Dalton Highway III

We headed south under light rain that turned often to heavy rain. At times we were lucky to see sun and even a rainbow, but mostly it was rain and more rain. The good news was that the clouds were generally higher than on the trip up and there was no dust, but lots of mud. The Atigun pass was totally fogged in, but the road was in great shape; at the pass the road goes from 3500 to 4800 feet with a 12% grade.

We stopped for a “truckers’ lunch” and fuel at Coldfoot. The lunch was huge. We talked for a while with a motorcyclist from Ontario who was staring sadly out at the heavy rain. There are many motorcyclists heading north. I feel so sorry for them. Many of them are on “their trip of a lifetime” and they are slogging through this miserable weather and the mud it creates. We may not like this weather, but we aren’t really IN it as they are.

Once again we encountered really rough roads. Occasionally the rough parts are marked with “Rough Road” signs. I am not sure how they decide to put out those signs. It seems rather random.

The bad news is that our “check engine light” is now on and we are running in “reserve mode” which decreases the engine output. We are going to have to detour to Anchorage to see what is going on. We suspect that we may have gotten some bad fuel that is fouling an injector.

We again spent the night at File Mile Camp just north of the Yukon River crossing.

-- Janet (text) and David (photos)