Date: 5 June 2001 (Tuesday)

Start: West End Campground, Ft Nelson BC

End: Poplars Campground and Café, Toad River BC (123 miles)

It was 52f, damp, and cloudy when we got up. It stayed cloudy, with low clouds, all day until evening.

We set out from Manassas one month ago today.

We blazed out of Ft Nelson and made 50 miles very quickly. Then we stopped in a line waiting on the road due to seismic exploration.

They string out sensors along the highway, then submit the ground to a large shock wave, and record the echoes from the rock structure underground. Geologists analyze the recordings to deduce what might lie below.

When we were allowed to pass, 30 to 40 RV’s and trucks headed out, and up the Summit Lake grade. Just east of Ft Nelson is the lowest point on the highway (1,000’) and Summit Pass is the highest (4,250’), some 70 miles later west of Ft Nelson.

The grade isn’t terrible, but there are spots with no guardrails and a 900’ drop into the lake. It’s twisty and rough, and just not a nice road for 20 miles or more, till you get over the summit and partly down the other side. On this side, we’re back into the Pacific watershed, so once again, we’ve crossed the Continental Divide. The tops of the 7,000’ mountains were in the clouds and they were snow-capped down to the 5,000’ mark.

There are supposed to be big horn sheep in the area. We didn’t see any of them, but we did see three moose, first one, then a pair.

Thirty five miles after the summit, we came to a sawhorse across the road and a stop sign held up by a young lady. She told us the road is closed for at least 24 hours, for a washout up the line. This happened, by design, in front of the Poplars Campground and Café (a nice place), so we swung in and took a campground site.

Others kept piling in for the next several hours. It turned out this is a major happening up here. It happens, but not often. Rather than stop everyone at the scene of the problem and turn them back, they send out people to block the road in many places and turn them in to the nearest safe place. Then travelers can resume from there when things have settled down. This way the road isn’t blocked or jammed, and no rescue effort has to be mounted for stranded motorists.

I called ahead to Watson Lake and cancelled our reservations there for tonight. The lady I spoke with said she knew about the break in the road because all her reservations were being cancelled.

We ate a cinnamon bun and had coffee and looked around and chatted, then went up to the trailer to read. After a bit, we lost electric power, so I went down to find out why. It turned out the owner (Dan) was adjusting the load and putting the second generator on-line due to the increased load caused by all the visitors and lost control for a bit. Power was back up soon.

While we were down the hill (our site is up a small hill behind the café/store), we ran into the truck driver who had been ahead, then behind, us with a double tanker load for Watson Lake (one tank of gas, one of diesel). He had his hood open showing someone the engine. I asked about it (a Cummins N14) and was told it put out 550 horsepower and 1800 ft-lbs of torque. Wow.

We took another walk a little later and on return found we had six other rigs jammed in around us, all Canadians (four rigs from Ontario and two from Alberta, with mutual friends and acquaintances all around, since most had just come from a music festival outside Edmonton). They moved the picnic table into a space they made by pulling two trailers side by side but facing opposite directions so the two awnings came out over the same area and put out about six half-gallons of booze and a bunch of mixers. One guy dragged out a fiddle, another a guitar and a lady brought out an electronic rig like an autoharp. We wandered in and introduced ourselves and became members of the group. Songs were sung, jokes were told, a few drinks were drunk, pickup trucks were compared, and so forth all afternoon. They're a nice group. Gradually we got acquainted.

Somewhere in here, Fred bought a harmonica from Karl and started learning it. He's coming along, but the harmonica isn't in the same key the others naturally play in, so it's sort of rough.

A German traveling by himself in a truck camper came over to see what was happening. He has some English and Ed remembers some German, so he's able to get along.

At dinnertime, we did ours and others retreated into their trailers to eat. I assume we’ll get together again in a bit (now 7:30 pm).

One story was that the guitar player had been to Wisconsin last year to play in a small festival. I asked him where, since my parents were born in that state, and he replied, "Prairie Farm", a very small village I’ve been through many times. I still have relatives living near there. It’s on the northern border of Dunn County in which my folks were born. Small world.

The story on the road at this time is this – the "Iron Creek culvert, completed in 1998, is the largest culvert in the world at 25 feet high, 135 feet long, and 62 feet wide" (from The Milepost), has collapsed. The road crews are trying to figure out and build a temporary bypass around it and over the creek to restore service on the road while they replace the culvert. We’ve been told it could be tomorrow afternoon before traffic can pass. The gloomier among those waiting note that one time it took five days to open. We’re comfortable and safe here, so we’ll just have to wait it out.

(Later – 9:15 pm) Another walk to the roadblock to talk and see if there’s news. The lady says now the word is that it may be 48 hours to put in place a way around the break. Since communications around here is mainly by word of mouth passed up and down the road (no TV here, no radio, one telephone), there’s no way of telling what’s really happening at the break 156 miles up the road.