Alaska Highway-Whitehorse Yukon to Tok Alaska

A little rain to start our day. I actually looked forward to it. It washed the dust and mud off.
A road hazard in front of us marked by the red flags.  The highway guys do a good job of marking the VERY bad spots. Sometimes the not so bad spots (unmarked) are the worse!
It’s best to slow down at these repairs. You just don’t know if the repairs are stable or it’s a launching pad.

Whitehorse Yukon to Tok Alaska is our last leg on the Alaska Highway.  We have traveled 1280 miles from Carson Creek BC in about 10 days with a 3 day lay over in Whitehorse. My main concern about this trip has been the road condition. It turns out that the roads are paved all the way, with the exception of some road construction that requires some driving on gravel.  Even the gravel portions are pretty smooth and really a non-issue. The most challenging for this trip has been the frost heaves and the repairs in the last 200 miles.  There is not a good relaxing driving section in this last leg. The frost heaves are ever changing with the permafrost constantly thawing and changing the ground stability. The repair work is only as good as the day it is applied.  They become the major road hazard with severe bumps and dips that throw you into an uncontrolled flight either scrapping the underside or throwing you into the air.  In this leg of our travel, we have seen an RV severely damaged and landed in the ditch that happen just minutes in front of us and others coming apart after a major hazard and having to stop to fix. We were lucky with no surprises.  We drove about 45 mph max and slowed to about 25 when crossing a frost heave repair. By the end of the day, I was brain dead.

Even though Canada is my birthplace, it is nice to be back in the US of A. It is just being back into that familiar and comfortable surroundings. When we cross the border, I believe I heard Denise say “I’m glad to be back”. Now, I can even relate back to familiar road signs that I understand, like mph without having to figure it out from km.  But it is all part of our great Alaska trip experience. The journey has been great.

Life is good!

 

One thought on “Alaska Highway-Whitehorse Yukon to Tok Alaska

Say something, love to hear from you!

You may also like these