Dalton Highway road surface May 2017
 

Greetings All

We travelled up to Prudhoe back in August 2007, while it's known as a gravel road, parts of it are tarmac and they were doing road works laying down more tarmac. My unreliable memory thinks about 25%'ish of the road was paved. I was curious to see what had changed in the last 10 years so I emailed the Alaska roads dept and the Fairbanks tourist info centre.

I didn't get a reply from roads dept but the tourist people sent back a pdf of a hand drawn map a recent tourist had made that showed the type of road surface.

The map is dated May 2017 and shows that out of the 414 miles, 136 miles are paved. I'm semi-surprised that not much has changed over the last 10 years.

Disclaimer: I don't know who who drew it up or vouch for how accurate it is so use the information with a grain of salt. Also the road surface changes according to the weather.

When we travelled up to Prudhoe while it was raining and the unpaved sections were very slippery. In places the mud was up to 4 inches deep, riding two up on an R100GS was hard work. We came back two days later after the sun had been out and everything had dried up. It was as hard as rock, I couldn't believe how quickly it had changed.

Regards

IanJ

Just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU for sharing such information.

The draw is AMAZING!!!

We never made it to the top. Ice storm was coming and it was only early September (2015). No 4wheel drive. We never took the risk & never regretted..

Hope it will stay as it is. Its authentic adventure up there with fascinating landscapes and fast rolling mega trucks!!

You're welcome, I wish I knew who drew it up, I'd like to thank them as well.

It's a pity you didn't get there, we were lucky that we didn't get hit with a storm in August, the rain was bad enough.

IanJ

Wow, thanks a lot for this amazing drawing! I plan to go there next month and it just helped me a LOT in understanding the conditions of the road.
As already said, sadly you don't know how has drawn this.

Enjoy your beer at Coldfoot Camp, you won't get one up at Prudhoe Bay, it's a dry town. Apparently alcohol and oil don't mix well.

Regards

IanJ

How's the fueling stops way up north?









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http://www.beginnerrider.com

Greetings

When we went on the Dalton there were three fuel stops. From south to north they were at Yukon River Camp, Coldfoot and Deadhorse. The longest stretch between fuel stops is between Coldfoot and Deadhorse you'll need a fuel range of 240 miles. This is from 2007 but I believe it's still current.

Regards

IanJ

Dalton Highway
 

Anyone knows the current status of the Dalton Hwy (fully paved or still some gravel ? )

Highly unlikely the Dalton will EVER be fully paved. For one thing, why bother? For another, gravel is more easily built, patched and fussed-with, an important consideration considering freeze-thaw cycles and permafrost melting.

There is so much traffic up to Deadhorse these days that information is pretty easily found--just Google.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

Edit to add: I got curious after posting and did a bit of Googling myself. A two-year-long project has apparently rebuilt a section of highway thru the coastal plain just south of Deadhorse, with paving either imminent or completed. It sounded like quite an undertaking, with hundreds of thousands of yards of gravel fill required, along with a special factory producing vast quantities of insulation to protect underlying permafrost (thereby stabilizing the road). This was compelled by the closure of the highway due to river flooding a couple of years back.

So while my original point remains the same, it's clear that with vast infusions of money, fresh bits of the Dalton may indeed be paved. On the other hand, there is some controversy as to whether the insulation and raised berm will really work.

I rode the Dalton in August this year. I would estimate that approx 40-50 % of the length of the Dalton is paved. But - the paved sections are quite beaten up and potholed. So actually I preferred the gravel sections to the paved ones. At least those sections of pavement that were bad, and that were long stretches.