May 24, 2012 Traveling the Famous Haul Road: The Dalton Highway

incredible view as we begin ascending Atigun Pass

Incredible views, wildlife sightings, good conversation and a picnic along the Yukon River made the miles fly along the Dalton Highway today. We headed north out of Fairbanks to Toolik Field Station, my home for the next six weeks. The Station is about 370 miles from Fairbanks, and we enjoyed driving approximately nine hours making our way up the famous Haul Road along the Alaska Pipeline.

meeting a southbound semi on the Haul Road

The official name of the road is the Dalton Highway, and it has been featured on the History Channel Show "Ice Road Truckers". No ice today, thankfully, and plenty of great weather and scenery to enjoy.

taking a look at the tundra at Finger Mountain Wayside

Some of the wildlife we spotted today included an Arctic fox, Dall sheep, a sik-sik, and numerous caribou. We must be in Alaska!
A favorite milestone is the Arctic Circle wayside stop. Here the road crosses the Arctic Circle, north of which the sun will be above the horizon for 24 hours on the summer solstice, and will stay below the horizon for 24 hours the day of the winter solstice. I will enjoy being here for the summer solstice on June 20, and seeing the famous "midnight sun".

me at the Arctic Circle!

The mighty Yukon River!

We made several stops along the way: a picnic lunch along the Yukon river, a stop for souvenirs at the old mining town of Coldfoot

early mining town of Coldfoot, AK

and a stop to walk along a short tundra nature trail.

Tundra wildflower along Finger Mountain Wayside nature trail

There were also several unplanned stops, as there is always construction and maintenance work on the highway.

perpetual road maintenance and construction at various points along the Haul Road

We even came across some areas being cleared of recent avalanches!

avalanche clearing on the Dalton Highway

Following a couple of semis over the last few miles of road seemed a little anti-climatic, but it was really great to pull into the field station and sit down to a delicious dinner and begin meeting everyone.

We made it!

Take a look at a couple of the views around here on the live webcam:

Live webcam for Toolik Field station