June 25th-28th: Now that everything was in order and we were packed, we were able to start our journey to touch the Arctic Ocean from the US! This trip will take us through Coldfoot & Deadhorse on the Dalton Hwy and then we will take a tour bus through the oilfield in Deadhorse to take us to Prudhoe Bay to join the Polar Bear Club by touching the Arctic Ocean.
We started the early morning with a gold panning session, lol.
Back to the pavement frost heaves on Elliot Hwy.
Our "before" picture.
Coldfoot is our stop for the first evening.
Longest wooden bridge in the world!
The bridge crosses the mighty Yukon River.
Just across the bridge is the is the Yukon River Contact Station for the BLM Corridor. To get to the Visitors Center you cross under the Alaskan Oil Pipeline.
Great guy that works here!
We walked the short trail to view the bridge from the river's edge.
Then, we walked up the road to take a close look at the bridge's wooden surface. There has been lots of abuse to the bridge. We noticed while driving across that you have to dodge a few large holes on the surface.
We decided to take our camp stove and few utensils to make a couple of meals on the road. There are very limited areas to get snacks or food. No convenience stores on this route. Yes the mosquitos were awful, hence the headdress.
Stopped for a break at 86 Mile Overlook.
Sean decided to put his drone up.
Drone photo. Lots of haze.
Drone photo.
Made it to the Arctic Circle! We took a picture here 12 years ago with Molly.
Potholes were a common theme in the Dalton Hwy pavement sections. This was a particular area coming out from the Arctic Circle Sign.
We quickly hit some rain showers the closer we got to Coldfoot.
We finally familiar signs! This was our turn-around point on our 2013 trip.
We went inside to use their restroom facilities and explore. We found out there was a talk on the Boreal Owl at 8:00p and we certainly plan to attend!
Funny sign they had in the Visitors Center about the road conditions. The categories are "Cruisey, no bruises", "Thumpy Bumpy", "Ar-mud-gedon", or "4 Flat Tires and a Plane Ticket Home". I think I would call our ride Thumpy Bumpy.
We walked around a few trails leading off the Visitors Center because we were wanting to get a bit of activity after being in the truck all day. This led us to their airport where we were able to see a plane take off.
And then walked down to a view of the river.
On the way back to the truck, we found a trail that leads to the pipeline and you could touch it. Sean says it felt warm.
Sean drove us over across the Hwy to fuel up the truck. Gas price = $7.49/gallon. We only got 10 gallons. Sean's thinking was that the price in Deadhorse wouldn't be any higher. We believe it would be worth it to buy 3 gas cans and take fuel from Fairbanks with you... hindsight...
This is Coldfoot Camp man camp, our accommodation for the night.
It was very clean, but not well ventilated. No AC which is common for many of the far north areas.
It looked like the truck was taking most of the Dalton with us, lol.
This was our eating choices, along with a salad bar & soup. Honestly, it was pretty good... surprisingly.
Our choices for the evening.
Dining area, also included man camp check-in and gas station.
Now it was time for our Owl talk!
Ask us anything about Boreal Owls, we will know! It was a great talk led by a guy that spent his entire adult life studying them. I think the whole town turned up to this presentation.
After the Boreal Owl presentation, we walked back to our room and on the way we noticed a lot of motorcycles and their tents outside. I believe the camp had no vacancy for rooms.
And, we found their Post Office!
We didn't sleep well because we could get our room cooled down even with the window open. This seems to be a common theme when we are staying somewhere above the Arctic Circle. We headed out the next morning with our destination being Deadhorse.
Pretty views all around!
We stopped in a pullout to soak in the mountain views.
A ground squirrel was not very shy around us and even came under the truck multiple times.
Before we knew it, we had passed the Chandalar Shelf and started to see Atigun Pass.
Atigun Pass Summit. There was no sign.
The beautiful northbound side of Atigun Pass.
