The Long Road North

Today started off at a reasonable hour from the hotel at Watson Lake. It isn't that cold, relatively speaking, but with all the gravel and dirt on the roads coming into Watson Lake, the truck is brown and the nooks and crannies are dirt covered and filthy, and my weather proof trailer locks are frozen up with grime and ice. I spent a few minutes on each one releasing them, and I get the spares (spare padlocks - I guess I was thinking) from the toolbox, as one of the locks won't re-engage, and finish packing up.

I read somewhere that you can't drive the Alcan highway without rock chips in your windshield. Check.

There were reports of slick conditions and two cars off the road on the next section the day before by the woman at the front desk of the hotel as we checked out. The road conditions were indeed poor and the going has been slow today as we try to be very careful advancing up the highway. I still feel like I'm going slow when the big trucks blast by me like they were driving I-25 back in Colorado on a sunny day. I wonder how they keep the trucks on the road as they seem to defy some inherent laws of physics. I feel better when I overtake a couple other random vehicles also pulling trailers.

The drive continues, consistent, persistent, we drive on,

and on,

and on.

One would almost be inclined to say that the expansive beauty is distractingly monotonous, except you simply cannot be lulled into complacency.

Sometimes they seem to be standing there for the purpose of making sure you're still paying attention to the road. It's seldom an issue though as we're really not able to keep enough speed for the presence of the wildlife to be a major factor.

Once in a while we stop to ask the locals for road conditions.

 

After a long day on the road we pull into Haines Junction where we planned to stay. The road conditions the last hour of the trip were some of the best we've had all day, and we had briefly entertained the thought of trying to reach Beaver Creek in an effort to shorten our drive tomorrow, but as we come into Haines Junction the roads turn very slick and we quickly dispel the idea of going on.

Refueled and looking for a hotel, we check into the Alcan hotel. The mountains surrounding Haines Junction look like an amazing site, but we have a fairly poor view tonight, and I'm hoping the weather has cleared out some for tomorrow.  Although I don't expect the roads to improve overnight, we can predict very little in this environment. We know now that because it's snowing the weather is 'warm', as it doesn't snow if it's cold here. And because it is warm, we don't have to plug in the cars. We also have learned that the road conditions improve as it gets colder, and it's undesirable to have warm temperatures for driving conditions, and we can now attest to this. So I'm now hoping for colder conditions for the morning drive.

If all goes well tomorrow, we'll be in Fairbanks by late evening. This is a somewhat aggressive driving schedule considering the conditions. We have over 500 miles left to drive through the Yukon and Alaska - The home stretch, really. If we can average 50 miles per hour, reasonable only if the conditions improve over today, that'll be ten hours on the road. We're estimating 12 hours to make the drive from Haines Junction to Fairbanks tomorrow, plus some time to cross the border - Long, even by our new standards, but considering the timeline, unless the road in turns worse than it has been, it will be worth pushing a long day to arrive at our new home in Fairbanks. 

K. Chadwick