Rosie and The Operator are driving The Alaska Highway direct from Beaver Creek to Whitehorse, a total distance of 450km which we should cover a lot quicker than yesterdays journey. Its the last leg of our awesome 1600km journey around the Yukon and guess what? It snowed last night, what a trip it was!
We have had to deviate our original holiday plans and bypass the Kluane National Park to Haines in favour of taking the inland road directly to Whitehorse as our ferry to Skagway was cancelled due to maintenance issues on the day we had a booking. Another crossing wasn’t available till the next day which didn’t suit our plans so we have had to miss out visiting Haines and Skagway. Never mind, Rosie and The Operator will roll with it, it meant that we got to spend an extra night in Dawson of which we are well thankful for.
Temperature Gauge as we left Beaver Creek – 1c
Learning our lesson from starting out in the dark yesterday in the crappy weather we slept in a little until the sun had just peeped out over the treetops before we got up, Rosie thought it felt a little fresh, oh yes, the gauge outside our general store said it was only one degree! With coffee on board from our wonderful Morroccan hosts we pushed off on the last stage of our road trip.
What a difference 24 hours makes, as we set out the sky was clear and the world was pink tinged, with a touch of artistic fog and a smattering of white frost. As we progressed and got closer to the Mt Elias ranges that smattering turned into sitting snow. It was magic! It sure gave those lines upon lines of roadside spruce trees a whole new look.
The tall thick forests were diminishing and the trees were becoming quite spindly, short and more spread out on the ground. The ground itself was getting colder and the topsoil thinner so the roots of these trees at this higher altitude were not getting a lot of nutrient before they hit the solid layer of permafrost.
The road was quite lumpy and bumpy with winters worth of frost heaves and the pictures Rosie was taking of the winter wonderland were beautiful…then The Operator saw him…the lone wolf crossing the road. It was one honest!
Not far from the wolf…was a camper, in a lay by, in a tent! Serious, snow was built up on the sagging canvas and it was freezing outside, Rosie should know, she would jump out of the car at every photo op to take a quick two second only photograph! Bugger camping!
We are driving the Alaskan Highway built in 1942, during WW2 by 18,000 American Military as an access way into Alaska to ensure supply routes and a backdoor, if the Japanese, attacked the mainland. At this stage the Japanese had already bombed Pearl Harbor and taken over the outlying Alaskan Islands.
The Alaskan Highway stretches for 2700km and was built in 8 months mainly by African American regiments whose men came from the Southern States and had never experienced a Northern winter!
Five minutes drive from Haines Junction population 613…our biggest ‘town’ to date we saw a mummy moose and her two babies on the roadside munching on the grassy verge. The Operator stopped the car and they all leisurely crossed the road, just chilling, taking their time, casting a glance at us, now and then, stopped on the road. They were not worried about us at all. Rosie was worried for them as it was moose hunting season and we had seen plenty of hunters scanning the forest from the roadsides on the way here.
Rosie was abit gutted we were skirting the beautiful Kluane National Park on our detour, but we were on the home stretch. Whitehorse, the end of our road trip was not that far away!
As we rolled into Whitehorse, the end of the line of our incredible 1600km journey along The Klondike Highway from Whitehorse to Dawson, The Top of The World Highway from Dawson to Beaver Creek and our last stretch on The Alaskan Highway from Beaver Creek to Whitehorse. Rosie and The Operator reflected on the epic journey and the variations of the amazing huge landscapes and vistas we encountered and the towns we visited.
The drive was at times challenging, taking into account the distances with weather conditions varying hugely, from rain to snow to dense fog and stunning autumn sun and colours. The quality of the highways varied and required an eagle eye for changes in the surface from tarmac to gravel, potholes and heaves in the surface due to frost.
If you plan on travelling these roads, do it! It is a great adventure with plenty to see and keep you occupied on the journey, allow for adequate time for a nice relaxed stopover in Dawson, you wont be bored there, there is plenty to see and do. An alternative to a car would be to undertake this journey in a rented RV, there were so many on the road and so many RV stops and campgrounds on the banks of the rivers and lakes plus park ups in Dawson City.
Rosie would recommend you check your dates and do this trip a little earlier in the year than they did, leaving it too late in the season you run the risk of a few of the sights that would have been good seeing being already shut for the winter. The plus point, it was already getting to cold for the mosquitoes which allegedly are vicious summer attackers in this part of the world.
At the end of the day as we rolled into Whitehorse, it sure was a memorable trip. There are also plenty of roads we did not travel, so never say never, Rosie and The Operator may be back!
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