Day 8: 09/17/2025

Start time: 8:55

End time: 2:50

Starting Mileage: 88358

Ending Mileage: 88512

Low Temp: 25

High Temp:48

Total driven: 154 miles drive time 5 hrs 55 min

Blog Entry: Had a very nice time sitting by the fire last night reminiscing. Lesa and the pups got to take a 2 hour nap yesterday and with the late start, early stop, walking and playing with the pups, the sunny day and campfire, Lesa said she had a very nice birthday! Stopped along the way and took the drone out and followed it up river for 4 miles, then across the river and toward a mountain for 2.5 miles till I got the warning again about being in a aircraft area. Was looking for wildlife along the way only had the drone 82 feet above the ground going up river but didn't see anything.

Well the Dalton was more of a challenge again today going through the low lands before the Chandalar Shelf. Many places along the route was muddy and one lane, going to be real interesting when we go back that way if it rains and it is supposed too. Reached the shelf and the hills around the shelf had snow on them.  After the shelf you get to Atigun Pass (how high), from here on there is snow everywhere, yes it is beautiful. Not a lot but most everything is white and the mountains all have snow.  At Galbraith we saw the largest heard of Caribou we have ever seen, well over 60 of them but even with the big gun they were far away.

We decided that instead of stopping at Galbraith tonight we would push on to a pull off we had stayed at in 2010.  Well the hunters beat us to it so we then decided to try for a pull off we stayed at in 2022. That was open and instead of having a nice walk on the Tundra this one has a nice walk along the pipeline, a road that goes down to the Sag river and view of the river.  There is a mountain range behind us also but right now the cloud level is low and can't see them at all. Now both of these are right off the road but honestly you get use to the trucks going by and by dark they pretty much don't run much.

Once camp was setup we took a walk down to the pipeline and Moxee was very interested in that big thing above her head, which is the pipeline.  We have been told that sometimes you can hear it hum and she was acting like she could.  I'm sure with her Sammie hearing she was hearing it hum by her reactions. Was so funny to watch, Granger has done this too many times now so he is use to so many things. It has been so much fun to watch Moxee and see everything through her eyes since it is all new to her. Today marked 8 days on the road and our third night on the Dalton. You can see by the look of the RAM and Alaskan things are getting dirtier and I do expect it to get worse.  We are heading to Deadhorse tomorrow gas up and turn around. We are  hoping to see Musk Ox along the way.