The briefer this morning told me a pilot tried getting through yesterday but ended up landing "halfway". To my knowledge, there are only two landing strips in the 300 miles between Watson Lake and Fort Nelson. One is a private strip on the south end of Muncho Lake and a second one between Muncho and Fort Nelson. Neither one has fuel and I'm not sure at all about accommodations. There is a lodge about 7 miles from the Muncho Lake strip where he may have found refuge but the second strip is, I believe, just a 2400' gravel strip along the way at mile marker 422 on the Alcan in the middle of nowhere......there's a lot of "nowhere" out here.
While we are anxious to restart our journey, we're also thankful we have a room, access to food, shower, a comfortable bed and other luxuries. We sure don't want to be sitting on a gravel strip somewhere waiting like we are now........we truly have it very good given the conditions and we know it.
Watson Lake is a town of 800 so it's small but it's quite functional. It's small enough that we had a woman ask us if we were the pilots that are stranded so word must get around pretty quick in a small town.
There is a small lake close by (imagine that) with a 2 mile hiking trail around it and we kill some time walking around it.
More to follow but until we start flying again, here's a few pictures taken between Wasilla and Tok, Alaska....the first leg.
Jim & Cindy
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| Mountains on the left following the Glen Highway to Tok, Alaska where we picked up the Alaskan Highway. |
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| Mountains on the right taken at the same time as the above picture while flying through a broad valley between the two. |
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| The country is so large and massive, I could not tell you the names of the mountains we've seen.....I'm not even sure they all have a name or not. The sheer magnitude of the land makes one feel rather small and somewhat irrelevant? |
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