Good evening!
Today we woke early in Circle City. Salmon fishermen were loading their boats and heading out on the Yukon for a day of fishing. We had to wait until 10:00 for the only store to open so we could buy gas, so we walked around town a bit and talked to a few residents and a German couple who had just kayaked the Yukon.
This tiny town is pretty interesting. It has the only "Airplane Crossing" road sign I have ever seen. It appears that when the local pilot lands at the town's airstrip, he just taxis his plane down the road to his house!
The town has a nice, new post office, a clinic, a school and more junk vehicles than I've ever seen in such a small place. I guess cars and trucks come in, but they never leave.
After we bought some gas (only 10 gallons, since it cost $1 more than anywhere else), we headed back out the Steese Highway.
Today was bright and sunny, much better for picture-taking. Even the areas burned by forest fires looked more cheerful, with green and pink fireweed carpeting the ground. We stopped several times in turnouts to photograph butterflies and dragonflies, and explored Eagle and Twelvemiles Summits again. I wanted to get better pix of some of the plants I found there yesterday. We discovered that the fog had hidden more than just scenic vistas -- just beyond the edges of the road along the hairpin were steep drop-offs! Yesterday we could tell that there was a slope, but we had no idea how much!
We made it back to Fox by mid-afternoon, bought a few groceries, gassed up and stopped for a burger at the Hilltop Truck Stop five miles up the Elliott Highway. Then we started north, bound for the Dalton Highway and the Arctic Circle, just so we could say we were there.
The Elliott Highway is paved, but it is built over a lot of areas of permafrost, so it is heaved, patched and broken, and the going is sometimes slow. Also lots of steep grades and sharp turns, as well as numerous fast-moving big trucks delivering supplies and equipment to the oil fields at Deadhorse on Prudhoe Bay. We had frequent views of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline as we traveled north.
Clouds moved in, and eventually it began to rain lightly.
At mile 73, the Elliott Highway intersects of the Dalton Highway near the town of Livengood (population 23). We turned onto the Dalton, and what a difference! The pavement ended, and the road became rough, pot-holed, washboarded gravel! We went up a very steep grade, and traveled about 4 or 5 miles before Donny said, "This is not going to happen!" The road was so rough we were afraid our poor old camper would be shaken apart if we kept going. We reluctantly turned around and headed back south. About 9:30 we checked into the River View Campground in North Pole where we had stayed twice before.
Although we only covered about 300 miles today, it took us almost 10 hours of driving, not counting a few stops. We were both ready for showers and bed. Tomorrow we will decide where we head next. We probably will only be in Alaska a couple more days before heading back east. We have lots of plans for places to visit along the way, including Haines, YT; the Cassiar Highway to Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK; Jasper, Lake Louise and Banff, Alberta and more. We will probably spend more time in the northern US than we originally intended, as well.
Until next time!
Cheryl and Donny
No comments:
Post a Comment