Steese Highway to Central and Circle and the Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay
(posted from Noel Wien Library, Fairbanks, AK)
(This post covers 22-29 July, 2008)
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Tuesday, 29 July-
The wind continued strong through the night. We had parked behind a large stone pile but not large enough! By midnight we still hadn’t fallen asleep and were feeling a little seasick from the wind rocking the van. I had taken a walk that afternoon and had seen two other places which might provide wind-protection. The first turned out to be a bust. The wind was rushing between the two large stone piles so much it was forcing the knee-high weeds almost to the ground. But the second spot was a big bowl-shaped cut into the mountainside where the rocks are ‘mined’ before being crushed into road-building sizes. By parking well inside the bowl we were out of the wind (and wind noise) and slept very well the rest of the night.
We awoke to clouds overhead, unlike the last few days of clear-blue skies in the Deadhorse area. The North Slope is actually desert-like in the amount of rainfall it receives but now we’ve come back through the Brooks Range and as we head further south the annual rainfall amounts increase dramatically until they are very high along the coast.
About four miles south of our wind-swept overnight spot we came upon the biggest bear-scat we’ve ever seen. We’re talking massive. It was filled with blueberries and thus smelled sweet. But we saw no bears.
Our next stop was the Yukon River visitor’s center but we only stopped for a few minutes. Labashi wanted to know more about the caribou migration but the host there today didn’t have any info. Overall we’ve been impressed with how good the visitor’s center people are but the best have been the ones with some connection to Alaska Public Lands, i.e., BLM (Bureau of Land Management) or the Alaska state government’s wildlife and land management agencies.
We finally finished the Dalton Highway about 1300 and turned for Fairbanks, about 75 miles east. We stopped at the oil pipeline information wayside to update Robin Scudder (who had been very helpful with Dalton Highway info since her her husband is a trucker on the Dalton).
As we approached Fairbanks Labashi gave me a high-five. We had not only survived the Dalton, we had had a wonderful time.
Back in Fairbanks we first hit the Wal-mart for a washing brush to help in cleaning up Mocha Joe. The highway crew reportedly uses calcium chloride quite heavily (to keep down dust, we’re told) so we want to get that off the van. (see http://www.calciumchloride.com/dustcontrol.shtml for more on it)
We first drove over to Giant Tire and sold our second spare tire back to Phil, the guy who had offered it. We had paid $85 for the spare tire and wheel and got $42.50 back upon returning it a week later. I don’t believe the Dalton is as hard on tires as the Dempster but we did see two vehicles along the Dalton with flats. Robin had told us the tow bill for the Dalton is $4000 but I’m not sure of the context for that. Is that for a tow the entire length of the Dalton? There were tire shops at Coldfoot and Deadhorse and somewhere else I heard towing was $7 per mile so I’d think the actual cost would depend on where you broke down. In any case, I thought the extra-spare ‘rental’ cost well worth it. But if I were doing it again, I’d probably just go with our one spare and the little tire-plugging kit I carry.
I asked Phil at Giant Tire where we might find a car wash which wouldn’t mind our leaving a big pile of mud from our van and he directed us to a nearby one with an RV and truck wash-pad. I sprayed $10-worth and had the worst of the mud off but the van still looked terrible so I finished by using the wash-brush I had bought and one of our wash-water jugs.
We then went for supper at Chili’s for one of Labashi’s favorites—the chicken-and-shrimp fajitas. Afterwards we checked out the nearby Sportsman’s Authority store and the Border’s Bookstore. I liked browsing through both and the Border’s was particularly well-stocked and had a wonderful circular fireplace with reading chairs around it. Nice!
We then rented a movie and went to the Sam’s Club parking lot for the night. We watched ‘Lars and the Real Girl’, a very-well-done little fantasy. Highly recommended!
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Monday, 28 July-
This morning we woke at 0530 and felt like going. We were underway by 0600, spotting a caribou near our campsite as we left. We had clouds overhead but the sun was peeking through here and there and within a few hours the clouds were all gone.
The view as we approached Atigun Pass was spectacular. We stopped several times to take pictures of the mountains rising out of the North Slope’s gently-rolling hills. As we approached the top we saw specs of white in the hills—Dall sheep. We parked and walked up the highway, approaching within 40 yards or so for pictures.
As we crossed the pass we saw a fog bank below and it looked impenetrable but wasn’t by the time we reached it. In a few miles we stopped at a wayside for an early lunch.
We had had the wonderful light of morning to entertain us all the way through Atigun Pass. The best trade-off speed was 40 miles per hour. Faster than that the potholes and frost-heaves would over-stress the van’s suspension. Slower than that you’d feel like you weren’t getting anywhere.
We very much enjoyed the trip but by Coldfoot at 1300 we were more than ready for a break. We split an order of excellent fish-and-chips ($12) and gassed up again ($95, $5.60 a gallon).
We didn’t see any more wildlife until milepost 90 or so. Our first-ever pine marten popped out of the bushes along the road, stood and said ‘Uh-oh’ (in body language) and then ran back into the thick underbrush. What a cutie in his/her very dark coat, almost black in color.
We ended our travel day back at the milepost 86 overlook (we camped here on the way up). As we parked the van on the hilltop we noticed the wind was getting quite strong. I moved into the lee of a massive stone pile at the overlook. This one also serves as a gravel storage place for the highway maintenance crews.
We had started early today (0600) so needed to balance that by stopping early (1600). Which meant we had a nice, long afternoon to hang out. I took a couple of short walks but the wind became too strong.
After supper we blogged and read, listened to the wind, and looked out over our 30-mile views as the shadows changed them. We have stone tors (standing granite slabs) looking like something from Stonehenge atop the massive hill to our left, a view to the Yukon Flats straight ahead, and the Dalton Highway stretching toward Fairbanks to our right.
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Sunday, 27 July-
Today we whiled away the morning, awaiting our afternoon tour time. Over the course of the morning we watched a dozen or so caribou, each a solitary animal either feeding or moving through—mostly the former. I was also using the laptop, doing some backups while Labashi caught up her paper logbook. I’d kick off a backup, then pick up the binoculars and scan the area in front of us—the Sag River and the plain beyond.
So you’ve driven all the way to Deadhorse and are within a few miles of the Arctic Ocean. You can’t see it and you can’t drive to it. The only road to the ocean goes through the restricted area of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield and individuals may not enter. You can, however, sign up for a tour at the Arctic Caribou Hotel (at $38 per person). And to be accepted for a tour, you’re to call at least 24 hours ahead. This time is reportedly needed for them to run a background check on you. Background checks were instituted after the 9/11 attacks.
We had heard about the 24-hours-in-advance issue in Coldfoot but we weren’t sure we wanted to go on a tour nor what day we’d arrive. So we decided we’d wait until Deadhorse and see if we could get in. When we asked about it the guy said he could get us on a tour tomorrow and asked for picuture ID. He looked at our IDs briefly and then put our names on a list, mis-spelling them. So much for the background check.
At 1230 we drove from our informal campsite on the Sag River in to Deadhorse. We first stopped at the Arctic Caribou and paid for our tour, then drove on to the post office to mail a letter. As the time neared, we waited in the Tour Room and were soon joined by about a dozen college-age kids and two older guys, all traveling together. They were from Woods Hole Institute in Massachusets. One of the girls was a real live-wire personality and began talking with us, asking all about our trip. Before long we were talking with others and found that at least six of them were originally from Pennsylvania, including one guy from Hanover, not far from our home.
The tour bus driver started a video for us and it was pretty good. It was a high-level overview of why the Prudhoe Bay oilfield was here and basically how it works. Crude oil consisting of oil, water, and natural gas is pumped up from 9000 feet below and separated into those three components. The water and most of the natural gas is pumped back into the wells and the oil is sent on its way down the pipeline to the supertankers at Valdez. The oil comes out of the ground at 150-180 degrees Fahrenheit. Vehicles on the complex are all diesel and they run on a form of diesel which is made by mixing natural gas and crude oil.
After the movie we loaded into a small van-bus and the driver began narrating the tour as he drove, rattling along the washboard road, kicking up clouds of dust. In about 15 minutes he stopped for the security gate on the oilfield proper. He continued telling us about each building we passed and pointed out drilling pads, separation units, ground-injection units, ice-bridge-building equipment, etc, etc. until we came to the ocean at what is called East Dock. He pulled up to a barricade, pointed to the Arctic Ocean (saying “The Arctic Ocean is straight ahead, and the Beaufort Sea is off to the right”) and then “You have 15 minutes” and opened the door.
The college kids all bailed out and ran down to the beach, stripped naked, and waded out into the water. And there they had a surprise; the water is only knee deep for, say, 50 yards, then slowly deepens. They gamely marched on out until they could finally submerge.
We were completely taken by surprise by the college kids stripping. We knew we had the choice of either swimming or wading (or not going in at all, of course) but hadn’t heard about the nude thing. But we just laughed it off and took off our shoes and socks and put on the Crocs we had brought for the occasion and waded in knee-high.
The first surprise was how the sand sucked the Crocs right down and I soon was groping around in the Arctic Ocean for one of mine. The second surprise was the water temperature: it wasn’t that bad. I waded around for five minutes or so without discomfort. The wind was pretty strong—about 15 knots, I’d say, and the air temperature was about 60 degrees F.
