Canada - days 31 to 33 Tombstone NP to Moose Creek

Our pitch at Tombstone National Park Campsite. Great views behind and in front

Day 31 Thursday Tombstone National Park 

We both woke up about 05.30, and thought that was probably it, until we woke up at 07.20. This is late for us, and we had wanted to make a fairly prompt departure. By the time we were up and breakfasted, dumped black and grey and filled fresh water. We then had to go to the supermarket to stock up on fruit, coffee and porridge the staples for breakfast. Bread and pate, the staples for lunch and nothing for dinners. We have two portions of chilli, a frozen pizza and the fallback chunky butter chicken soups!

The dark peak you can see in the distance is Tombstone peak. Apparently it looks like a tombstone

Our plan, Tombstone Mountain Campground. The only sensible campground up the Dempster Highway. All gravel and goes over the Arctic circle to Inuvik and then the sea. We weren't going that far. We got to the campground and found more people here than we expected, so jumped in the first available pitch we found. We found a much nicer one as we were driving out to the interpretive centre, so we didn't need to have 'panic picked'. 

Passing the Continental divide. Waters flow to the Pacific Ocean one side and the Arctic Ocean on the other

They recommended we did do a bit more of a drive, so we continued to kilometre 152, out the other side of the park, just shy of the Arctic Circle at 

65.06249N, -138.12785W. The scenery was amazing, but it was quite enough driving for us for one day. 

Two Moose Lake. The two mooses weren't there, but the ducks were and I think that white is a swan

We did see one moose at two moose lake, and I saw a wild horse that they warn about on the road. I also saw one of the three varieties of ptarmigan, but no pictures.

There's a moose in the distance, near two moose lake 

A glass of wine and some chilli before meeting the people from the centre at 19.00 for a two hour nature walk. It has to be said, we didn't see much but we did have a good time.

Evening walk from Tombstone campsite to Beaver lake. The greenery is a beaver dam, that they estimate has been there for a hundred years and created the lake that is now used as a stopping off point for migratory birds

Having not done any of the short hikes here, we decided to stay another night and miss out one of our planned stops back to Whitehorse, but it's still a very relaxed plan.

Day 32 Friday Tombstone National park.

 A relaxed start as it was jolly cold and we were staying put. I was thrilled to say hello to two of the three cats that live in a van a couple of spots down. They get taken out for walks and are allowed outside in a harness on a long lead attached to a line between two trees. The two I was introduced to were very friendly, so that was a good start to the day.

Our walk the following day alongside the North Klondike River. It's still partially frozen with icebergs shearing off from the ice pack

We set off on a trail from the campsite 2.5km each way, which I know isn't far, but my first little walk on uneven ground. Very pretty, but sadly as we got to the end, with the benches, and amazing view of the river, the first rain spots fell. We could see it coming in, so hastened back to the van. We got back in just as the rain and hail began in earnest! 

A selfie on the ice frozen river

It didn't last that long though after lunch. Brian vanished and I found him talking to an English/Canadian couple who were strongly recommending the slightly steeper walk from the Tombstone viewpoint. This had already been the plan so off we eventually went.

A grizzly bear on the road up to the carpark of the Goldensides hike into the mountains. We waited while he walked up the road to the carpark at the top

We had just turned off the road to go to the carpark, when there infront of us was a Grizzly bear. Not huge, but certainly not tiny either. We waited while it went up the track while a van wanting to come out waited for it to come past. He wound down his window as he came past and said they had seen two. 

We watched him for ages while he munched his way round the grass at the edge of the carpark, not in the least bothered by our presence 

This was the medium, the big one was somewhere else! We spent ages just getting into the carpark. The bear was going all around the edge, munching on the grass. We felt like we were at a safari park. It was exactly what we'd wanted, amazing viewing and we felt very safe. It went over the edge at one point and we were just debating whether we should get out and hike or not and it reappeared and carried on round, eventually going off the edge again just behind the van. 

Click on the following link to see a YouTube video of the grizzly bear we saw:

YouTube of Grizzly bear

Again, we sat and debated what to do when a car with three people pulled in. We told them what we'd just seen but they smiled and ambled off up the track, no bear spray or anything. The couple in the last car in the carpark were just walking down the track and had seen nothing, though we did have a long chat about the road conditions between here and Whitehorse. They are not the first people to say the construction is making it all very difficult.

On the hike we intended to do after the grizzly had wandered off and we decided it was safe. Halfway up there was a radio mast

We finally decided it was probably ok to do the hike but still felt a bit vulnerable. That got our steps in though.

Then off over the hills, keeping a sharp lookout for bears, bear spray to hand!

On our return we thought we'd better report it to the interpretive centre, who took it all very seriously, filled out a form for the park ranger. Annie, our guide from yesterday was going off to have a look because where it left the carpark was really in a direct line to the campground, and actually directly to us!

Having left Tombstone, we headed back down the Dempster Highway and onto the Klondike Highway to stop at the lookout over Tintina Trench. This might look like a scenic view (which it is), but it's also a view over a very wide fault line. 55,000,000million years ago, the hills in the distance would have been 450km further to the right from where we are standing. The slide was once quite rapid, but today it's very slow, but still moving

I've spent ages looking and seen nothing, except two cars stop on the road, in virtually the same place for a really long time. What were they looking at?

I did go and find the English/Canadian couple after dinner to show them some video of our bear, and Brian has just met them two hours later, just heading off to go and see what they can see. It was a real privilege to see it, so close, so unbothered by us and for such a long time.

Dinner tonight was pizza out of the freezer. Yes, not only does this van have a full size fridge, it also has a freezer, and an oven that gets up to temperature! That's all more than Ted had!

A birding talk by Annie rounded off the evening of a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Day 33 Saturday Moose Creek 

It looks like we've saved all of the roadworks for tomorrow, as today really wasn't too bad. Gravel all the way back down the Dempster Highway to the Klondike Highway and then actually quite reasonable to the campground, another $20 parks site. Despite only half the trip being gravel I still had to sweep the dust from the outside. Some days we've had to sweep the dust from the inside, the sink, the table and seats, really quite horrendous.

A brief stop at a lake on the way to Moose Creek to see mum duck with, we think 7 chicks behind her

Only one stop on the road, which is really quite unusual. This was the Tintina trench, 1000km from just south of Watson Lake to Circle, North Alaska 

It's a fault that has slid 450km from one side to the other and is still moving, though only about 0.5mm a year.

Moose Creek campground had huge numbers of big mosquitos. Jackie was ok with her special hat, but I only had my waving arms to try to fend them off

This is probably our last Parks Canada site which is a shame as it's our second mosquito infested one. It's peaceful with lovely pitches amongst the trees, has a good walking trail along Moose Creek and the Stewart River which we've done, but pretty much as fast as we could to avoid the big black biting things. We are back in the van now watching them butting up to the mosquito netting! We met a couple and their dog as we set off, and walked past them sitting outside their van as we returned. Why are we so attractive? Although all the camps offer free firewood we haven't chopped any or lit a fire. It's not been cold enough and we can't really see the point

Moose Creek, beautiful in the late afternoon sun

A little cabin in the woods by the Stewart River. There was no-one at home, but someone lives there...

I took this photo through the grubby window. A hunter or a fisherman perhaps

Mr Red Squirrel came out to say hello

Wild roses growing in the forest

But all the while these huge mosquitos tried to get into our camper. Fortunately we had mosquito nets on all the windows and door