May 19, The Five Little Bears

Smithers was the largest town in the Bulkley Valley that we went through on Highway 16.  Large….meaning there are about 5,000 people that live there.  It is a great skiing area in the winter and hiking area in the summer.  As we drove through town we saw evidence of many recreational sports.  At the corner was a Jeep covered with mud so there must be off-roading trails.  We saw skis on top of cars and snowmobiles behind trucks.  Somewhere there must be snow that is still good to use in May.  We could see snow on the mountains in the distance; but it looked like it was at pretty high elevations. 

Looks pretty high to me!

This was a bit of a surprise as we came upon this bridge.  It was a single lane, wooden-covered bridge over a rushing river below.  Don’t see many single bridges on a major highway.  Glad no one was coming the other way.

Traveling north on Highway 37 in British Columbia, we saw 5 bears along the highway.  Two of them were “on” the highway; but luckily, smart enough to move off the road.  They are hungry and are eating the grasses and flowers on the sides of the roads.  That’s 8 bear in 3 days.  That’s is more than we saw on our whole trip to Alaska three years ago.  Maybe tomorrow I'll get a photo of the front of a bear instead of the rear!  

   A fork in the road!  Thought of checking out Stewart; but that meant 40 miles there and 40 miles back to this spot.  When you’re talking about thousands of miles with gas over $5.00 a gallon; you have to cut some side trips.

Heading towards a place called Last Frontier Heli Bell 2 Lodge.  The lakes and rivers at this elevation are still partially frozen with spring pushing it way in.  When we got to the the campground at Bell 2 Lodge, there was a helicopter sitting in a clearing.  We found out that there is a ski area there and they do heli skiing where they fly you to different runs to ski down.  They say you don't have to be an extreme skier to do this (oh come on!).  The advantage of this type of skiing is to go down slopes that are all powder runs.  This is something our Mark would definitely do since he has skied the 

slopes of Utah a few years ago.

I had to take a picture to show the roof of grass with the flowers growing on top at Bell 2 Lodge.  This is the last place with gas service for 98 miles!  So you fill up for $5.25 a gallon and don’t worry about it. (or is it... fill upso you don’t have to worry about it?)

  Tomorrow we’ll be going into Yukon Territory.