And you thought you'd seen cold. Ha!

Friday morning we left Whitehorse at 7 a.m. It was still dark. Pitch black, the roads were awful, and since we had just gotten a dusting of snow, visibility was at about 0. Okay, it was zero. But we headed off with Adam & Jennifer in the lead for a while. We quickly switched over though. When we departed it was -25 degrees, this photo was taken at about 9:00 a.m. And yes, that's the moon.


The roads were fair, for some of the drive, and bad for other parts. This is what they looked like for most of the morning. At least we had beautiful scenery to keep our minds off the roads.

As you can see we were up and down and wound around. I guess that's what moutain travel entails. I had no idea how exhausting this trip would be.

This is the Boutillier Summit in the Yukon Territory. It was much more beautiful in person, it's amazing how the mountains just never seem to stop and continue to rise up and greet us. I will admit, we were both aching for a little bit of flat land near this point in the trip. Second highest point on the trip between Whitehorse and Summit.

Here we are at Kluane Lake in Kluane National Park. It's located in the Yukon Territory, and is the largest lake in the YT. The Kluane Lake area was the site of a short-lived gold rush in the early 1900s.

Sheeps Head Mtn in Kluane National Park is where we stumbled upon bridge construction in January. It was beautiful as the road ran between Sheeps Head Mountain and Kluane Lake. Gorgeous.

This is a photo of the World's Largest Gold Pan in Burwash Landing, YT. I am tempted to drive back here to check out the burlwood trees they are famous for. In summer, of course. This is where the road began to get very interesting. The tales are true. The Alaska Highway does indeed bounce from pavement to gravel along the way. Also trying are the frost boils that heave the roads, pavement and gravel alike, for about 100 miles of the journey. This was the hardest part of the day, very wearing on nerves and patience.

White River in the Yukon Territory.

This is the road in the area of Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory. The items along the roadside are an experiment they are doing along the Hwy to try to relieve some of the frost boils and pitching of the road. From the condition of the roads here, I'd have to venture a guess to say they aren't working.

In preparing for the border crossing I missed a pic of the Welcome to Alaska sign. We managed to corss the US border without incident and from there the roads became much more tolerable, even clear in some spots. I took over driving this last portion, and it was breathtakingly beautiful. We saw a moose, and soem caribou yearlings who kicked up their heals in excitement at seeing us. Truly hilarious.

We reached Tok, Alaska just as the sun was falling behind the trees. It was so cold my nostrils, eye lashes and hair were frozen. When we stopped the motel owner told us that the temp was -63 degrees. Without wind chill, that's actual temperature folks. I never need to see that kind of cold again. Completely unbearable.

When we reached the motel we learned that Jennifer & Adam were having brake issues and as it turns out their brake lines were frozen. I wouldn't have wanted to travel that highway with frozen brakes. We celebrated our arrival and survival with dinner and a couple of beers. Trust me, if I was the bender type I would have tied one on.

The photo above is of Ches in her blankie. We had the thermometer turned up to 90 but the room stayed at about 63 degrees. FRIGID. What a nice Welcome to Alaska!!!