We started with a full charge from the overnight plug in at Triple G campground in Nelson.
That’s projected at 504 km and it’s 518km to Watson Lake – not quite enough to get there even with our conservative (slow) driving.
Stopped for the famous cinnamon buns at Tetsa River Lodge. Gail was a hoot and we met Fred and Fay from North Carolina who had great tips on fishing in Alaska.
Lots more driving and beautiful scenery. We were stopped briefly as the young wood bison crossed the road.
We first looked to charge at Northern Rockies Lodge where they have a level 2 charger that they charge $60 CA for a charge up to 8 hours with no other rates for a shorter time to charge. When we figured we needed less than two hours we thought we were better moving on to Liard Hot Springs Lodge that we had called earlier in the day (expecting we’d get here much sooner). Once we arrived, only a 15 amp plug was available for full nightly rate $36.75 CA. When we plugged in it estimated 4 hours just to top up to 250km. Paul asked someone in one of the 30 amp sites if they would be willing to share for a few hours – no problem. However it still stepped down our charge to 18 amps (giving error message). A bit faster than the 15 amp, but still 3 hours.
Off to the hot springs we went to soak for an hour and meet more interesting people. Came back to see we still have an hour and 45 minutes so went to dinner – yummy bison and elk burgers – and Bill and Helen from Maine were kind enough to share their table and give us more Alaska travel advice based on their recent visit there.
In the end, we charged for 4 hours to get 40km of comfort to get to Fort Watson.
So the lesson is that we should have taken the charger that we passed up. Prices are high because all the electricity here is created with diesel generators. So either way we want to use as little as possible until we get to a larger population center that has electrical lines.
Surprisingly this is the first real challenge we’ve had.
Slow driving got us to Watson Lake though it was a bit of a nail biter, but it did give us time to enjoy the scenery and stop for photos of the wildlife. We also saw smoke from wildfires, but at a safe distance from the highway.
We arrived at the charger with 6% / 32km battery power. Then had a little trouble first finding the charger and then getting the charger to work. Multiple times of putting the plug in and out and downloading the app and trying to call customer service until it finally started charging while we were still on hold.
The CCS adapter we bought from Tesla has been key in this process since there are many high speed chargers that fit CCS both in Canada and upcoming in Alaska.
We stayed at the Big Horn Inn nearby so we wouldn’t need to sit in the car for the 2 hour full charge we needed. The only room they had left included a kitchenette, so we made our own breakfast in the morning and got the cooler packs fully frozen in the fridge so we won’t need to buy ice for another day.
-Mindy
I sure hope you are sending all of your charger data to Tesla and whatever clubs/listservs/communities there may be out there. what an adventure. Patricia and I had a T driving from Boston to Vt. and we thought it was a nail-biter.