Cycling the Dalton Highway – Part 1: Deadhorse to Coldfoot

Before flying up to Deadhorse for the start of our trip, we spent a nice couple of days in Anchorage. Our Warmshowers host has been amazing and even provided us with two bikes we could use for getting around, while ours were still in bike boxes for the second flight. We spent the majority of time with buying supplies for the start of our trip. The most important items were undoubtedly the bear bags to keep our food and the bears safe while cycling through bear country. We also had to get enough food for the first ten to twelve days on the road. We managed the ten hour time difference and jet lag quite well (note from Sebi: He apparently did not, only I), but with the almost never-ending daylight everything felt a bit messed up anyways.

Alaska Air is the only airline flying from Anchorage to Deadhorse (or Prudhoe Bay) and they have the most generous baggage policy I’ve ever encountered. Maybe because for a lot of places in Alaska there is just no other option than flying (apparently more than 80% of the communities in Alaska are not connected to any road system), but not having to pay anything for our two bags and two bike boxes felt kinda awkward.

A one and a half hour long flight brought us up to Deadhorse. We spent a few hours in the airport to assemble our bikes and pack our things more or less nicely in our bags. As we have changed quite a few things in our setup, we are not yet at the point where every little thing has its dedicated space, so packing still takes some time.

We opened the door of the airport – only to walk right into rain, with an uncomfortable temperature of around 1 degree Celsius. The road was gravel and I have to say with the combination of cold, wet and bad road conditions I was not amused. On the way to our accommodation for the night we stopped at the gas station to fill our fuel bottle for the stove and at the general store to buy a can of bear spray for each one of us.

It is quite common for cyclists to send a care package ahead to the small town of Coldfoot. The small town is located close to the halfway point between Deadhorse and Fairbanks and has a truck stop, a gas station, a motel and a small post office. We heard that as Coldfoot is not on a regular delivery route, even priority packages can sometimes take up to two or three weeks. We later found the official information in the Dalton Highway Visitor Guide that state:
“You can mail supplies ahead of time to Coldfoot or Deadhorse. Contact the post office to set up an agreement before sending supplies:
– Write to Postmaster, Coldfoot, Alaska 99709 or call (907) 678-5204
– Write to Poster Prudhoe Bay, Alaska 99734 or call (907) 659-2669″

As we only had little time between being in Anchorage and arriving in Coldfoot, we were afraid that the postal system would be too slow and decided to take all our food to Deadhorse instead. I was therefore on a mission to find a person who’d return from Deadhorse and pass through Coldfoot to give them a part of our food supplies. Given the fact that there’s only one road and one option to return from Deadhorse to Fairbanks or even further south it was as easy as expected and the first person I talked to immediately agreed. If you read this – thanks so much Dakota! This meant carrying only about seven days worth of food instead of twelve.

For the afternoon we had booked two spaces on the Arctic Ocean Shuttle Tour. Deadhorse mainly serves as a supply location for the work in the Prudhoe Bay Oil Fields and with no public access to the Arctic Ocean, the tour is the only option to get to the shore. We had an amazing tour guide and saw lots of wildlife on the ~90 minute return trip to the Ocean. Many birds and even two grizzly bears! Better now when in the bus than later on the bike.. As announced, I went for a short swim and even Sebi was more than halfway in! According to some readings the water temperature was at 31.8° Fahrenheit // -0.11° Celsius at that time – it did feel warmer than that though to be honest.
It was burger night at our accommodation and we decided to join that instead of eating some of our things. I happened to meet a vegan employee who prepared the most delicious vegan burger sandwich for me!

The next morning we cycled back to the General Store to officially start our Alaska to Argentina trip. A lot of other travelers had put their sticker on the building and we proudly added our last-minute sticker to the collection. We started the Dalton Highway with tailwind and good weather – who would have thought that! Conditions would change quickly though and on day two we woke up to a chilly and foggy morning. Later that day we had to fight billions of mosquitos who attempted to eat us alive. We have been warned off the mosquitos but we were still not ready for it at all. For packing our stuff and getting ready in the morning we put on our full rain gear and quickly learned to appreciate the mosquito head net we brought. On day three we were caught in a thunderstorm in an area with very little possibilities to find shelter. Somehow we were really lucky though and were close to a research station where we found a roof to wait under.

The Dalton Highway, also called “the North Slope Haul Road”, is around 414 Miles // 666 kilometers long and was only constructed to supply the oil industry up in Deadhorse. There’s hardly any reception and there are no proper stores or resupply points. Food is only available in two places, at Coldfoot and Yukon River Camp. Most of the road is on gravel, there are lots of hills and even more trucks passing. They know what they’re doing though and are really considerate with us cyclists.

Soon enough we found ourselves pedaling up the Atigun Pass and while descending on the southern side of it, the landscape changed dramatically. The flat, empty tundra we have seen for the last couple of days was replaced with more and more trees, flowers, beautiful rivers and small mountains.

Despite not cycling too many kilometers, the elevation gain, bad road conditions and sections with headwind made us spent a lot of hours in the saddle each day. Having to cook in a separate location than we would camp at and storing all of our food and scented items safely away from camp in a bear bag took some time as well.

After five days of cycling we arrived in Coldfoot. We have not met a lot of people since we left Deadhorse and the small location appears extra busy for us. We can pitch our tent in a small grass area which we share with a few other travelers, mainly on motorbikes.
Our food package was safely stored at the Trucker’s Cafe and we were able to pick it up without an issue. We were quite happy about all the food but not excited at all about storing that in our bags the day after! We paid to have a shower in the adjoining motel and slept to the sound of truck engines and generators.