After a few minutes the kids began the long process of drying off and dressing and mutually taking pictures. We headed out a spit extending out a little further into the ocean—trying to get as far north as possible. We were now above 70-degrees north latitude, probably the farthest north we’ll ever reach. VERY cool!!!
After the bus returned us to the hotel, we took a last spin around Deadhorse and then headed south.
Just outside of Deadhorse, I saw three caribou hunters I had talked with at the hotel earlier in the day. They had been ahead of me in line at the commissary and I had thought I recognized them; they were camped at the next pulloff north of us and we had seen a caribou rack at their tent on our way into town today.
As we drove by their tent on our way south, I knew Labashi had lots of questions for the caribou hunters so I pulled in and we asked if we could check out the horns. That led to a 45-minute visit. The three guys were from Wasilla (near Anchorage) and one had indeed shot the caribou (with an arrow) last evening. The hunting corridor along the Dalton Highway is for bow hunting only for five miles on each side of the road. To get the caribou, they had driven along the highway until they saw it and then had stalked it, most of the time on hands and knees and covered in mosquitoes, until within 30 yards. Having watched caribou for the last several days, we had seen how skittish they are and how alert they are to everything around them. A successful bow-hunt for caribou obviously takes skill and patience.
The antlers were still covered in velvet so I asked if they would be mounted that way. One of the guys explained that the velvet could be left on but it’s a tricky process. You have to lay the antlers on the ground just so and make small punctures to drain the blood supply to the velvet. Then the taxidermist has a technique using a hypodermic needle and a chemical which can preserve the velvet.
We thanked the guys and Labashi asked them sign her log book, something she does when she’s delighted with learning something new.
By now it was after 1700 so we only drove for another hour and a half before finding an informal campsite off the highway and near the river. Here we had another good overview of the river and beyond. After supper we went for a long walk since it was windy and that kept the mosquitoes down (unless we were stupid enough to walk into a wind-shadowed area where the mozzies were waiting)
Afterwards we just watched for caribou but without seeing a one. I did very briefly see a musk-ox on the other side of the river but it almost immediately walked into the thick willows lining that side of the river.
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Saturday, 26 July-
This morning we arose at 0530 to travel through Atigun Pass at a good time for wildlife viewing. The road climbs a 12 per cent grade through very steep mountain ridges. I was a little concerned about the climb but more concerned about overheating the brakes on the descent.
Mocha Joe climbed very well in first gear, accelerating well to 25 miles per hour. But second gear is a bit too high so right after shifting into second it would bog down and I’d have to downshift to first again.
Near the top we saw our first significant wildlife of the Dalton—three Dall sheep high up on the mountainside, feeding on vegetation. We were in a bad place for stopping but stopped briefly anyway and Labashi jumped out and took a few pictures before we moved on.
The descent was uneventful, thanks to a the relatively smooth gravel road and the fact that the steepest part was followed by a long, relatively flat area before descending further.
After Atigun Pass, we could see an opening to the North Slope far ahead. With each mile the gently rolling hills beyond became more apparent. And on this side of the Pass there was more snow remaining on the high peaks.
In Coldfoot we had heard Atigun Pass had two inches of snow overnight yesterday but there was no evidence of it this morning.
Once we left the mountains receding into the distance off to our right and were well out onto the North Slope, we kept an eagle-eye out for wildlife. But we were disappointed for several hours, when suddenly we had musk ox --- under the pipeline!
There were 18 adult musk oxen and three little ones— cute little things--- and they were browsing along right under the pipeline. They were feeding on the bushes there and we realized bushes grow taller under the pipeline.
We had traffic coming so moved on to the first pulloff, about a half-mile away. As we had lunch, we saw the musk oxen continue browsing along the pipeline and it seemed they would reach us in another 20 minutes. But they came to a particularly lush area and hung out there. In the meantime, our attention was drawn to a red pickup slowly driving along right next to the pipeline. With binoculars we could see two guys walking either side of the pipeline, visually inspecting it and occasionally tapping it with a small billy club or pipe. We wondered what would happen when the men came to the musk oxen. Would the oxen form a defensive circle? Would they move out of the way or stand their ground?
As the men neared, the musk oxen took notice but didn’t move. The truck stopped and we saw the men hovering about it for a good 20 minutes, then they got in the truck and very, very slowly drove past the musk oxen and went down another 20 yards before emerging. Our guess is they marked or noted where they had interrupted the inspection and would later return to finish it. We also wondered whether our presence nearby made a difference. Would they have handled it the same if we hadn’t been there watching?
As we drove away, Labashi was practically floating on air, she was so excited by the musk-ox sighting. We had hoped to see them but thought it happen at a distance. But the pipeline had only been a stone’s throw from the road in that area.
After another uneventful 100 miles or so, we saw a strange sight ahead. There was a pickup stopped along the road (headed toward us) and beside it (also headed our direction) was a caribou with a large vee of a rack. I pulled off to the side, thinking the pickup would take a few pictures and move on, then we’d check out the caribou. But suddenly the caribou was on the road in front of the pickup and it was starting to gallop--- toward us! We whipped out the cameras and watched, amazed, as the caribou closed the two-tenths-of-a-mile distance between us very quickly and galloped past in the oncoming lane, its hooves making a thumping/scratching sound on the gravel road. Its tongue was hanging out, its rack was in velvet, and it was clearly distressed, apparently fooled by the roadside marker poles. We had learned how natives used ‘stone men’ or inukshuks to herd caribou toward the hunters. By placing the stone ‘statues’ in a line, the caribou could be directed and I think that same instinct is what was going on with this caribou.
An hour later, we saw another caribou and I quickly pulled off to watch then backed into the entrance to a pipeline maintenance road I had just passed. This caribou was loping along parallel to the Dalton but when it came to the maintenance road, it turned toward us. Here was our second caribou of the day and it too was running right at us! Labashi jumped out to take a photo and the caribou recognized a human and turned off and ran parallel to the road a bit, then came up on the road. And this one too began running down the Dalton Highway, this time behind and away from us. Amazing.
We finally made Deadhorse by 1330—mile 409 of the Dalton Highway. We first took a five-minute driving tour of it (and had two minutes left over). Deadhorse is a very odd place. It’s an oil-production camp. There’s an airport, a general store/autoparts/post office, three ‘hotels’, a gas station, a borough hall for the entire North Slope (‘the world’s largest municipality’), and then 20 or so oil-industry-support businesses (cranes, oil field equipment, construction contractors, etc, etc). The roads are all dirt and every vehicle kicks up a massive plume of dust. Buildings housing equipment appear to be conventional but buildings housing people are built like mobile homes but mounted on pillars (to keep the heat away from the perma-frost). The hotels are complexes of mobile-home-like units connected together. We went into the Arctic Caribou Hotel to sign up for a tour and learned we can’t go until tomorrow. The commercial tour is the only way to go further than Deadhorse, i.e., through the Prudhoe Bay oil production complex to the Arctic Ocean.
We also checked out the Brooks General Store and it was very well stocked, as was the auto-parts store under it (the general store is on the second floor, the auto-parts and post office on the first). We didn’t think prices bad for as far as we are from ‘civilization’. The general store was heavy on Carhardt clothing, including several racks of Nomex (fireproof) coveralls, tundra jackets, and heavy arctic coats.
We gassed up at the Tesoro station and that in itself was interesting. You pull up to a larger outbuilding and see two metal boxes on the outside: “Unleaded” and “Ultra-Low-Sulfur Diesel”. Upon opening the metal box, you find the pump nozzle. To make it work, you enter the building and run your credit card through a reader and key in the number of the pump you want and it then tells you ‘Operate Pump’. You go back outside and first put a gasoline-spill mat under your vehicle (in case you overfill) and put the nozzle in the gas tank and start pumping. If you want to know how much gas you’ve pumped, peer through the building window—the pumps are inside (this setup has to work in minus-50-degree weather after all). After you are finished, run your credit card through the machine again and it will ask if you want a receipt. Unleaded was $5.50 a gallon (and nowhere did it tell you that until you got your receipt).
We then drove to the Prudhoe Bay Hotel for some ice cream and maybe even some pie. The dining area is a cafeteria and we had to take our selections to the front desk to pay, in this case $7.50 for a good cherry cobbler and soft-serve ice cream. The dining area was very comfortable, though, so we ate slowly and then read today’s Anchorage newspaper. We talked a bit with the front-desk clerk who told us she works a 21-day shift, then is off 21 days. The daily shifts are 12 hours. She is flown back and forth from Anchorage as part of the deal. We had read earlier that oil-field workers work two weeks of 12-hour days then have two weeks off but it may be different for support jobs.
After our early start today we were tired so drove back down the Dalton a few miles to find a camping spot, spotting three caribou along the way. We found an access road to the river which worked out well. It was narrow enough that we’d have it to ourselves yet would give us a good view of the river and the tundra on the other side.
Out here on the plain the wind is blowing nicely (about ten knots), keeping down the mosquitoes so I decided to go for a short walk along the river while Labashi made supper. I had only gone a short distance when I was threatened by a grouse—a spruce-grouse I believe. I had turned away from the river and was walking through shin-high arctic cotton when five or six birds flushed and flew away from me while one very angry one came running straight at me, it’s wings fluttering madly. I stopped in surprise and it stopped its advance maybe 15 feet in front of me, folded its wings under and then began running away at an angle, leading me away from the other birds. The vegetation had little pathways it could duck into and every so often it would pop up its head to look, then duck down and start running again. I was amazed how fast it could run; I couldn’t have come close to catching it even if I had had good footing. I returned to the van and apologized to Labashi for her missing one of the highlights of the day.
