NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAY 12 - WILDLIFE & LIARD RIVER HOT SPRINGS

Wowsers... Around each and every corner, the scenery gets more and more beautiful.  I know that pictures and videos can't quite capture what we are seeing. The depth and richness of the textures and the layers is just mind-boggling and a feast for the eyes. This is just a tiny taste.

The wildlife on the roadside is abundant. Especially if we drive earlier in the morning, or later in the evening. There's barely any other traffic around us so it's pretty easy to slow down and stop to take photos. We ran into some Caribou that were just sauntering down the side of the road like they owned it...

I love how detailed the camera can pick up the close-up features of the animals. This is the Panasonic Lumix that I got for my birthday from Steve. He got it for me specifically for this trip for wildlife still shots.

These caribou were just out for a morning stroll, and didn't even look twice at us. If I slide open the window and the screen over the loveseat of the motorhome, I can take some really good detailed shots without a window in the way distorting the images.

We did fly by this one, and I know it's blurry. But I took a shot of a deer. This is so silly because we get tons of deer right in our own backyard at home. But yes, it's wildlife and I put it on our little tally of wildlife that we have seen so far.

Next up on the wildlife docket were some stone sheep. This poor little one is missing a horn! We were told the stone sheep and the Rocky Mountain Sheep have permanent horns, whereas the caribou, deer and elk have antlers that they shed.

They look so soft and fuzzy, and I just want to go and pet them, of course. Or at least shear them and try to spin their wool? Lol

This young one on the left had such a fuzzy head. No horns yet. He looked like he just got out of bed and had a case of "bed hair" like a sleepy teenager.

After seeing the huge herd of bison yesterday, it was a little surprising to only see one today. This lone bison was all by himself... He didn't seem to mind. He was so busy munching the fresh new green grass on the side of the road.

We drove the rest of the way over the Liard River bridge, and pulled into the Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park. 

We had absolutely no trouble getting a site. She told us to just drive through the park and pick out a site and come back and pay for it. The camping fee also included admission to the hot springs. Otherwise as a day use you have to pay $5 a person. So that was like $10 off our camping because we were intending to go in the hot springs anyhow. We paid $26 Canadian which converts to $18.26 US. 

https://bcparks.ca/liard-river-hot-springs-park/

The entire campground is surrounded by an electrified fence. It's reinforced and very sturdy. It is to keep out the moose, the bear and the bison. It seems awfully strange to be surrounded by a heavy duty fence, but it sure is comforting to know it's there.

As soon as we got settled in and made a little lunch, we put on our swimsuits and got ready to head down to the hot springs. 

Dogs are not allowed near the hot springs of course, so we left Nick in the motorhome with all of the windows shades pulled down and music loud enough to distract him from any outside noises. We set him up on the loveseat with a few of his toys, and one of his favorite Himalayan cheese chew sticks. We know he behaves when we are gone, because we set up a wifi camera from our Starlink to watch him. 

It's a lovely walk through the swamp towards the springs. It's a boardwalk decking for the entire length of .7 mile. We stopped to admire some little minnows in the swamp and some huge moose tracks. The boardwalk and the actual springs are not behind electrical fencing. There are signs warning that if you do see a moose to clear away and don't disturb them. We were lucky, we didn't see one while we were walking through the swamp. 

The springs are absolutely beautiful, there is a slight sulfur smell. Which is stronger up at one end then down at the other. 

There are nice stairs and a pavilion structure to store your clothing in cubbies. 

We slowly descended the stairs and sank in to the waters up to our necks. It was extremely delightful.

We did a little tourist photo of the two of us together in the water. There's more video footage on the link below.

It's amazing that we are sitting out in the middle of a pine forest in the serene almost tropical feeling location.

A few people came and went while we were there, but mostly there were less than 10 people at any given time. Coming in May has it's benefits. We have seen photos of this place being very crowded in June July and August. 

There are stone benches underwater so you can just sit wherever you want. The base underground is gravel. Steve wore sandals and I wore water shoes from canoeing. On my video link below I actually put the GoPro camera underwater to show the underneath side of the springs.

Around all the edges were these beautiful ferns and little tiny flowers. Water came seeping out between the layers of dirt surrounding the big spring pool. Towards the right hand side is where the hotter spring waters were bubbling up out of the ground. Down to the left side it was cooler and more mixed and easier to tolerate.

As the waters rise up, there is a berm or a dam that's built on the far end with two sluice areas to let the waters tumble down into the lower pool. If you keep going through that lower pool there is a channel that leads through the woods that you can float along crawling on your hands and letting your body float behind you. We have watched others on YouTube do this. It's like floating through a jungle. But the waters are much colder down there in May in that channel. I think June July or August it would be warmer to go explore that far down. We didn't.

After a long healthy soak, we went back up to the motorhome and took showers. There are no shower facilities on the grounds. We wanted to get the sulfur smell off of our skin and hair, and give our swimsuits a good rinse too. 

Then.... we curled up and took a long, long nap. We surprised ourselves by taking that deep of a nap. The springs must have really relaxed us?


Stay tuned as we move on further to the North and the West. The scenery is well worth it, and the animals are even more exciting! One word: GRIZZLY!!!

WE ARE GLAD YOU ARE FOLLOWING ALONG ON OUR ADVENTURE. HERE IS THE LINK TO THE YOUTUBE THAT CORRESPONDS WITH THIS BLOG POST: 

Only 75 miles traveled today 

2,467 miles so far