First Major Curve Ball

Driving all the way to Alaska has one comparison to riding a bicycle. It’s not a question of if you go down, it’s a matter of when.

We knew we would face one of those “gut check” moments on a thirty day road trip attempted by three novices, we were just uncertain as the nature of the curve ball – mechanical, being outrun by a grizzly, food poisoning from a silver-head salmon that was supposedly smoked, or graciously rolling our rig in slow-motion on an unsuspecting curve on a uncontrollable downhill descent. What we did not expect was a twelve hour, 600 mile, round trip out of Prince George due to a complete section of road being washed out, the result of heavy rains.

Yesterday morning, September 8, our tenth day on the road, we left Quesnel, British Columbia, just south of Prince George. We were in high spirits after one of the best nights in the camper at an RV campground nestled next to a quiescent, crystal-clear lake.

Before leaving Ohio it was a foregone conclusion that we would take the “scenic” route – Cassiar Highway (Highway 37), rather than the more conventional and safe route, Highway 97, heading straight north out of Prince George. To reach the Cassiar turnoff required our driving 300 miles straight west out of Prince George towards the coastal town of Prince Rupert before heading north.

Cassiar has earned a reputation as one of the most scenic, yet rugged highways, in North America. Drivers audacious enough to venture on this route are rewarded with high adventure due to the unusual sightings of wildlife in conjunction with pristine lakes and mountain passes.

The Steelhead Salmon were attempting to jump up this water-
fall.  It was very impressive to watch.

By now, the days in the truck have developed into what we consider a “normal” routine. We alternate driving, fix our lunches in the camper, keeping each other entertained with good-natured sarcasm, and screeching to sudden stops when we spot unusual sightings such as salmon being scooped out of fish ladders by hand-held nets as they attempt to leap up-stream to their spawning grounds.

The insatiable demands of my OCD are somewhat sated by my ability to leap out of the truck at opportune moments to scrub down the accumulation of bug juice on truck and camper alike. I figure if we only make this trip once let’s do it in a truck that is at least clean on the outside!

But yesterday’s drive was tinged with an admixture of excitement and apprehension, knowing that around 4:00 p.m. we would swing north on the Cassiar to commence a 450-mile drive through pristine mountain wilderness.

Literally thirty seconds before turning north Thomas and I caught an announcement on the radio that the Cassiar, due to days of continuous heavy rains drifting in off the Pacific, had been washed out. Warily we pulled in at the fueling station at the Cassiar junction. Our “nearly worst” nightmare was confirmed. The day before the road had been closed with no predictions by the B.C. Department of Highways as to when it would reopen.

There had been no signs along the entire 300 miles on the road west out of Prince George to alert tourists of the road closure. As we pulled in at the junction, two huge 60-foot RV buses pulled in right behind us, sharing our predicament with us.

A kindly gentleman stood in the middle of the road with a stop sign and bright fluorescent, day-glow orange vest blocking entrance to the road north. We asked him if he had a bulletproof vest under it! He smiled.

We had one premonition that something was wrong. Anna and Thomas could not get GPS to plot a route up the Cassiar. Of course, like everyone else that has had inexplicable experiences with GPS, we ignored it. In hindsight, it should probably have alerted us. Garmin must have had access to immediate information on the status of roads, but the thought did not occur to us to check it out further.

Anna did some fancy camera work to capture our supper in
front of the world's biggest fishing pole

We were faced with two options. Continue to head west until we got to the coast at Prince Rupert and attempt to ferry-hop our way up to Alaska, or return the 300 miles to Prince George and take the traditional route north through Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, and on to Whitehorse.

It didn’t take us long to decide to retrace out steps. It is the off-season for ferries and other tourist activities, ferry schedules are unpredictable, and we fathomed ourselves stuck on some God-forsaken island for four days waiting for another ferry. We are on a tight schedule as Anna flies back to Ohio September 18.

The two “gen-xers” were somewhat numb. They couldn’t believe we had blown an entire day. Analogies were made to the sound of the flushing toilet in our camper. It didn’t take long, however, to put life into perspective. Once we decided to head back to Prince George we put pedal to the metal, and by 10:30 p.m. we were safely back in Prince George, parked just around the corner of a Tim Horton’s, allowing me to sneak out of the camper at 6:00 a.m. this morning, thus allowing the youngins to catch a few more z’s while I loaded up on more than my share of Horton’s caffeine before hitting the road again at 8:30.