Fairbanks to Deadhorse return - Alaska and Points North: Tips and Tales from the Road - page 147

Dalton Hwy
With a reputation for tire-shredding shale and overbearing big-rig truckers, the Dalton Hwy
intimidates. The popularity of the television show, Ice Road Truckers dramatizes that the
more. However, amateurs like us would not dream of tackling the “ North America's Dead-
liest Road ” in the winter and summer conditions were much better than we expected. Balan-
cing the rough bits was spectacular scenery, offering us a rare opportunity to self-drive the
unpopulated wilderness of the far north. It is the only way, in North America, that you or I
can drive right up to the Arctic Ocean by road. Who could resist?
PrudhoeBay,AlaskaissituatedontheBeaufortSeawhichispartoftheArcticOcean.When
oil was discovered there engineers set to work building first a road, then a pipeline. The
1280 km /800 mi pipeline was completed in 1977. Beginning in Prudhoe Bay it concludes
in Valdez, the ice-free southern port that became the oil field's outlet to the world and with
that, infamy courtesy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The Dalton Hwy is also known by its more functional name, the Haul Road . It picks up and
parallels the pipeline from 134 km /84 mi north of Fairbanks. Initially a private industrial
road, its full length was opened to the public in 1994.
As far as Coldfoot, the scenery is your basic taiga (skinny, no-branch, stubby spruce) altern-
ating with your basic tundra (dwarf shrubs/trees/plants and lichen on the rocks) at higher el-
evations. Not terribly interesting although the promise of wildlife wandering through keeps
all eyes glued to the windshield.
After Coldfoot we crossed into the Brooks Range, the northwest edge of the continent's
mountain ranges. The rock faces here literally swirl with colour: cream with copper high-
lights, charcoal grey with blonde layers and stone grey solid slate.