After supper Labashi and I went for a walk once more and tried to flush the grouse again but no luck there. We did spot fresh bear tracks in the mud along the river so didn’t stray too far from the van.
Later, while Labashi worked with her journal and I began this blog entry, I happened to look up and saw a caribou off in the distance. A bit later, it had wandered closer, into the flat across the river; maybe 100 yards away.
Then I noticed in the distance there was something there that hadn’t been there before. Binoculars revealed several musk oxen. Over the next two hours that number grew to seven, then nine, then 14, then 18, and finally 21 musk oxen, all in view at once. And as we watched them over the course of the evening we saw five other caribou, mostly grazing but sometimes running.
What an amazing day!
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Friday, 25 July-
We had a spectacular morning on the overlook and so after our regular morning cleanup, we also helped each other wash our hair. We had learned at the visitor’s center that showers are $10 to $12 each at Coldfoot and Deadhorse so we’d better take advantage of the 60-degree sunny weather now.
After an hour or so we crossed the Arctic Circle at mile marker 110 and stopped for pictures and big smiles.
Our next stop was Grayling Lake, where we took a short walk. As we were walking back to the van, I saw a sandwich-size plastic bag on the ground and picked it up. We had seen so little litter along the Dalton that the bag stuck out and there was a trash can right by the van. I glanced into the bag, wondering what it was and realized I had picked up someone’s stash. There was a big marijuana bud and a few small leaves in the inner baggie.
We then rattled on to the Arctic Interagency Visitor’s Center at Coldfoot. This is a really nice visitor’s center and we watched a film there about Gates of the Arctic preserve. That film includes long interviews with a guy named Jack Reakoff about life in the little settlement of Wiseman. After the Center, we drove across the highway to Coldfoot Camp and there we saw Jack in person. While I gassed up the van Labashi talked with him a few minutes about tours of Wiseman but he had to go—a tour was just leaving. Inside we checked on the tours and they were $47 per person— way too much for us.
But we had learned from the Milepost that you can park at the abandoned Post Office in Wiseman and walk through the town. So that’s what we did.
Wiseman is a very small town, all privately owned, and all log cabins or cabin-like homes—about a dozen of them. The area is still actively mined for gold and most residents are either miners or run some type of tourism business—or both!
After passing three or four houses we came to a bridge. We knew from the Milepost that we could camp along the Koyukuk River there so took a short walk along the beautiful, clear-running Koyukuk before returning to the village. We then saw an old building marked ‘Wiseman Trading Company’ and the door was open. But we hadn’t seen anything in the guidebook about it and knew the Wiseman residents like their privacy so we didn’t enter. But luck was with us. A big, rough-looking guy we later learned calls himself ‘Eight-Ball’ was just walking across the road to one of his storage sheds, clad in his overalls and grimy sweatshirt. He asked whether we were enjoying Wiseman. When we asked about the Trading Company, he explained that he had bought the building to keep it from being bought by someone else and he just left it open in case visitors wanted to take a look. He asked where we were from and then surprised us with ‘Yeah, I know that area; my brother is at Carlisle Barracks. So whatever happened with Williams Grove Raceway? Are they going to close it down?”
Eight-ball also explained the tourist game to us. He said tours run five or six times a day and there’s even one at 10 o’clock at night. The residents don’t particularly like the tours but then again that’s the living for the people running them. He said some of the tourists have a long flight into Fairbanks, arriving in the evening and then are immediately stuffed on a small plane to Coldfoot, arriving at eight or nine pm. By the time their tour van comes through Wiseman, most of them are sleeping against the window and never see a thing.
The inside of the Trading Company building was filled with old stuff (along with a sign: “If it’s old, it’s not for sale”) as well as a few shelves of modern supplies—Spam, chips, a few household goods, tourist tee shirts, and a pop cooler with a sign “May not be cold: depends on how the generator is doing today” (and it wasn’t doing well today—the cooler wasn’t working). On the counter were two big tubs of bubblegum and peppermints. Again a sign: “Free. Have a couple. Don’t be shy.” And “I operate by the honor system. If you buy anything just leave the money in the big jar by the tee shirts” (and there was a big fistful of dollars in there). And yet another sign: “If you need change, go to the door and holler “EIGHT-BALL” as loud as you can at the house next door and I’ll come over” (signed with the number eight in a circle).
We last saw Eight-Ball on his beat-up old tractor, mowing a lawn near the old Post Office, apparently keeping things neat for the tourist trade. As I walked by I held up the Coke and chips I had bought in his store and he laughed and rubbed his forefingers and thumb together, hand held high. “Money in the BANK!”, he smiled, and then wished us a good trip. The world could use more Eight-Balls.
After Wiseman we continued north on heavily pot-holed roads at no more than 35 miles per hour. The pot-holes weren’t that deep but there sure were a lot of them. The worst areas, though, are the construction zones. For some reason they heavily water down the road in these areas, making them a muddy mess. The mud can be a couple of inches deep and can slow you down enough to think you may not make it through.
We finally ended our travel day near Chandalar Camp, once a pipeline-construction camp, now a highway-maintenance facility. There’s a small gravel airstrip where primitive camping is permitted and it lies in a mountain-ringed valley. After supper we blogged and read and watched the shadows on the mountains.
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Thursday, 24 July-
This morning we realized we had seen the people camping beside us before. They had been eating at the Steese Roadhouse when we had our pie and then we had seen them again at the little store in Circle. They had been preparing to launch their boat on the Yukon. It seemed odd they would have had such a short trip. Today, they packed up before us and headed south.
We caught up with them at Central—again at the Steese Roadhouse. There in the parking lot we met Bob Wheeler. He and his two friends had gone upriver for awhile but then developed engine problems with both the main outboard and also with a kicker motor they had for contingencies. Bob is a forestry specialist working for the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is studying cold-adapted varieties of apple trees in Alaska’s climate and said the work has been very successful. He and the two academic colleagues, one from University of Washington, one for University of Oregon, had hoped to get out for a few days of fishing but would now have to go back to Fairbanks to get the apparent fuel-system problem resolved and then decide whether to return. Bob had to make a phone call but in saying goodbye, he inexplicably invited us on a fishing trip out of Valdez if we happened to be in that area the last two weeks of August. What a nice guy!
Inside we picked a table next to Bob’s friends and chatted for a few minutes with them. We had been there some time when a gentleman at the next table went to the coffee maker and brought us cups and offered us coffee. Neither of us drink regular coffee so we demurred but thanked him. We later learned this was the famous Jim Crabb, bear-of-a-man, etc, etc. Paige was again our waitress and we learned from her that Jim was her grand-dad and he had sold the business to his son and daughter-in-law (Paige’s parents).
After a generous breakfast of French toast, we started to leave but I noticed a poem on the bulletin board and liked it immediately:
ALASKA GOLD MINER
With pan and spade I got it made
I knowed I’d strick it rich
I sold my soul for Alaska gold
The tempting yellow bitch.
To find them flakes my back still aches,
My knees is frozen cramp,
My hands so cold, I’m newly old,
To catch that tawny tramp.
But luster’s there though pan is bare
I’ll thank a little krock
Because I know the gold will show
Behind the next big rock.
And so it goes through winter snows
And sweat of summer heat,
Though prospect’s poor I know for sure
I never can be beat.
(Sue Cole)
The museum was still closed so we continued south, this time stopping to take pictures of the amazing fire-weed fields outside of town. They sit off in the distance and seem to float above the other vegetation.
Again we climbed to Eagle Summit and this time we met two Department of Interior workers—two women—who had just finished cleaning the outhouse. We chatted with them for twenty minutes or so, all of enjoying our sparkling-clear day. They work out of Fairbanks and love to come up the Steese, even if it’s to clean toilets and empty trash cans.
At mile marker 95 Labashi wanted to stop for blueberries. Doris had told here there were many blueberries in this area in season. But we were too early. Labashi found 19 of them but almost all were still bitter.
Finally back on the hard road, we stopped for lunch by a trout-fishing pond and we stopped to check out the odd pipes we were seeing at road culverts. They are typically a length of 1/2 –inch water pipe leading to the opening of the culvert on one end and to a vertical post on the other. An elbow and four-foot length brings it to the top of the post where another elbow and two-inch section of pipe points it toward the road. The top section is painted a fluorescent green. These are apparently used by highway crews. They pull up and connect a hose to the upper end of the pipe and then pump hot water down into the culvert to break up ice jams and clear the culvert.
