Gates of the Arctic National Park, AlaskaBudget Expedition to Arctic Alaska via the Dalton Highway (Haul Road)by Joseph A. Sprince - Photography by Gerald B. AllenNorth to Alaska: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Gates of the Arctic | Denali NP The Gates of the Arctic National Park covers much of the Brooks Range in northern, Arctic Alaska. It is one of the most remote and unspoiled wildernesses in the world. It is a place where it is still possible to go where no one has gone before. A visit to the Gates of the Arctic is generally a true expedition. Most people will engage a bush pilot to fly them into a remote location, and then use watercraft to navigate via river through the park's many beautiful valleys; a very expensive proposition. At the time of our auto trip to Alaska we needed a less expensive method. The construction of the Dalton Highway (also known as the Haul Road) to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields opened up car access to Arctic Alaska. (At the time of our visit you needed a permit to go all the way to the north coast.) The highway, a rather challenging dirt road, traverses hundreds of miles of spectacular and almost unspoiled wilderness. The ever present pipeline may mar the view a little, and heavy trucks occasionally disturb the peace but it is a unique experience. Meals were unusual. The endless roadside streams, which few if any people fish, yielded enough Arctic grayling for a meal, in minutes, and the adjacent brush yielded up a potful of blueberries just as fast. The national park boundary comes within a few miles of the road for a short stretch, and you may park your car and hike cross-country to enter. But it is not that easy. The park is separated from the road by a river and a ridge of hills.
Our experience was crossing five channels of icy cold water from knee to hip deep. The cold, stormy weather made it extra challenging. Note in the photo the small channel which braids further in the distance. Also, note all the footprints in the mud. None of these are human! Included were fresh bear prints though we never saw the actual bear. We then proceeded up a small but steep canyon towards the ridge line. A strange feature was the exposure of the permafrost (photo, below left). In the Arctic, the ground is permanently frozen a few feet below the surface. As the canyon became steeper, shadier, and colder, more and larger sheets of ice clung to its walls. Eventually the canyon had the look of an iceberg! We finally reached the ridgeline after a precarious hand and foot scramble out of the canyon. And now we learned the hard way the harshest aspect of Arctic travel. The permafrost below the tundra melts to a depth of perhaps two feet during the summer creating an ocean of mud. Mounds of scrubby little plants call tussocks provide the only solid footing. Walking is accomplished by hopping from tussock to tussock. If you miss, you sink in the mud. Bob Marshall, founder of the Wilderness Society, was one of the early explorers of the Brooks Range. He said that "hiking the tussocks" was the most difficult aspect of exploring the Arctic. As we reach our destination of tiny Kaarak Lake (left), within the national park, we pitch our tent on an uneven hillside with solid ground. The rains come again at dusk and continue all night and into the next day. As basically a city person, I found the sense of aloneness to be very powerful. We were told you must be very self-sufficient here; that there would be no help if you got into trouble. You might not even be found. A very profound concept. With the continued bad weather, we headed back to the truck the next day. The "real" wilderness of bush Alaska was a demanding and unforgetable experience. And, by the way, the Arctic is the land of the midnight sun, in fact close to 24 hour daylight during July. Unfortunately, we never did actually see the sun while we were here! North to Alaska: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Gates of the Arctic | Denali NP
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A mile-by-mile travel guide to Alaska, Yukon Territory, British Columbia, Alberta & Northwest Territories. The Milepost has been called the bible of North Country travel since it was first published in 1949.
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Residents of the Lower 48 sometimes imagine Alaska as a snow-covered land of igloos, oil pipelines, and polar bears. But Alaska is far more complex geographically, culturally, ecologically, and politically than most Americans know, and few writers are as capable of capturing this complexity as John McPhee. Photography
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Waterton National Park, Alberta, Canada. Excellent large format. Buy This Print! Related Pages
The Alaska road trip series, North to Alaska, is offered in installments each of which has about a week to ten days of entries from my journal.
Location
Alaska can be accessed by autos in one of two ways. The first is by the Alaska Highway (sometimes known as Alcan) which starts at Dawson Creek in northern British Columbia and runs through the southern Yukon, terminating in Fairbanks. The other auto access is the Alaska Maritime Highway which is a ferry service operating through the Alaska Panhandle and connecting all the way to Anchorage. Many drivers will use the Alaska Highway in one direction and the ferry in the other. This story takes place off the Dalton Highway, State 11, about 200 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Local Weather
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