August 17th - Day 20 - Wiseman to Prudhoe Bay

Wiseman is about 240 miles south of Prudhoe Bay, so we were over halfway along the Dalton Highway to our most northerly destination.

We estimated it would take no more than about five hours, so we were able to have a leisurely breakfast cooked by our hosts, Uta and Bernie. They talked about life in Wiseman and how they cope through the long harsh winters when temperatures fall to minus 40 degrees Celsius. They have a team of sledge dogs and Edward became firm friends with them in no time at all.

Ed and Pingo, his new-found friend!

We left Wiseman at about 10am and continued along the highway which was mainly gravel with short sections of tarmac. The weather was fine and the countryside fantastic. Even though we have now been driving alongside the Alaskan pipeline for three days, I am still in awe at the achievement of the engineers. This became even more spectacular as we rose to nearly 5000ft going over the Atigun Pass across the Brooks Range. At times the pipeline is rising at 45 degrees.

We passed a sign which marked the furthest north spruce on the pipeline. Sadly, a vandal had killed the tree, but they still want the tree to stand.

Bob & Thelma had gone on ahead and we met up with them at the top of the Brooks Range. Bob took this photo of us as we climbed the mountain pass.

Once over the top we descended to the Northern Slope, the area between the Brooks Range and the Beaufort Sea and the site of the Alaskan North Slope Oil Field. This is the area where the caribou migrate to in the summer in search of summer plants. We saw several small herds and took some good photos of male caribou with their magnificent antlers.

This lone male made a great photo with the Brooks Range in the background.

We were hoping that we would see musk-oxen but were disappointed, mostly because the area where they were most likely to be seen was shrouded in quite dense fog.

For the last 30 miles into Prudhoe Bay the weather was pretty awful. Shortly before we reached our destination we crossed latitude 70 degrees north, the farthest north we have ever been.



We arrived at our hotel, a two storey portacabin, at about 3pm.

We unpacked and then drove round part of the town. It is an enormous industrial complex with heavy machinery everywhere. Apparently there are between 10,000 and 14,000 people working up here on two/three week on and off shifts. I'll post more photos tomorrow when we go on a tour which will take us into the areas which are closed to the public by the oil companies for security reasons, including the Beaufort Sea.

Finally, we have now travelled a total of 3,513 miles, with approximately 900 miles to go until we reach Anchorage, and the end of our tour.