THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE Day 106,107 & 108 August 30,31 & September 1, 2009 Stewart to Dease Lake, BC

Sunday we didn’t do much or go anywhere. We took the time to plan our next few days as well as prepare the camper for the next portion of the trip. Okay, Kathy cleaned it, there was no we. That is because I had serious blogging to do, I was a couple of days behind.

Monday we left Stewart and Hyder and no, we did not get Hyderised, just mesmerized.


In order to continue our adventures north we had to rewind back out Hwy 37A until it reached Hwy 37. It was no surprise that we enjoyed the trip out especially as it was a much sunnier day and this gave us a whole new perspective. We found ourselves stopping to take pictures of the same places that we took in the way in. It didn’t take us as long to come out but it wasn’t the speediest of trips.

Once we hit Hwy 37 and headed north the scenery started to change. The mountains were higher but further away and we started to see a larger selection of trees. The further north we drove we found the mountains becoming quite stunning. It was a different look that we saw on the drive to Salmon Glacier; they seemed to be gentler and much more massive. The views were quite panoramic and hard to capture on the camera. Kathy called them masspressive.

Later in the afternoon as we continued along we came around a bend and found this little fellow feeding at the side of the road. I was able to stop and he let us take a few pictures before he slowly wandered into the bush. I am glad he didn’t stay too long as after he left I realized I had stopped in the middle of the road. That just shows you have much traffic there is at this time of year.

A short time later we stopped at a Provincial Campsite called Kinaskan Lake Park to have a look around before carrying on to Dease Lake. Well we were so impressed with the campsite which was situated right on the lake with a gorgeous view that we decided to stay for the night. The lake is loaded with Rainbow Trout, it would be nice to come back sometime in the future and do a little fishing. We set up the camper and went for a walk along one of the trails before starting supper. We lit a fire and cooked most of supper outside before heading in to eat. After we finished supper I got the fire going again and we just sat and watched the fire while enjoying the quiet and solitude. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day.

On Tuesday we got an early start and headed for Dease Lake. We hoped that we could get a view of Mount Edziza Park and actually spend some time there. As it turns out we could not even get close. It is a 25 mile hike after you cross the lake. It is too bad as the park is a spectacular volcanic landscape that includes lava flow, basalt plateaus, cinder fields and cinder cones. Mount Edziza last erupted over 4,000,000 years ago but there are cones that have erupted as early as 1300 years ago.

We did manage to find a old logging road that lead to Morchuea Lake Recreation Site.

It was from here that we could get a picture of both Mount Edziza and Eve Cone. Eve Cone is 25 miles around at its base, is perfectly symmetrical and 150 meters tall.

Mount Edziza

Eve Cone

Both Mount Edziza and Eve Cone

On our way out of the camp we almost ran over this partridge sunning himself on the road.

We left the partridge and headed to Dease Lake. We heard that it was a good place to hunt for jade and was in fact called the Jade Capital of the World. Well to our disappointment we found out that the mining for Jade was about 50 miles back in the wilderness and was being commercially mined. There was no possibility of someone like us going back there and trying our luck.

Now we were faced with a dilemma. Do we stay in Dease Lake or do we head for Telegraph Creek. The drive to Telegraph Creek is reportedly just as nice or maybe nicer than the drive to Salmon Glacier.

As the drive is 3 – 4 hours one way we decided to stay in Dease Lake and get an early start in the morning and make it a round trip. There is very little in Telegraph Creek in the way of facilities. So we settled into a RV park with Wifi and Laundry Services, both of which we made use of.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day as the drive into Telegraph Creek is apparently very interesting at times with steep drop offs and no guard rails. Not for the faint at heart. Not sure what I am doing here.