The night before I left Watson Lake I saw a fox walk past my tent while I was inside reading. I was kind of sad that I wasn’t able to snap a picture. Luckily nature intervened on my ride out of town. Not 10 kilometers into my ride a fox walked pas me and my bike. Then about 50 kilometers later another fox hung around me while I was resting and drinking water. Fox walked to about a meter away from me and was yawning like it didn’t sleep well the night before. Fox was just curious and eventually sauntered off into the woods.
Water was a bit scarce on this ride, which was contrary to what I was expecting since I was following along side of the Liard River the whole day. What the map doesn’t tell you is that the river is at the bottom of a canyon and you and the road are at the top. Towards the end of my ride I noticed an animal up ahead walking oddly across the road. As I got closer I noticed it was a lynx! My first ever wild big cat sighting! I was so pumped on this!
After get rained on yet again during my ride for about two hours I finally found a place with river access to make camp and re-hydrate. I knew this was a bit risky due to the rain but I thought I was high enough on the beach for the potential for rising water to be an issue. Also I was so freaking tired from a long ride that I also really didn’t care.
Well I woke up to the sound of rain falling on my tent, not wanting to deal with this yet I stayed in my tent longer hoping to outlast the rain. When 0930 rolled around and the rain still had not let up I decided to just pack up and leave. When I unzipped my rainfly I looked out to a much smaller beach and my bike tires now in the river. Shit, I gotta do this fast.
I made it to Liard Hot Springs by about 1600, and paid the $5 day use fee and headed back. I probably spent 4 hours in the springs that evening and the only thing that got me out was hunger. I spent the next day more or less in the springs. I went in around 1100 and didn’t leave until after 1700 to make dinner. I wasn’t planning on heading back in for an evening sesh but when 2000 rolled around the springs came a callin’ and I gathered my bathing suit and went back. I am really happy I did because I got to meet a really awesome friend named Janie from France. She has been hitch-hiking mainly in Canada for the past year almost. We stayed in the springs until everyone else had left and gone to bed. We floated and looked up at the stars, well only I could see them since she didn’t have her glasses on, but it was very nice and relaxing. We went back to my tent and had a cup of tea before saying goodnight and fortunately we got to say goodbye in the morning.
My ride the next day was a pretty short one, only about 60 kilometers to Muncho Lake where a convenience store was supposed to be. I also needed the extra time in the evening to find and patch a hole in my sleeping pad. It turns out the store there closed over a year ago and I was now more or less without food. I found a restaurant on the south end of the lake to eat dinner there and buy a bunch of candy for energy. I now had to hop from campground to campground so I could eat until I could get to Fort Nelson. Luckily it ended up being not so bad, albeit expensive. The ride into Fort Nelson on the last day was really hot and I was a bit low on water. About 30 kilometers out of town I saw two lady cyclists stopped and about to turn around. We chatted for about 15 minutes, they filled up one of my bottles before all of us started towards town. Obviously they went ahead because they were on beautiful and light carbon fiber bikes and I was on a fully load touring bike. I do think riding with them would have been fun, to have conversation for a change but alas!