Tag 134 bis 138: Dalton Highway - Road to the Arctic Ocean

This morning at seven o'clock, I landed in Fairbanks, the northernmost city in Alaska with an international airport. My parents picked me up with their motorhome. The joy of reunion was tremendous because we hadn't seen each other for six months. We had breakfast together and then headed straight to the Dalton Highway. This highway was built as an access road for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and extends 800 km from Fairbanks to Deadhorse on the Arctic Ocean. If you're wondering why we're driving an 800 km long road, take a look at the pictures...

We drove on partially very rough road surfaces, countless potholes, and mud for two days until we reached Deadhorse. We crossed a pass at about 1400m altitude, where there was still snow on the roadside (Dad and I had a snowball fight in July). By the way, this pass is the highest road in Alaska. The road was very diverse, first many wooded hills, which gradually turned into alpine mountains. After the mountains, the road only went through flat tundra until we reached our destination. There, on the third day, we took a tour to the sea because unfortunately, it is not allowed to drive all the way to the sea on our own. The reason for this is that the entire area is under BP's management and oil drilling is actively taking place there. During the 90-minute tour, we learned about the formation and life of this very unreal area. There is civilization here only because of the oil. The highlight of the tour was, of course, the visit to the beach on the Arctic Ocean. From here it is only 1500 km to the North Pole and another 1500 km to Norway. I couldn't resist swimming here. I was lucky because three weeks ago the sea was still frozen here. After the tour, we started the return trip. We divided it into three day stages because we realized that two days were just too stressful. The way back felt as if we had never driven along here. The landscape looked quite different in the other direction... after five days, many kilometers, and four nights north of the Arctic Circle, we reached Fairbanks again.