Road Trip to the Arctic
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My brother has been traveling Western Canada and Alaska the past two months so flew up this past Monday to meet him in Fairbanks for a little road trip up the Dalton Highway - a 415 mile largely unpaved "haul road" that runs from outside Fairbanks Alaska up to the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean. It follows the Alaska Pipeline over the Brooks Range and vast expanses of tundra and Boreal forest. The only settlements along the route are Coldfoot (pop 9) and Wiseman (pop 13) and no cell service for most of the route.
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Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
First stop was the crossing
First stop was the crossing of the mighty Yukon River. Not too far past that was the Arctic Circle (bucket list -check) where we made camp for the night. It was still surprisingly hot and smoky and with the midnight sun beating down. Got that song “I wear my sunglasses at night” stuck in my head.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
Next day we made it to
Next day we made it to Coldfoot and stopped off at the little café/bar, which is the most northern place you can by a beer in the United States. All of the arctic villages and work camps north of Coldfoot are dry. Good thing we stocked up on beer in Fairbanks.
Smoke was still bad as we pushed on through the Boreal forests of the Brooks Range and up and over the “other” continental divide where water flows to the south to the Pacific and to the north to the Arctic Ocean.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
Spent the next night tundra
Spent the next night tundra camping at the base of the Brooks Range on the North Slope in Alaska. Ground was squishy, mosquitoes were thick, and the smoke from the wildfires obscuring the view of the mountains.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
Along the way, we saw caribou
Along the way, we saw caribou and musk ox. We also lost a back window when a trucker came roaring past us honking his horn and showering the Sprinter with rocks.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
End of the road - Deadhorse,
End of the road - Deadhorse, AK on the Arctic Ocean. Couldn’t drive any further. Deadhorse has only a handful of full time residents and is instead a working oil field featuring a sprawling and chaotic collection of oil rigs, pump houses, trailers, equipment yards, and pre-fab dormitory buildings ("camps") on stilts above the permafrost which house thousands of traveling workers (95% male and numbers varying with the price of oil). We camped on the outskirts of town and did some fishing for Arctic Grayling. Felt bad because there were workers who just got off shift fishing too and we were the only ones drinking beer. If those dudes get caught with alcohol, it’s a one-way ticket back home with no chance of working the North Slope again.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Mice elf
Cool thanks for that
Cool
thanks for that
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: DNB - Best band & fans in the land!
Woah
Woah
extreme road-tripping
thx for the cool travelogue + pics!
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Druba
Very cool pics, thanks Ken
Very cool pics, thanks Ken (a buddy to go to Antarctica earlier this year, had a cool project he was working on)
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Andean Flight
Very cool, Ken! I really
Very cool, Ken! I really admire how much you and your brother travel and make it a point to see and get to know so many cool places. Nice work!
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Tim
Priceless!!
Priceless!!
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Philzone Refugee
Thanks for the road trip show
Thanks for the road trip show and tell, Ken. I'm guessing you're not expecting a tourist resort when you go to a place called Deadhorse.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Any Other Day
Way cool! Thanks for sharing
Way cool! Thanks for sharing & safe home...
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: An organ grinder’s tune
looks like a tough trip
looks like a tough trip
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Johnny D
Wowza, Ken!!!
Wowza, Ken!!!
Kai was just talking about taking a road trip up to Alaska and I told him that I didn't think the Prius could survive that one.
Now I know for sure....
Thanks for sharing!
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ausonius
Very fine Zoning, many thanks
Very fine Zoning, many thanks.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: 19.5 Degrees
Very cool photos & tale of
Very cool photos & tale of your trip!
Thinking about the north pole / arctic always causes me to beg the question: which way is "up"?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: MarkD
Great trip, great job Ken.
Great trip, great job Ken. Too bad the about the smoke though.
Does the bay come down to Deadhorse? Is that beach the bay? The map looks like it is short of the bay and the sign said no go to the bay.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
>>>>Does the bay come down to
>>>>Does the bay come down to Deadhorse?
You can't drive to the Arctic Ocean. The road stops in Deadhorse, which is a couple miles inland. To see the Arctic Ocean, you have to book a tour of the off limits portion of the oil field. The tour wasn't cheap ($65 per person) but because we drove that far, we went ahead and did it. Interesting insights on life in the oil field and they let us out at the Arctic Ocean for about a half hour. My brother went out for a short chilly swim, but I stayed onshore.
The place where we camped in Deadhorse was down by the Sagavanirktok River, which flows from the Brooks Range to the Arctic Ocean.