Alaskan Highway

So driving on the Alaskan Highway was one of the funnest things I have ever done in my life. It was def an adventure, though not as much of an adventure as when I started. For anyone looking to get from the states to Alaska by driving, heres what we did that worked great:

We started by heading to HWY 97. It was a very nice highway, mainly two lanes but sometimes four, the whole way up to Fort St. John where we met up with the Alaskan Highway. The Alaskan Highway itself is almost all the way paved, something thats only happened in the last year. BC has been doing a very good job fixing it up. The only spots that werent paved were the places where they were still doing construction and it was very well marked. Here are some pictures of it:

This is what the road was mainly. It looked like gravel but was really paved. The roads were kinda like the pavement we put on roads that dont get much traffic, almost like the roads in towns but a little more rugged. They were nice to drive on though.

Here you can see where the gravel ended and the pavement began. The longest stretch of gravel was maybe 5 miles long. This is the end of it. We had excellent weather the whole way. You might noticed that it looked like rain but thats just the way it is up there. When it did rain, however, it was on the scariest part of the highway.

This was terrifying!! As you can see, the mountain is Right There. On the other side was a drop of about 100 ft. And it was pouring rain. We were going about 40mph and had the wipers on full force and still couldnt see much. This was the night we decided not to stop but continued from our planned location to drive another 300 miles. So of course we ran into weather.

This is another picture of what the road was for the most part. As you can see, the mountains were all around us. We were high enough up at some points that it looked like we could see over the clouds. It was cool.

We also ran into a bunch of wildlife. Pretty much all we saw was coyotes and deer until we got to northern BC and the Yukon. Then we saw all sorts of animals:

The bison just high out on the side of the road. To keep the moose off the highway and to improve visibility, the trees were kept about 50 ft from the road. That made the grass you can see this bison munching on very yummy. So alot of animals kind of chilled on the side of the road. Alot of time they used the shoulder of the road as a path. It was cool.

This caribou was my very first wild caribou EVER! She was so cute! She just kinda wandered up the middle of the road in front of us until she found the bush she wanted to eat. Then she climbed up out of the road to munch on that.

These horses were loose on the side of the road. The black on it the back was wild and were not sure about the rest but the paint and the grey def. belonged to the Indians. The paint had a cow bell around her neck so they could find her. The Indians let their horse wander around with the wild horses for company. It was cool.

 So the worst part of the highway was the stretch in the Yukon from Haines Junction to Beaver Creek. There the road was not very well maintained and the frost heaves were very bad. It was like riding on a short uncomfy roller coaster with lots of big, uncomfortable bumps. I think my Dad broke something in my car at one point cuz it was makin a weird sound after that but apparently it fixed itself because we cant hear it anymore.

But all in all it was very beautiful. I would love to travel it agian when I had more time to stop and enjoy it. Every few years it would be a fun trip to make. But for now, if I move back down to the Lower 48 in the next 5 years, I will just take the ferry. Driving it took a long time with late nights and early mornings and that much travel just tired me out. But someday I would like to drive it again cuz its soo pretty!