Days 8-9 (Friday & Saturday) Elliott-Dalton Highway
A quote from Justin to explain our first day, "We drove 266 miles on a muddy, gravel, pot-hole filled road to see an imaginary line." (The Arctic Circle)
We drove on the Elliott Highway, 11 miles north of Fairbanks, to Livengood. At Livengood, we took the Dalton Highway. The Dalton Highway is often called the "truckers highway" because it was built to be a service road for the Trans-Alaska pipeline in 1974.
A fun stop was at the town of Joy. Everyone picked up a shirt or hat to commemorate the future viewing of the Arctic Circle. South Dakota has some mosquitoes, but nothing compared to north Alaska in a rainy season. Mosquitoes voraciously swarmed around everyone.
Rain started to come down when we neared Coldfoot. The town reminded me of a truck stop. We filled up the vehicle with gas and stopped at the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center across the road. Then we drove to Wiseman to check into the Boreal Lodge. The lodge was quite rustic with an outdoor shared bathroom for all the rooms. Our night at Wiseman was the coldest night we had. We were glad we had heat, running water and a flush toilet.
On the way back to Fairbanks we saw one cow moose and her calf near the oil pipeline. If we could have added two or three more days to our trip, we would have kept going on the Dalton highway all the way up north to Prudhoe Bay.
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| Outhouse at Joy |
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| Blue highlight -- Fairbanks to Wiseman |
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| Town of Joy |
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| Hand-drawn map of the highway given out at the town of Joy |
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| Potholes were abundant |
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| Clean vehicle at the start of the trip on the Dalton Highway |
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| Linda and I by the Pipeline |
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| Arlen, Justin and I stand under the Alaska pipeline |
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| Justin and I hike up to the top of the "Tor" rock formations |
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| Tors -- rock formations caused by the weather |
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| Finger rock (Tor) may have been used by pilots to point the direction to Fairbanks |
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| Rain the day before made parts of the road muddy |
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Linda and Wayne received the red carpet treatment. It was left by a tour
company, which came back later to retrieve it. |
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| Slate Creek Inn, Coldfoot |
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| Arctic Interagency Center, Coldfoot, handed out to each of us an Arctic Circle Certificate |
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| Great information in the Arctic Interagency Center |
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| Kanayut Conglomerate sedimentary rock forms on the south side of the Atigun Pass |
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| Entrance to Boreal Lodge |
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| Front of the Boreal Lodge |
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| Alaska Fireweed flowers everywhere in Alaska during the summer months |
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| Not sure if it is a northern hawk owl or a boreal owl |
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| Group ate in the kitchenette at the Boreal Lodge in Wiseman, Alaska |
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| Arlen and Justin hiked in the evening at Wiseman and stop to pose in front of the unique sign. |
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| Glimmer of sun shining on the mountains |
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| Mother moose and calf near the pipeline |
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| View of the road ahead |
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| Mosquitoes were really bad near the Yukon river where we had a very quick lunch. |
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| E. L. Patton Bridge over the Yukon River |
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| The guys were practicing in case of an oil spill |
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| On the way back we noticed the Welcome to the Dalton Highway Sign that we missed on the start. |
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| The sign says it all |
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| The vehicle was a little dirtier after the day of driving |
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