Haul Road aka Dalton Highway

More than 80% of my trip preparations of the FJ Cruiser and other equipment I brought with me was spent for this part of the trip. I had to be able to survive this 900 mile trek to the Arctic Ocean and back. This is the story I will expand upon as impression settle in.

Day 1 from Fairbanks to Coldfoot. From Fairbanks I took paved portion of Elliot Hwy to the junction with Dalton Hwy. Weather was nice, sunny day with temperature around 60F. As I entered the Dalton Hwy, I stopped to take a picture of the sign and I got approached by the local highway repairman. We talked almost for an hour. He told me his story about how he got to Alaska, why and how much he loves it up here. Then I told him my story and we continued off into classic topics such as family, kids, politics, religion and such. I am sure that it was nice for him to talk to another fellow human being after long winter :) I finally had to break off the conversation and get back to the adventure ahead. Before I took off he parted with few words of wisdom about driving on the Haul Road. Use CB radio, talk to truckers and always stop for them, that is if I wished to keep the windshield intact and dents to a minimum. As you enter Dalton Highway road turns into gravel and dirt.

After about an hour and half I arrived to Yukon Crossing. Yukon River Camp was built to support building of the Yukon river bridge in 1975. It was closed as well as the visitor center across the highway, so I kept driving. Around the crossing I overheard truckers talk about an Asian on yellow bicycle. Since I have heard truckers refer to autos as 4-wheelers, I thought they are joking and making fun of my truck. Yellow, Toyota made in Japan. Oh boy! But as I passed an Asian on mountain bicycle about 2 miles north I started laughing. I was too slow on getting the camera, so that one got away from me, like many other wonders of the north. I hit Finger Mountain after another hour of driving. Winds were very gusty at the mountain, which was bare of vegetation.

Little while later I came upon Arctic Circle. This is the point where most people turn around and head back. Here I met two guys from Kentucky on BWM crosser bikes. They had RV parked in Fairbanks and this was a day trip for them. However, they underestimated the mileages and were short on gas. Since I had 15 gallons extra I spared 2.5 gallons to each one. They wanted to pay me, but I refused, so they gave me a t-shirt. One guy was professor at Morehead State University, so the t-shirt is a classic "I (heart) Morehead". Another 60 miles of the paved road and I hit Coldfoot. I got my room, had nice dinner and then I watched some Sci-Fi Twilight Zone episodes in the lobby.

Day 2 from Coldfoot to Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay). After a good hearty breakfast I got on the road. First stop, Wiseman. Oh well that was scary. I wish I was a wise man, and skipped Wiseman. Town was pretty much like most things this time of year, closed. Second stop, Atigun Pass. I almost ran over some Dall sheep, and some trucks almost ran over me. Anyway, after few snapshots I continued further north. Around Franklin Bluffs I noticed first batch of birds. There was probably about 300-400 of them gacking. I got out and took few shots. After about a mile I got to another batch. Another stop, few shots and moving on. After a while I stopped stopping to take pictures of birds. It was so many of them.

It was the same case with caribou. There were many herds that I lost interest in taking pictures unless they were in my way. Just before Deadhorse I ran into red fox. Little before sunset I strolled into Prudhoe Bay!!! Ha ha, got yah! Sun does not set here you silly folks. Temperature was 18F as I checked into the motel. Dinner was on the house. I also found out that because of the weather they had to cancel my tour. Well, that and I was the only tourist in town at this time. They were surprised I drove up. I also found out that workers here come for their 3-week-12-hour-a-day shifts from many different parts of Alaska. They are either flown in, or they drive up with truck drivers. They work 3 weeks, then they have 3 weeks off.

Day 3 from Deadhorse to Arctic Circle. Since there was nothing to do up here and Arctic ocean was closed to me, I started back down. Driving south was going a lot faster. You know how it is. First time you drive up certain road you drive more carefully. Second time you, especially if it is the day after and road is fresh in your mind, you relax more and drive faster. Plus I did not stop as much to take pictures. So I zoomed by fairly quickly, relatively speaking. I decided to pass up Coldfoot on the way back and camp at the Arctic Circle. I setup the camp, read the book till my eyes were so heavy that I could fall asleep even with lights on (read sun is up!). I was the only person at this undeveloped campground.

Day 4 from Arctic Circle to Fairbanks. I woke up to the noise in the bushes around my tent. I crawled out the tent with my 12" Yakima pipe in hand. I looked around and what did I see? Almost 10 snowshoe hares running around in all directions. I ran to the truck to grab the camera but they were faster. I still got to capture couple of good shots. I packed up the tent with bunnies hopping around, then hit the road further south. Rest of the ride back to Fairbanks was fairly uneventful. I did got stuck couple of times behind 18-wheeler which were kicking up so much dust I had to pull over and let them get ahead of me. When I got to Fairbanks I washed the truck again. It took me almost a full hour to get all the dirt off.