A quick peek at Alaska

We awoke to snow. It was late September by now and easy to see why the town closes its tourism operations at this time. The power went off – luckily when it didn’t matter.

The plan was to head back to Whitehorse and we had a couple of options. Return the way we had come, or go the longer way via the bottom of Alaska. The snow was a mildly worrying factor but we were both keen for the experience and so opted for a road called the Top of the World Highway.

We shipped out – which wasn’t too far from the truth as we had to catch a ferry across the river. First we scurried around for some final photos.

The ferry was a humble but practical affair and its operator warned us about the highway being slippery. Which made us think: were we doing the right thing?

We pressed on – albeit in cautious nana fashion.

Conditions determined that we didn’t veer off the road for photos on this day, rather just stop on the road. We saw only a couple other vehicles on the 127km long highway.

The landscape was amazing.

We reached the US border early afternoon and passed through the small customs post, staffed by two officers. Interesting job, stuck in the middle of nowhere like that.

Then we were in Alaska.

A teeny town off the highway called Chicken was closed but a highway service centre was open. Several hours of high concentration at the wheel was quite tiring and a pit stop was well earned!

And we still had a few hours to go.