Tundra, mountains, and pipeline as far as you can see.
We were starting to hit more traffic.
Lunch stopping spot near Toolik Lake.
Sean said he would put this in my "camp stove cookbook", lol.
The Dalton gets very dusty in some areas. We had to stop once just to let the dust settle. Sometimes it gets so bad with traffic coming both directions that you can literally see nothing in front of you.
That stop led us to our first rare wildlife sighting, a muskox.
This a picture taken through the binoculars.
Still snow in the Sagavanirktok River. This section parallels the Dalton Hwy.
We finally got to very smooth chip seal!
Shortly after, there is Pump Station 2 for the Alaska Oil Pipeline.
Then, the most pristine pavement for about 50 miles!
We found this caribou laying a little way off the Hwy.
Our surprise grizzly bear that ran out right in front of our truck! We later learned the locals named him Fred and he used to live in the landfill, but they have since kicked him out and he has to learn how to be a bear and hunt his food, lol.
As far as we could tell, he was eating goose eggs.
We quickly found our hotel and got checked in.
This is nice!
This hotel requires its guests to wear booties because of the dirt parking lot and workers boots.
This place offers free laundry services for those who are staying long term.
Our truck displaying its hard work.
We went out to explore Deadhorse. So, that means going to the General Store!
More of a convenience store. Lots of junk food, no produce, and of course the tourist items of t-shirts/magnets/stickers etc.
The first floor offers a parts & tools, also where the Post Office is located.
We needed fuel and Sean was having trouble with the "card lock" type of fuel stations, so we were able to find a different place. Gas price = 7.41/gallon.
We hurried back for our dinner at the hotel. It was especially tasty! I ended up getting so full I had to take my ice cream back to our room to slowly eat on it, lol. The dining hall requires all guests to wear gloves while handling serving ware.
The next morning we woke up to 35 degree temps!
Prudhoe Bay National Forest joke at Halliburton, lol.
Modified drills that are pulled across frozen tundra, currently in the work-yard.
Very foggy this morning. Today is when we go on our tourbus to the Arctic Ocean. Hopefully, the fog will lift.
Entrance for the tourbus guests.
Waiting for our driver to say we can load onto the bus.
Time to go!
Our driver's name is Jack. He's from Ohio and works his summers doing the tour.
Caribou on the way to security. We were asked not to photograph the Security Checkpoint.
We decided not to dive in for a true Polar Bear swim because we wouldn't have a way to shower for many hours (we were driving back to Fairbanks after this experience). So, we only got our feet wet. There was much less ice close to shore here compared to Tuktoyaktuk.
Sean's turn!
Our guide, Jack, swims at each tour he does, twice a day!
We found some stray ice that broke onto the shore.
Prudhoe Bay ice shelf way out there!
Part of the pipeline... we think. There was more than one pipeline at this point.
Permafrost ridden soil. Creates polygon shapes from melting and freezing multiple times.
Red Fox invasive species to Deadhorse.
Jack had many reservations about having to drive under this crane that was positioned over the roadway, but we put our safety glasses on and we made it through, just fine, lol.
By 11:00a we were back to the truck, Polar Bear Club certified, and on the road to Fairbanks.
Some caribou next to Sag River.
The Muskox graced us with their presence again with more friends.
Beautiful country!
This picture was taken at 11:30pm. We had just got back from Deadhorse. We were so tired...
The next day, Sean and I tried to get a few chores done before we pick the pups up from their vacation at the kennel. Sean called me out to look at the truck cabin filter (which he planned to change once we got the last dirt road completed) and we were both astounded how much was in there. I had to get the vacuum to clean it out before Sean pulled it all the way out, lol.
We got this photo of the pups while they were at Holy Dog for their play session! Look how cute!
After we picked up the pups, we went for a long walk and heard music. Intrigued, we actively searched for the source and found there was a concert happening at the Goldpanners Arena (minor league baseball).
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