6/7
It is overcast as we left this morning but not raining. We are on our way to Dawson Creek, 250 miles away. We are in a hilly wooded area but not mountains. We see many logging trucks and logging railcars and some areas where trees have been cut. They have a serious problem here with the beetle which kills the trees. During the tour they explained to us the problem the beetles cause. The beetles bore through the bark and feed on the trees. The excrete something that eventually causes the tree to be unable to take in water and nutrients and eventually it dies. The winter weather here used to be down to -40 degrees for several weeks. For the past several years it has not been that cold and the beetles are not freezing to death. So the population of beetles has increased and they are attacking more trees. The beetles are not affecting the mills now but they are concerned about what might happen down the road 10 years. We are in an area now where most of the trees look sick. Now we are making our way through the Rocky Mountains on our way to Dawson Creek. It is a beautiful day and there are gorgeous clouds in the sky. We can see snow on the mountain tops in the distance. We are seeing large areas where the trees have been cut. We reached the summit of these Rocky Mountains at only 2,868 feet. This is the lowest Pass of the Rocky Mountains. The highway will follow the Pine River on the way into Dawson Creek. We saw 2 bears along the way and several deer but did not have a chance to get a picture. About 20 miles out of Dawson Creek we climbed quite high and the leveled off into a very large high plane. We can see no mountains around us. This high plane is mostly covered with trees but we do see some farms and farmland, also cattle. It is 2 or so miles across and many miles long. We dropped down just before arriving to Dawson Creek and stayed at Mile 0 Campground. This is the beginning of the Alaska Highway or Alcan Highway as it used to be named. We had our picture taken in front of the sign denoting the highway.