To Pelly Crossing

 

We departed Whitehorse for our 2-day drive to Dawson City, stopping at the remains of  Montague Roadhouse, one of the stopovers on the overland route to the Klondike.

We stopped for lunch at the Cassiar reststop, which sports a very attractive mosaic welcome sign.

After Carmacks we stopped and made the 15-minute hike to Five Finger Rapids.

One of the islands in the Yukon River washed away in recent years so now it is technically only a three finger rapid.  

 This was of interest to us as we had paddled through this rapid on our Yukon River trip in 2012.  T

It's actually no big deal if you stick to the right bank.  It was more of an issue for sternwheelers; they had to winch themselves upstream.

There's a herring gull colony on one of these islands

It's a 129 steps down "the Yukon's longest stairway" and of course 129 steps back up in the full afternoon sun.  Phew!

The road was rough and included a very long drive behind a pilot truck through a construction area.  We were very happy to arrive at Pelly Crossing's lovely free campsite

With views of the Pelly River and its Yukon  blue bridge.

After supper we walked over and crossed the bridge.

There were various beautiful legumes blooming on the roadside.

This could be bear root (hedysarum alpinum) or northern sweetvetch (Hedysarum boreale ssp. mackenziei) but you 'd best know the difference if you plan to eat the roots. Franklin's party (?) were reportedly poisoned when they ate the sweetvetch by mistake. I think it's actually the sweetvetch.

And this very pretty locoweed:

Showy Locoweed