First of all, Google lied about this one, I think they need to update their driving estimation! Unless they were presuming the worst possible conditions then maybe this might take 10 hours. The drive from the Checkpoint junction (where Highway 1 meets the start [or end?] of Highway 7) to Fort Liard was roughly 3 hours. Conditions for me were good: Dry and dusty, warm and sunny weather. The road itself is pretty smooth as far as gravel goes. By that I mean no potholes, dips, or bumps. It was wide and flat for the most part. It’s gravel though, so going too fast can make you slide around which is a bit unnerving so why go fast? I drive slow ‘cuz that’s how I roll. An 80 km/h speed limit on this stretch as well, WOW. I did far less than that a lot of the time.
I must say though that Google KNOWS I was on this journey… They know everything about me, right?? I had this segment of my trip (most segments actually) searched for and saved in my phone for offline use. And even with no cellular service, GPS still tracked my location (and therefore progress) the whole way, right? Sooooo…. Google got notified somehow, right?? They should be able to update their driving time estimate, correct??! 😛
It was super warm out but my hood is up because of the giant bees and flies buzzing everywhere! Bug spray galore as well and they continued to leave me alone.
Liard Trail is an approximately 225 km gravel highway in Northwest Territories. I read all the horror stories from articles and people’s blogs about this stretch of road, but I guess the gods were with me on this trek because I had no issues other than seeing lots of bears!! This discouraged me from a tentative plan I had of camping at Blackstone Territorial Park which is sort of the halfway point between the junction and Fort Liard. I must say this road is extremely remote and maybe it was the time of day I was on it (5-8 pm on a Saturday) I don’t know, but there again was next to no traffic. I think only 2 vehicles went by me in the other direction during the 3 hour duration, and no one came up behind me at all other than one vehicle just after the junction. And no cellular service anywhere which was certainly expected and not surprising. So a vehicle breakdown would have been an adventure to say the least.
None of these highway pictures are overly exciting, but you get an idea of what the road looked like for 3 hours and the condition it was in. I saw my first bear on the Liard Trail at precisely 17:08 hrs but nope, no picture. I think it was too far over for the camera to catch. Saw more bears along this route down to Fort Liard and also between Fort Liard and the NWT / BC border. Could have maybe stopped to take a picture or two, it’s not like there was any traffic… But everyone says don’t do that! Or is it just don’t get out of your vehicle? Like I would have done that.
By the time I reached the Blackstone Territorial Park turnoff, I kinda just wanted to be done with the highway and did not favour the idea of staying somewhere overnight in the middle of nowhere with no cellular service… and bears!! Who knows, maybe the campground was full of humans, I’ll never know!!
OMG OMG OMG a bison!! First one! After not stopping for all the bear photo ops I said ‘Screw it’ and stopped for this guy! They don’t attack, do they? Well I stayed in my truck as you can tell. Mama bison and babies were nearby in the ditch. Got a picture but the quality isn’t great, I think mainly because my truck windows are filthy! Why didn’t I put the window down??!! Oh yeah, see that bee in the mirror? Eeeesh!
The road got real dusty when another vehicle would go by, this picture below only shows the remnants of it. When the car first passed by, the dust was so thick it was blinding, like a whiteout condition. The best thing to do I think was to slow right down and pull over as far as possible when a vehicle approached. Didn’t have to deal with this much, one nice thing of having hardly any traffic on this drive.
Just before the turnoff to Fort Liard:
I survived it!! Soloed that sucka! In yo’ face Liard Trail!!
