“Have fun, guys,” she said without a hint of irony. “It’s gonna be a blast.”
Turns out, she was right on all counts.
I had enlisted a friend to share the journey with me, as I was told traveling the most remote highway in the country alone wasn’t the smartest idea. Credit to him for accepting an invite that pretty much read like this: “Hey, you wanna drive into the Arctic Circle on a highway that I’m pretty sure was in Ice Road Truckers?”
When you tell people you’re going to Alaska to “drive on a highway,” they react like you just told them you’re having SPAM for dinner. But anyone who knows the Dalton Highway understands that it’s perhaps the only road in the United States that can claim to be a destination in itself. Starting in Fairbanks, Alaska’s second largest city, the highway stretches 414 miles north to the Arctic Ocean through lush forests, winding rivers, dramatic mountain passes, and Arctic wilderness. It’s the most remote major highway in the US, ending about 600 miles north of where Into the Wild’s Chris McCandless starved to death in a disused bus.
With that comforting thought in mind, we drove our car off the lot and to our first — and most important — stop of the entire trip: the supermarket.
Built in 1974 to supply the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, the Dalton Highway initially served solely as a commercial haul road. Although the infrastructure has improved since then, it still remains a trucker’s road at heart. Paved sections alternate with long stretches of dirt and gravel, only two fuel (and food) stops exist between Fairbanks and Deadhorse — the highway’s northern terminus — and you won’t find a single McDonalds, Walgreens, or grocery store. Basically, if you didn’t pack it in Fairbanks, plan to live without it.
Photo: Ovidiu Hrubaru
People always tell you not to go grocery shopping on an empty stomach because you’ll buy everything in sight. Well, go on an empty stomach. This is the last chance you’ll have to stock up on food; you don’t want to be 250 miles above the Arctic Circle and realize you’re three meals short.
Our most important purchase was a cheap styrofoam cooler that allowed us to bring perishables on the journey. This really came in handy for cold cuts, cheese, pre-cooked chicken, yogurts, Lunchables — hey, there won’t be anyone around to judge you — and one of those crappy $3 birthday cakes they sell in the dessert section. We’ll come back to that later.
Beyond groceries, you’ll need a vehicle hefty enough to store your food purchase — and more importantly, to get you safely up the Dalton. A car with four-wheel drive, spare tires, and traction control is a must. You should also have a CB radio so you can communicate with other cars on the road, alert trucks if you’re turning around a hairpin curve, and call for help if needed. The Northern Alaska Tour Company in Fairbanks rents cars specifically for traveling up the Dalton Highway, so it’ll make sure your vehicle is properly equipped.
It’s also a good idea to bring bear spray. Much of northern Alaska’s land is owned by the Bureau of Land Management. That means it’s essentially public land with very little state intervention, and almost no designated trails. If you want to hike, you’ll have to forge your own path through the wilderness. It’s unlikely that you’ll be fending off bears, but better to have spray and not need it than not have spray and wish you’d bought better running shoes.
The Dalton Highway begins just north of Fairbanks at Elliot Highway, and ends 414 miles later at Deadhorse, an isolated town of about 50 permanent residents near the Arctic Ocean. The terrain surrounding the arctic highway varies, but much of it consists of rugged arctic tundra; depending on the time of year it might be blanketed in snow or covered in verdant green grass. Drivers will also pass through the Brooks Mountain Range and Arctic Foothills. Don’t expect a smoothly paved drive. While some stretches are well maintained, other parts of Dalton Highway consist of gravel, or a mixture of gravel and pavement. The road is often caked in mud or snow.
The best places to stop along the Dalton Highway to enjoy the scenery, rest, and replenish your supplies is the Yukon River Camp, Coldfoot Camp, the village of Wiseman, Lake Gilbraith, finally ending at Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay. Coldfoot Camp and Wiseman are both about three hours from Yukon River Camp. At Wiseman, you can stop and stay over night in a cabin in the dense, isolated woods.
An hour and half outside Wiseman, you’ll pass through the Atigun Pass. From there, there are no more places to stop for rest or supplies for 230 miles, until you hit Deadhorse. Deadhorse is an oil refinery site, with a small permanent population. There are simple hotels and a general store in Deadhorse. Before you turn around there are camps sites at Lake Galbraith, about three hours from Deadhorse. Once you’ve rested and refueled, you’ll need to turn around and head back to Fairbanks, and back to civilization.
Once you leave Fairbanks you won’t encounter your first outpost of civilization for about three hours. The Yukon River Camp isn’t just a simple truck stop. It’s a camp right on the banks of the mighty Yukon River that offers you a rare glimpse into a different pace of life. The camp is staffed by people from all over the country who came to Alaska seeking adventure, and each has a unique story to tell about how they wound up living on the Yukon River. You might even get to join the staff by the campfire as they watch for the Northern Lights.
Photo: Eben Diskin
A two-minute walk will bring you to the river, in the shadow of the Yukon River Bridge. If you notice two tents on a raft floating in the river, it’s not a couple of campers trying to one-up you. It’s Neil Ecklund and his son, Lauro. Meeting Neil and Lauro will make you feel like you’ve gone back in time to an age when tents were houses, you caught your own dinner, built your own fire for warmth, and the river was the primary means of transportation.
