July 10, 2007 – Top of the World Highway – Alaska and Yukon

From Chicken, Alaska to Dawson City, Yukon is 103 miles via the Top of the World Highway. We have heard so many stories about this highway – “road is good”, road is bad, never take an RV”, “road is ok”. And all say the scenery is spectacular!! So after reading all the stories and listening to others, Andy and I decided not to take the RV. We decided that we would camp in Chicken and drive the Tracker over the highway and back in a day…

Today we drove 82 miles from Chicken and then back. We decided not to go all the way to Dawson City since we were not staying and it would only be a drive thru…

So on the roads, the highway from Chicken to the border is dirt (~42 miles), from the border to about 15 miles in the Yukon is paved, and after that it is gravel.

We know why they call this the top of the world – the road is on the ridge and mountain tops – the scenery incredible!

The road in the US – yes, it truly is dirt:The scenes – notice the road in some of the pictures and also that is snow!

We also saw a number of gold dredges (now defunct) plus some people gold panning in the river. This area was part of the big gold rush and we have been told that there is still gold to be found here. And there are still people who do find gold here!!! Amazing!

Now our thoughts – Could we have done this in the RV? – Yes. It would be very slow going but it was also very slow going over the frost heaves on the Alaskan Highway. I think the scary part comes from being very high with no guardrails but some of you who know us and have been with us, we also do a number of the PA state forest roads that are one lane and no guard rails and a long drop.

What is really strange to us is that the last 100 miles on the Canadian side of the Alcan is terrible but the US side is pretty decent. On the Top of the World Highway, the US side is terrible but the Canadian side is not bad.

And one word of caution: this road should NEVER be done in the rain – the 40 miles of dirt may get pretty slick. Today was very cloudy (as you can see from the pictures) but we were very blessed because it did not rain until we had about 5 miles left on our return trip.

An interesting note: We crossed the border twice today. When we did the second crossing back into the US, our border guard was from Lebanon, PA. We had a quite of chat about Yuengling Beer and Ring Bologna – we all miss both!!!

We have heard from our family, Bill and Marcia, and hope to meet up with them in Tok tomorrow.

Can you believe that Chicken has no phone service but the free Wi-fi at the Gold Panner Campground has been wonderful!!

Our last stop tonight was at the Chicken Saloon. We met Jim who was being honored for his 50th anniversary in Alaska. Jim taught school for all grades in small areas throughout Alaska – from the Aleutian Island to Tok and the Yukon. What an interesting fellow!