Up the Dempster to Tombstone Mountain Park

There was a last desperate rush this morning before we left our trailers behind in a storage facility.  Then it was just a short drive up the Dempster Highway to our first stop, Tombstone Mountain Territorial Park.

We set up our tents in the campground. We'd reserved sites as we'd heard it's very popular.  The campsite did fill up by evening days but we got there early enough we could have got a walk-in site.

That done we walked down to the Interpretive Centre where this Say's phoebe had made a nest in the rafters above the entrance.  (On our way back from the Arctic they had blocked off the front entrance to prevent disturbance of the newly laid eggs).

Bird of the Day!

Outside the centre was this artistic rendering of a caribou fence which the Gwichin used to funnel cariboo into a corral.

The naturalist suggested we hike the North Klondike trail which takes off right from our campground.

It starts off following the river through the spruce trees

But soon we climbed up into the taiga with grand views of the mountains around us.

Here we saw American tree sparrows, fox sparrows and white-crowned sparrows.

Eventually the trail led back down to the river where the ice had not melted yet.