Land Rover – Page 5 – MacKenzies on the Road

July 15, 2018July 13, 2018

Campbell Hwy (aka really long dirt road)

We are in the Yukon!

How cool is that…and no we haven’t seen Yukon Cornelius, yet. We will be on the look-out!

We left the Stewart-Cassier Highway and got onto the Alaskan Highway for exactly 14 miles. We can now say we have been on the Alaskan Highway…too many RVs and trucks for our Rig and our style.

We turned off in Watson Lake and headed into town for provisions and information on the wildfire that was burning near the Robert Campbell Highway(highway up here is a very loose term), our intended route. A quick stop at the visitor’s center where the sign post thingee is from when they built the Alaskan Highway, cool but not quite our taste, and the grocery store and we were off. The wildfire was still west of our route and although there were smoke advisories, and some evacuations we were cleared to head north.

The Robert Campbell Highway started off paved, quickly turned to hard pack and then to gravel. Once again, we were reminded of the Maine logging parcels we drive on back home to go canoeing, long dirt roads surrounded by pines. The only difference was the huge swaths of burnt areas from previous wildfires, they were a little unsettling. Wildfires up here are just part of life. No one seems upset. They keep the forest regenerating. We have now gotten used to seein huge swaths of burnt trees.

During the 370 km (that’s about 230 miles for those in the States) we traveled, we saw more bears than vehicles. That would be 4 black bears, a lynx, a really cool black and brown fox and a momma grizzly with her cub (and yes, we only saw 3 pick-ups the whole way in). Oh, and we saw a few flurries. Good thing we packed warm gear.

About halfway , we stayed 2 nights in a Yukon Provincial campground on Frances Lake, I know we splurged and spent $12 CAD a night. It is absolutely beautiful and peaceful. We thought we would be the only ones there, due to the low volume of traffic, all going the other way, but surprise, surprise there were about 12 other campers already there (there are only 24 sites).

1 of 2 lynx we saw. They have huge feet!

July 13, 2018

The Stewart-Cassier Highway (Rt 37)

The Stewart-Cassier Highway (Rt 37)
As we thought about driving to Alaska (the first thing was…holy crap…we are driving to Alaska!) the question of which route came up. We were sitting in the ‘Sound of Music Meadow’ dispersed campsite (an amazing little spot way up in the hills) in Montana pouring over the maps. The AlCan (Alaskan Highway) would have been the obvious choice. But wait, what’s this little route over to the west? Route 37? The Stewart-Cassier Highway? Never heard of it, lightly used, long stretches through the mountains, perfect!

As soon as we hit The Stewart-Cassier it felt right. We found a little city park and several BC campgrounds (all free). Glaciers, the mountains, the great bear scare!, more mountains, more glaciers, wolves, bears, lynx, totems, no traffic, no guardrails, no cell service, 470 miles of awesome!

We did end up hitting the AlCan; all of 14 miles from Rt. 37 to Watson Lake!

Mountains, mountains and more mountains!

And tons of wildlife, most of which disappears so fast you can’t get a picture.

July 10, 2018

Bear Lake

It was a cold and rainy afternoon when two road weary travelers rolled into Stewart, British Columbia in search of a place to rest their tired bones. The only campground in town was closed, for renovations, not to open until the following year. The exhausted travelers stumbled into the local tourist office seeking advice from the local elder. She shook her head and in a quiet voice told them the legend of the phantom bear of Clements Lake. She pointed her gnarled finger up the street at the local motel and told them they better bunk in for the night.

The travelers emptied their pockets and counted their pennies, not enough. The old woman looked down at the floor silently contemplating. She knew the owner of the motel to be a hard person who would not take pity or offer a handout. She slowly raised her eyes and gave the travelers directions to Clements Lake. Thanking her the travelers took a deep a breath and left as the old woman chanted a blessing.

Climbing into their old rig and heading north out of town the travelers found the turn off for Clements Lake. The sign hung askew on a rusted metal post, the road showed very little traffic. Easing onto the rutted lane they inched their way up to the lake. It was a beautiful place, a small lake with mountain waterfalls crashing down in the distance. Could this be the place of legend? The peaceful surroundings were in stark contrast with the old woman’s story. Was she playing a local trick?