Back at the turnoff we gassed up ($4.50 a gallon) and then headed for the Dalton. From that intersection it’s about 70 miles to the turnoff for the Dalton and the road is all paved but has quite a few frost-heaves. Mile 0 of the Dalton puts you on gravel road and starts an immediate steep climb. At the top of that climb we saw two cars pulled off and we slowed to ask if everything was all right. A woman asked if I had jumper cables and when I said I did, she said goodbye to the young man and took off. The young man was Jason and he was from New Zealand. As I pulled out the jumper cables, Jason asked if I’d first just watch as he tried to start the car. And it started immediately. He then explained that he had flown in and had bought this older Ford Explorer from an Alaskan guy. When he went to drive it away, it wouldn’t start but the guy got in and moved some things around and it started fine and has been starting fine for the last several days. Apparently the transmission ignition cutout is bad but the guy didn’t explain that. And as we talked about his preparations for driving the Dalton, Jason realized he didn’t know where the jack is or how to get the spare out from under the car. I showed him how to lower the spare with the jack handle but the jack itself was not to be found. But that didn’t seem to bother Jason. He said he was only going as far as Coldfoot (170 miles) and probably wouldn’t need it. And if he did, someone would eventually stop and help (true enough!). We last saw him at the Yukon River crossing some 55 miles up, parked along the road, taking pictures.
We stopped for info and a short walk at the Yukon River Camp, then began looking for camping. Labashi found a promising description in The Milepost (an Alaska guidebook) about an overlook a mile up a steep, rough road from the Dalton. We thought we’d give it a try and apparently the steep, rough road has had some work done. It wasn’t bad at all. At the top, we had a fantastic view and we decided to stay the night right there.
About 2100 a car came up to the overlook and I met Mark Curtis, from Washington state. Like us, he’s just out looking the country over. But he did have some interesting history—he worked in Barrow for awhile so he told me about working through the winter and having the horizon just lighten up a bit then the sky go completely black again through the winter months.
Around 2300 another car came in and it drove on to the back of the overlook, back behind the gravel piles where we had seen several tents as we walked around the area. This turned out to be four researchers who are working a project to quantify how well the area is recovering from the massive Taylor fire of 2004. It burned over 6.7 million acres. Since it was late I didn’t talk long with them before wishing them a good night and returning to the van.
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Wednesday, 23 July-
Today we were headed up the Steese Highway. The Steese trends northeast from Fairbanks, through the discovery gold-strike area, on through the richest gold-producing area in Alaska today, and on to the bush towns of Center and Circle. The first 63 miles are paved, the rest (another 97 miles) is gravel.
As we turned onto the Steese, we almost immediately began climbing fairly steeply (which Mocha Joe does at a stately 35 miles per hour on the 7-8 per cent grade). We passed gold-claim after gold-claim, many of them being actively worked. Early on we passed the Poker Flats Test Range which is used for collecting satellite data. As we lost the hard road, we found the gravel road fantastic—no potholes, a bit dusty perhaps, but we could easily do 50 to 55 miles per hour.
On our right was the route of the Yukon Quest dog sled race held each February. Our view was all wilderness, treed at first, then rising above treeline as we neared Eagle Pass.
Eagle Summit has spectacular views so we stopped for a walk even though rain was threatening. There we also checked out an emergency shelter. It was a largish fiberglass container, about 10x12 feet, with a cot, a woodstove and small supply of wood, five or six pickle or peanut-butter jars jammed with matches, a few cans of soup and two old pots. The inside ceiling was covered with smoke and finger-writing of tourists and probably a few of the local teenagers (‘local’ in this case being relative). It would be a very welcome sight if you got stuck trying to get across Eagle Pass in minus-Forty temperatures. But it would get mighty small in a day or two.
It was also at Eagle Summit that we found a small bird trapped in the outhouse. The silly thing had apparently walked in under the walls (which we elevated about two inches off the floor for venting) but then would only fly around the upper part of the outhouse, landing occasionally on an upper sill. I blocked the door open with a rock and it still could not find its way out. Something about the open sky behind the vent attracted its attention and it would fly round and round, never descending far enough to see the six-foot-high door was wide open. Eventually Labashi used her hat to block off the upper screen and scare the bird low enough to fly out the door. Good deed done for today? Check.
We reached Central by 1530 but the little museum there was closed. We had a piece of apple pie a la mode at nearby Steese Roadhouse, a combination grocery store, bar, restaurant, gas station, motel. Labashi had wanted to stop here after reading about “Crabb’s Corner” in one of the books she’s reading called ‘Yukon Alone’. It seems Jim Crabb, the owner, was a bear of a man and he suffered no fools. When a Japanese film crew descended on the place, he ran them off, telling them they have no business waving those things in people’s faces. But alas, Crabb was apparently gone and the place had a new name.
After Central the road narrowed and the tire-eating rocks grew. We stopped at the Lower Birch River canoe launch for a break before pushing on to Circle. There we were disappointed to see most of the small town shuttered. A newish-looking large building was boarded up right beside the Yukon River—what should be a perfect tourist spot-- and behind it the Yukon Inn was also out of business. We stopped at what appeared to be the only going concern other than the post office, ‘H.C. Company Store’ and talked with a gent there who seemed disgusted with the town and warned us off staying at the river. He said ‘those people party all night and sleep all day’. (Then he excused himself to sell a case of beer to one of ‘those people’.)
Since there were already several cars at the river, one playing the radio loud and all seeming to be having a good time, we decided we’d better head back down to the Lower Birch River launch for the night.
As we neared our spot for the night we came upon a car broken down in the middle of the softest section of the entire Steese Highway. It was a native family consisting of a man and wife, grandma, and two kids. Their car had become disabled when the low-riding car sunk into the softer roadway enough for a dangling fuel line to catch on a ridge of earth and be torn off.
After introductions, I tried to help the guy—Orville--- fix his car. I searched the van for something to serve as fuel line and found a plastic hose on a can of fix-a-flat which might work—bit it didn’t quite. In the meantime Labashi was having a wonderful time talking with Grandmother—Doris—and learned they are from Fort Yukon. When Labashi said ‘But there are no roads to Fort Yukon, how did you get here?” Doris said they had come down river by boat to Circle where they keep a car.
A bit later a pickup came along and the family knew the driver (“Everybody’s related to everybody in the North”, explained Doris) and the driver offered to go on to Central and look up a mechanic-buddy of his and go find some fuel line. The family seemed very comfortable just hanging out there and before we even arrived had built a fire and had something cooking—not your normal waiting-for-the-towtruck scenario.
We all helped to push the car far enough off the road to let the other two vehicles by (us and the pickup driver). Since everything seemed well in hand, Labashi and I drove on to the Lower Birch River site for the night.
As the sun began going down around 2100 we realized we hadn’t seen the car go by. We could have missed it but decided we had better go make sure everything had gone to plan. Back at the scene of the breakdown we found the car and everyone still there plus another native guy with a pickup—the mechanic. They greeted us warmly as we walked up and I asked how it was going. They had gotten a new piece of fuel line on but now the battery was dead. The mechanic was just getting his truck in place to jump-start it. The car started but the mechanic soon flagged Orville to shut it down—the hose was spraying raw fuel everywhere. It turns out the mechanic didn’t have a screwdriver to tighten down the hose clamps properly (not sure what that was about). I retrieved a screwdriver from the van and once the clamps were tightened down and the car re-started, all was well. We shook hands again and they thanked us for coming back to check on them.
Back at the campsite we immediately fell into a deep sleep but were awakened briefly at midnight by someone else coming in. It was a truck towing a boat and they quietly set up a tent as we went back to sleep.
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Tuesday, 22 July-
We had been planning to leave Fairbanks today but still had a few things to do and I wanted to post a blog update and see the library’s collection of ‘Alaskana’, i.e., books about Alaska.
After doing a bit of shopping at the Safeway for our next destination (the Steese Highway), Labashi started writing an email to the folks back home (at Safeway’s in-store Starbucks café with free wi-fi) while we waited for the library to open. Once it opened we moved to the more comfortable library. This allowed each of us to work on the computer while the other browsed through the library. Labashi had first dibs on the laptop so I browsed through the extensive Alaskana collection and then wandered over to the periodicals area. I read the latest issues of ‘Trade-a-Plane’ and ‘Plane and Pilot’. The latter caught my attention when I noticed an article by Rinker Buck who, as a lad of 16, joined his slightly-older brother in taking a Piper Cub across the US in the Sixties. He wrote an excellent book about it called, ‘Flight of Passage’ which I read a year or so ago.
After Labashi sent her email, I took over to finish updating the blog and post it. Between the two of us we used up most of the late morning and afternoon.
We then drove over to the University of Alaska- Fairbanks and took a walk on their trail system. The mozzies left us alone and we walked about two miles. Once back at the van I noticed a pickup nearby with a home-made plywood-and-epoxy camper. When the owner came out of the woods, I complimented her on the camper and she said it had been given to her. A local guy is a boat-builder and he had built a new one for himself so when he sold his pickup to her, he just gave her the camper. I could see it was well-thought out and constructed like a boat—using copper fasteners and covering the natural marine plywood with clear epoxy. He even put two hatches in the roof for skylights. Nice.
The woman lives in Fairbanks in the summer and winters in Arizona so she lives in the truck-camper for those trips, generally with her dog, and loves making the long, slow drive at her own pace. Amen to that, Sister!
We hung around the UAF overlook and had supper there as the shadows grew long. Then we went back to the Sam’s Club parking lot and watched ‘The Savages’ with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s a story about a forty-ish brother and sister who had been abused as children by their father. But when he develops dementia, they have to deal with it and they learn something about themselves in doing so. Both Linney and Hoffman are terrific and the storyline ‘felt’ right. Recommended.
