The Al-Can Highway

We've had lots of people ask us what kind of shape the road is in, knowing that it used to be all gravel, and quite a trip to undertake. Now, for the most part, it is like driving a country road, and is a terrific trip that we would recommend to everyone. We plan to make it several more times - as long as the kids will stay put for a few more years before they start looking for warmer weather! It has lots of beautiful scenery (shown in other posts), and opportunity to see lots of wildlife -- this year we saw a lot, both coming and going, but last year we didn't see much at all. You just have to be in the right place at the right time -- and keep your eyes wide open! Sometimes the animals are off side of the road in the trees.

There's no way to even begin to share all the places we went and things we saw, without spending the next year downloading pictures, but in the posts I've tried to pick ones that give a good over-all view of the trips we've made.

Roger told me to take this picture, and title it "Rush Hour on the Alaska Highway"...

Probably earlier in the summer there is more traffic (we go up around the first of August, and come back after Labor Day), but we don't have to fight much of it, especially on the way home. Going up, we meet quite a bit on their way south.

One thing you have to watch out for are "frost heaves", which are exactly what they sound like -- places where the road has "heaved" because of the extreme frost in the winter. The roadway buckles, and if you aren't paying attention to the little red flags they've posted along the edge of the road (or if they 'forget' to post them in places) you can really wake up in a hurry :) Even if you're going slow, it can be quite a ride over these areas! There is usually (but not always) some repair work going on in these stretches.

This was a first for us -- a flat tire on the trailer. We weren't aware of it, but we were going through a construction area and had gone past a flagger who radioed the pilot truck driver, and he stopped (there was only us and an 18 wheeler following him) and came back to tell us. After it was changed we had to wait for the next pilot truck, which was almost an hour! Then, when we finally got to the other end, we noticed that the pilot truck had his own flat :)

There are two places where major on-going road construction is in progress. One is around the end of Kluane Lake in Yukon Territory, where it appears they are widening the road right out into the edge of the lake, and the other place is on the way south toward Anchorage from Glenn Junction, which is where these pictures were taken. The construction has been in full swing in both places each trip, and looks like it will be continuing for some time to come! In the pictures below, they are blasting through the mountain to make a straighter route, instead of going around. Roger was impressed with the dump truck (bottom picture)!




Occasionally you come across one of these "Historic Mile ..." signs. Since the highway has been changed and rebuilt in some places over the years, the current miles are different than the original miles.

Many of the cities/towns/bumps-in-the-road have really nice signs as you enter...



In several places north of Watson Lake people have used rocks to write names on the banks on both sides of the road.

The pipeline crosses a river here right beside the highway bridge.

There is one stretch of road with 7 tunnels in just a few miles. This is looking through one, and into the next.

Bijoux Falls is a beautiful little park, and a good place for the driver to take a little nap while his passengers explore a bit :)