Atigun Pass

Here's a unique spruce tree.

Out of all the spruce trees along the Dalton, none are quite like this one.

It's the LAST one.

From here on, there are no trees northward.

I'd been looking forward to crossing Alaska's Brooks Range at Atigun Pass, since I had seen so many photos of it in my research. But photos don't do it justice. The incline (I think it's 12%) is amazing.

I had to climb it at 15 mph to accomodate the mud. Whe I got over the top, I found out why - the grader was churning it up into "grader gravy".

The waitress in Coldfoot was talking about the avalanche just a week ago that closed the Dalton at Atigun Pass for a while.

Her's a shot at the top:

Just over the top, after pausing to shot some photos of Dall sheep, there was a roadblock.

It turns out that an avalanche had covered the road just a few hours before.

After Coldfoot, I saw 8 Dall sheep, 2 moose, 2 caribou, and a grizzly in the road with 2 cubs (bears on video, I think).