31 July 2006
Day 15: The Brooks Range & the Northern Slope
Woke to rain. Took down the soggy tent (sigh) and hit the road north. Road is now all dirt, with plenty of bad potholes. The road is extremely sloppy; it’s a good thing I have a rear window wiper, because it gets covered by mud repeatedly.
Atigun Pass (4,600+ feet) — which crosses the Continental Divide, and is my highest driving altitude this trip — crosses the mountains of the Brooks Range, shrouded in clouds and rain. The Gates of the Arctic National Park lies immediately to one side; the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) lies to the other.
Through it all, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline snakes onward.
There is sun to the north of the Brooks Range! The northern slopes of the Brooks Range are hilly, gradually losing altitude toward the Arctic Ocean just to the north. There are many, many animals here.
Spotted:
• Caribou. Northern slope, 50 yards off the road.
• Caribou. Northern slope, 100 yards in front of me, on the road, trotting towards me, before stopping, and leaving the road.
• Caribou. Northern slope, almost the same as the last one.
• Caribou. Northern slope, 100 yards in front of me, on the road, trotting away from me. Continued to run as I got closer and closer (around 20 mph, maybe?) Eventually it decided to change strategy, and ran away from the road instead. That worked.
• Another northern goshawk, swooping across the hills of the north slope.
• "Moose and squirrel! Moose and squirrel!" One cow moose, with two calves, standing in the middle of the Dalton Highway, about ten miles south of Coldfoot. I got much closer to them (inside my car) than I have to any moose before, and far closer than I’d want to outside my car. They are HUGE animals!
No musk oxen spotted.
Turned around a bit before Prudhoe Bay ("It looks like New Jersey," said the ranger) and began the looong trip back to Fairbanks, where I camped for the night.
Departed Coldfoot at 9:20 AM AKDTArrived at northernmost point (69°13'N, 148°47'W) at 12:59 PM AKDT
Sun: 3:53 AM - 12:09 AM **
Distance to Seattle: 1,747 miles
Distance to north pole: 1,437 miles
view routeArrived at Fairbanks at 10 PM AKDT
Distance driven: 585 miles
Total driven: 5,223 miles
view route
** Times listed are actually for August 3rd (several minutes difference)
1 August 10:00 AM AKDT