4th of July.......We did it! After a spectacular drive up the Dalton Highway to Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay we took our dip in the Arctic Ocean.

We have a new appreciation for the “Ice Road Truckers.” The 485 mile trip (one way) takes two days. The Dalton Highway is a mixture of paved and dirt road. We preferred the dirt; it was graded so smooth we could drive 65 mph. The paved road had more whoop dee doo’s then a ride at Disneyland! It pitched right to left and left to right with no warning, there were lots of deep pot holes and frost heaves, and worst of all; you couldn’t see any of these problems until you were in the thick of things!

Paralleling the road was the Alaskan Pipe Line. Above ground in some areas, installed high enough to let caribou and moose pass under it. Buried and refrigerated in other areas to lower the temperature of the 185 degree oil as it moves south.

Day 1. The scenery was amazing! Boreal forests full of white and black spruce, quaking aspen and willow. The permafrost is 2,000 feet deep here, so trees are short and stunted looking, unable to get a good grip on the land. A 65 year old black spruce trunk will have a diameter of only 3 inches. The forests are filled with birds singing their hearts outs from the tree tops, looking for a mate. We crossed numerous small steams with names like Jim 1, Jim 2, Jim 3, W fork of the N fork of the Chandalar River and No Name. Many of these can be panned for gold. Jim panned Fish Creek with little success.

We crossed the Arctic Circle at mile 115, a big benchmark in our trip. The half way point on the Dalton is the tiny town of Coldfoot. Tiny bare bones motel rooms here (with no bathrooms) go for $200 a night. They have a restaurant that packs lunches for road crews and travelers. A sandwich, apple, chips, cookies and a soft drink costs $12.00. They also put out a buffet three times a day, and the food is FABULOUS. To save $110, we drove 12 miles up the road to Wiseman, a town of almost 20 people. If you drove through Wiseman you’d think the town was abandoned. There are no utilities here. Power comes from solar panels, wind turbines and generators. There is a dilapidated sign at the entrance to town that says Wiseman has “been a flourishing community since 1908.” There were so many mosquitoes in Wiseman I spent the evening huddled in our room.

Day 2. We saw a moose cow and calf right next to the road. They were very obliging and let us take a bunch of photos of them. The calf was SO CUTE! We crossed the Brooks Range at Atigun Pass. The road is very steep and climbs quickly to the summit. Along the outside edge of the road are guardrails. That’s plural guardrails, two deep, super hefty, and bent and dented every foot of the way. It looks like someone took a semi truck and played pinball, careening back and forth on the downhill run.

Past the Brooks Range is a great tundra valley bordered on both sides by mountains. There are millions of acres of wilderness stretching further than you can see. For a birder like me, it was heaven. Numerous shallow ponds dotted the landscape and held birds I could never see anywhere else. In just this one drive I picked up 13 new birds for my life list. The tundra shelters millions of birds nesting on the ground beneath grass clumps and miniature shrubbery. The sound of baby birds peeping came from EVERYWHERE.

The tundra was in full bloom, too many varieties of wildflowers to count. The fields were full of arctic lupine, white cotton grass and as promised, fireweed. The mosquitoes were so thick, they just hovered right outside the truck windows hoping to get in and have a bite to eat. At the “Last Chance” rest stop I dared to run the mosquito gauntlet and look for birds. So I sprayed myself top to bottom with insect repellant, covered up in a jacket with hood, pulled a mosquito net over my head and set out to try and do a little birding. In the end, the mosquitoes won.

We learned new words on this trip: Pingos, Palsas, Thermokarsts, Ice-Wedge Polygons and Aufeis are all ice features in the permafrost. In some places the permafrost is 2,000 feet deep.

Finally, we reached Deadhorse at Prudhoe Bay! Our oil field tour and arctic dip were scheduled for 5:00 pm the same day so we checked into our bare bones motel room and then scoped out the Deadhorse. Our motel is also home to oil field workers and truckers. 7,200 people work on the North Slope, most work 3 weeks on and 3 weeks off. Workers are constantly rotating out; every day 300 people ship out by Alaskan Air (paid for by their employer) for Anchorage or Fairbanks. From there, they fly home (their dime.) There are no permanent residents on the North Slope. Jim met a guy who works for BP, 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off; he deposits $10,000 every 6 weeks. In summer you’ll find all the oil exploration equipment parked around town. Summer is for maintenance. Everywhere you look there is oil drilling equipment, supplies and giant snow vehicles parked all around town. The housing oil workers live in is mounted on giant steel sleds. When the ground freezes the equipment and housing will be driven and hauled out onto the tundra. It’s so cold on the North Slope they never turn off vehicles in winter. They run 24X7, plugged into engine block heaters. Deadhorse was really interesting, bleak but interesting.

Tens of thousands of caribou and herds of giant shaggy muskoxen come here to calve. We were amazed at how agile and fast the muskoxen were and just how HUGE caribou antlers get. Since the pipeline went in the herds have increased times seven. There are birds everywhere. Every tiny puddle, roadside ditch and pond had birds in it. The short tundra grass was full of geese and swans. The North Slope is a major breeding area for more than 400 species of birds.

Finally the time comes and we all get on the bus, pass through the security gate and head out for the Arctic Ocean. The bus driver, a security guard and emergency trauma technician tells us they have been having trouble with people punching through the peat moss on the bottom of the ocean. He says they don’t recommend getting in, but if you do, be careful. So Jim and I pick our spot, peel off most of our clothes and head to the water. The shore still has snow and the ocean looks slushy. The wind is blowing so hard all the flags are standing straight out and I have to hold onto my hat to keep it from blowing all the way to Russia. It’s 37 degrees outside so I leave my sweatshirt on. As I walk into the water I notice something….. It’s not cold. And the ground beneath my feet is soft and I keep punching through, until it sucks my shoes right off. So I dig for my shoes, retrieve them from the peat moss (creepy) and take them back to shore. I wade out again until I am past my knees, then a wave slaps me on the ass and I am done. I can barely keep my balance walking on the spongy moss as I return to shore. Jim is hollering wait, wait, I haven’t taken video yet! When I climb out of the water I realize I am cold. Then it’s Jim’s turn. He takes our travel Nome and toddles out into the water. Like me, he notices the water is not cold. When he gets out of the water his white legs are beet red. Later, the security guard tells me that 29 degrees or lower is when the water is most dangerous, when it doesn’t feel cold. Three other people take the dip, but for everyone else, just being there is enough.

Day 3 & 4. We reverse the trip. On the way back Jim said “you know, sometimes it’s not about the destination, it really is about the journey.”