-- From Cantwell to Prudhoe Bay & back to Fairbanks
The road tracklog
from Cantwell to Dalton Hwy
from 2011/06/27 to 2011/06/30
Denali National Park
The park was established in 1917 being called MT McKinley NP after the name of a senator who became President of the USA. In 1980 it was enlarged to 6 million acres, it is larger than the State of Massachusetts. It took the name of Denali NP, High One, name given by the First Nation Athabascan. The landscape is composed of taiga then of tundra in the north. To preserve fauna and flora the motor vehicle traffic is prohibited in the park, a system of bus was set up. A booklet indicates that there is 25% chance of seeing the MT McKinley and 95% chance of spotting bears.
Monday June 27 by arriving I noted that the campgrounds were full for the three next days. After reflection I decided to visit it on foot the first day, to buy a packed tour the second day and to find a bivouac on Hwy # 3. I thus strolled various trails for +10km by visiting Visitor Center, Riley Creek and Horseshoes Lake. Of course I observed wild animals, a moose and its puppy and birds. At a bookstore I bought a book by Jack London, Five Great Short Stories. In the afternoon I found a bivouac close to McKinley Village and I checked my truck.
MT McKinley NP
Denali NP
27/06/2011
Visitor Center
Denali NP
27/06/2011
Moose
Denali NP
27/06/2011
Puppy
Denali NP
27/06/2011
Puppy
Denali NP
27/06/2011
Bird ?
Denali NP
27/06/2011
The following day I took part in Tundra Wilderness Tour animated by a driver lecturer explaining wilderness with animals and telling stories; but difficult to understand. The bus was full, the tour lasted eight hours without time appearing long. Alas it rained all the day with fog in altitude. The road is in gravel rather narrow and muddy in rainy weather. Indeed we saw animals in their natural habitat. But it was impossible to approach them for safety reasons, we observed them from the bus and often by far. See a bear to go here and there is magic.
Landscape
Denali NP
28/06/2011
Dall Sheep
Denali NP
28/06/2011
Caribou
Denali NP
28/06/2011
Grizzly
Denali NP
28/06/2011
Climate change
Denali NP
28/06/2011
MT McKinley, poster
Denali NP
28/06/2011
Nenana
On the way towards Fairbanks I stopped in Nenana of which deserved were praised by Bear Foot, Alaska's travel magazines. The detour was a pause in the move on a road whose only interest was landscapes, already seen. I retained the charming log church and the strange Ice Classic to know the exact hour of the broken ice of Nenana River. Stake of speculation at modern time, at the origin the broken ice by the Tripod fixed the beginning of the building railroad work…
Visitor Center
Nenana
29/06/2011
Ice Classic
Nenana
29/06/2011
Tripod
Nenana
29/06/2011
Ice breakup
Nenana
29/06/2011
St Mark's Church
Nenana
29/06/2011
Railway Station
Nenana
29/06/2011
I carried on my road to arrive at the lunch time in Fairbanks, taken on the Walmart carpark. They fell water buckets from the sky, consequently I decided to give the visit of the city at my return from Prudhoe Bay.
Dalton Hwy #11
Prudhoe Bay
Dalton Highway is a rough, industrial road that begins 84 miles -134km- north of Fairbanks and ends 414 miles -662km- in Deadhorse through the Brooks Range. It is dangerous for tires and windshields. In 1968 of oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay, the construction of a 800-mile long pipeline was decided to Valdez, but the First Nations claim for compensations. After obtaining permits and environmental safeguards the construction of a road was carried out in five months and of a pipeline in three years -1974/77- Called initially “Haul Road” because the equipment of drilling were hauled onto platforms drawn by trucks –hauled on tractor-trailer rigs– It was dedicated to the commercial traffic. In 1981 it was opened to tourism up to Disaster Creek at MP 211, then in 1994 up to Deadhorse at MP 414. It is mandatory to buy a packed tour to go to Prudhoe Bay, $45, by telephone 24 hours in advance by giving the n° passport. (get from Dalton Highway Visitor Guides)
Dalton Highway #11
from 30/06/2011 to 03/07/2011
June 30 before leaving my bivouac I deflated the tires at 2.5 bars, it rained and the fog darkened the visibility. Along the road some points of interest present sights. At a Visitor Center at MP 56 Dalton Hwy Visitor Guide is given free with a certificate of crossing Arctic Circle. The hostess provides useful additional information. She laid out two specimens of Black Spruce -240 years and 180 years old with a quarter as size reference. I observed a moose splashing in Grayling Lake to feed on nutrient-rich aquatic plants.
Gravel road in the rain
Dalton Hwy
30/06/2011
Trans-Alaska Pipepline
Visitor Center
Dalton Hwy
30/06/2011
Black Spruce
Dalton Hwy
30/06/2011
Moose in Grayling Lake
Dalton Hwy
30/06/2011
The Artic Interagency Visitor Center at MP 175 in Coldfoot exhibits fauna, flora, geology and archive pictures, highly recommendable. This first day on road was traversed partly in the rain, some sections of the gravel road are very corrugated and some others are asphalted. But as in Australia, a good gravel road is preferable to a bad paved road. The visibility for pictures was often limited, rain and fog. In Coldfoot I booked an excursion at Artic Ocean Shuttle for Prudhoe Bay on Saturday at 5 p.m.
