Rolled into Fort Liard after 8:00 pm, it wasn’t too far in from the turnoff. Saw a road heading to the campground first but kept going to see what was at this community with a population of 500 as of 2016 as per Google. It was mostly trees and houses with a few buildings including an RCMP office, and a gas station with convenience store. The gas station was closed and opening at 10:00 am the next day (Sunday). There was a real nice looking old school gas pump! Gas was 134.9.
There was a hotel/motel on my map, but I had already decided I was going to camp, so headed back to the Hay Lake campground. Rolled in and discovered it offers free camping, woo hoo! There were around 10-ish sites I think, and only one other person there. I was glad someone was there, as it was so quiet and remote, even though the area wasn’t too far from the main road.
I opened the tailgate on my truck to get supplies and woah! Picked up a little bit of dirt going down the Liard Trail! Maybe it started gathering on the Mackenzie Highway, who knows. Everything in the truck bed was absolutely covered, haha 😛
The lake (presumably Hay Lake) was super calm and looked like glass. It was very pretty with all the lily pads on it, haven’t seen lily pads in eons!! That might be a ski hill in the background according to the map below.
Looks like there’s a hiking trail around the lake. I’m sure it would have been a nice one, but I didn’t spend a lot of time here, just a quick overnight and morning coffee and gone…. Plus… bears!!
Some more shots of the area… The RCMP came into the campground to patrol. Said ‘Hello’ to them. Nice to know they are around.
And morning coffee, the essentials!
Went back to the gas station in the morning to fill up, then back on the road… And the highway was still gravel all the way down almost to the NWT / BC border… Not ‘out of the woods’ yet! It was only about a 30 minute drive until the pavement started. Saw more bears along the way!!
