Exploring the Liard River

The Liard River flows through Yukon, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, Canada. Rising in the Saint Cyr Range of the Pelly Mountains in southeastern Yukon, it flows 693 miles southeast through British Columbia, marking the northern end of the Rocky Mountains and then curving northeast back into the Yukon and Northwest Territories, draining into the Mackenzie River at Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories. The river drains approximately 107,000 square miles of boreal forest and muskeg.  The origin of the river's name is obscure, but is derived from the French word for "Eastern Cottonwood" (a kind of poplar) which grow in abundance along sections of the river.

It is one of the most beautiful rivers we've seen in our trip North, but it is wide and swift:

On our second day at Liard Hot Springs, we decided to drive west and explore two hikes along the Liard River.  The first was Smith River Falls.  Kathy dutifully models the trailhead sign:

The access to this trail is via 1.6 miles of gravel road.  We could have driven in with our big truck, but we weren't sure about parking or turnaround at the trailhead, so we decided to park on the Alaska Highway and hoof it in.  Here is the road.  Little did we know at the time that our destination lay at the base of that lumpy dome in the distance:

At the end of the gravel road lay our trailhead, high on a cliff above Smith River, with the falls in the distance:

We began a steep descent.  Kathy demonstrates the proper method for side-slipping steep, slippery hills:

Unless you were the victim of our little mushroom-naming prank in 2012 when we found a zillion different species of mushrooms and fungi in the woods around Plymouth, Massachusetts, you might not know that David has an obsession with mushrooms and other fun guys.  On nearly every hike, he spots one or two to photograph.  Usually, we recognize that readers might not be inspired by repeated shots of mushrooms, so the phungi photos rarely make the cut when we're drafting our blog entries. In any event, when he found this unusual group of fungi, he insisted that it must make the blog.  And so here it is:

After clambering down a very steep trail to the shore of Smith River, we walked along its stony, narrow bank to the base of the waterfall --

-- where we found a huge, extended family cavorting, fishing and exploring with their dogs.  They were staying in our campground in a group of five RV's, living it up in true Rug Rat Camping style. We found them so entertaining, we even named them the "Gang of Five":

The Gang of Five left little room for a quiet lunch down at the base of the falls, so Kathy suggested we find our way to the top of the near cliff, where there must be a place to sit and gaze at the falls.

We thus began a 60 foot climb of a sheer cliff face, working our way through layers of unique (AND VERY CRUMBLY, SLIPPERY, DANGEROUS) shale:

Using tree roots for hand- and foot-holds, we eventually clambered to the top of our cliff and bushwhacked ourselves out to the point, where we found a beautiful little mossy spot to sit and eat our lunch.  Here was our view of the falls:

We decided to bushwhack back up to the original trail, rather than risk our necks climbing back down the cliff face, only to have to climb back up the trail again.  So, after an adventurous trek through trackless woods with no foibles, we made the trailhead and walked back out to our truck.

Our next stop was tiny but beautiful Teeter Creek, where Kathy again modeled the trailhead sign:

This was but a 1-mile stroll up Teeter Creek to an old, unused bridge and a falls, where weather and water sampling stations are erected by BC naturalists.

Kathy couldn't resist clambering up onto the bridge.  Clambering was necessary because someone had deconstructed the wooden or stone steps up to the bridge itself.  Here she poses proudly at the summit of her clamber:

David just had to try it too, so up he went:

Having played with the bridge sufficiently, we also checked out the little falls themselves, which tumbled down to the streambed through a volcanic chasm.  David took this shot downstream toward the bridge:

Having explored these waterfalls and tributaries, we hopped back in Great White and drove back to Liard Hot Springs to enjoy our second day of soaking our muscles and bones in the warm mineral waters.