Dalton Highway to Deadhorse

June 20, 2010

Woke up this morning to a steady rain. I had second thoughts but we left anyway. We knew that it would be a muddy trip and it was. But it has been a good trip. The road has not been as bad as I remembered and we have had periods of sun also. Had a good dinner at the Coldfoot Cafe.

We stopped at the Arctic Circle and took pictures. Tonight and tomorrow the sun will not set since we are above the Arctic Circle. Doubt that I will be up to see it, but if I am I will take a picture.

Our room here is small and simple, but it is clean and comfortable. There are at least 25 motorcyclist here tonight. Seem to be a nice bunch of people.

Mud, Mud, Glorious mud, nothing quite like for cooling the blood. They are continually maintaining the roads here. A scraper and a water truck. The truck lays down water which quickly turns to mud. And this mud dries like cement. And sometimes you drive through this stuff for a mile or two. The joys of driving the Dalton.

We are looking forward to heading north to Deadhorse tomorrow. We have seen some of the Brooks Range and it is beautiful. Hopefully we will see some animals tomorrow. None today.

June 21 & 22, 2010

Today has been a very long day. I was awake at 5:00 and made my coffee. Joyce slept in for a while. We did breakfast and filled the car with $4.499 gas. In Fairbanks it is “only” $3.499. As usual we took our time. The scenery of the Brooks range was spectacular. Not much wildlife until we got to within about 30 miles of Deadhorse. We started seeing lots of Caribou and 4 Musk Oxen. That was quite a thrill. We had seen Musk Oxen in Fairbanks in 2006 but they were not free roaming.

Many of you have watched Ice Road Truckers. They tend to exaggerate some of the steepness of the hills. One in particular is the Beaver Slide. It is straight and long and steep, but not nearly as steep as they show it on the program. This is not to say that other parts of the road are not as bad as portrayed. Atigun Pass is every bit as bad as they claim. Very steep, very long with nasty hairpin turns at each end. The guard rails have really take a beating. I don't remember one that was not bent in some fashion.

The sky has been clear and as a result the many lakes are such a beautiful blue that they seem unreal. Plenty of mosquitoes along the way. What surprised us was the amount of ice still lying on the river and stream banks. Up here ice freezes differently. There are a lot of shallow braided rivers and the ice freezes from the bottom up. A layer of ice, water runs over the top and freezes. This keeps up until some layers are 10-15 feet deep in places. What we were seeing is where the streams have thawed and melted in the middle and left the stuff on the edges. Some of it will not thaw until August.

We got to Deadhorse about 6:30, gassed up and went to the Arctic Caribou Inn for dinner. Buffet style and overpriced but at the end of the road what can you expect. By our standards everything is overpriced here. The supply lines are long and difficult.

I was not impressed with Deadhorse. It is ugly and cold. It is what I assume to be typical for this type of business. Oil drilling equipment, snow cats lined up for winter time usage. We left Deadhorse about 8:00 and headed south. We were not sure where we were going to spend the night or how long we were going to drive.

Joyce drove awhile and then I did. Around 10:30 we had a flat. Now I have managed to get my spare down before but it is a struggle. It took me the better part of an hour to get it down. Finally got the tired changed, all tools put away and ready to resume our travels. The car would not start. I had left the flashers on, even tho I had found a safe place to pull off, and they discharged the battery. What a pickle we are in. 11:30 at night, broad daylight by the way, and very little traffic. In fact we did not expect any until morning sometime. But a trucker was heading north and I flagged him down and he very graciously gave us a jump.

On the way again and now we have seen the sun at midnight. Pulled off the road at 1:20 am now on June 22nd, tilted our seats back pulled out extra covers and attempted to sleep. I managed about 3 hours, Joyce less. Back on the road about 5:00. headed toward Atigun Pass. We crossed the Chandalara Shelf and on the way down we spotted a wolf. There was a convenient pulloff and the wolf looked like he was a curious about us an we him. Joyce got several nice pictures. The rest of the day was just long and mostly uneventful. We did find a nice Orchid that was on Joyce's bucket list.

Back to camp around 6:30 and were we glad. Tomorrow we need to get the car washed, new tires prescriptions and wash clothes.

June 23, 2010

A good nights sleep was had by all. Had our breakfast, I went to the carwash and 2 laser washes and three trips through the manual wash before I could get all the mud off. Looks like a new car. Back to camp and Joyce is washing clothes. I go to Fairbanks and get two new tires. The rest of the day was shopping and getting prescriptions filled. Leaving tomorrow for Healy AK which is 10 miles from Denali. Looking forward to seeing friends. Will be there a few days and move on.