Day 28, Deadhorse, Alaska

We left Wiseman a little after 7am since we weren’t sure how long the last part of the trip would take and we were scheduled to take a tour of the oilfields at 5pm.  We hadn’t gone more than 5 to 10 miles when we saw a large Grizzly Bear but we didn’t see a whole lot of him or for very long.  He was about 2 blocks away when we first saw him and he immediately ran away from the road into the brush on the side of the road.  No Picture.  The drive up was uneventful for the most part.  Pretty country but lots of driving.  We passed by the last Spruce Tree going North on the highway and wouldn’t you know it, someone had killed it by trying to chop it down.

We went through Atigun Pass which is the highest mountain pass in Alaska and one of the places that they talk about a lot on TV on the Ice Road Truckers.

 

The weather changed after we went over Atigun Pass.  It started raining and got really foggy in a lot of the areas.  This reduced the speed to about 35 mph most of the time.  The terrain also changed from small trees to tundra.  It looked a lot like Montana but the green was scrub brush instead of grass.  We followed a motorcycle for a while in the fog.  We were sure we were more comfortable than he was. 

Again no wildlife until we were about 50 miles from Deadhorse and then all of a sudden Caribou everywhere.  We saw somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 within 1/4 of a mile from the road.  This went on for about 20 miles and then there weren’t any.  We never tired of seeing them.

 

We got to Deadhorse and checked into the Hotel before 3pm.

The room wasn’t much different than the one at Wiseman but it did have a bathroom with the room and a TV and guess what??  AT&T had a cell signal.  One night, $190 and the tour of the oil fields was $45 each.  The tour was interesting.  The guide was an Alaska Native and he talked a lot about the land and the birds we saw.  It was a good thing we didn’t see a polar bear, as the guide told us it it was illegal to take a picture of the polar bears.  (its on the endangered species list and supposedly Congress has determined it can be harmed by taking its picture.) We went to the Arctic Ocean and Twila and Mattie put their hands in the water.  I couldn’t get Twila to look up as she was trying to keep from falling in the Ocean and freezing to death.

I took pictures.  It was 32F with a wind chill of 17F.  It didn’t take us long to see what we wanted to see.  On the way back we went by the small herd of Musk Oxen that were right in Deadhorse.  The guide said a Grizzly Bear killed a mother Musk Ox last week and we heard the baby had been flown to Anchorage to the Zoo.

We got back to the Hotel at 7pm and had supper.  It was a buffet.  It was good but not as good as Coldfoot.

We were surprised that in Deadhorse the employees have all the conveniences of home.  Lots of good food, electricity, running water, flush toilets, TV, cell service,etc. that a lot of areas south of there don’t have.