Leaving for Dawson City Yukon

[wnytaxman]

Don,

I'm curious about the Top of the World Highway. Isn't that road still unpaved, or has it been paved fairly recently? I used to live in Fairbanks and when I drove the AlCan it was a dirt road. That was an adventure and not a fun one, I might add.

I was surprised that you were taking that trip this time of the year as it can get pretty nippy and snowy this time of the year in Alaska and YT. I'm glad you enjoyed the trip and next year we will be looking at the same trip.

Ed

[DonJP]

Ed,
The road is paved on some of the Canadian section and the rest is gravel and very dusty. The dust filtered it's way into the trailer and was over everything. The road was not so good when we crossed the border into Alaska. There were a couple of major washouts that happened this past summer. One of the pictures shows some of the repair done. The rock rip/rap that was placed along the washed out side of the creek had to be hauled a LONG way. The US border crossing was closed for the season on Sept. 24. We went through 2 days before that. There were very few vehicles on the road. We were disappointed in that we couldn't get a picture of Dawson City from the hill as we climbed up from the Yukon River. We should have turned into a golf course that is there and possibly gotten a picture then but with our long rig by the time we realized there weren't going to be any other chances for a photo, I wasn't about to try and turn around on the road.
Don

[revrnd]

Don great pics. We never saw any caribou on our trip. We asked in Watson Lake about the horses. We were told they were pack horses that the outfitters let loose during the off season. We had heard warnings on the radio earlier in the day to watch for horses on the Alaska Hwy km/mile xxx. We thought, they've got to be kidding, they must be moose & people that saw them must've thought they were horses. Imagine our surprise whe we came across the horses.