Picking a site, there were only 2, the travelers set up their rig and jumped in the cold lake to wash off the road dust. They had just finished, thank goodness, when in drives an RCMP vehicle. The ranger rolled down his window and wanted to know if they had seen a crazed grizzly. The travelers having decided this was all a joke shook their heads laughing. Giving the travelers a funny look, the ranger told them an aggressive grizzly was charging log trucks on the main road and to ‘keep an eye out’, oh and cool Rover. He then spun his SUV around and spit rocks as he raced out of the park.

Totally confused at this point, the travelers settled in for an uneasy night.

Sweet dreams!

We later learned the lake is known as Bear Lake by the locals for the number of Grizzlies that hang around that area.

We are heading up the Dempster Highway into the Northwest Territory and to the North Sea, to put our toes in the water. We will probably be out of touch for 10 days or more.

Happy trails everyone!

July 6, 2018July 5, 2018

Fresh Fish Fry

Yesterday, we traveled miles and miles across land that looked just like northern Maine paper company land. We passed more wood trucks than I could count (logs, boards, sawdust, and every other type of wood imaginable) and trains carrying the same. The British Columbia wood industry is Maine on steroids.

Last nightwe found a small British Columbia recreation area, Cobb Lake. BC has these recreation areas everywhere. A local told us to go to the ones with small signs because they are usually free, the ones with big signs cost $$$, great tip! Our neighbors were there for the week fishing. We met them while looking for the pit toilets (and got the lowdown on which ones not to use, always good to know). They had just caught a bunch of lake trout and invited us over for dinner (after a quick swim in the lake to wash off the road dust). So, last night we dined on fresh fish while watching Bald Eagles and listening to loons. A great evening.

Today, we put in quite a few miles to get us to the start of the Stewart-Cassier Hwy or Rt. 37 that will take us to the Yukon. The terrain has turned mountainous again and breathtaking. Tonight, we are sitting in a small community camping area next to a wood processing plant that will hopefully shut down by bedtime, it just went off-line, sweet.

I’m not sure what we will have for cell service heading up Rt 37, so I will blog again when I can, if Yogi doesn’tnibble on us😋.

July 3, 2018

Boy do we smell purty

Today was cook, shower and do laundry day…in that order, oh and hit DQ to keep the boy happy.

We were 10 days out from our last shower (we did do a dip in a mt stream a week or so ago) and a lot longer since we did laundry. There is a small laundromat in town that offers showers for $3 and reasonable laundry machines (no motel or RV Park needed). We smell much better, but not bear food worthy.

We also cooked 4 meals so we can just reheat when we pull into a site.

A work day overall, but well worth it. When I took my hat off to take a shower, my hair stood straight up on its own😅.

We r staying in a nice town campground for $12 a night usd. It has 10 sites, all but 2 are filled right now and it is only 6:30. There is a sweet little river with a cool waterfall that used to be a sawmill. And it is all right within walking distance of town.

July 1, 2018

I think I can, I think I can…

The little Rover huffed and puffed her way over Canada’s Glacier Park today. There was snow on the peaks and even down into the valleys. The park still isn’t fully open for the season because they are still clearing avalanches!

The coolest or perhaps the scariest part was the avalanche tunnels. Imagine being in one when an avalanche lets go? Egads….

July 1, 2018

Bikes and huskies

Yesterday, a young man we met at a visitor’s center (who likes skiing at Jay Peak) told us we could camp free at Fernie Ski Area. During biking season (downhill crazy bikers) the ski area allows people to camp in their parking lot for free. Well, we are mountain bikers so we decided we would join the crowd. We pulled our Rover in amongst vans, RVs and such and assumed the posture of belonging. Before long we met some bikers and ended up keeping an eye on their husky for them while they went up the lift for a few more runs before the sprinkles started.

We had a fairly restful night considering we were sleeping in a huge parking lot. Darrin woke up every time the wind blew and I woke up every time a new rig pulled in, but hey…it was free and it had a great balsam pine smell in the rain…yes, it rained again during the night.

The Fernie Ski Area parking lot. There are rigs to the right and more behind me. Matsa, the husky, is sleeping in the red truck.

July 1, 2018

My cup needs fill’n

Part of stealth/guerilla/dispersed camping is the constant need to find drinking water. We could buy jugs in the grocery story, but we are all about saving our pennies so we can travel as long as possible, so we have a never ending search for free drinkable (non chlorinated) water.

A few places we normally get water:

1. Fire stations – they usually have a spiget out back, but it usually has chlorine.

2. Campgrounds – we pretend we want to look around for a site, quickly fill our 5 gallon jerry cans and decide not to stay.

