The Day

The day had arrived. The Day. The Day to which this blog is named. Today we would ride to the Arctic Circle. It opened clear, not a cloud in the sky, and after picking up fuel we headed toward the Dalton Highway. It's beautiful country outside of Fairbanks, high wooded hills. The road had fun curves, and after about an hour and change we made it to the start of the Dalton.

The Dalton is an odd road, it started out rough, gravel, dirt, and hardpan for about 30 miles, then switched over to mostly paved road. Which isn't to say it wasn't tricky in spots. It had some mean curves and steep hills we had to take unlaced, but we didn't have any trouble on the way to the Circle. The Alaska Pipeline ran beside us, a metal artery running snaking up the hills, pumping crude back to civilization. We stopped 60 miles from our destination on the far side of the Yukon River for breakfast and fuel. The Yukon is a different kind of artery, draining thousands of square miles of northern country into the Bering Sea.

At the camp on the river I had a 'short' stack of pancakes about the size of my head, then it was on the road again. Past that stop the Dalton is mostly paved, so we made good time. The tree line was close, the farther north we got the smaller the trees became.

Before we hit the Circle we drove through Finger Mountain. It's a high hill covered in rocky outcroppings overlooking the scrubby tundra for miles. At the peak of the hill is a pinnacle of naked rock that stabs into the sky accusatorially.

Not far beyond that we reached the signs marking the point. We had reached the Arctic Circle at last! This was what the last week had been building toward, a beacon glowing over the horizon over the thousands of miles we'd traveled. Photos were taken and told our loved ones we had made it by satphone. I don't think any of our group had ever been so far north!