Cassiar Highway Canada

The Cassiar Highway runs from the Yellowhead Highway (just west of Watson Lake which is where the sign forest is, remember the pictures on our way up?) to Kitwanga Canada where it ties back into the Alaska Highway.  According to the map, this stretch of road is 450 miles.  It felt like a forgotten road.

The speed limit signs said we could go about 50 mph so that's what I attempted to do.  Darren was sleeping but quickly woke up when I about drove us off the road.  It was really dark and the road twisted and turned with no warning.  So I slowed it down.

Just as Darren was falling asleep again I came to a screeching halt.. I could see large shadows right along the side of the road.  First I thought it was a bear but then with a closer look we discovered it was two buffalo bedded down on the shoulder of the road.  Darren thought this was cool.  He rolled down his window and stuck his head out to get a closer look.  We were maybe 8 feet away from the beasts.  Within a few seconds though, one buffalo decided we were a bit too close and rose to his feet.  His head was almost to the top of our truck and by now he was about 6 feet away.  You could almost reach out and pet him.  I suddenly got a cold chill down my spine and common sense kicked in.. "This beast of a buffalo ... should he decide he didn't like Darren hanging out the window pointing at him, ram into the side of my truck... he'd be in the cab with us, we'd be injured, the truck would probably be a mess and unable to drive much further...  Hell No!"  I put that truck into "drive" and pulled away.  It was amazing to be that close to the beasts, a moment we will never forget.

I drove down the dark, winding, ill repaired road for a couple hours and was getting sleepy.  I found a good wide spot to pull over.  We hadn't passed a single vehicle.  It really felt like we were all alone out here.  Darren let Kenai out for a run, the mosquitos descended upon him.  You could hear them humming through the window outside.  You could see the swarm at the windows.  Darren did the famous run around the truck waving his arms like a crazy man and leaped back inside.  About 20 mosquitos made it inside with us.  We pulled the blankets up over our heads and fell asleep to the sound of buzzing mosquitos in our ears.  We killed what we could but there always seemed to be another one.  A few hours later we both woke to more buzzing and realized the mosquitos had found the little hold in our back window and were infiltrating the cab.  We shoved some tissue in it, killed some more mosquitos and fell back asleep.

The sun was up when we woke.  We got more sleep than we had planned.  The hum of mosquitos was still there and you could still see them at the windows just dying for some fresh blood.  Hungry buggers!  We probably killed another 30 or so mosquitos, all filled with blood.  We let the dog out for a bit then we both did the flailing arm dance and jumped back in the truck and hit the road.  I heard one vehicle pass in the night and that was it.  The scenery was everything we expected.  Beautiful.  Being this was a less traveled road than the one we originally came up, the trees and brush were encroaching the edges of the asphalt.  This made it more beautiful but more dangerous too as you wouldn't have as much time to brake should something emerge from the brush line.

We passed one or two camping sites that seemed to still be in business and their prices were much higher for gas than anywhere else.  Made sense though.  We were out in the boonies.  We saw a few RV's go by and some motorcycles.  This was the quietest trek through our entire journey.  It was really neat to be out in the middle of nowhere.  No cell phone service, ... nothing to bother us but the mosquitos.

We rolled into Kitwanga on fumes.  We weren't sure where a gas station would be.  The town was about 5 miles off the main road.  The low fuel light had been on for about the last 60 miles.  Each second had the feeling of.. "any second we are going to run out of gas and we have no idea how far the gas station is."  Our odometer indicated we had gone over 400 miles on that tank of gas.  We had run out once before but that drive had been more downhill whereas this drive had a lot of mountain to pull through so we weren't sure how far we could go.  We pulled into this town because we figured there had to be gas here as there wasn't any gas before this town to speak of.  Sure enough, after a few minutes we located a gas station.  We had gone 409.2 miles on this tank of gas.  Phew!  I even took a picture.  

As we came into Kitwanga I noticed a spot to pull off for a trail.  After we fueled we went back to investigate the trail that called to us.

Standing at the top, it looked like if you just ran for it you might be able to fly off the edge and soar around or that you could dive off the edge like a diving board.

The wooden steps went on and on.  I should have counted the steps.  It was probably like going up 5 flights of stairs or something.  It was neat.

The wooden steps led to a trail through tall grass and past wild Daisies to a river.  Kenai came with us to explore.  Kenai loves water and thought it was just fantastic to stop and play in the river.  We threw sticks and she'd lunge after them.  She had a grand time.  It was very beautiful.

After playing in the water we headed back to the truck.  We decided to play a game with Kenai on the way up the steps.  She was so full of energy we figured it would be fun for one of us to go to the top and the other stay at the bottom and call Kenai back and forth.  She charged up and down the steps several times over until she understood what we were doing and she didn't seem very amused.  It burned up some energy for her, that's for sure.

After we left Kitwanga we headed for the next stretch of road which would take us down pass the towns of 100 Mile House, 70 Mile House and Clinton.  Before we reached Cache Creek we decided to take the right turn and head for Lillooet and Whistler and then into Vancouver.  This route was called the "Sea to Sky Highway."  And what a beautiful drive that would be.

Thanks for reading.

Hailey Rose