Neil Eklund competed in the famed Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in the early 1980s, and has lived on the river since before the Dalton Highway existed. Now he and his son Lauro build log rafts, fish, transport firewood on the river, and mush dog teams. They also run a variety of tours including dogsledding, camping, log rafting, and Northern Lights expeditions. If you’re lucky, Lauro will even show you his kennel of rambunctious sled dogs.
Not long after you leave the Yukon River Camp you’ll cross into the Arctic Circle. There are no visitor centers, road markers, or dramatic changes of scenery to mark the occasion — just a sign slightly off the main road that says “Arctic Circle.” There’s also a dispersed campsite in the vicinity of the sign, for those who want to say “I camped on the edge of the Arctic Circle,” but otherwise your passage is unceremonious. Just before the Arctic Circle sign, you can stop briefly at Finger Mountain. This deceptively named attraction is more like a large pile of stones than a mountain, but climbing to the top — which will take you 10 minutes — does give you a sweeping view of the lonely road, and a sense of the vast Arctic wilderness.
Photo: Eben Diskin
About three hours from the Yukon River Camp, you’ll have your choice of two lodgings — Coldfoot and Wiseman. If you have time it’s worth spending a night at both. Coldfoot, which you’ll reach first, is the oldest stop on the Dalton Highway. It has less of a summer camp vibe than the Yukon River Camp, but there are a wide range of excursions led by knowledgeable guides to keep you busy, and you’ll be staying in the trailers used by the workers who built the Alaska Pipeline, which is a pretty cool perk.
Photo: Eben Diskin
Coldfoot Camp pretty much has an excursion for every season and interest. There are packraft adventures, snowshoe trips, Arctic mountain safaris, Northern Lights viewings, dog sled excursions, and fat bike tours. Our fat bike tour took us to the peaceful Slate Creek on the Chandalar Trail, an old Gold Rush road. On the way back, our guide Dan showed us an abandoned school bus where a resident of Coldfoot used to live with his entire family. Now it’s a treasured part of Coldfoot Camp’s folklore.
When I made an obligatory Chris McCandless joke, Dan replied that the Into the Wild protagonist is a sore subject for many Alaskans, who believe McCandless is portrayed as a hero when he should be a cautionary tale. “There’s only one difference between that guy and the people who actually live up here,” Dan said. “Competence.”
Just a half-hour north of Coldfoot you’ll find the tiny village of Wiseman. Unlike Coldfoot and the Yukon River Camp, Wiseman is an actual village, and has been long before the highway was built. Located ten minutes off the Dalton, at the end of a dirt and gravel road, the old Gold Rush town is home to 14 permanent residents, all of whom live in log cabins among the trees.
Photo: FloridaStock/Shutterstock
Much like Neil and Lauro on the Yukon River, the people of Wiseman live a subsistence lifestyle, surviving largely on hunted meat. Stroll around the village and visit Nikki Reakoff’s craft shop, where she makes jewelry from animal fur, bones, and antlers; check out the vintage abandoned cars that have been sitting in the woods for decades; and spend some time down by the river. On Sundays you can even attend a church service led by local trapper Jack Reakoff.
I ran into Jack when he was sifting through some cranberries in his yard. Behind him, a pile of moose and caribou skulls. When I told him I was writing about the Dalton Highway he seemed amused.
“Everyone says Dalton’s dangerous,” he said. “But they shoulda seen it twenty years ago. I was here before the highway, and that was a tough haul. As long as you’ve got common sense, I guess it’s as safe as any other road.”
He was right.
Photo: Arctic Getaway Log Cabins
Contrary to what you might think, lodging in Wiseman doesn’t consist of a chilly night in a canvas tent while Jack Reakoff patrols the perimeter for bears. The Arctic Getaway Log Cabins are both cozy and well-appointed. But the best part of your stay won’t be the warm bed — it’ll be your hosts. Berni and Uta hail from Friesing, Germany, and lucky for us, somehow found their way to Arctic Alaska.
The first thing you notice won’t be the rustic cabins or the moose skulls mounted above the doors. It’ll be the hand-built ping pong table sitting in the yard. Berni built the table himself, and it doesn’t take much convincing for him to drop everything he’s doing and play a game, or twelve, with you.
There are two other options available for lodging: The Boreal Lodging consists of three log cabins with full kitchens and bathrooms. The Slate Creek in, rustic, no frills rooms with twin beds, which is closer to Coldfoot. The Arctic Hive in Wiseman offers yoga retreats, but not public, year around lodging for people just passing through the region.
Once you depart Wiseman and Coldfoot, your journey gets interesting. There are no more stops, fuel stations, or lodgings for 230 miles until Deadhorse, which represents the end of the highway just before the Arctic Ocean.
About an hour north of Wiseman, you’ll see the landscape change dramatically. The green, wooded wilderness you’ve grown accustomed to will suddenly give way to flat terrain. Previously, there was a sign marking the spot of the “last tree” and the beginning of the arctic tundra, but that tree has since been cut down. As you approach the Brooks Range, you’ll find yourself wanting to stop every five minutes to take pictures of the dramatic snow capped mountains.
