Day 6: 09/15/2025

Posting this from Coldfoot, AK.

Start time: 8:59

End time: 6:23

Starting Mileage:87906

Ending Mileage:88290

Low Temp:42

High Temp: 54

Total driven: 385  miles drive time  8hrs 28 min

Blog Entry:

Well after two mornings of waking up to 28 and 27 degrees we woke up to a balmy 42 degrees this morning. We were on five different highways today, Alaska, Richardson, Steese, Elliott, and the Dalton. This was not supposed to be a 385 mile drive today but that is what happened. We stopped and the Delta Junction meat company as always to get some reindeer, bison and elk sausage.  The drive started out very cloudy which was two bad because the hills were all yellow Aspens.  Did I stop? No because I know I'm just not going to get the good photos without some sunshine. It got partly cloudy later and we got some sun poking through, so I took some then and also got some tundra shots on the Dalton. Ok now that we are done with the weather report, we arrived on the Dalton at 2:32 pm. Note how clean the RAM is at the Dalton sign. Dalton is always a "challenging" road to drive always! We have never seen it so bad from the start to the Arctic Circle. The normal pot holes, craters (one got us, didn't break anything), frost heaves and oh boy the mud this time, just wow. One thing we have never seen is a sign warning people that the conditions on the Dalton was very poor. The sign didn't lie! Another sign warned that from mile 110 to 112 was especially bad.  Well that sign lied because when we were stopped because a semi carrying what looked like two big "boxes" had slid off the road (yes because of the mud and he was coming down hill) I walked up to talk to the trucker in front of us to see what was up and he said it was really bad shit from 110 to 119. He also said we should be moving in about 10 minutes they were just putting the chains away from trying to pull the semi out. It was still sitting there as we drove by it.

I have never had to put the 4 wheel drive on before we got to the Arctic Circle that happened 4 times today just to be sure and I know for a fact  on two of them going uphill in the muck it was the right decision. Every place we thought we were going to be able to stay for the night was just a muddy mess from other vehicles pulling into them. The gravel pit we stayed at in 2021 with an amazing view was now closed due to construction work. So hence the long day…our only choice was to shoot for the Arctic Circle campground and hope there was a spot open since it was going to be late. Of course the Arctic Circle lies in that bad patch of road from 110 to 119. We arrived at the Arctic Circle at 6:18 pm and were stopped for the night at 6:23 site 14 (note to ourselves great site, woods and paths to walk the pups). So now Moxee has joined the Arctic Circle club with the rest of the Silis pack.  Just for the sake of counting that is now 13 for Lesa and I (6 Dalton, 7 Dempster), Granger 4, 2 Dalton, 2 Dempster and Moxee 1. Saying that we are not even close to being done on the Dalton, we figure we are going to be on here another 4 days. No fire again tonight just sitting outside watching the sunset and the clouds go by catching a star here and there.

Note how dirty the RAM is already and not even a full day on the Dalton. For those of you who don't know the Alaskan camper has 4 hydraulic pistons inside so that the top of the camper goes up and down.  Makes driving these "fun" roads much easier because your center of gravity is much lower.  Notice the white stripe on the camper part that is hidden from the mud with the camper down while driving. Saying that when we had the SherpTek flatbed storage system installed it raised the camper 3 inches higher than it was.  That 3 inches is very noticeable on the roads we have been driving. We are a bit more top heavy and with the frost heaves our swaying from side to side is worse.  Nothing that can't be managed with just slowing down. We do love all the extra space and storage options the SherpTek system has given us.