Ride Report: Dalton Highway

Excellent report that brought the area to life, and made it possible to
begin to consider whether to imitate your effort for some future ride. Are
there plans to pave more areas as the years pass?? Any indication that more
"motels" (such as they are) will be added in the coming years, especially
further north. It appeared from your report that there were none for over
200 miles. Was it unusually rainy for your trip or is that typical for an
arctic summer? it seems unusual to have both a lot of rain and nearby
forest fires. Does anyone bike the area, say in late April or early May
in hopes of finding the temperature cold but not bitter, and the roads more
solid and with fewer mosquitoes?

"Mike Vermeulen" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I have created a trip report for a bicycle tour I took from Fairbanks,
Alaska to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean:

http://www.mvermeulen.com/dalton/

Highlights of the trip included 24-hour daylight, beautiful mountain
scenery across the Brooks Range and general adventure of this road.

--mev, Mike Vermeulen

Quoted message said:

Are there plans to pave more areas as the years pass??

I get the impression that they are slowly paving additional miles. It
seems to be a multi-year operation where they first put down
additional gravel and make sure the road base will be stable. If that
holds, then a few years later it is paved. There are also some spots
where they would need to re-route things. For example, a two mile
stretch of Beaver slide near mile 110 seems like it specifically went
back to gravel since it was too steep. Prior to that near Finger
Mountain, they paved route went over an ~18 mile rerouting from the
original route.

Quoted message said:

Any indication that more "motels" (such as they are) will be added
in the coming years, especially further north.

The last 225 miles are without motels. I haven't seen an indication
of additional places. In part, it seems like there is little or no
private property there. South of the Brooks Range, I could see some
additional motels. For example, the proprieter at Joy was talking
about opening a B&B.

Quoted message said:

Was it unusually rainy for your trip or is that typical for an
arctic summer?

This didn't seem to be very abnormal. I've seen it with other
travelers. The summer is the wetest time of year with ~0.75" of rain
per month or so. We didn't have any days with continuous rain, though
a lot of days with rain.

The rain helps dampen the fires. It had been a lot drier two weeks
before we arrived and there were a lot more fires then. I was
impressed by the scale of the fires. For example, the areas of the
Chapman fire we passed through was listed at ~150,000 acres or ~230
square miles. Not all this seemed to be burned but that was the
overall perimeter size.

We were told that in general, the Prudhoe Bay gets a small amount of
total precipitation per year ~6-8". With this, there is a fair amount
of surface water, in part because permafrost keeps it from soaking in.

Quoted message said:

Does anyone bike the area, say in late April or early May
in hopes of finding the temperature cold but not bitter, and the roads more
solid and with fewer mosquitoes?

Another popular alternative I've seen is late August or perhaps early
September, for the reasons you mention. From reports there seems to
be a pretty short, but beautiful fall as things shift over.

I haven't seen as many spring rides, I always suspected because folks
were concerned about a late snow storm.

--mev, Mike Vermeulen

Mike Vermeulen said:

Quoted message said:

Are there plans to pave more areas as the years pass??

I get the impression that they are slowly paving additional miles. It
seems to be a multi-year operation where they first put down
.....

Thanks for the info. This is a ride that I have always wanted to do.
Like the other poster, you have given me more encouragement to do it.

One question. I am an ultra-marathon rider, having often done 200 -
300 miles a day and getting up the next day to do it again. All this
on paved roads of course. Given that and your knowledge of the road
conditions, do you have any comments on the possibility of cycling it
all in, say, three days? (I realize this is a tough question to answer
but any input would be appreciated).

Tom

Quoted message said:

One question. I am an ultra-marathon rider, having often done 200 -
300 miles a day and getting up the next day to do it again. All this
on paved roads of course. Given that and your knowledge of the road
conditions, do you have any comments on the possibility of cycling it
all in, say, three days? (I realize this is a tough question to answer
but any input would be appreciated).

I'm not quite sure, but here is the data points I would use:

1) Of 500 miles between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay,
200 miles was paved, 300 miles was gravel. About 50% of
that gravel was a fairly rough surface. The other 50%
was smoother gravel.
2) No accomodations between Prudhoe Bay and
Wiseman/Coldfoot. ~225 miles.
3) I figure our average speed was ~2/3 of what I
would normally would ride. In other words, a long
day for me was ~80 miles instead of ~120 miles on
pavement. There are a reasonable number of smaller
hills the first 200 miles.
4) 24 hour daylight, so no worries about riding with lights.

So my guess is that an ultra-marathon rider who could ride ~750 miles
of pavement in three days could likely tackle this in as well in three
days, assuming they account for accomodations or carrying extra gear.

--mev, Mike Vermeulen

On 19 Aug 2005 18:19:02 -0700 in rec.bicycles.rides,

Quoted post said:

One question. I am an ultra-marathon rider, having often done 200 -
300 miles a day and getting up the next day to do it again. All this
on paved roads of course. Given that and your knowledge of the road
conditions, do you have any comments on the possibility of cycling it
all in, say, three days?

probably not. consider the dust or mud (one or the other,
depending on weather) and the fact that most traffic is
18-wheelers that can throw rocks the size of ostrich eggs.