Dalton Highway

The James W. Dalton Highway, usually referred to as the Dalton Highway (and signed as Alaska Route 11), is a road in Alaska. It begins at the Elliott Highway, north of Fairbanks, and ends at Deadhorse (an unincorporated community within the CDP of Prudhoe Bay) near the Arctic Ocean and the Prudhoe Bay Oil Fields. Once called the North Slope Haul Road (a name by which it is still sometimes known), it was built as a supply road to support the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in 1974. It is named after James W. Dalton, a lifelong Alaskan and an engineer who supervised construction of the Distant Early Warning Line in Alaska and, as an expert in Arctic engineering, he served as a consultant in early oil exploration in northern Alaska. It is also the subject of the second episode of America's Toughest Jobs, seasons 3 and 4 of Ice Road Truckers and the first episode of the BBC's World's Most Dangerous Roads. Most of the Dalton Highway is unpaved, with occasional pavement along the route.

History In 1966, Governor Walter J. Hickel opened the North Slope to oil extraction. To improve access to the oil fields, a winter road was planned between Livengood and Prudhoe Bay. Construction started in November 1968, and the "Walter J. Hickel Highway" was completed by March 1969. Due to poor engineering, the construction of the road exposed the underlying permafrost to thawing, and the road was abandoned by April of that year. Maintenance was not performed as the route was farther west than the planned Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

Following the failure of the Hickel Highway, oil companies still needed a route to the North Slope. The Alyeska Pipeline Service Company funded what would be the first stretch of the Dalton Highway from Livengood to the Yukon River in 1969.

Delays to the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, and therefore the road, meant that work on it did not resume until April 29, 1974. Within 5 months, of the road were built and construction was finished. The pipeline would not be completed until 1977. It was initially known as the "Wales Highway".

In 1979, Alyeska turned over control of the road to the state of Alaska, who gave it the official name of "James W. Dalton Highway", named after the prospector of the North Slope, James W. Dalton. In 1981, the highway was opened to the public up to Disaster Creek at mile 211. Tourists began to travel north of Disaster Creek on June 4, 1987, after Royal Hyway Tours received the first permit to operate tour buses to Deadhorse."Dalton Highway opened: Arctic bus tours planned", United Press International, via the Bend Bulletin, April 8, 1987, page C-10.

In April 1991, Governor Hickel (serving a second term decades after his first) announced that he would open the entire highway to the public. The North Slope Borough government and the Tanana Chiefs Conference successfully sued to prevent the opening, arguing that the highway was unsafe as there were no facilities between Prudhoe Bay and Coldfoot, and that unrestricted traffic would harm the environment and open up possibilities for caribou and moose poaching."Hickel vows fight against judge's haul-road decision", Associated Press, via the Anchorage Daily News, August 31, 1991, page B4. Between 1991 and 1993, the federal Bureau of Land Management (which owned the land surrounding the state-owned highway on either side) built new facilities for the permitted tour buses to use,"Groups want Dalton Highway to stay off-limits", Associated Press, via the Anchorage Daily News, July 23, 1993, page B-1. and unauthorized use of the highway by drivers without permits increased significantly. The Alaska Supreme Court overruled the 1991 decision in 1993, ordering the state to remove the permit requirement."Briefly: Dalton Highway to open soon to public", Juneau Empire, October 28, 1994, page 3. The permit system was eliminated and the full length of the highway was opened to the general public on December 2, 1994."Briefly: Judge's ruling opens Dalton Highway to public", Juneau Empire, December 2, 1994, page 5.

Route description The highway, which directly parallels the pipeline, is one of the most isolated roads in the United States. There are only three towns along the route: Coldfoot (pop. 34) at Mile 175, Wiseman (pop. 12) at Mile 188, and Deadhorse (25 permanent residents, 3,500–5,000 or more seasonal residents depending on oil production) at the end of the highway at Mile 414. Fuel is available at the E. L. Patton Yukon River Bridge (Mile 56), as well as Coldfoot and Deadhorse. Two other settlements, Prospect Creek and Galbraith Lake, are uninhabited except for campers and other short-term residents.

Despite its remoteness, the Dalton Highway carries a good amount of truck traffic through to Prudhoe Bay: about 160 trucks daily in the summer months and 250 trucks daily in the winter.

, of the highway are paved, in several sections, between the following mileages: 19 and 24; 37 and 50; 91 and 111; 113 and 197; 257 and 261; 344 and 352; and 356 and 361.

Truckers on the Dalton have given their own names to its various features, including: Taps, The Shelf, Franklin Bluffs, Oil Spill Hill, Beaver Slide, Surprise Rise, Sand Hill, Ice Cut, Gobbler's Knob, Finger Mountain, Oh Shit Corner, and the Roller Coaster. The road reaches its highest elevation as it crosses the Brooks Range at Atigun Pass at .

The highway is the featured road on the second (episode 7), third, fourth, fifth and sixth seasons of the History reality television series Ice Road Truckers, which aired May 31, 2009, to November 9, 2017. It is also the subject of the second episode of America's Toughest Jobs and the first episode of the BBC's World's Most Dangerous Roads featuring Charley Boorman and Sue Perkins. Polar bears are known to traverse the Arctic region of Alaska and can be seen wandering the outskirts of Deadhorse at the terminus of the Dalton Highway.

Floodings of the Sagavanirktok River, combined with melting of nearby ice roads under warmer climatic conditions have forced weeks-long closures of the road and the need for significant repairs, costing several million US dollars.

In 2018, a section of the Dalton was moved to avoid a debris flow known as "the blob." A roughly long lobe of dirt, ice, and trees, the blob threatened to bulldoze the section of the road north of Fairbanks in the next three or four years at a speed of per year. It will likely have to be moved again in the next 20 years before the blob can threaten it again. Truckers were directed to a new gravel road that avoided the landslide.

In Popular Culture The Dalton Highway is the main subject of the second episode of America's Toughest Jobs, along with seasons 3 and 4 of Ice Road Truckers and the first episode of the BBC's World's Most Dangerous Roads.

Major intersections and other features

Gallery

Dalton Highway

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