Day 10: Wiseman, AK - Toolik Lake, and Back to Wiseman (206 miles)
The big debate in my head over the course of this entire trip has been whether or not I wanted to go all the way to Deadhorse. There is literally nothing up there but oil rigs and to even see the Arctic Ocean you have to book an oil rig tour at least 24 hours in advance. Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay) is 240 miles north of Wiseman. To go and come back, that’s 480 miles on a dirt road studded with potholes.
It’s a road that is built about 10 feet above the tundra, with steep, rocky slopes that lead down to the floor. When a truck comes, one has to pull as far over as one can without falling down the side, and stop. Seeing other vehicles – trucks or otherwise – is not a common occurrence, and the only service area after Coldfoot, which is 13 miles south of Wiseman (gas, at least) is Deadhorse. Doing the math, the Macan’s tank’s capacity is 386-ish miles. So that means if I decided at 200 miles I wanted to turn around, I would run out of gas before making it back to Wiseman; once one has passed a certain point, one is committed to going the whole way. So, “We’ll play it by ear” has been the song playing over and over in my head.
Having said that ….The first part of the journey north was easy. The road was newly paved (tarmac, not dirt!) and one can easily go, well, pretty fast. Again, as always, my eyes are constantly scanning for wildlife. A flat tire is one thing, but hitting a moose is another.
About 10 miles out of Wiseman, the tarmac ends abruptly and becomes dirt. The road is pretty well maintained, so you can still go around 50 or so as long as you stay in the middle. If a truck comes, you slow all the way down and hug the right side of the road.
We began our ascent through the Atigun Pass – the highest mountain pass in Alaska. It was pretty incredible, especially considering it is up a dirt road! You gradually descend and the road goes from bad to worse.
At this point, I was still considering Deadhorse, but 10 miles south of Toolik Lake (halfway between Wiseman and the end of the Dalton) the road gets REALLY bad. The potholes went from annoying to unavoidable and unpredictable – sometimes you couldn’t see them until you were on top of them. The road rattles your teeth.
As I have stated in previous blog posts, my dad designed cars for GM for over 40 years. We used to take long road trips every summer, and it is from those trips that I drew the inspiration for this one to share with my eldest niece. Also, I am kind of a car nerd. I did not only want to take Vanessa on this trip, but I also wanted to take my Macan on this adventure. A fellow guest at our B&B was baffled that I had a Porsche up here. My response was, “Are you kidding me??? This is what this car was born for.” In other words, Porsche is looked at more or less as a luxury vehicle, which it is to a point. But these cars are first and foremost engineered to perform. The Macan is my 5th Porsche and I wanted to see what it could do. The engineering of the car itself coupled with the high performance, Michelin tires we put on it …. Amazing. There is no other car I would have rather driven through these challenging conditions. It was perfect.
Anyway, we made it to Toolik Lake which is more or less an Arctic research station through Fairbanks University. We stole a couple of rocks, took some pictures and headed back to Wiseman. It was pretty quiet up there, and we had zero wildlife sightings. Apparently, they are rare.
Back in Wiseman, we had leftover pasta for lunch and then settled into our beds for a quiet and relaxing afternoon.
Lastly, I am so grateful to have had that experience. This whole trip started off as kind of a whim, honestly. To actually be here and doing things that I was only dreaming about a few short months ago is unbelievable.
