Haul Road Rookies

"It's like the end of the world."

James couldn't have said it any better as we barreled through the foggy North Slope, a place only Siberia tops as the essence of barren tundra. It had been three hours since the landscape had turned into something that surprisingly reminded me of the Everglades -- flat land, steam rising from wet, boggy grounds and no signs of life besides the chunky gravel road hardly wide enough to allow two 18-wheelers to pass each other.

We were growing impatient waiting for Deadhorse to appear through the fog, which grew so dense that 100 yards is a generous estimate of what I could see.

"Dead caribou," James noted, looking out the window.
"It's a suburb," I joked, certain that I was the only person within 100 miles who found it funny.

The top of the world, almost. The end of the world, indeed.

After all, as I sat in the dining hall of our oil workers' hostel/tourists' hotel at 4 a.m. (with the sun high in the sky), the news blared catastrophe.

Oil prices killing the economy. Climate change bringing doom. And there I was, at the source of 5 percent of America's oil and within sight of polar ice -- Kilometre Zero of our biggest crises -- loading up on doughnuts and lemon tea.

This was a vacation, but Deadhorse is no tourist destination. It tolerates its role as one of the few road-acessible towns on the Arctic Ocean. The only welcome mat laid out is a free map that you can grab from a box clipped to a gas station sign. The buildings have few, if any, markings. There's not even a sign that says you're in Deadhorse (then again, where else would you be).

Though the locals are friendly and the hotel manager is kind, I couldn't help but feel that James and I were a silly nuisance to the mining encampment that calls itself a town.

Still, Deadhorse was only where we had to stop; the journey there was the thing.

***

After securing a satellite phone, we shot toward the Steese Highway, sending final phone calls and text messages. We exploded out of the Tanana Valley. I hardly remember passing Fox and the gold mines on the Elliott Highway. Just past the Hilltop Restaurant, the farthest I had ever ventured before, I unsheathed my camera and snapped away. I was in the passenger's seat and enjoying a ride through the mountains without having to worry about, you know, avoiding death and all.

Alleviating more worry was that we weren't in my car. James was good enough to sacrifice his Jetta for the trip. Loaded down with gear and gas cans, we tried to minimize the damage to his car.

Of course, minimizing the damage is a rough task when you reach the Dalton Highway. It greets you with a kindly yellow sign that declares "PAVEMENT ENDS." Four hundered miles from Deadhorse, this sign was the perfect way to say "Y'all sure you're ready for this?"



The Dalton Highway, also known as Haul Road, is an enigma covered in gravel, dirt and pothole-scatterd pavement. It's liable to change surfaces, hit steep grades and wind sharply without so much as a traffic cone. Add a gorgeous view that tempts your gaze and about 160 semi trucks to dodge. In all, driving it is like dating a crazy woman: You need a cool head, patience and restraint from staring at beautiful objects.



And beautiful does not aptly describe what lies along the road. It begins with green, rolling hills and soft lush valleys occasinally scorched by forest fires. It then transforms into ice-patched, rocky cliffs that loom over deep blue lakes and rivers with hints of whitewater.




We hit our first wave of Alaska mosquitoes when we stopped at the Yukon River crossing. At least 20 would fly into the car at every stop, and I amused myself by hunting them down. They were crafty, flying into the crevice between the dashboard and the windshield. One even got me to stub my finger on the windshield. He was a worthy adversary, and he died with honor.

At the Arctic Circle, I could once again feel my latitude. It’s hard to describe, but there are times that I realize geographically where I am and feel like I’m about to get slung off the Earth. We are not heading North; we are heading Frighteningly North.



Of course, our latitude wasn’t as jarring as our plunge down Beaver Slide, a hill that basically drops you from the top and greets you with a large, unmarked dip in the road at the bottom. James hit his head on the roof as the Jetta went airborne.

We stopped in Coldfoot to refuel both the car and ourselves. The red Jetta was already a light brown color everywhere below a diagonal line that went from the top of the tail lights to the peak of the front wheel base.



James handed me they keys as we finished our buffet lunch/dinner. Here goes nothin'.

As I expected, there was an accident less than 10 minutes after I took the wheel. As I didn't expect, we werent involved. James spotted a truck flipped onto its side. It was deserted but full of personal items. We called the troopers with the sat phone and continued.

The truck had a Florida lisence plate. Dang Floridians, don't they know to stay on the flatlands.

Odd names abound beyond the Arctic Circle. Rivers have sequels (Jim River 3), the Highway has traverses like Oil Spil Hill and Ice Cut and, well, there's a place called Gobbler's Knob. Also, the North Slope's Happy Valley looks like the most depressing place on this planet.

We stopped to see the farhtest north spruce tree. Despite a large sign saying not to chop it down, there were axe marks that made a ring several inches deep near the base of the tree. Also, it was grey and dead. I guess they'll have to move that sign someday.

Less than 5 minutes later came Atigun Pass, where the highway cuts throught the Brooks Range, and rain decided to join the party. The following hour was a constant barrage of near-death experiences and pothole-swerving.

By the time the mountains smoothed out into rolling hills, I was driving in video-game mode: dodge this, miss that and don't let your health meter get low. It was a hell of a challenge. I loved it.

***

I returned from my early-morning snack to find James as sick as a dog. I let him be and watched "Broken Arrow" and CNN until it was time for our tour of the oil fields. I checked on him once more, but the whole point of touring the oil fields was to jump in the Arctic Ocean. If James did that, he might have vaporized.

So I strolled solo over to the tour lobby and met my fellow travelers. They were from a UAF group that has camped south of town to do Arctic research the past week. It was made of students from universites worldwide, so there were plenty of differing personalities. I fit right in with them -- to the point that I didn't respond when the tour guide asked if we were all from UAF. Why bother?

The oil field tour was a bit dull. It started with a video about the great work of BP and Phillips Alaska and how there might be work on a natural gas line coming soon. Yup 2003 looks to be a promising year. The guide was a grizzled vet of the North Slope who, bless his heart, loved what he was talking about, but couldn't say anything interesting. He even mentioned his 401(k) plan.

We hopped on a small bus and took a tour of Deadhorse, but we were all there for one thing, the ocean. The bus pulled up to the shore and we nervously walked to the waterline, noticing that the ice had only receded about a mile offshore.

Oh well. Two Swedish women were the first to go in, topless -- which is brave in more ways than one on a 41-degree day. A trio of college-aged girls followed in their underwear. I had a bathing suit with me but decided it was "go" time and ran toward the water in my long underwear, yelling, "I'm from Florida! What the hell am I doing?"






The water was only knee-deep after the first 10 yards, so I flopped on my belly to do a full plunge. It was co-o-o-o-ld. I couldn't feel the pebbly coast under my feet until I dried off.

***

The way back was mercifully uneventful. The three things I wanted to avoid: a crash, falling asleep and jostling James enough to amplify whatever was ailing him. I was in video-game mode the entire time.

As the car rolled onto the Johansen Expressway in the middle of Fairbanks, I couldn't tell if we had conquered Deadhorse or the other way around.



But we came and we saw, and two out of three ain't bad.