What an amazing journey thus far. We left Coldfoot with sweet potato cinnamon
rolls and coffee! YUMMY! Perhaps a baker from the family can figure
out how to replicate these deliciousness!
HINT! HINT!
The road to Prudhoe Bay from Coldfoot was
much like the road from Fairbanks to Coldfoot.
Partly paved, mostly rock/gravel, some mud and very wet, and some
potholes. We had to follow several Pilot
cars as they were doing some major restoration, mostly near Prudhoe Bay. Last summer the Sag River flooded and took
out part of the Dalton Highway and it was completely closed for 18 days. We didn’t encounter much traffic that wasn’t
work traffic so had to be a major impact for those needing to drive between
Fairbanks and Prudhoe.
Sign along the highway: Utility Work Ahead. One of the improvements along this highway is
the installation of Fiber Optic cabling.
Fiber Optic!! Places that don’t
even have permanent residents and places with nothing but great views will have
Fiber Optic and we don’t! It just isn’t fair.
Andrew’s 1st quote of the
day: It’s the proverbial road less
travelled, Cheryl. And Cheryl would have
to agree. It was mostly just us, a
couple of other “tourists” as they weren’t white work trucks. Not many tourists actually travel further
than the Arctic Circle. It is another
200+ plus miles that takes 6-8 hours. It
was hard to tell what kind of work the work trucks were representing as most
vehicles, including ours, were so dirty you couldn’t read anything on the
sides. Road construction, mining,
utilities (!), Alaskan Pipeline, Land Management, ???
Andrew’s 2nd quote of the
day: It’s f****** incredible! (Sorry if that offends anyone.) And it was.
Driving through the mountains and then going up and up and up and crossing
the Atigun Pass in the Brooks Range nearly brought me to tears. Really.
Side note: The Atigun Pass is the
highest highway pass in Alaska at 4,800 feet!!
It can’t even be described or photographed properly. The snow covered peaks and surrounding ground. The steep drop offs, the peaks so tall they
reached into the clouds and you couldn’t tell where the mountains ended and the
sky began. It was so raw, so untouched,
so crisp and cold and tingly. The temp
dropped to about 34 as we drove up and over this pass. We were alone at the top of all of this
wonderment; it was very peaceful!
The signs:
Avalanche area, do NOT stop! I
kid you not. I guess they don’t want you
stopping to take pictures and gawk because if an avalanche does happen, it will
take you out for sure, whereas if you keep driving you may make it out. Since most of the snow was gone from the
upper peaks, we chanced it and stopped.
Again, amazing and jaw-dropping gorgeous.
Once over the peak, we travelled down and
down into the Alaskan Coastal Plain. The
flat expanses of snow, herds of caribou, and musk ox (not a herd but one and
then a group of 3 walking along) –WOW.
You can see forever and forever.
We stopped to grab a snack and I was so upset…someone left dirty diapers
behind. Dirty diapers!! Two things crossed my mind: One WHY DO PEOPLE LITTER!!!! WHY!?!?!? WHY !?!?!?
And the second, someone is taking a baby or toddler on this LONG drive?
I can’t imagine these poor kiddos being stuck in a car seat for these many
hours and hours on end. I remember
traveling with our boys and we’d have to schedule lots of run-around time to compensate
for their in-the-seat time! Sigh.
We arrived at Deadhorse Camp, our evening
lodging. I am not sure where we would
have camped as there is no camping areas here.
Perhaps miles out?? A tourist van
we passed back and forth asked the store keeper about camping (their van was
fully self-sustained, he said) and she said that they could just sleep in their
parking lot as she wasn’t aware of any place to camp at all. Our place is again a barracks, except this
evening we share our bathroom/shower with all the others on our floor. The entire “community” of Prudhoe Bay
(Deadhorse) is made up of oil companies, and lots of barracks. It is a camp.
There are a couple of hotels, but they look like barracks. There is one gas station with gas prices that
mimic Canada’s (about double ours!), a restaurant in the one hotel, a NAPA auto
dealer that also has a General Store upstairs and a Post Office, some
construction companies. Everything else
revolves around the oil industry. There
are no permanent buildings; everything is made of metal like a “Morton”
building, except for a couple of “inflatable” buildings. They look like they were just packed up and
brought here and set down.
There is an airport that supports Alaska
Airlines! The woman that checked me out
at the store works two weeks on and then two weeks off and they fly her up and
back. She literally works
year-round. She has to fly to either
Fairbanks or Anchorage but usually flies to Fairbanks as that was where her
sons and grandkids are.
Apparently there are only 4 permanent
residences here and everyone else is in and out. Our hostess who checked us in (Phoebe) is
here just for the summer and will leave in September. She said she travels each summer to a
different place. I think she said found this job and others from a website
called coolworks.com.
Our poor truck and especially bikes. They are encrusted with mud from our journey
up here. We looked around but could find
no car washes or public hoses. We’ll
have to scrub her down once we get back to Fairbanks. Every vehicle here is pretty much in the same
shape. It’s hard to tell who the trucks represent. A lot of oil, yes, but many are working to
rebuild the road.
The barracks also had a restaurant, sort of, basically a place to eat. We had to put on gloves to
get our corned beef and cabbage and/or chicken stuffed with some kind of amazing
cheese stuff, and quinoa/chick pea mix. The
gloves were for not spreading things, the chef said. I guess when you live very remotely you don’t
want to share everything! The food was
some great stuff.
We did take a quick walk, only 2
miles. Andrew would have walked further
but there are so many warnings about Grizzlies and Polar Bears encroaching the
camp that I was afraid to wander off too far.
You only have to be faster than one other and that would make me the
tasty one as Andrew is pretty fast. I
know he would intervene on my behalf but I didn’t want to put him in that
situation. :)
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