 Liard River Bridge Casio QV30 photo |
 Liard River Casio QV30 photo |
View back toward Liard River from hilltop
Kodak DC50 photo (by Nelson Kibler)
This day was one of the best so far (second only to Kluane Lake
in shear natural beauty and weather). We started out with a cool crisp morning
view of the Liard River.
Liard River Bridge Casio QV30 photo |
Liard River Casio QV30 photo |
Within a couple of miles from the river crossing, we climbed
about 450 feet to a view of the river and a spectacular waterfall/rapids
that no motorist would see.
 No falls in sight from the road Kodak DC50 photo (by Nelson Kibler) |
 Liard falls - photo doesn't do it justice Casio QV30 photo |
The falls were quite far below us, so pictures couldn't really
do them justice, but suffice it to say that the Liard River was compressed
by walls of rock from several hundred yards, to about 20 feet in width.
One can't see the rapids from the road, but on our bicycles we heard a thundering
roar from the valley below and, on my prompting, we looked over the cliff.
The rest of our group were zooming along so fast though that they never
noticed the scene.
We rode through the mountains along the trout river.
British Columbia uses really startling graphics on road signs.
I love their signs. We were warned to watch for sheep.
We did see dozens of stone sheep along and on the road.
The sheep were eating salt on the road and shoulder.
We saw sheep everywhere. At one point, I stopped in the road
and was surrounded by sheep.
Then we reached Muncho Lake - a spectacular alpine lake reminiscent
of Switzerland.
 Muncho Lake scanned aerial photo |
 Muncho Lake Casio QV30 photo |
 Muncho Lake Kodak DC50 photo (by Nelson Kibler) |
 Muncho Lake Casio QV30 photo |
At Muncho Lake, we ate Swiss apple pie for dessert at the Highland
Glen Lodge, a beautiful natural log structure.
The route climbed another 20 miles past a high waterfall. As Ritt, Carol and I were riding along about 12 miles out from our destination at Toad River, the seat post bolt on Carol's Klein bike sheared right off and her saddle fell onto the road. I am amazed that Carol herself didn't crash onto the road. Without a saddle, a bicycle is quite difficult to control. Carol couldn't really ride the bike and we didn't have a spare seat post with us then to repair it with.
I got out my tools and removed the bolt. It was a 1/4" bolt with metric threading that had broken right in half. After carefully looking at our options, and finding little to work with, we flagged down a passing motorist who offered the wing nut from his Chevrolet spare tire (a 1/4 inch metric nut for Carol's shortened 1/4 bolt) [people are always willing to help stranded travelers in the north country; survival depends on helping one-another]. We thought that with the nut, we'd be able to shorten the saddle height a bit and that despite her 36" legs, Carol would still be able to use the saddle and the bike; but what was left of the bolt was too short and the seat wouldn't stay mounted. It kept falling off. We needed a new longer (about 2-1/4") 1/4" bolt to use with the wing nut from the Chevy. As Carol and I were trying to think of a solution and make some progress toward camp, Ritt rode on ahead for help.
Carol rode a couple of miles standing, but it was obvious that she couldn't do that for as long as necessary to reach our destination. We stopped at a rest stop where using my crescent wrench, I removed the bolt from a highway sign hoping it would work; but it was 5/16", not 1/4" (so I put it back).
As we were waiting for help, a pickup truck stopped at the rest area and the driver doused his face with river water to wake himself up. I asked if he had a 1/4" bolt. We looked all through the toolbox on his truck, but didn't find one. Feeling a bit desperate as the temperature was dropping and it was threatening to rain, Carol and I took the driver up on his offer to take us and our bikes to Toad River, but the driver scared us a bit, so Carol elected to ride with the bikes in the back of the truck and I rode in the cab with the driver. The driver explained to me that he had driven 400 miles of 1,000 planned for the day and was so tired that he had been hallucinating about bears, caribou and moose in the road; braking for invisible animals. He was amazingly scary.
Luckily we didn't hit any solid objects while motoring through the mountains at 80+mph and swerving to avoid invisible animals. We made it to Toad River. To my astonishment, Tom had a spare seat post bolt which worked on Carol's bike. [At Dawson Creek, I bought myself a spare seat post bolt, just in case I ever had to deal with such a hassle ever again].
Toad River was quite nice. The area is gorgeous; mountainous
timber land. In fact, on the premises they were milling logs into lumber.
Though the weather wasn't cooperating with us (rain, off and on), the restaurant
had really good flavored frozen yoghurt. As usual, Carol used the pay phone
for hours on end while the rest of us computed (I computed; others looked
over my shoulder). I used AC power from the restaurant generator to run
my Macintosh, download the day's photos and write this page. There was no
data access line.
We rode 72 miles.
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997