======== end of post ====================
(posted from Noel Wien Library, Fairbanks, AK)
(This post covers 22-29 July, 2008)
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Tuesday, 29 July-
The wind continued strong through the night. We had parked behind a large stone pile but not large enough! By midnight we still hadn’t fallen asleep and were feeling a little seasick from the wind rocking the van. I had taken a walk that afternoon and had seen two other places which might provide wind-protection. The first turned out to be a bust. The wind was rushing between the two large stone piles so much it was forcing the knee-high weeds almost to the ground. But the second spot was a big bowl-shaped cut into the mountainside where the rocks are ‘mined’ before being crushed into road-building sizes. By parking well inside the bowl we were out of the wind (and wind noise) and slept very well the rest of the night.
We awoke to clouds overhead, unlike the last few days of clear-blue skies in the Deadhorse area. The North Slope is actually desert-like in the amount of rainfall it receives but now we’ve come back through the Brooks Range and as we head further south the annual rainfall amounts increase dramatically until they are very high along the coast.
About four miles south of our wind-swept overnight spot we came upon the biggest bear-scat we’ve ever seen. We’re talking massive. It was filled with blueberries and thus smelled sweet. But we saw no bears.
Our next stop was the Yukon River visitor’s center but we only stopped for a few minutes. Labashi wanted to know more about the caribou migration but the host there today didn’t have any info. Overall we’ve been impressed with how good the visitor’s center people are but the best have been the ones with some connection to Alaska Public Lands, i.e., BLM (Bureau of Land Management) or the Alaska state government’s wildlife and land management agencies.
We finally finished the Dalton Highway about 1300 and turned for Fairbanks, about 75 miles east. We stopped at the oil pipeline information wayside to update Robin Scudder (who had been very helpful with Dalton Highway info since her her husband is a trucker on the Dalton).
As we approached Fairbanks Labashi gave me a high-five. We had not only survived the Dalton, we had had a wonderful time.
Back in Fairbanks we first hit the Wal-mart for a washing brush to help in cleaning up Mocha Joe. The highway crew reportedly uses calcium chloride quite heavily (to keep down dust, we’re told) so we want to get that off the van. (see http://www.calciumchloride.com/dustcontrol.shtml for more on it)
We first drove over to Giant Tire and sold our second spare tire back to Phil, the guy who had offered it. We had paid $85 for the spare tire and wheel and got $42.50 back upon returning it a week later. I don’t believe the Dalton is as hard on tires as the Dempster but we did see two vehicles along the Dalton with flats. Robin had told us the tow bill for the Dalton is $4000 but I’m not sure of the context for that. Is that for a tow the entire length of the Dalton? There were tire shops at Coldfoot and Deadhorse and somewhere else I heard towing was $7 per mile so I’d think the actual cost would depend on where you broke down. In any case, I thought the extra-spare ‘rental’ cost well worth it. But if I were doing it again, I’d probably just go with our one spare and the little tire-plugging kit I carry.
I asked Phil at Giant Tire where we might find a car wash which wouldn’t mind our leaving a big pile of mud from our van and he directed us to a nearby one with an RV and truck wash-pad. I sprayed $10-worth and had the worst of the mud off but the van still looked terrible so I finished by using the wash-brush I had bought and one of our wash-water jugs.
We then went for supper at Chili’s for one of Labashi’s favorites—the chicken-and-shrimp fajitas. Afterwards we checked out the nearby Sportsman’s Authority store and the Border’s Bookstore. I liked browsing through both and the Border’s was particularly well-stocked and had a wonderful circular fireplace with reading chairs around it. Nice!
We then rented a movie and went to the Sam’s Club parking lot for the night. We watched ‘Lars and the Real Girl’, a very-well-done little fantasy. Highly recommended!
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Monday, 28 July-
This morning we woke at 0530 and felt like going. We were underway by 0600, spotting a caribou near our campsite as we left. We had clouds overhead but the sun was peeking through here and there and within a few hours the clouds were all gone.
The view as we approached Atigun Pass was spectacular. We stopped several times to take pictures of the mountains rising out of the North Slope’s gently-rolling hills. As we approached the top we saw specs of white in the hills—Dall sheep. We parked and walked up the highway, approaching within 40 yards or so for pictures.
As we crossed the pass we saw a fog bank below and it looked impenetrable but wasn’t by the time we reached it. In a few miles we stopped at a wayside for an early lunch.
We had had the wonderful light of morning to entertain us all the way through Atigun Pass. The best trade-off speed was 40 miles per hour. Faster than that the potholes and frost-heaves would over-stress the van’s suspension. Slower than that you’d feel like you weren’t getting anywhere.
We very much enjoyed the trip but by Coldfoot at 1300 we were more than ready for a break. We split an order of excellent fish-and-chips ($12) and gassed up again ($95, $5.60 a gallon).
We didn’t see any more wildlife until milepost 90 or so. Our first-ever pine marten popped out of the bushes along the road, stood and said ‘Uh-oh’ (in body language) and then ran back into the thick underbrush. What a cutie in his/her very dark coat, almost black in color.
We ended our travel day back at the milepost 86 overlook (we camped here on the way up). As we parked the van on the hilltop we noticed the wind was getting quite strong. I moved into the lee of a massive stone pile at the overlook. This one also serves as a gravel storage place for the highway maintenance crews.
We had started early today (0600) so needed to balance that by stopping early (1600). Which meant we had a nice, long afternoon to hang out. I took a couple of short walks but the wind became too strong.
After supper we blogged and read, listened to the wind, and looked out over our 30-mile views as the shadows changed them. We have stone tors (standing granite slabs) looking like something from Stonehenge atop the massive hill to our left, a view to the Yukon Flats straight ahead, and the Dalton Highway stretching toward Fairbanks to our right.
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Sunday, 27 July-
Today we whiled away the morning, awaiting our afternoon tour time. Over the course of the morning we watched a dozen or so caribou, each a solitary animal either feeding or moving through—mostly the former. I was also using the laptop, doing some backups while Labashi caught up her paper logbook. I’d kick off a backup, then pick up the binoculars and scan the area in front of us—the Sag River and the plain beyond.
So you’ve driven all the way to Deadhorse and are within a few miles of the Arctic Ocean. You can’t see it and you can’t drive to it. The only road to the ocean goes through the restricted area of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield and individuals may not enter. You can, however, sign up for a tour at the Arctic Caribou Hotel (at $38 per person). And to be accepted for a tour, you’re to call at least 24 hours ahead. This time is reportedly needed for them to run a background check on you. Background checks were instituted after the 9/11 attacks.
We had heard about the 24-hours-in-advance issue in Coldfoot but we weren’t sure we wanted to go on a tour nor what day we’d arrive. So we decided we’d wait until Deadhorse and see if we could get in. When we asked about it the guy said he could get us on a tour tomorrow and asked for picuture ID. He looked at our IDs briefly and then put our names on a list, mis-spelling them. So much for the background check.
At 1230 we drove from our informal campsite on the Sag River in to Deadhorse. We first stopped at the Arctic Caribou and paid for our tour, then drove on to the post office to mail a letter. As the time neared, we waited in the Tour Room and were soon joined by about a dozen college-age kids and two older guys, all traveling together. They were from Woods Hole Institute in Massachusets. One of the girls was a real live-wire personality and began talking with us, asking all about our trip. Before long we were talking with others and found that at least six of them were originally from Pennsylvania, including one guy from Hanover, not far from our home.
The tour bus driver started a video for us and it was pretty good. It was a high-level overview of why the Prudhoe Bay oilfield was here and basically how it works. Crude oil consisting of oil, water, and natural gas is pumped up from 9000 feet below and separated into those three components. The water and most of the natural gas is pumped back into the wells and the oil is sent on its way down the pipeline to the supertankers at Valdez. The oil comes out of the ground at 150-180 degrees Fahrenheit. Vehicles on the complex are all diesel and they run on a form of diesel which is made by mixing natural gas and crude oil.
After the movie we loaded into a small van-bus and the driver began narrating the tour as he drove, rattling along the washboard road, kicking up clouds of dust. In about 15 minutes he stopped for the security gate on the oilfield proper. He continued telling us about each building we passed and pointed out drilling pads, separation units, ground-injection units, ice-bridge-building equipment, etc, etc. until we came to the ocean at what is called East Dock. He pulled up to a barricade, pointed to the Arctic Ocean (saying “The Arctic Ocean is straight ahead, and the Beaufort Sea is off to the right”) and then “You have 15 minutes” and opened the door.
The college kids all bailed out and ran down to the beach, stripped naked, and waded out into the water. And there they had a surprise; the water is only knee deep for, say, 50 yards, then slowly deepens. They gamely marched on out until they could finally submerge.
We were completely taken by surprise by the college kids stripping. We knew we had the choice of either swimming or wading (or not going in at all, of course) but hadn’t heard about the nude thing. But we just laughed it off and took off our shoes and socks and put on the Crocs we had brought for the occasion and waded in knee-high.
The first surprise was how the sand sucked the Crocs right down and I soon was groping around in the Arctic Ocean for one of mine. The second surprise was the water temperature: it wasn’t that bad. I waded around for five minutes or so without discomfort. The wind was pretty strong—about 15 knots, I’d say, and the air temperature was about 60 degrees F.
