Overflow camping was great, only one really quiet neighbour, and no pit toilet door or trash container banging. We go back north 2 kms to hike the Klondike river trail which is a delight of inedible mushrooms and also wild cranberries, blueberries and crowberries. And that’s the bonus for being surrounded by the rugged Tombstone mountains turning to fall colours.

After that, back to the Dempster for the last stretch, 72 kms to go and we are back on pavement, direction Whitehorse as we visited Dawson City extensively last year.

It has been a total of 1773 kms of unpaved Dempster. Enough for a bit! But not long, as the Klondike highway has long stretches of really rough terrain as it’s being widened and rebuild. You have to go about 20 to 30 km/h and wait and follow a pilot to guide you around the heavy machinery working. At Pelly crossing, we splurge over $25 worth of loonies and toonies for a power carwash, we can open the doors again without the free mud massage.

It’s much warmer now, goes above 20 C and the bugs are back with a vengeance on the windshield and to bite us. Haha, I do prefer the cold even with the heater not functioning.

We stop at Twin lake territorial campground and luck out with a lakeside campsite as the Handicap site is free for the taking after 6pm so long as we are gone by noon tomorrow.