Artic Interagency, Coldfoot
Dalton Hwy
30/06/2011
Artic Interagency
Dalton Hwy
30/06/2011
Artic Interagency
Dalton Hwy
30/06/2011
Second day
The day was announced rainy like the preceding ones but in more with a very dark sky on the southern slope of Brooks Range. The rain ceased only in the broad valley of Sagavanirktok River on the northern slope. The gravel road had very painful passages so much the surface was rough. At the MP 235 the forest of black spruces left the place to the tundra.
Black Spruce
Dalton Hwy
01/07/2011
Landscape
Dalton Hwy
01/07/2011
Dalton Hwy
01/07/2011
Dalton Hwy
01/07/2011
Dalton Hwy
01/07/2011
Dalton Hwy
01/07/2011
The climb of Atigun Pass at 1422 meters of altitude was done in gusts of wind and rain fortunately without snow fall. The northern slope still had snow-capped tops. Then it was the broad valley of Sagavanirktok which pointed out to me certain valleys in Nepal within the Dolpo area but with the difference that they are at the altitude of 4000 meters and the latitude of 29° N. I bivouacked on its shore over its tumultuous floods.
Atigun Pass
Dalton Hwy
01/07/2011
Northern slope
Dalton Hwy
01/07/2011
Third day
The first part of the third day occurred on the gravel road to reach Deadhorse about midday. On the way some sights mentioned by Visitor Guide drew my attention, more particularly the Franklin Bluffs whose colors come from the iron-rich soils.
Sag River Overlook
Dalton Hwy
02/07/2011
Franklin Bluffs
Dalton Hwy
02/07/2011
Franklin Bluffs
Dalton Hwy
02/07/2011
The town of Deadhorse is rather an industrial camping in the extreme north of the American continent, it consists of hutments piled up to resist the rigors of the climatic conditions. It was the first sunny day with a fresh temperature. The packed tour was scheduled at 5 p.m., I made profitable the latency to prepare the publication of my website.
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Deadhorse
Dalton Hwy
02/07/2011
Deadhorse
Dalton Hwy
02/07/2011
Deadhorse
Dalton Hwy
02/07/2011
Deadhorse
Dalton Hwy
02/07/2011
Deadhorse
Dalton Hwy
02/07/2011
The second part was a guided tour of the industrial site. The group of a score of people was joined together in a room of the Hotel Caribou Inn where the driver of the minibus presented the tour and projected a video exposing the story of oil discovered and the stages of the production. A large part was devoted to the First Nations and the safeguard of the environment. The minibus traversed the industrial site whose access is narrowly supervised. The driver commented on practically each building that we saw from outside and from inside of the minibus, prohibition to go down. On the site between buildings some caribou fed without concern. The climax was Prudhoe Bay and the Beaufort Sea, we were authorized to go down to splash in icy water. The duration of the tour was two hours.
Industrial site
Deadhorse
02/07/2011
Truck
Deadhorse
02/07/2011
Caribou
Deadhorse
02/07/2011
Caribou
Deadhorse
02/07/2011
Fourth day
The fourth day started as of the end of the guided tour to return to Fairbanks. It was sometimes difficult to remake this gravel road, but finally the landscapes had changed, flowers per thousands papered mountains and plains. Fortunately the rain was not part. I entered in Fairbanks at the end of the afternoon to bivouac on the carpark of Walmart, maybe.
Flower Tapestry
Dalton Hwy
03/07/2011
Flowers
Dalton Hwy
03/07/2011
Hiden flowers
Dalton Hwy
03/07/2011
Bunch of summer flowers
Dalton Hwy
03/07/2011
Final report of the trip to Prudhoe Bay
1---- Dalton Hwy is worthy
of its reputation: rough, muddy in the rain, to see the state of
my truck back to Fairbanks. In spite of my precautions the
windshield accepted a gravel damaging it, repaired in Fairbanks.
2---- There is little traffic primarily heavy trucks transporting of
material, official cars of the various companies operating on the
site and private cars of which one at excessive speed
projected a gravel on the windshield. I met only two motor homes with
removable cell on Ford E450, approximately ten motorcyclists with BNW, and
three cyclists, but no bearded tattooed overlapping of Harley-Davidson.
3---- I liked the landscapes even in the rain with leaded sky, and
especially the welcome by the hostess of Visitor Contact Station at the
MP 56 and the exhibits at the Interagency Visitor Center at the MP175.
Omnipresent fauna was nearly invisible except in Grayling Lake at the MP
150 where a Moose in duty was in the middle of the lake. Of course there
were squirrels, marmots and hares going away on the road and
birds in the sky. I receipted much visitors as well of the population in Coldfoot as motorcyclists met on the road.
4---- I hated, the corrugated parts of the road crying vulgarly. The best,
seldom, mixed to the worst, often. The mileage back to Fairbanks was 1644
kilometers.
