Riding the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle

We packed up the tent just out of Healey, where we camped at the beautiful Eight Mile Lake at the end of Stampede road. A couple of days later somebody told us that this was right at the beginning of Stampede Trail, which leads to the famous Magic bus. The weather was fair weather all day long and a stunning ride along the edge of  Denali National Park.We made good progress this day and camped out near Livengood, just next to the start of the Dalton. The Dalton Highway leads up all the way to Deadhorse by the Arctic Ocean. Originally only accessible to haul up equipment to the oil fields the road is open to the public these days and gets used by lots of motorhomes and hoards of BMW 1200GS’s.

The road started to gravel right after the highway signpost occasionally being paved and mostly being really good compressed dirt. Rumours are that this road turns into a nightmare when wet, but we had a really smooth ride up to Coldfoot. The vastness up here is breath taking and we passed the arctic circle on the way! After hanging out with fellow riders we spent the night at the free camp spot in Coldfoot. The ride next day back to Fairbanks was long but we could not really get enough of the scenery.