“The Rockies has been wonderful to follow in the Land Rover”
Me-an makes the mistake of leaving me alone with the map and the next thing we know, we are heading north from Fairbanks toward Deadhorse, the most northerly point you can get to by road in North America. After the experience of driving a 2000-mile round trip to reach the largest Arctic city, Murmansk in Russia, Me-an is unsure about the trip but I manage to talk her round. Luckily, the Dalton Highway is beautiful and was made famous as the haul road from Ice Road Truckers (the TV programme). It was built in 1974 in just 200 days and stretches 414 miles from Livengood to Deadhorse, bringing supplies to the oil fields. The road is mostly gravel, 28 feet wide, which is just less than two lanes and it is shared with trucks flicking up stones to test your windscreen. It travels through a remote part of Alaska where help is pretty far away – and with the added bonus of frequent avalanches. The scenery does make up for the rough road though. As we drive through the high mountain passes, the majestic views of snow-covered mountains glisten in the continuous Arctic sunshine, revealed in scratch map fashion by the lowlying fog clearing as we gain altitude. We witness many Arctic classics: Arctic foxes, Arctic terns, Arctic hares, snowy owls and, of course, the Trans-alaska pipeline – all with a chilly theme.
Finding a camp spot for the night 160 miles inside the Arctic Circle proves a little tricky as we get stuck in some deep crusty snow on our way to a frozen lake. So, we decide, once we have reversed back onto firmer ground, that it is as good a spot as any to rest for the night and batten down the hatches. The temperature plummets and we wake up to a light dusting of snow on the tent and the drinking water frozen solid. We have another 140 miles to go before we reach the end of the road.
Deadhorse is a town with two purposes: oil and gas. It’s a very industrial, functional place with everything looking as modular as a sci-fi moon base. There isn’t much in terms of tourist attractions, but we managed to find one of the few hotels with a restaurant to have our celebratory coffee and microwave breakfast burrito before turning around and heading south again. The only direction is south from here on.