24 May – Heading up the Haul Road (Dalton Highway)
We packed up camp and departed Fairbanks this morning. We both had a good nights rest, in spite of it not getting dark. We’re far enough north even though the sun sets, it doesn’t get dark.
As we were heading out of Fairbanks, we stopped by a nice little place for breakfast, Sourdough Cafe, LOT OF FOOD. We got a to-go box, so we’ll be eating Sourdough Cafe breakfast for a day or two. 🙂
The route north first starts on Steese highway (AK-6) to the town of Fox, then the Elliot Highway (AK-2) just past Livengood Then its the Dalton Highway (AK-11) north.
The Dalton is mainly dirt/gravel. there are some places where its paved, but either paved, or gravel, they both have their downfalls, seriously, I think I like the gravel better. The paved tricks you into a sense of false security, you’ll be cruising along and all the sudden, you run into the wavies (mini hills that after abut three in a row, the truck starts bottoming out. Also the Frost hievs, All the sudden the paved road has a 6 inch hole in it where the frost has destroyed the pavement.
Anyway, the first 20 miles of the Dalton are the worst I’ve seen yet, (I wonder if this is intentional to discourage the average tourist??)
The road does improve and on some occasions, I was able to do the posted speed limit of 50mph.
The Dalton runs parallel to the Alaska Pipeline, so for most of the drive, the pipeline is usually in site near the road.
We stopped at a Pipeline very informative display, and you can walk right up and touch the pipeline.
We made a fuel stop at Yukon River crossing. Seems we’ve crossed this river before. 🙂
Jodie made the observation that all those nice pretty photos you see of these places in the magazines do NOT match the real life image. Generally, your a little (lot) let down when you see the place in person as opposed to what they look like in the magazine.
The next stop was at the “Arctic Circle” This is a line at 66′ 33″ north, that marks the line that on Summer Solstice (June21) the sun will not set for at least that one day. Anything south of this line and the sun sets everyday. Anything north, and you can expect at least 1 24 hour day.ther north, the more days of 24 hour sun)
On the road again and the next stop was at Coldfoot.
Remember my remarks about the magazine photo’s BIG TIME HERE. Anyway, we fuel up and headed north to find a place to stop for the night.
We checked a couple potential places, but Jodie found one that was almost perfect.
Its about 100 ft off the road and right beside a small river (Koyukuk River middle fork 3) overlooking one of the largest granite mountains we’ve seen in the area. Most of the small mountains have vegetation, trees, etc, but this one has nothing, stands out by itself.
We’ll see about truck noise, We’ve been here for a few hours and I bet I’ve seen one truck about every 1/2 hour.
Anyway, we’re settling in for the night here. We’ll post this next time we have internet access.
Coldfoot Sunrise > 3:09am Sunset > 12:15am
Mileage Fairbanks to Koyukuk River > 308 13.8 mpg
John & Jodie