3. City parks – they usually have spigets, but again it is usually chlorinated.

4. People feel sorry for us and give us theirs when they are heading home (this also works for free firewood).

5. Springs – people mark them on iOverlander (see previous post)

Today, we happened to pass a spring that had great water flowing right out of the Rockies. We have two 5 gallon jerry cans on the front of the vehicle and a 15 gallon tank inside. We normally carry 5 or 10 gallons during regular travel (it is amazing how little water you really need, but then again we are probably over due for a shower once again), we carry more if we know we are going to be way out for a prolonged period of time. We also carry a military grade water filter for emergencies.

Darrin filling 1 of our 5 gallon jerry cans..

And into our 15 gallon internal tank (water is heavy so filling the internal tank keeps the weight low in the vehicle).

June 30, 2018

Vapor lock par deux…This time its personal!

The Peach Can Vapor Lock Reduction Device (PCVLRD) seems to have solved about 90 to 95% of the vapor lock(VL) during normal travel. We only have had to resort to switching the fuel tank valve maybe twice since installing it. (Read the A Day You Remember blog for background.)

The only hint now of a VL can be felt when crawling along in low range looking for a campsite at the end of the day, almost stalling, needing to rev and clear the impending VL. Revision 2 was needed!

A comment left by Erick Filippone got me thinking about rerouting the fuel lines to remove the heat. Unfortunately, the carburetor sits on the intake manifold which shares the Siamese ports with the exhaust header…..so no easy way to get away from the heat

Enter the Land Rover PTO and my epiphany! If I couldn’t bring the fuel line to cool air, I would bring cool air to the fuel line!

The Land Rover was originally designed to be a tractor you could drive to town. The transmission and frame even has provisions for a front or rear PTO (power take off) to drive various farm implements (saw mill, bailer, etc…). The frame has a 4 inch hole on the front and rear for the PTO.

My idea was to use a 4 inch dryer vent hose plumed into the PTO frame hole on the front of the Rover. I would pop a small hole in the vent hose where it passed by the engine mounted fuel pump on its path to the carburetor. I removed the fuel line from between the carb and pump….dropped it into the vent hose…fishing out the end to the pump and reattached to the pump and carburetor.

I now have a Ram Air cooled VL reduction hose that cools the fuel line between the fuel pump and the carburetor bathing it in cool air from outside the engine compartment!

I then thought, well that’s fine while we are moving down the road. What about when we are plodding along a fire road looking for a site. It was time for the internet! Enter the Bilge Blower! A 12 volt, 4 inch diameter, blower whose function is to clear gasoline vapors from a boat’s engine compartment prior to starting the engine. And its was only $20!! I spliced into the dryer vent hose by the PTO opening and viola, with a simple flick of a switch on the dashboard lots of cool air blowing in, I hope!

It’s a little cobbled up as a proof of concept, but the dryer hose is only $8 and if it works I will clean it up for a final version (or not!)

From the bottom looking up. The round hole is the PTO 4 inch spot.

June 30, 2018

Hydro on the Sly

Part of travelling long term is making your dollars stretch. That means looking for free or cheap camping spots. There is a great app called ioverlander. People populate it with free or cheap camping sites they have used. They include descriptions and what amenities, if any, are available. All you do is open the map and look for spots where you plan to camp. It is amazing!

So, we crossed the border into Alberta Canada and needed a place to stay. We stopped at the tourist information center, which says you can camp in their back lot. We went in and talked to the nice young lady who informed us it was a national holiday weekend in Canada. Our chances of finding a campground, she informed us, was zero.

We opened iOverlander, looked about an hour up the road and found a spot. (We were not interested in staying at the visitor’s center in town, it didn’t have a good vibe). Up the road we went.

The place we had found was the back side of a small dam/hydro plant next to the stream. We found a little place to tuck in, made dinner and hung-out. We thought we were quite stealthy. To our surprise, in drives a white truck and out pops Alex, a Canadian Fish & Wildlife officer. We thought, uh oh, we are going to get tossed. Boy, we were wrong. He was a super nice guy. We chatted for a while and he said no problem, camping was fine. Phew!

Later that night another car pulls in and joins us, a young man there to fish for trout. Another truck pulled in in the morning and the guy set right to fishing. He pulled out a pike that must have been 3ft long. Alex, we can back up your claim that their are pike there!

Another free night on the road means we can travel that much longer!

Yee-haw! Happy Trails.