We decided to take a break from hard traveling and set up camp fairly early in Washington’s Selkirk mountains. We drove through one small campground on Lake Theo but decided to try for something a little more remote. David located a forest service road, and I turned up it.
We heard a rock chink hard against the undercarriage. Within second, the front left tire was completely flat. I had run over a sharp rock that punctured just between the tread and the sidewall. The tire was destroyed. Thankfully, we were off the main, narrow highway, protected from the heavy traffic. It didn’t take us long to change the tire… once we figured out where the jack went, etc. (Ah, the joys of a new vehicle.) It was, however, a disappointment to know that instead of making it into Canada, we would now be delayed at least another day while we found a place to get a new tire.
We returned to the campground at Lake Theo and settled in for the evening. The next morning we drove into Colville to see what they might have. They didn’t carry what we needed. On top of it all, we were surprised to find that the tires we had were not truck rated as we had been told. They were only fancy six-ply passenger tires. We learned long ago to run ten-ply tires, particularly on roads like the Dempster.
We soon discovered a Discount Tire in Spokane, a company we have done business with for years in Texas. When David called, they pulled up our records and told us they could have the exact tires we normally use in by three that afternoon. So we drove south another 70 miles into Spokane and waited for the appointed time to have the new tires mounted.
It was hardly the anniversary we had planned, but we counted our blessings. The tire had blown in a safe area. Before we hit really rugged roads, we had discovered the tires we were running were not the ten-ply tires we needed. On top of it all, the tire blew in the Lower 48 where the tires we needed were readily available and at much less cost.
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