Home»All Photographs»Alaska 2010»The Dalton Highway, Alaska

This is the famous Dalton highway. Actually it's mostly a gravel road barely wide enough to let 2 trucks (or a truck and our bus) pass. This is probably one of the most scenic highways in North America. The highway mainly follows the route of the Alaska pipeline (obvious, since that was the reason it was built!) from Fairbanks to Deadhorse camp at Prudhoe Bay. On the way we spent a night at Coldfoot camp about half way up.
The change in scenery and vegetation from the south to the north end of the highway is remarkable. Near Fairbanks it is quite heavily forested with the Taiga forest and relatively flat. As you go further north the trees gradually disappear and the terrain becomes more hilly. Eventually you reach the Brooks range. You go through the spectacular Atigun pass which must be incredibly treacherous in the winter. At about this point the trees are completely gone and there's nothing but tundra and a few small bushes.
Beyond the Brooks range it's the North Slope where the terrain gradually descends to the Arctic ocean and becomes very flat. At the side of the highway we saw herds of caribou.