After a few minutes the kids began the long process of drying off and dressing and mutually taking pictures. We headed out a spit extending out a little further into the ocean—trying to get as far north as possible. We were now above 70-degrees north latitude, probably the farthest north we’ll ever reach. VERY cool!!!
After the bus returned us to the hotel, we took a last spin around Deadhorse and then headed south.
Just outside of Deadhorse, I saw three caribou hunters I had talked with at the hotel earlier in the day. They had been ahead of me in line at the commissary and I had thought I recognized them; they were camped at the next pulloff north of us and we had seen a caribou rack at their tent on our way into town today.
As we drove by their tent on our way south, I knew Labashi had lots of questions for the caribou hunters so I pulled in and we asked if we could check out the horns. That led to a 45-minute visit. The three guys were from Wasilla (near Anchorage) and one had indeed shot the caribou (with an arrow) last evening. The hunting corridor along the Dalton Highway is for bow hunting only for five miles on each side of the road. To get the caribou, they had driven along the highway until they saw it and then had stalked it, most of the time on hands and knees and covered in mosquitoes, until within 30 yards. Having watched caribou for the last several days, we had seen how skittish they are and how alert they are to everything around them. A successful bow-hunt for caribou obviously takes skill and patience.
The antlers were still covered in velvet so I asked if they would be mounted that way. One of the guys explained that the velvet could be left on but it’s a tricky process. You have to lay the antlers on the ground just so and make small punctures to drain the blood supply to the velvet. Then the taxidermist has a technique using a hypodermic needle and a chemical which can preserve the velvet.
We thanked the guys and Labashi asked them sign her log book, something she does when she’s delighted with learning something new.
By now it was after 1700 so we only drove for another hour and a half before finding an informal campsite off the highway and near the river. Here we had another good overview of the river and beyond. After supper we went for a long walk since it was windy and that kept the mosquitoes down (unless we were stupid enough to walk into a wind-shadowed area where the mozzies were waiting)
Afterwards we just watched for caribou but without seeing a one. I did very briefly see a musk-ox on the other side of the river but it almost immediately walked into the thick willows lining that side of the river.
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Saturday, 26 July-
This morning we arose at 0530 to travel through Atigun Pass at a good time for wildlife viewing. The road climbs a 12 per cent grade through very steep mountain ridges. I was a little concerned about the climb but more concerned about overheating the brakes on the descent.
Mocha Joe climbed very well in first gear, accelerating well to 25 miles per hour. But second gear is a bit too high so right after shifting into second it would bog down and I’d have to downshift to first again.
Near the top we saw our first significant wildlife of the Dalton—three Dall sheep high up on the mountainside, feeding on vegetation. We were in a bad place for stopping but stopped briefly anyway and Labashi jumped out and took a few pictures before we moved on.
The descent was uneventful, thanks to a the relatively smooth gravel road and the fact that the steepest part was followed by a long, relatively flat area before descending further.
After Atigun Pass, we could see an opening to the North Slope far ahead. With each mile the gently rolling hills beyond became more apparent. And on this side of the Pass there was more snow remaining on the high peaks.
In Coldfoot we had heard Atigun Pass had two inches of snow overnight yesterday but there was no evidence of it this morning.
Once we left the mountains receding into the distance off to our right and were well out onto the North Slope, we kept an eagle-eye out for wildlife. But we were disappointed for several hours, when suddenly we had musk ox --- under the pipeline!
There were 18 adult musk oxen and three little ones— cute little things--- and they were browsing along right under the pipeline. They were feeding on the bushes there and we realized bushes grow taller under the pipeline.
We had traffic coming so moved on to the first pulloff, about a half-mile away. As we had lunch, we saw the musk oxen continue browsing along the pipeline and it seemed they would reach us in another 20 minutes. But they came to a particularly lush area and hung out there. In the meantime, our attention was drawn to a red pickup slowly driving along right next to the pipeline. With binoculars we could see two guys walking either side of the pipeline, visually inspecting it and occasionally tapping it with a small billy club or pipe. We wondered what would happen when the men came to the musk oxen. Would the oxen form a defensive circle? Would they move out of the way or stand their ground?
As the men neared, the musk oxen took notice but didn’t move. The truck stopped and we saw the men hovering about it for a good 20 minutes, then they got in the truck and very, very slowly drove past the musk oxen and went down another 20 yards before emerging. Our guess is they marked or noted where they had interrupted the inspection and would later return to finish it. We also wondered whether our presence nearby made a difference. Would they have handled it the same if we hadn’t been there watching?
As we drove away, Labashi was practically floating on air, she was so excited by the musk-ox sighting. We had hoped to see them but thought it happen at a distance. But the pipeline had only been a stone’s throw from the road in that area.
After another uneventful 100 miles or so, we saw a strange sight ahead. There was a pickup stopped along the road (headed toward us) and beside it (also headed our direction) was a caribou with a large vee of a rack. I pulled off to the side, thinking the pickup would take a few pictures and move on, then we’d check out the caribou. But suddenly the caribou was on the road in front of the pickup and it was starting to gallop--- toward us! We whipped out the cameras and watched, amazed, as the caribou closed the two-tenths-of-a-mile distance between us very quickly and galloped past in the oncoming lane, its hooves making a thumping/scratching sound on the gravel road. Its tongue was hanging out, its rack was in velvet, and it was clearly distressed, apparently fooled by the roadside marker poles. We had learned how natives used ‘stone men’ or inukshuks to herd caribou toward the hunters. By placing the stone ‘statues’ in a line, the caribou could be directed and I think that same instinct is what was going on with this caribou.
An hour later, we saw another caribou and I quickly pulled off to watch then backed into the entrance to a pipeline maintenance road I had just passed. This caribou was loping along parallel to the Dalton but when it came to the maintenance road, it turned toward us. Here was our second caribou of the day and it too was running right at us! Labashi jumped out to take a photo and the caribou recognized a human and turned off and ran parallel to the road a bit, then came up on the road. And this one too began running down the Dalton Highway, this time behind and away from us. Amazing.
We finally made Deadhorse by 1330—mile 409 of the Dalton Highway. We first took a five-minute driving tour of it (and had two minutes left over). Deadhorse is a very odd place. It’s an oil-production camp. There’s an airport, a general store/autoparts/post office, three ‘hotels’, a gas station, a borough hall for the entire North Slope (‘the world’s largest municipality’), and then 20 or so oil-industry-support businesses (cranes, oil field equipment, construction contractors, etc, etc). The roads are all dirt and every vehicle kicks up a massive plume of dust. Buildings housing equipment appear to be conventional but buildings housing people are built like mobile homes but mounted on pillars (to keep the heat away from the perma-frost). The hotels are complexes of mobile-home-like units connected together. We went into the Arctic Caribou Hotel to sign up for a tour and learned we can’t go until tomorrow. The commercial tour is the only way to go further than Deadhorse, i.e., through the Prudhoe Bay oil production complex to the Arctic Ocean.
We also checked out the Brooks General Store and it was very well stocked, as was the auto-parts store under it (the general store is on the second floor, the auto-parts and post office on the first). We didn’t think prices bad for as far as we are from ‘civilization’. The general store was heavy on Carhardt clothing, including several racks of Nomex (fireproof) coveralls, tundra jackets, and heavy arctic coats.
We gassed up at the Tesoro station and that in itself was interesting. You pull up to a larger outbuilding and see two metal boxes on the outside: “Unleaded” and “Ultra-Low-Sulfur Diesel”. Upon opening the metal box, you find the pump nozzle. To make it work, you enter the building and run your credit card through a reader and key in the number of the pump you want and it then tells you ‘Operate Pump’. You go back outside and first put a gasoline-spill mat under your vehicle (in case you overfill) and put the nozzle in the gas tank and start pumping. If you want to know how much gas you’ve pumped, peer through the building window—the pumps are inside (this setup has to work in minus-50-degree weather after all). After you are finished, run your credit card through the machine again and it will ask if you want a receipt. Unleaded was $5.50 a gallon (and nowhere did it tell you that until you got your receipt).
We then drove to the Prudhoe Bay Hotel for some ice cream and maybe even some pie. The dining area is a cafeteria and we had to take our selections to the front desk to pay, in this case $7.50 for a good cherry cobbler and soft-serve ice cream. The dining area was very comfortable, though, so we ate slowly and then read today’s Anchorage newspaper. We talked a bit with the front-desk clerk who told us she works a 21-day shift, then is off 21 days. The daily shifts are 12 hours. She is flown back and forth from Anchorage as part of the deal. We had read earlier that oil-field workers work two weeks of 12-hour days then have two weeks off but it may be different for support jobs.
After our early start today we were tired so drove back down the Dalton a few miles to find a camping spot, spotting three caribou along the way. We found an access road to the river which worked out well. It was narrow enough that we’d have it to ourselves yet would give us a good view of the river and the tundra on the other side.
Out here on the plain the wind is blowing nicely (about ten knots), keeping down the mosquitoes so I decided to go for a short walk along the river while Labashi made supper. I had only gone a short distance when I was threatened by a grouse—a spruce-grouse I believe. I had turned away from the river and was walking through shin-high arctic cotton when five or six birds flushed and flew away from me while one very angry one came running straight at me, it’s wings fluttering madly. I stopped in surprise and it stopped its advance maybe 15 feet in front of me, folded its wings under and then began running away at an angle, leading me away from the other birds. The vegetation had little pathways it could duck into and every so often it would pop up its head to look, then duck down and start running again. I was amazed how fast it could run; I couldn’t have come close to catching it even if I had had good footing. I returned to the van and apologized to Labashi for her missing one of the highlights of the day.
