We woke up the next morning with the sun shining just as brightly as when we had went to bed last night at midnight or so. We had a delicious breakfast that consisted of a fried egg, honey ham, sundried tomatoes, Italian cheese, lettuce and dijon on a whole wheat ciabatta bread. We packed up our tent, cleaned up our mess and began our adventure to the Arctic after a quick stop at the Arctic Trading Post.
Heading north we reached the turnoff to the Dalton Hwy, we first made the assumption that the first turnoff would have gas for us to top up our tanks, but after arriving we noticed everything was closed. The next gas station was a quick detour (or so we though) off the main road towards Minto. The road quickly turned into gravel and the town ended up being 40 miles away. While 40 miles didn’t seem like much it ended up taking us over an hour to get there. The view was awesome so the detour was well worth it. Once in the small town of Minto we decided to make our phone call to Deadhorse, to get our security clearance 24 hours before being able to go to the Arctic Ocean. We had no luck getting a hold of anyone so we headed back to the Dalton Hwy. Finally, we set off on the road north which was, of course, all gravel.
The beginning of the road was not very scenic but the construction that was taking place kept us on our toes. At one point there was a grader flattening out one half of the road which caused us to only be able to drive in the incoming lane with a 2 foot dirt row between us and the proper lane. We prayed there were no oncoming trucks as we slowly drove around the blind corners. Thankfully this ended within a kilometer and we were cruising north with the land cruiser handling the pot holes and gravel roads like a champ. Our first stop was a little outcropping on the side of the road, here we took a picture of the truck to show how dirty it was, and as a comparison for how dirty it will be.
We saw oncoming bikers that were completely covered in mud with nothing but two holes cleaned on their goggles…. I’m sure glad we are in a truck. The scenery quickly became our main focus as we ran parallel with the Alaska pipeline over rolling hills and travelling through vast landscapes. Originally the road wound through forest but this quickly turned into tundra, at one stop there were massive bodies of rocks which are pushed to the surface by the earth every time the ground freezes and thaws. Passing fully loaded trucks and enjoying their humor over the CB radio we made our way to the Yukon River. This is the only bridge that crosses the river, here we topped up on gas and attempted to get our security clearance again. We had more luck and have the tour bus booked for 5 pm tomorrow which will take us to the Arctic Ocean. Once there we have both decided that we will join the Polar Bear Club by walking into the frigid waters up to our knees. Due to safety reasons they don’t let you swim.
We climbed the valley out of the small service stop of Coldfoot and with our eyes peeled for wildlife we began heading into the mountains. The next stop was at the Arctic Circle crossing, here was of course had to take some silly pictures and had an amazing lunch/dinner. While I could write about everything that was on there… here is a picture to do that for me.
20 minutes later we were on the road again, fat, happy and heading up the highway. At first the sights of all the massive cliff faces were awesome but then the scenery became even more insane. The trees got smaller and smaller and eventually there was nothing but moss growing as we climbed steadily higher. We eventually reached the summit which was at 1453 meters above sea level. Making our way down the other side we could see the orange moss growing as far as the eye could see, with nothing else but rock. As the road began to flatten out we reached the valley between the mountains. With the low hanging clouds it felt like they were right above us and we had to duck to get under them. Eventually we found our turnoff to an old campground (a tundra field) and along the road we spotted our first piece wildlife in the distance. I yelled “hey look a dog!” when Ricki excitedly replied, “No! It’s a wolf!” This animal was being dive bombed by sparrows as it was walking through the field and seemed quite curious of us approaching. Eventually we got close enough to take a good look and it turned out to be just a dog. Go Figure.
Deadhorse and are praying for nice weather and for our stuff to not be soaking wet in the morning.
