It's day 6 on my mission to the south, king stage! I'll cross more or less the halfway mark to the next reliable super market, I will reach the highest elevation point and I will also pass my personal 4000km mark today.

For the first 23km to the 4000km mark I have to work surprisingly much in terms of climbing. At least beautiful Dease Lake stays next to me and provides a nice scenary. Just in time when I shoot my obligatory 4000km picture of my bike computer, Bruce catches up again and cheers me up. I celebrate with a Snickers [still haven't figured a fancy ritual, it's just a number on a display. After all this is not about kilometers but it's still nice to stop for the 1k marks and show some respect to the legs and to Klaus for the achievement].

Around noon I reach the next outpost - Dease Lake [the town]. It has a surprisingly decent grocery offering. I still feel comfortable with my food reserves but I stock up on some oats, candy bars [remember always carry enough candy!] and some fresh fruits to horrendous prices. In terms of warm food the offering is limited to chicken nuggets and potatoe wedges. I have both and a lot of mayonnaise.

To people not involved, these outpost might seem quite underwhelming but for everybody traveling these remote roads they are very much the saving grace [at least for me]. Hours [sometimes days] before they come up I start fantasizing about them.

While I am climbing up the pass the forecasted rain and freezing headwind comes in. Halfway up I even put on all my warm clothes which is quite a thing since I am climbing but I feel surprisingly cold. The fast 6km descent down is fun but even colder and makes sure I catch any rain drop that comes my way that I would have otherwise missed with slower speed. Thanks!

At 7PM I decide not to take the second pass and to end up in the dark. I set up camp at the banks of Stikine River instead and watch a beautiful sunset at the bridge. Interestingly, so far it always cleared up in the mornings and the evenings, which is very nice.