Photo: Bruce Wilson Photographer/Shutterstock
The epic views really hit their stride on the Atigun Pass, at an elevation of nearly 5,000 feet. This is the point at which the highway crosses the Continental Divide, and the steep grades and hairpin curves make it one of the road’s most treacherous stretches. Use your CB radio to alert other drivers when you’re rounding curves, take it slow, and you’ll be fine. Honestly, you’ll want to drive as slow as possible anyway to really take in the views.
On the other side of the pass, the landscape looks dramatically different. The mountainous geography flattens and it suddenly feels like you’re driving through the Midwest, minus the cornfields. You can choose to go all the way to Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay, which are essentially oil refinery sites, or turn around and head back. If you do decide to turn around, don’t do so without first visiting Lake Galbraith, about 27 miles north of Atigun Pass. The lake has a parking area and a few campsites, and it’s a great picnic lunch stop before embarking on the journey home. We took this opportunity to enjoy some cheap birthday cake, in celebration of reaching our northernmost point.
When you finally return to Fairbanks, your car will be caked in mud and you probably won’t look (or smell) much better. The only way to cap off an intrepid adventure on the most remote highway in the country is with a well-earned spa day. (No, that’s not just wishful thinking.)
Photo: Eben Diskin
Chena Hot Springs Resort, just under an hour from Fairbanks, is a geothermal spa ideally suited to travelers who have just returned from a rough week on the Dalton. You can treat yourself to a massage, take a dip in the outdoor or indoor hot tub, or enjoy the healing waters of the geothermal Rock Lake. There’s also an excellent restaurant on site serving locally caught salmon, a famous tomato bisque, and vegetables grown in the on-site greenhouse.
The most eye-catching part of Chena isn’t even the Rock Lake or the private massage cabins — it’s the giant ice museum sitting just outside the main entrance. The Aurora Ice Museum is the world’s largest year-round ice environment, created using over 1,000 tons of ice and snow. It houses dozens of meticulously carved and illuminated ice sculptures, including an ice bar where you can purchase appletinis served in glasses made of ice. There’s also a few bedrooms carved into the ice. Rumor has it, no one has successfully lasted the night without retreating to the main hotel, but if you were bold enough to brave the Dalton, you should also be bold enough to spend the night in a block of ice.
If you’re not comfortable or equipped to drive the Dalton Highway (if for instance, you don’t own a vehicle that can safely traverse the distance) but you still want to experience the wonder and majesty of the Arctic wilderness, there are several tour companies which offer Dalton Highway tours. Alaska Tours offers a fully guided van tour from Deadhorse back to Fairbacks. The tour stops in Coldfoot, and passes by the Gates of the Arctic National Park, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Brooks Range and Alaska’s North Slope. Go Alaska Tours offers a Arctic Circle Van Tour down the Dalton Highway, where passengers should be on the look out for black bears and caribou.
Anyone can drive the Dalton Highway. However, people planning a trip along the Dalton Highway should have a vehicle that can handle rough terrain, and that you don’t mind getting muddy. The Dalton Highway is also an isolated road, so anyone driving it should know the best practices for interacting with wildlife and should be accustomed to camping out or sleeping in cabins. Additionally, because there is often hundreds of miles between services like gas and food, drivers should be prepared with emergency gas and should pack extra provisions — not just food, but warm clothes and a spare tires as flats are common.
The best vehicle to drive the Dalton Highway is one that has four wheel drive and is easy to maneuver (so that means you probably don’t want to take a huge SVU on this road). The car should also have sturdy, all-terrain tires. It might also be smart to invest in windshield protection film, as cracked windshields from rocks have been to known to happen on the drive. Make sure your car is also outfitted with a CB radio because there is no cellphone service on the highway.
The drive from Fairbanks to Deadhorse technically takes around 11 hours, it can be down one day. The two cities are 414 miles apart. However, you’ll want to stop at the many scenic spots and hot springs along the way to immerse yourself in the natural landscape. For more experienced outdoor adventurers taking the drive, there are also opportunities to stay in a log cabin and camp out. With stops, that amounts to 4-5 days of driving, if you plan to stop along the way to rest (which you should) and enjoy the mostly untouched Alaskan wilderness. Depending on where you want decide to stop, you could drive for as a little as 1 hour on some days, however the drive from Wiseman and Coldfoot Camp, which are necessary stops, to Deadhorse is around 6 hours.
Rental cars are allowed on the Dalton Highway. However, if you’re not planning to take your own vehicle, you need to check with the rental office where you want to rent your car because not every company allows rentals cars on gravel roads.
You can camp along the Dalton Highway. There are four main campgrounds at different spots along the highway: Five Mile Campground, near the Yukon River, Arctic Circle Wayside Campground, Marion Creek Campground, and Galbraith Lake Campground at the end of the highway. Remember, these are rugged, isolated campgrounds with no amenities, so only experienced backpackers should venture attempt. 