do that! The smoke was so bad we really weren't able to get many shots once we left Skagway. Geri took a shot of a tourist trap in town (note the signs on the building next door), and more of a small waterfall along the highway. There are a number of these small falls along the roads, fed by snowmelt (yes, there's still some snow melting at elevation in August.
We caught up with Bob & Marlene in a small town called Carcross, back in the Yukon Territory. It was originally called "Caribou Crossing", but later shortened. We bookdocked in a large lot in the middle of the small town, where it was pretty quiet. If they had sidewalks, they'd have been rolled up before sunset (now a 10:30 PM event).
Today was a little more complicated, but still basically a driving day. We left Carcross and headed back toward the Alaska Highway on the "Tagish Cut-off". It was a smooth drive all the way to Watson Lake, where we fueled up at the PetroPass card-lock site. After a quick lunch, we headed south on the Cassiar Highway. Well, we were in for a surprise. We found some of the worst road conditions we've seen all summer, and that includes the "dreaded Top of the World Highway" into Dawson City. Bad construction zones, no shoulders, and severe frost heaves were all in abundance. To make matters worse, we caught up with a series of slow-moving RVs (mostly travel trailers and fifth wheels - and don't you know some idiots were passing everyone in the gravel stretches? I thought we were at the dirt-track races ("They're two-wide in the corners, Jimmy!"). We let that whole crowd pass or fall back after a while, but the road didn't improve much. We made it to a place called Jade City, where a large portion of the world's jade is mined and processed (who knew?). We stopped in the shop and looked over the mining and processing equipment outside, but didn't feel tempted by anything other than their free overnight RV parking. Friendly people, though.
Click here for pictures.
Tomorrow, we'll continue down the Cassiar Highway, looking for better road conditions and heading for the little towns of Stewart, BC, and Hyder, AK.
No comments:
Post a Comment