August 16th - Day 19 - Fairbanks to Wiseman

There have been times on our previous drives when we have said that we have just driven one of the great roads in the world. On the Inca Trail in 2001 it was the road across Peru from the Andes to the Pacific coast. In 2004 in Tibet it was the road from Lhasa to China. In 2005, in southern Africa, it was the drive across the Namibian desert. In 2008 in Mexico it was the road to Copper Canyon. Now, another great road is added to the list, the fantastic Dalton Highway across the Alaskan wilderness.
The highway was built to service the oilfields on the north slope of Alaska. It was only opened to general traffic in 1994. Now sections are paved but much is still gravel and you get a real sense of being in one the ultimate wildernesses of the world. We left Fairbanks in pouring rain and I had a sense of real disappointment that the day would turn out to be a long hard slog in bad weather. How wrong I was! After about 50 miles of easy driving, in heavy rain going north from Fairbanks, we had or first sightings of the pipeline.


Another 30 miles and we reached the start of the Dalton Highway, Highway 11. This section of the road is gravel.

The gravel road with the pipeline in the distance.

At this point the road is good gravel and we soon saw the oil pipeline running close to the road. The pipeline is a truly impressive engineering achievement. For 800 miles it runs across Alaska. The weather continued to improve and we saw our first sunshine. In this photo you can see the pipeline disappearing into the distance as it snakes across the landscape.

Every so often it goes underground and then reappears. When above ground it is supported on legs about 10 feet off the ground.
The trucks servicing the oil fields thunder along the road throwing up dust and stones. My stone guard came into its own on a couple of occasions when stones thrown up by one of the trucks hit it. Here is one of the trucks passing a grader smoothing out a rough section of the road and another climbing a hill towards us.


There were very few other vehicles and as the weather improved we were able to really appreciate what a special place Alaska is. Vast open spaces of virgin land stretch as far as the eye can see. At times we were the totally on our own, with no other vehicles to be seen. It was a wonderful experience.
We made several stops at lay bys to take photos and after about 150 miles we came to the mighty Yukon River.

The bridge that was constructed to carry the pipeline, as well as the Dalton, over the river is the only crossing of the Yukon in Alaska.

Bob & Thelma silhouetted against the river and the bridge in bright sunshine.

We stopped and had a coffee at the café by the bridge and met Craig, from New York, who was driving a BMW motorbike. He was on his way back from Prudhoe Bay. We asked him about the road and our destination, Prudhoe Bay. We were pleased to hear that the road conditions were good, even though there was rain and snow showers in the Brooks Mountain Range. Our muddy car and Ed, myself and Craig by his BMW.


The Brooks Range marks the continental divide. Everything south flows into the Yukon. Everything north, to the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean.
We continued the drive north and stopped at Finger Mountain. This is named after the tor on top of the mountain that looks like a finger that points directly towards Fairbanks, over 200 miles away.

As we climbed up the rocks near the tor, we saw these beautiful small ground covering plants with red leaves.

The views from the top are simply stunning.

We were now close to one of the true highlights of our tour, the crossing of the Arctic Circle at 66 degrees, 33 seconds north. We stopped at the marker post and took photos of us all in front of the marker with my car just below, and Bob’s car just above the Circle.

There is only one place on the whole highway to refuel and that is Coldfoot, at about 250 miles along the highway. It is principally a truck stop and has very little, apart from a good visitor centre, to recommend it.
Twenty miles further on and we came to our overnight stop at Wiseman. Wiseman sprang up in the early 20th century when gold was discovered nearby. The good times have long gone and now only 15 people live in the community. Our B&B is a very pleasant log cabin, the Arctic Getaway.

We walked along the bank of the river that runs along side Wiseman and then took a look at the ‘centre’. It really is an out of the way place but in a very beautiful location.

The day ended with Bob & Thelma cooking a great chilli for us all.