Friday 15 June 2012

067 Tok AK to Dawson City YT


Having gone to bed reasonably early last night, I was awake and ready for action by 5.30 am, but sat cooling my heels for a while as I needed gas and groceries before heading off to Chicken, and not much opens in Tok before 8 am !!  But as soon as they were open, I got what I needed, and headed off up the Chicken road.
I didn’t see another car for maybe 45 minutes !  I was starting to wonder if there was a problem somewhere !!  But eventually a few appeared, and they were all pretty dirty – Which indicated the road ahead was going to be all the fun I expected !  This is the Top of the World Highway, with over 100 miles of dirt, and supposedly stunning scenery, and I have been reading about it and looking forward to it for 3 years. I was supposed to come up to Alaska on this Klondike Highway, but the Yukon River was still frozen at that stage, so the ferry, the only way to cross the iver, was not in the water or operating at that time.

 

I started from Tok with the roof on because it been raining most of the night, and was still very overcast when I left.  But after maybe 15 minutes driving while I climbed up out of the valley, the sky cleared a bit so I took the roof off.  The 95 miles to Chicken were very pleasant, but nothing overly special, and I finalled arrived in the place I had read and heard so much about over the past 3 years  (And it is called Chicken because the locals wanted to call it Ptarmigan, but didn't know how to spell it, so called it Chicken instead !)  And, with due apologies to the residents of Chicken, it really is as bad as they say – Nothing really but chickens !  T-Shirts, stickers, braces, cards, hats, aprons, tea towels – Even beer – Everything is chicken !!  One lady had bought a mechanical chicken which she set to dancing and clucking on my boot box, at which a local Jack Russell dog was desperate to climb up and eat it !!

Not being in need of a hat, T Shirt, or anything else Chicken, I left the town fairly quickly, not least because there were also some very big and very black rain clouds coming up and I hoped I could get around them.  .But within about 10 minutes I saw I was hemmed in, so I uickly stopped and put the roof up – About 2 minutes befoe the heavens absolutely opened on me.  The rain was so heavy it soon turned the dirt road (which had started just a couple of miles before reaching Chicken) into a mud bath, so it was a farly sedate trip for an hour or so through the  heavy rain.  But it was not too bad  - Just yucky throwing mud everywhere !!   And I can see why the people talk abut having a lot of flat tyres on these dirt rods – They drive like maniacs at about 60-80 miles an hour,so it is no wonder their tyres take a beating .  They don’t even seem to slow down through the bad sections – They just barrel on through – Even 40 ft RV’s towing cars – they just pile on through regardless !! 

Anyway, 13 miles after Chicken I came to the US/Canadian border inspection post, at an altitude of about 1500 metres, so we had been climbing steadily for a while, and the views were starting to reflect that.   As usual, no questions about the car whatsoever – Just a passport check, and ask whether I had any weapons and that was it.  By the border post we were above the tree line, and just a few miles after the crossing, we rounded a small hill and were faced with the most AMAZING view- As far as the eye could see, in every direction.  The photos just do not capture it, I'm afraid.
I have never really been someone who gets overcome by majestic views, but the ones today were just mind blowing.  The photos as usual will not even begin to show how stunning they were, because they just cannot pick out the fine detail and the light.  But this Top of the World Highway has to rate as one of the most stunning drives in the world – It really should be on everyone’s bucket list.  I will say no more, other than to tell you that these stunning views then continued for most of the next 140 kms (we are back in Canada now !) into Dawson.   Just  absolutely amazing, and made all the better because shortly after the border crossing, I decided to remove the roof again, and after that, while it was cold, it just got sunnier and sunnier all the way !!!  One thing that stood out was that there were blue flowers all along the highway, which I was told by an authority on the matter are lupins, so I had to take a couple of pics and include them as my flower of the day because they were so stunning bordering such an amazing road.

The last 5 or 10 kms into Dawson were a steep drop down from about 1200 metres to the river level at about 600.  You get glimpses of the massive Yukon River through the trees, but then suddenly you arrive at the river’s edge, and the road stops !!  The ferry is the only way across ! It is a free ferry, and only takes about 5 minutes to get across, but right now the river is so swollen with all the snow melt coming down that they have had to bulldoze new ramps to get the cars off, and the ferry has to crab its way across the river under full power  in order to avoid getting washed away down stream !  We got on first so were right up against the ramp, and getting splashed by the waves breaking over the front !!  Certainly was an exciting crossing !!    I saw later on that the walkway out to a paddle boat that does dinner cruises on the river was completely submerged – They had had to build a new ramp just to get passengers aboard !!

When queuing for the ferry, some of the people I was talking to asked if I was in Dawson for the Highland Games !  My friend Lucy had told me something was on, but I hadn’t realised it was a Highland Games, so the town is full of big burly caber-tossing Scotsmen in their kilts all saying “Och aye the noo” and so forth.  So as the weather is supposed to be quite good, I have decided to stay here for a couple of days, and soak up the atmosphere !  I will see how tomorrow goes, and leave on either Sunday or Monday to head south to Whitehorse.  I am not in a hurry to get to Whitehorse as, apart from the floods which had cut the Alcan a few days ago, causing back ups of tourists  up and down the road, I heard tonight that a bridge over the Yukon in Whitehorse either got damaged or washed away, and this has stranded more people there ! So the longer I can leave it before venturing into the bedlam, the better, I think.

Anyway, an amazing drive today over the Top of the World Highway, and a fitting end to a magnificent few weeks in Alaska, as today I left and entered the Yukon and Canada.  But I know I will be coming back to Alaska again – This is a truly stunning place, and I can see why so many people who come here, never want to leave, and keep coming back again and again.