Alaska's Dalton Highway

There are three gas pumps on Alaska's Dalton Highway.

The first is a red gravity-fed tank at a barebones wayside named HotSpot just north of the Yukon River.  The second is 160 miles north at ColdFoot and the third is located in Deadhorse just south of the Prudhoe Bay oilfields.  Ironically the third pump, sitting on top of all that oil, charged $4.65 a gallon in the summer of 2002, the highest rate in the nation at the time.

Between those pumps there is not a single stop sign, yard light or neon-trimmed burger joint.

It may sound odd to describe a road to the top of North America in terms of gas pumps, but considering the distance between filling stations and that the purpose of the road is to service an oil pipeline - focusing on gas is more than appropriate.

Until just a few years ago "The Haul Road" was off-limits to civilians then the state of Alaska took over maintenance and opened it up as The Dalton Highway.  Now the drive of a lifetime is available to anyone with a little time, energy and courage.

My wife and I took the trip in July of 2002.

We initially intended to drive only as far as the Arctic Circle wayside. 

It was late in the day when we got there but in Alaska, summer days mean nothing, and it seemed like morning.  So we hung around in the blazing sun of midnight for a photo opportunity and chatted with a south-bound trucker couple, who were returning after hauling a load of generators to Deadhorse. 

They swore the road wasn't in THAT bad of shape and enticed us with the promise of seeing vast Arctic meadows populated by equally vast caribou herds.

That settled it; we were going all the way.

Driving the Dalton is about being alone and small among immense vistas.  It is something way beyond the empty regions of Wyoming and Montana where yard lights punctuate the night like dirty stars and the occasional pole barn reminds you that you are not alone.  On the Dalton, you know you are alone.  You see nothing but sub-arctic forests that stretch east toward Hudson Bay and west to Siberia, and once you get north of the Brooks Range the Arctic meadows are as endless as light in summer.  

Hour after hour you trail north accompanied by little more than a plume of dust rising in your wake and occasionally, if you are lucky, an oncoming red Alyeska pickup then it blurs past and drags a contrail south.

There is nothing but static on the radio and all that interrupts the scenery is the occasional moose or dark form slipping between stirred branches.  

We found little to talk about on the road. 

It's a quiet place for quiet thoughts and we both fell into meditation - watching the road wind between immense hills, thick with spruce forests and across bridges over clear blue streams.

There didn't seem to be much point in trying to add thoughts or conversation to that.

Our first stop was at Cold Foot Camp where we turned in for gas and a burger at a small café started by a trucker in an old bus. 

Coldfoot is the gateway to ANWR, an eternity away from urban culture, but imagine our surprise as we looked up from our burgers to see a pimp parade in wearing a broad brimmed red velvet hat and matching jacket, and trailing a harem of suggestively clad ladies.

Later that evening, at the state campgrounds just north of Cold-Foot, we were awakened by a scuffing sound among the camp gear. I went out to chase off what I figured to be a critter, only to be confronted by a young blonde who inquired whether I wanted to "party".

We left ColdFoot in good spirits, for the cloudless blue skies seemed ideal conditions to take on the most hazardous leg of the journey, the snow capped mountains of the Brooks Range and the dreaded Antigun Pass.

I need to say that I am from Minnesota.   At the time of this trip we lived on a rutted gravel road upon which I commuted through every kind of weather -- but I was completely unprepared for the conditions of the haul road and Antigun Pass. 

The roads were saturated with snow-melt and slick with clay.  My Ford Ranger would fish-tail on high curved crown of the road.  On every isolated curve, the truck would strain toward ditches like a dog after the scent of rabbit, and nothing, not even a hint of a barrier, would prevent a long lethal drop off the mountainside if we went into a skid.  

Several times, the truck began to slide backwards against the tilt of the grade. 

My Minnesota driving skills came in handy.  God knows where we would be if I didn't how to feel for the grit in the road and steer out of spins. 

We descended out of the Brooks Range into a sleet storm that transformed the road into a pounding, splashing, quagmire of ruts.  We battled for hours, spinning, slipping and jarring through what in Minnesota would seem like mid-March road conditions, yet this was the July 4th weekend.

Several times we debated turning back since there was little to see from the corrugated road but the occasional half-frozen lake or river peering out of a desolate fog, but we kept on, knowing that the weather was fickle and that it might clear up as quickly as it clouded over.

Gutting onward, the weather finally rewarded us at an aptly named place, Happy Valley Camp. Here the sky cleared, revealing a vast landscape of undulating arctic meadows where caribou herds grazed on brown-green grass dappled in snow and sunlight.   We drove among the herds that appeared along the road, snapping a photo or two as cows apprehensively bolted after their calves, wary of our stopping. 

Further on, the land flattened out onto the coastal plain where white swans floated in broad, shallow blue ponds.  Occasionally, we would spot a brown bear scooting along, using the top of the pipeline to keep its paws dry from the wet spongy arctic sod.

Then just as quickly as the weather cleared, a snow squall came up and accompanied us into the industrial facility of Deadhorse.  Not a town by any means, Deadhorse is where the Prudhoe oil workers live and repair their equipment. Everything there is large, cold, industrial orange and stands in bold contrast to the pristine nature of what is outside it.

"The town" is little more than trailers on stilts. 

All buildings in the far north are elevated to prevent them from literally melting into the ground.  At these latitudes, the permafrost is no more than a foot or two below the surface and the heat generated by buildings will quickly melt the whole structure into frozen muck that lies beneath.  An un-insulated building will often sink as much as 30 feet a year; that is why the pipeline travels much of its length on stilts.

At Deadhorse, there is a post-office, hotel, general store -- and that's about it, other than a lot of workshops.   We spent most of our time in the store drifting among the dry-goods, talking to a lonely uniformed cop who approached with a friendly "hi, where are you from?"  We chatted with him for awhile then wandered away.  About 20 minutes later, a mother and her son came off the highway to be similarly greeted by "hi, where are you from?"

Due to post 9/11 security, traveling beyond Deadhorse required a 24 hour notice and a background check; we didn't have the time, so we turned back south toward the Brooks Range and the dreaded Antigun Pass. 

To our surprise, the weather was clear and warm under the 24 hour sun.  The ruts of the road had dried into a flat quick surface.  Sleepless under the midnight sun, we sped smoothly south over endless vistas and on to other Alaskan adventures.

© Greg Schiller, 2007
Author: Greg Schiller