After supper Labashi and I went for a walk once more and tried to flush the grouse again but no luck there. We did spot fresh bear tracks in the mud along the river so didn’t stray too far from the van.
Later, while Labashi worked with her journal and I began this blog entry, I happened to look up and saw a caribou off in the distance. A bit later, it had wandered closer, into the flat across the river; maybe 100 yards away.
Then I noticed in the distance there was something there that hadn’t been there before. Binoculars revealed several musk oxen. Over the next two hours that number grew to seven, then nine, then 14, then 18, and finally 21 musk oxen, all in view at once. And as we watched them over the course of the evening we saw five other caribou, mostly grazing but sometimes running.
What an amazing day!
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Friday, 25 July-
We had a spectacular morning on the overlook and so after our regular morning cleanup, we also helped each other wash our hair. We had learned at the visitor’s center that showers are $10 to $12 each at Coldfoot and Deadhorse so we’d better take advantage of the 60-degree sunny weather now.
After an hour or so we crossed the Arctic Circle at mile marker 110 and stopped for pictures and big smiles.
Our next stop was Grayling Lake, where we took a short walk. As we were walking back to the van, I saw a sandwich-size plastic bag on the ground and picked it up. We had seen so little litter along the Dalton that the bag stuck out and there was a trash can right by the van. I glanced into the bag, wondering what it was and realized I had picked up someone’s stash. There was a big marijuana bud and a few small leaves in the inner baggie.
We then rattled on to the Arctic Interagency Visitor’s Center at Coldfoot. This is a really nice visitor’s center and we watched a film there about Gates of the Arctic preserve. That film includes long interviews with a guy named Jack Reakoff about life in the little settlement of Wiseman. After the Center, we drove across the highway to Coldfoot Camp and there we saw Jack in person. While I gassed up the van Labashi talked with him a few minutes about tours of Wiseman but he had to go—a tour was just leaving. Inside we checked on the tours and they were $47 per person— way too much for us.
But we had learned from the Milepost that you can park at the abandoned Post Office in Wiseman and walk through the town. So that’s what we did.
Wiseman is a very small town, all privately owned, and all log cabins or cabin-like homes—about a dozen of them. The area is still actively mined for gold and most residents are either miners or run some type of tourism business—or both!
After passing three or four houses we came to a bridge. We knew from the Milepost that we could camp along the Koyukuk River there so took a short walk along the beautiful, clear-running Koyukuk before returning to the village. We then saw an old building marked ‘Wiseman Trading Company’ and the door was open. But we hadn’t seen anything in the guidebook about it and knew the Wiseman residents like their privacy so we didn’t enter. But luck was with us. A big, rough-looking guy we later learned calls himself ‘Eight-Ball’ was just walking across the road to one of his storage sheds, clad in his overalls and grimy sweatshirt. He asked whether we were enjoying Wiseman. When we asked about the Trading Company, he explained that he had bought the building to keep it from being bought by someone else and he just left it open in case visitors wanted to take a look. He asked where we were from and then surprised us with ‘Yeah, I know that area; my brother is at Carlisle Barracks. So whatever happened with Williams Grove Raceway? Are they going to close it down?”
Eight-ball also explained the tourist game to us. He said tours run five or six times a day and there’s even one at 10 o’clock at night. The residents don’t particularly like the tours but then again that’s the living for the people running them. He said some of the tourists have a long flight into Fairbanks, arriving in the evening and then are immediately stuffed on a small plane to Coldfoot, arriving at eight or nine pm. By the time their tour van comes through Wiseman, most of them are sleeping against the window and never see a thing.
The inside of the Trading Company building was filled with old stuff (along with a sign: “If it’s old, it’s not for sale”) as well as a few shelves of modern supplies—Spam, chips, a few household goods, tourist tee shirts, and a pop cooler with a sign “May not be cold: depends on how the generator is doing today” (and it wasn’t doing well today—the cooler wasn’t working). On the counter were two big tubs of bubblegum and peppermints. Again a sign: “Free. Have a couple. Don’t be shy.” And “I operate by the honor system. If you buy anything just leave the money in the big jar by the tee shirts” (and there was a big fistful of dollars in there). And yet another sign: “If you need change, go to the door and holler “EIGHT-BALL” as loud as you can at the house next door and I’ll come over” (signed with the number eight in a circle).
We last saw Eight-Ball on his beat-up old tractor, mowing a lawn near the old Post Office, apparently keeping things neat for the tourist trade. As I walked by I held up the Coke and chips I had bought in his store and he laughed and rubbed his forefingers and thumb together, hand held high. “Money in the BANK!”, he smiled, and then wished us a good trip. The world could use more Eight-Balls.
After Wiseman we continued north on heavily pot-holed roads at no more than 35 miles per hour. The pot-holes weren’t that deep but there sure were a lot of them. The worst areas, though, are the construction zones. For some reason they heavily water down the road in these areas, making them a muddy mess. The mud can be a couple of inches deep and can slow you down enough to think you may not make it through.
We finally ended our travel day near Chandalar Camp, once a pipeline-construction camp, now a highway-maintenance facility. There’s a small gravel airstrip where primitive camping is permitted and it lies in a mountain-ringed valley. After supper we blogged and read and watched the shadows on the mountains.
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Thursday, 24 July-
This morning we realized we had seen the people camping beside us before. They had been eating at the Steese Roadhouse when we had our pie and then we had seen them again at the little store in Circle. They had been preparing to launch their boat on the Yukon. It seemed odd they would have had such a short trip. Today, they packed up before us and headed south.
We caught up with them at Central—again at the Steese Roadhouse. There in the parking lot we met Bob Wheeler. He and his two friends had gone upriver for awhile but then developed engine problems with both the main outboard and also with a kicker motor they had for contingencies. Bob is a forestry specialist working for the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is studying cold-adapted varieties of apple trees in Alaska’s climate and said the work has been very successful. He and the two academic colleagues, one from University of Washington, one for University of Oregon, had hoped to get out for a few days of fishing but would now have to go back to Fairbanks to get the apparent fuel-system problem resolved and then decide whether to return. Bob had to make a phone call but in saying goodbye, he inexplicably invited us on a fishing trip out of Valdez if we happened to be in that area the last two weeks of August. What a nice guy!
Inside we picked a table next to Bob’s friends and chatted for a few minutes with them. We had been there some time when a gentleman at the next table went to the coffee maker and brought us cups and offered us coffee. Neither of us drink regular coffee so we demurred but thanked him. We later learned this was the famous Jim Crabb, bear-of-a-man, etc, etc. Paige was again our waitress and we learned from her that Jim was her grand-dad and he had sold the business to his son and daughter-in-law (Paige’s parents).
After a generous breakfast of French toast, we started to leave but I noticed a poem on the bulletin board and liked it immediately:
ALASKA GOLD MINER
With pan and spade I got it made
I knowed I’d strick it rich
I sold my soul for Alaska gold
The tempting yellow bitch.
To find them flakes my back still aches,
My knees is frozen cramp,
My hands so cold, I’m newly old,
To catch that tawny tramp.
But luster’s there though pan is bare
I’ll thank a little krock
Because I know the gold will show
Behind the next big rock.
And so it goes through winter snows
And sweat of summer heat,
Though prospect’s poor I know for sure
I never can be beat.
(Sue Cole)
The museum was still closed so we continued south, this time stopping to take pictures of the amazing fire-weed fields outside of town. They sit off in the distance and seem to float above the other vegetation.
Again we climbed to Eagle Summit and this time we met two Department of Interior workers—two women—who had just finished cleaning the outhouse. We chatted with them for twenty minutes or so, all of enjoying our sparkling-clear day. They work out of Fairbanks and love to come up the Steese, even if it’s to clean toilets and empty trash cans.
At mile marker 95 Labashi wanted to stop for blueberries. Doris had told here there were many blueberries in this area in season. But we were too early. Labashi found 19 of them but almost all were still bitter.
Finally back on the hard road, we stopped for lunch by a trout-fishing pond and we stopped to check out the odd pipes we were seeing at road culverts. They are typically a length of 1/2 –inch water pipe leading to the opening of the culvert on one end and to a vertical post on the other. An elbow and four-foot length brings it to the top of the post where another elbow and two-inch section of pipe points it toward the road. The top section is painted a fluorescent green. These are apparently used by highway crews. They pull up and connect a hose to the upper end of the pipe and then pump hot water down into the culvert to break up ice jams and clear the culvert.
