Advertisement
Published: June 20th 2010
Edit Blog Post
We were on top of the world today. Or, to be more accurate, we drove along the Top of the World Highway.
We've just spent a couple of days in Alaska, due to a last minute change of plan. Originally, we had planned to journey in a giant "U" shape through the Yukon from Whitehorse: up the left arm of the "U" via the Alaska Highway to Beaver Creek, then back to Whitehorse to do the right arm of the "U" up to Dawson City. Our reason being that even the Canadian guidebooks say the road between Beaver Creek and Dawson City is bad. And going from Beaver Creek to Dawson City direct involves crossing into the States.
Well, that was our plan before we drove from Haines Junction to Beaver Creek up the Alaska Highway. Now I wouldn't say that the road was bad: but given that I grew up (and learned to drive) in rural Dorset, and I have driven across the outback from Uluru to Alice Springs, and I have bounced along dirt tracks in Iceland, the Alaska Highway is possibly the worst road that I've ever driven along. To be fair, it is built on
Sitting in different countries
I'm sat on the "KA" of Alaska, Craig's sat on the "YU" of the Yukon. permafrost, which has a nasty habit of melting unevenly under the road. But there are potholes the size & depth of dustbins on that road! So we decide to run the gauntlet of the US immigration and cross into Alaska.
Now it could just be that we were unlucky that their satellite systems crashed about five minutes before we got to the head of the queue. Or maybe they just wanted to make us wait. But 90 mins after we got to the boarder, we were finally processed and allowed to continue our journey into the States.
We carried on up the Alaska Highway (significantly better on the US side, once we were past the 14 mile long single-lane roadworks) to the town of Tok. Where we spent the night (and had a taste of Alaskan nightlife: Craig's verdict on Alaskan beer - could do better). And then we headed north east from Tok, up the Taylor Highway to the town of Chicken (
honestly!). The road from Tok to Chicken was OK(-ish), but beyond Chicken, it got significantly worse, so we decided against the 120 mile trip to Eagle (
no, really) and back, and continued instead back towards
Canada along the aforementioned Top of the World Highway.
The road really is quite spectacular. It runs along the top of the mountain ridges (well, I say mountains - up close they looked a lot like really big hills, but the views were pretty amazing). In some ways it was a bit like driving across Dartmoor, but with all the vertical distances multiplied about 10-times (or for those of you in Wales - it's a bit like the Heads of the Valley's Road, but with fewer sheep). In places on the north-facing slopes, there was between 6 inches and 3 feet of snow still beside the road.
Somewhat bizarrely, the US/Canada border post is located in a little tin hut, 1,258m (or 4,127ft for those of you watching in old money) up the side of a mountain. No problem getting back into Canada - the border guard was more interested in what her dog was up to than who we were.
About 100km later, we dropped back down to the west bank of the Yukon River to catch the ferry across into Dawson City.
And that brings us right up to date. We're going to spend
tomorrow exploring the town, and then we'll start heading back to Whitehorse and eventually back into British Columbia on our (long) way to the Rockies.
I almost forgot to mention. We have finally seen a grizzly bear out in the wild! The day before we got to Beaver Creek was very wet & miserable, so we stopped off at the (surprisingly good) Kluane Museum of Natural History, where we learned all about grizzly's (and other Canadian fauna) and how unlikely it was that we would see a grizzly, given how shy they are. And then, not 15 mins after we drove away from the museum, we saw one standing by the side of the road, keeping a watchful eye on her little cub.
We also haven't managed to find any gold yet (
sorry, Lynne). Craig found a small shiny lump of rock, that he is convinced is the real stuff. But let's just say that I'm not 100%!s(MISSING)ure...!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.16s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 12; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0507s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb