Today started a little… Arduous.

It had rained most of the night, and you know what that means – less-than-desirable road conditions and much slower travel. We slept in the mountains last night, so we weren’t sure if we were in the clouds or the fog. We had such an amazing travel day yesterday; it felt weird to have two steps forward and one step back. That’s still forward motion, I know. We rolled out around noon.

We had some mud, rain, potholes, and washboard.

She was a grind. Eric is so great at the wheel, but it’s not fun in this stuff. I believe we averaged about 45-50 km/hr for the first two hours. The description in a word? Ugly.

It turns out we were in the clouds and the fog. Dissipating at times for a small reprieve, and then socking us in again. It was bright and tough on the eyes and the brain. Never mind driving through.

As we reached the wetlands where we saw the horses last week, the weather cleared a bit. We looked as we went by and saw a small group of 4, then another one on its own. I’m convinced these horses belong to an outfitter up the road. It’s just so incredibly awesome to see them roaming the wild as they do. We didn’t get any photos this time, but we’ll certainly not forget them.

As we started to enter Tombstone Territorial Park, the weather lightened up. I was confident (ok, hopeful) we were done with the ick of it all.

The road wasn’t the best, but there were great long stretches. Folks are constantly working on the Dempster. With it being 740 km long (plus 138 km of the ITH to Tuk), that’s an incredible amount of dirt and gravel to maintain. They do a great job, but some areas…

Tombstone is stunning. Would we like to see its jagged peaks against a strikingly bright blue sky instead of grey? Sure. But we also see the incredible beauty in this weather as well.

Tombstone Territorial Park gets its name from the dark, jagged peaks of the Tombstone Range, that resembles grave markers. But there’s so much more to see than mountains. You’ll see wide-open Arctic tundra, colourful little shrubs, winding creeks, alpine lakes, lichen-covered ground, and huge northern skies. The mountains seemed to flow into the ground – towering, rugged, and yet somehow gently rooted in the valley.

We enjoyed the views, pointing out unique features, scars and protrusions from the mountains. It wasn’t long before the highway was again dry and in decent shape.

We were going to stop about 100 km outside of Dawson City for the day, but the spots we saw to stay the night weren’t really speaking to us. So I said, “If you’re up to it, we could just go to Dawson and get Schnitzel and spaetzle?” Eric smiled, and we kept driving. Last week sometime, I’d seen a post on the Dempster Facebook page from a food truck in Dawson City, called Grumpy Schnitzel. His food looked amazing, and we were getting hungry.

Just as we made the decision, the sun started to peek out. We pulled over, let everyone have a stretch, and got back on the road. As Eric pulled out, a beautiful fox ran across the road. Smaller than the one at our campsite, he was far too swift to catch his image.

The cloudy sky started to break up. With the sun peeking through, the temperature was 15° – a far cry from the 2° we woke up to this morning. It’s all good!
Again, the end of the day turned out beautiful.

We recall from our drive up, a few stretches of the road being unpleasant, but it really did seem worse than a week ago. Then the rain and fog, and yup, mud.

Then we saw it in the distance. The Iconic blue Klondike River Bridge, which starts and ends the Dempster Highway. It’s pretty surreal – Travelling aproximately 1,780km on this desolate, demanding, thrilling, iconic, stunningly beautiful gravel highway and is not something that was on our calendar a year ago.

There is a quiet awe in knowing how far we have travelled, how much we have seen, and the possible challenges the road could still hold. Reaching Tuk was unforgettable, but completing the return journey brought its own emotion: pride, relief, gratitude, and a little sadness that such an extraordinary adventure had come to an end. But has it??

Not gonna lie, Eric and I high fived it over the bridge. We still have 3 weeks of adventuring left to enjoy. Tomorrow we’ll de-mud the cabin, grab a few essentials, and hit the road towards Whitehorse. From there, we’ll let you know 😉

We had a slight delay getting into town. A local resident held up traffic for a bit.

We got into Dawson City just after 7:00pm. That’s a long day for our Driver/Navigator. Oh, and about Grumpy Schnitzel, definitely a delicious decision!

“No mud, no lotus,” wrote Thich Nhat Hanh. “There can be no lotus flower without the mud.” On the Dempster Highway, it is a reminder that the rough, messy stretches are not separate from the journey toward something beautiful.