Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle

Corinne Alaska, Sightseeing 5 Comments

The Dalton Highway, the road from Fairbanks to Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay is a road with a nasty reputation. According to the Milepost (our guidebook).

The Dalton Highway is unique in its scenic beauty, wildlife and recreational opportunities, but it is also one of Alaska’s most remote, dangerous and challenging roads. Driving distance (round-trip) between Fairbanks and Deadhorse is approximately 1,000 miles.

The Milepost 74th Edition

And here we were, considering taking the RV up this infamous highway. But first, I feel compelled to start with the reason the Dalton Highway exists. the Alaska Pipeline. So bear with me as I offer a little background information.

Alaska Pipeline

In Fairbanks, there is a viewpoint where you can get right up to the Alaska Pipeline.

This is a section of the 800 mile long Alaska Pipeline. Yes, this was the actual pipeline and you could get up close to it. A human (me) was added to the photo to give you a sense of scale.
We had already seen the southern end of the Alaska Pipeline in Valdez back in early June. We now wanted to visit start of the pipeline in Prudhoe Bay, wayyyyy up on the Arctic Ocean. You can see where Fairbanks is on this map, about halfway along the pipeline.
The most intriguing thing about the pipeline (from an engineering perspective) are the towers the pipeline sits on. The oil is about 130 degrees Fahrenheit when it is pumped out of the ground. In most places the pipeline could not be buried because the ground is permafrost (frozen year round). Thawed permafrost soil is very unstable and can’t support a pipeline. Thus, the support towers are passive refrigeration devices. Let the next picture explain….
Very cool engineering. Literally.
The pipeline measures 4 feet across. Again, human added for scale.

Now that we have some Alaska Pipeline background it’s time to take a ride up the Dalton Highway.

Dalton Highway

In order to build the Alaska Pipeline from Fairbanks northward, they needed a road. And that is how the Dalton Highway came to be starting in 1974. And to this day, the Dalton Highway is the ONLY way by land to get supplies up to Prudhoe Bay. So it is heavily traveled by semi-trucks. HEAVILY! The road is often called the “Haul Road”, because its primary use is to haul supplies.

Another bit of trivia…the names Prudhoe Bay and Deadhorse get used interchangeably. Prudhoe Bay is the name of the body of water next to the land where oil was discovered. During early construction of the oil field site, a company out of Fairbanks called Deadhorse Excavation was brought in to help with the construction. When people would fly into Prudhoe Bay, they would see all the Deadhorse Excavation trucks. Pretty soon people were referring to the airport as Deadhorse Airport and the name stuck.

I was more than a little freaked out about taking our RV on the Dalton. James was pretty chill about it (probably because he’s the one in control when driving the RV). Between the Facebook group and talking to people, we had heard horror stories about the road. Such as…..

  • Don’t do it!
  • Take extra food, water, air compressor, tire patch kit and bedding.
  • Take two spare tires.
  • Take extra fuel.
  • The truckers will run you off the road.

But we knew we wanted to get to the Arctic Ocean. The fly/drive trip we did to Coldfoot and the Arctic Circle convinced us we could take the RV as far north as Coldfoot. We had been on the road in that uncomfortable tour van. I kept telling myself we could do this.

The first thing we had to do was prepare for the trip. We met up with friends from the RV Rally who also wanted to do the trip to the Arctic Ocean and exchanged plans/ideas/stories/advice. They had had the foresight to order a CB radio off Amazon. We had extra diesel fuel in jerry cans. Since our friends were going a week earlier than us, they borrowed our fuel cans.

Once our friends returned from their successful trip (they did it in three days in their truck, and left their RV in Fairbanks), we purchased their now slightly used CB radio and got our jerry cans back. We stocked up on food and fresh water. We filled all the fuel tanks on the RV and the truck. And we waited for a decent weather window.

Driving the RV to Coldfoot

A decent weather window arrived and we set out early one morning. Getting to the start of the Dalton Highway wasn’t bad, it was only an hour north of Fairbanks and the road was paved.

Sandy, our RV, demanded we take a picture of her at the start of the Dalton Highway.
Not to be outdone, I too insisted on also having my picture taken with the sign.

We had learned on our fly/drive trip to the Arctic Circle, that a CB radio is highly recommended. Our tour guides/van drivers were constantly talking to the semi trucks. When they pulled out of a wayside, they would announce “White Van pulling out from the Arctic Circle going southbound.” When a truck came up from behind you, you would say “Southbound driver, I am going to pull over onto the shoulder so you can pass me.” Stuff like that.

Yes, this photo is totally staged. I became lead CB operator on our Dalton Highway adventure. It was my job to talk to the truckers to tell them to pass us. “Northbound driver, this is the northbound motor home. We are going to pull over here so you can get by us.” Seriously, that is what I would say.
Once a truck passed us, I would wish them a good day and they would return the sentiment. And not a single trucker tried to crowd us off the road. Phew!

