2005/07 Alaska Trip - North to Alaska - Morchuea Lake |
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Although this part of the Cassiar highway is “mostly paved with blacktop”, in many places the paved sections have been broken up by frost heave. These sections are then covered with gravel or rocks, so the road becomes a sequence of alternate blacktop and gravel sections, with giant potholes at the transition points. In some ways, the unpaved sections are easier to drive, but they are also very narrow, with little margin for error. With the rain continuing, both truck and trailer had mud up to the roof.
In late afternoon, the rain stopped, but we had a flat tyre on the trailer. Luckily, I spotted it before the tyre did any damage to the trailer, but it had a finger-size hole in it, so the tyre was a write-off.
After putting on the spare, we looked for a nearby campsite, and pulled off at Morchuea Lake, where we had camped last year. On that trip, we’d camped on the boat ramp, with a beautiful view of the Edziza mountains across the lake. This time we couldn’t risk going that far in, and we took the first spot we could get into.
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Cassiar Highway (Morchuea Lake, Jade City, Watson Lake) |
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Initial impressions were that the spot was very buggy and noisy: there was a cow bell ringing somewhere. The 
cow bell was actually attached to a horse, and he and his five buddies came and watched us backing into our spot. Luckily, neither mosquitoes nor horses enjoyed the smoke from our campfire and they all moved off and allowed us to cook in peace.