Back at the turnoff we gassed up ($4.50 a gallon) and then headed for the Dalton. From that intersection it’s about 70 miles to the turnoff for the Dalton and the road is all paved but has quite a few frost-heaves. Mile 0 of the Dalton puts you on gravel road and starts an immediate steep climb. At the top of that climb we saw two cars pulled off and we slowed to ask if everything was all right. A woman asked if I had jumper cables and when I said I did, she said goodbye to the young man and took off. The young man was Jason and he was from New Zealand. As I pulled out the jumper cables, Jason asked if I’d first just watch as he tried to start the car. And it started immediately. He then explained that he had flown in and had bought this older Ford Explorer from an Alaskan guy. When he went to drive it away, it wouldn’t start but the guy got in and moved some things around and it started fine and has been starting fine for the last several days. Apparently the transmission ignition cutout is bad but the guy didn’t explain that. And as we talked about his preparations for driving the Dalton, Jason realized he didn’t know where the jack is or how to get the spare out from under the car. I showed him how to lower the spare with the jack handle but the jack itself was not to be found. But that didn’t seem to bother Jason. He said he was only going as far as Coldfoot (170 miles) and probably wouldn’t need it. And if he did, someone would eventually stop and help (true enough!). We last saw him at the Yukon River crossing some 55 miles up, parked along the road, taking pictures.
We stopped for info and a short walk at the Yukon River Camp, then began looking for camping. Labashi found a promising description in The Milepost (an Alaska guidebook) about an overlook a mile up a steep, rough road from the Dalton. We thought we’d give it a try and apparently the steep, rough road has had some work done. It wasn’t bad at all. At the top, we had a fantastic view and we decided to stay the night right there.
About 2100 a car came up to the overlook and I met Mark Curtis, from Washington state. Like us, he’s just out looking the country over. But he did have some interesting history—he worked in Barrow for awhile so he told me about working through the winter and having the horizon just lighten up a bit then the sky go completely black again through the winter months.
Around 2300 another car came in and it drove on to the back of the overlook, back behind the gravel piles where we had seen several tents as we walked around the area. This turned out to be four researchers who are working a project to quantify how well the area is recovering from the massive Taylor fire of 2004. It burned over 6.7 million acres. Since it was late I didn’t talk long with them before wishing them a good night and returning to the van.
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Wednesday, 23 July-
Today we were headed up the Steese Highway. The Steese trends northeast from Fairbanks, through the discovery gold-strike area, on through the richest gold-producing area in Alaska today, and on to the bush towns of Center and Circle. The first 63 miles are paved, the rest (another 97 miles) is gravel.
As we turned onto the Steese, we almost immediately began climbing fairly steeply (which Mocha Joe does at a stately 35 miles per hour on the 7-8 per cent grade). We passed gold-claim after gold-claim, many of them being actively worked. Early on we passed the Poker Flats Test Range which is used for collecting satellite data. As we lost the hard road, we found the gravel road fantastic—no potholes, a bit dusty perhaps, but we could easily do 50 to 55 miles per hour.
On our right was the route of the Yukon Quest dog sled race held each February. Our view was all wilderness, treed at first, then rising above treeline as we neared Eagle Pass.
Eagle Summit has spectacular views so we stopped for a walk even though rain was threatening. There we also checked out an emergency shelter. It was a largish fiberglass container, about 10x12 feet, with a cot, a woodstove and small supply of wood, five or six pickle or peanut-butter jars jammed with matches, a few cans of soup and two old pots. The inside ceiling was covered with smoke and finger-writing of tourists and probably a few of the local teenagers (‘local’ in this case being relative). It would be a very welcome sight if you got stuck trying to get across Eagle Pass in minus-Forty temperatures. But it would get mighty small in a day or two.
It was also at Eagle Summit that we found a small bird trapped in the outhouse. The silly thing had apparently walked in under the walls (which we elevated about two inches off the floor for venting) but then would only fly around the upper part of the outhouse, landing occasionally on an upper sill. I blocked the door open with a rock and it still could not find its way out. Something about the open sky behind the vent attracted its attention and it would fly round and round, never descending far enough to see the six-foot-high door was wide open. Eventually Labashi used her hat to block off the upper screen and scare the bird low enough to fly out the door. Good deed done for today? Check.
We reached Central by 1530 but the little museum there was closed. We had a piece of apple pie a la mode at nearby Steese Roadhouse, a combination grocery store, bar, restaurant, gas station, motel. Labashi had wanted to stop here after reading about “Crabb’s Corner” in one of the books she’s reading called ‘Yukon Alone’. It seems Jim Crabb, the owner, was a bear of a man and he suffered no fools. When a Japanese film crew descended on the place, he ran them off, telling them they have no business waving those things in people’s faces. But alas, Crabb was apparently gone and the place had a new name.
After Central the road narrowed and the tire-eating rocks grew. We stopped at the Lower Birch River canoe launch for a break before pushing on to Circle. There we were disappointed to see most of the small town shuttered. A newish-looking large building was boarded up right beside the Yukon River—what should be a perfect tourist spot-- and behind it the Yukon Inn was also out of business. We stopped at what appeared to be the only going concern other than the post office, ‘H.C. Company Store’ and talked with a gent there who seemed disgusted with the town and warned us off staying at the river. He said ‘those people party all night and sleep all day’. (Then he excused himself to sell a case of beer to one of ‘those people’.)
Since there were already several cars at the river, one playing the radio loud and all seeming to be having a good time, we decided we’d better head back down to the Lower Birch River launch for the night.
As we neared our spot for the night we came upon a car broken down in the middle of the softest section of the entire Steese Highway. It was a native family consisting of a man and wife, grandma, and two kids. Their car had become disabled when the low-riding car sunk into the softer roadway enough for a dangling fuel line to catch on a ridge of earth and be torn off.
After introductions, I tried to help the guy—Orville--- fix his car. I searched the van for something to serve as fuel line and found a plastic hose on a can of fix-a-flat which might work—bit it didn’t quite. In the meantime Labashi was having a wonderful time talking with Grandmother—Doris—and learned they are from Fort Yukon. When Labashi said ‘But there are no roads to Fort Yukon, how did you get here?” Doris said they had come down river by boat to Circle where they keep a car.
A bit later a pickup came along and the family knew the driver (“Everybody’s related to everybody in the North”, explained Doris) and the driver offered to go on to Central and look up a mechanic-buddy of his and go find some fuel line. The family seemed very comfortable just hanging out there and before we even arrived had built a fire and had something cooking—not your normal waiting-for-the-towtruck scenario.
We all helped to push the car far enough off the road to let the other two vehicles by (us and the pickup driver). Since everything seemed well in hand, Labashi and I drove on to the Lower Birch River site for the night.
As the sun began going down around 2100 we realized we hadn’t seen the car go by. We could have missed it but decided we had better go make sure everything had gone to plan. Back at the scene of the breakdown we found the car and everyone still there plus another native guy with a pickup—the mechanic. They greeted us warmly as we walked up and I asked how it was going. They had gotten a new piece of fuel line on but now the battery was dead. The mechanic was just getting his truck in place to jump-start it. The car started but the mechanic soon flagged Orville to shut it down—the hose was spraying raw fuel everywhere. It turns out the mechanic didn’t have a screwdriver to tighten down the hose clamps properly (not sure what that was about). I retrieved a screwdriver from the van and once the clamps were tightened down and the car re-started, all was well. We shook hands again and they thanked us for coming back to check on them.
Back at the campsite we immediately fell into a deep sleep but were awakened briefly at midnight by someone else coming in. It was a truck towing a boat and they quietly set up a tent as we went back to sleep.
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Tuesday, 22 July-
We had been planning to leave Fairbanks today but still had a few things to do and I wanted to post a blog update and see the library’s collection of ‘Alaskana’, i.e., books about Alaska.
After doing a bit of shopping at the Safeway for our next destination (the Steese Highway), Labashi started writing an email to the folks back home (at Safeway’s in-store Starbucks café with free wi-fi) while we waited for the library to open. Once it opened we moved to the more comfortable library. This allowed each of us to work on the computer while the other browsed through the library. Labashi had first dibs on the laptop so I browsed through the extensive Alaskana collection and then wandered over to the periodicals area. I read the latest issues of ‘Trade-a-Plane’ and ‘Plane and Pilot’. The latter caught my attention when I noticed an article by Rinker Buck who, as a lad of 16, joined his slightly-older brother in taking a Piper Cub across the US in the Sixties. He wrote an excellent book about it called, ‘Flight of Passage’ which I read a year or so ago.
After Labashi sent her email, I took over to finish updating the blog and post it. Between the two of us we used up most of the late morning and afternoon.
We then drove over to the University of Alaska- Fairbanks and took a walk on their trail system. The mozzies left us alone and we walked about two miles. Once back at the van I noticed a pickup nearby with a home-made plywood-and-epoxy camper. When the owner came out of the woods, I complimented her on the camper and she said it had been given to her. A local guy is a boat-builder and he had built a new one for himself so when he sold his pickup to her, he just gave her the camper. I could see it was well-thought out and constructed like a boat—using copper fasteners and covering the natural marine plywood with clear epoxy. He even put two hatches in the roof for skylights. Nice.
The woman lives in Fairbanks in the summer and winters in Arizona so she lives in the truck-camper for those trips, generally with her dog, and loves making the long, slow drive at her own pace. Amen to that, Sister!
We hung around the UAF overlook and had supper there as the shadows grew long. Then we went back to the Sam’s Club parking lot and watched ‘The Savages’ with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s a story about a forty-ish brother and sister who had been abused as children by their father. But when he develops dementia, they have to deal with it and they learn something about themselves in doing so. Both Linney and Hoffman are terrific and the storyline ‘felt’ right. Recommended.
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posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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