Another form of Haul Road etiquette we learned form the fly/drive tour was to always wave at the semi drivers. You didn’t have to do a huge, arm waving greeting. Just a simple lifting of your hand off the steering wheel to acknowledge the driver. You didn’t want to be rude. So, we waved and they waved back.

The highway was a combination of packed dirt (most of the time) occasionally interspersed with frost heaved, bumpy asphalt.

The dirt sections were usually smoother than the paved sections. The road graders could come out and smooth out any bumps. We saw Highway Maintenance Facilities every 60 miles. The workers there were responsible for their 60 mile stretch of the Dalton, working two weeks on and two weeks off.
The quality of the paved sections varied. Sometimes it was smooth, and other times you felt like you were riding a bucking bronco.

So we retraced our route from the previous week, only going northbound this time.

Here the pipeline is crossing under the highway.
This is the bridge over the Yukon River.
The deck of the bridge is wood! I’m sure there is a reason for wood, but I have no idea why. But Wikipedia tells me it’s been replaced four times since 1975.
The truckers had nicknames for a lot of the challenging sections of the highway. This is the Roller Coaster. Again, it was my job to let truck traffic in the area that we were approaching. “Brown motor home northbound on the Roller Coaster.”
The pipeline followed the highway pretty closely. The bends in the pipeline are to allow for expansion and contraction of the pipe.
And, of course, there was roadwork. I can’t imagine having the job of this flagger. I had so many questions. How much do they get paid to be in the middle of nowhere? Where do they stay at night? Actually a few weeks later, in a remote area we did see a flagger that appeared to be living out of his van…we could see a mattress through an open door in the van.

The Arctic Circle…again

It was a long drive, but yes, we have now been to the Arctic Circle twice.

Again, Sandy insisted on a photo with this landmark. I declined another photo op, the place was pretty busy this day with a lot of people taking pictures in front of the sign.

An additional 65 miles saw us arrive at our destination. The 259 mile trip took us nine hours. By the time we arrived, we were both mentally tired. It was hard work navigating that road. But we had survived taking our RV up the Dalton Highway.!!!! James did an excellent job driving. I did an excellent job shouting “Don’t get too close to the shoulder!!!!” Dalton highway shoulders are notoriously soft, a danger for heavy vehicles.

After 259 miles, both vehicles were disgustingly dirty.

We stayed at the Marion Creek BLM Campground. We loved this campground. No electricity, no cell service. Just us in the woods.

Our sweet campsite at Marion Creek. Yup, the Starlink came with us. We happily spent 6 nights here! At $6 a night, it can’t be beat.

The campground did have potable water, which we made use of. We don’t drink the water out of our RV tanks. You never know what is growing in there.

This is the water pump. You had to run it by hand.
You would turn the handle ten times in one direction to prime the pump, then crank in the opposite direction to get the water out. The water is potable, definitely. But holy cow…the amount of iron in it! We filtered the water before drinking it.

The plants around the campground were stunning.

Alaskan Cotton Grass
The fireweed was reaching the end of its blooming life for this summer. When summer arrived and the plant blooms, the petals start at the bottom of the stalk and work their way up, climbing the plant. We hard more than once that the saying goes….”when the fireweed blossoms at the top of each stalk open to bloom, it is only six weeks until the first snow.” Uh oh!
Reindeer Lichen.

We did wander over to Coldfoot Camp (again), just five miles from the campground. Part of the Camp is the “Northernmost Saloon in the USA.” How could we resist that?

The Frozen Foot Saloon.
It was nothing fancy. but we sat on the outdoor deck and enjoyed a beer.
Stickers really are a thing these days. Our generation hands out business cards to fellow travelers with our names and contact info. The younger generation hands out stickers! And these stickers end up on all sorts of surfaces at attractions.

You could get fuel at Coldfoot if you needed some. Fortunately, we were in pretty good shape. The Alaska rule of thumb is to NOT let your tank get below half full.

Hey, it’s only $7.49 a gallon, for both diesel or unleaded.

Now we started a waiting game again, looking for a good weather window to drive the rest of the way up the Dalton Highway. The plan was to leave the RV at the campground and take the truck up to Deadhorse. I think we were crazy enough to come as far north as we did with our RV, James would have willingly gone the whole way. We saw a number of truck campers and small Class B RVs on the Dalton. But if you are going to attempt to do it in a big rig like ours, you had better have a solidly build RV or you would likely find all your cabinets shaken off the walls. Fortunately, Sandy is VERY well constructed.

Thus we began the preparations for the push to the Arctic Ocean begin. That drive will be the next blog post.

Preparations included getting those truck windows cleaned before we headed further north.
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5 thoughts on “Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle”

  1. Linda n Al

    Hey guys! Halfway there and all shook up! LOL We only made it to the Artic Circle Sign and got the obligatory picture, had a picnic lunch, explored a bit, talked to other weary travelers and headed back to Fairbanks. I don’t remember too many big trucks but do remember the heaves and bumps. We were only in a rental SUV, and we felt every bit of it that’s for sure. Looking forward to the full report in your next blog and when you return!
    Linda and Al

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