Talk:Dalton Highway

Map

A great deal more about the early days of the North Slope Haul Road, constructed during the fall of 1968, can be foundhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sourdoughjim ( • contribs) 02:36, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

There is this one[1] , but I don't know what the copyright on it is. I can't find the source of the original pic, although I didn't look very hard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.56.210 (talk) 04:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Surface

The road was formerly gravel for its entire length, but a long-term paving project is nearly half completed.

The statement made above about a long-term paving project is false. The road cannot be entirely paved due to the harsh elements. The road is recovered with a mix of gravel and a rubbery asphault at the beginning of spring each year. The above statement would have been corrected, but there is no edit option for that section.   [Instead of "recovered" you probably meant "resurfaced". Toddcs (talk) 21:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)]

Is there a source we can quote for that? Stan 19:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It appears the "long term paving project" are for stretches of the road, not the entire road. Links to two seperate articles below about the upcoming projects. NECRAT^{Speak to me} 08:28, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

http://www.allbusiness.com/north-america/united-states-alaska/1003723-1.html
http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/7923245/article-Road-crews-have-plenty-to-do-this-summer?instance=local_news

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management document (PDF) cited in the references, and dated summer 2009, had this to say:

Road Conditions The road is narrow, has soft shoulders, high embankments, and steep hills. There are lengthy stretches of gravel surface with sharp rocks, potholes, washboard, and, depending on the weather, clouds of dust or slick mud. Watch out for dangerous curves and loose gravel, especially between Livengood and the Yukon River (MP 0-56). You may encounter snow and ice north of Coldfoot any month of the year. Expect and prepare for all conditions. The Elliott Highway is paved to its junction with the Dalton. The Dalton Highway is paved from milepost 37 to 49 and from milepost 90 to 175 (Coldfoot). North of Coldfoot there is pavement (with breaks) from milepost 335 (Happy Valley airstrip) to 362.

It would be nice to have an update on that, if anything has changed. Toddcs (talk) 21:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

- About 1/2 is currently asphalt, with the last 50 miles being paved in 2020-21. There have also been several high-float projects in recent years (a less expensive type of pavement). 206.174.104.93 (talk) 02:40, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

External links

I removed the external links pointing to personal blogs, trip reports, etc. and inserted the official BLM page for the Dalton Highway. External links should follow WP:EL. If you feel an external link to a personal blog/trip report/etc should be included, please post it here. Tedder (talk) 12:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Explaining the History Channel show

Can someone add to the list "Places along the Dalton Highway" the various points mentioned in the series "Ice Road Truckers"? I don't think there is any need to create articles on such stretches as "The Taps", "The Roller-coaster", or even Atigun Pass (although one exists), but I believe users will find it useful enough if the mileposts where these landmarks begin & end -- & maybe a note about each -- are added. -- llywrch (talk) 20:37, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Something tells me that most of the recent activity on this article is motivated solely by that television show. Reality TV in general is a boring waste of time, so I've never watched it. Feel free to tell me that my assessment is wrong, though.RadioKAOS (talk) 04:19, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Hickel Highway

Ice Road Truckers says that before the Dalton, there was the Hickel Highway, could someone write something about that? 76.66.197.151 (talk) 08:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I have a 1972 Rand McNally road atlas for Canada/USA which does show such a highway. It was more of a winter haul road, routed far to the west of Highway 11, and it came nowhere near the Arctic Ocean. It curved east to a terminus that may have been Sagwon.

The Dalton Highway (before being named as such) was originally restricted by the Alyeska oil companies for their own use. They eventually opened the road for public travel as far as the Yukon River bridge, but not across that bridge. Action in the state legislature forced the oil companies to allow public travel up to Disaster Creek in the vicinity of the Brooks Range around 1982 or so, and circa 1994, the full route was opened to public travel as it is today, to Deadhorse. My sources on these openings are mainly from back issues of The Milepost. GBC (talk) 05:48, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

To actually speak on the Hickel Highway: Wally Hickel, during his first governorship in the 1960s, bulldozed a path (which fell somewhere between a cat trail and an ice road) with the intent on reaching the North Slope, which at that particular point in time was seeing the beginning stages of oil exploration which eventually led to the Prudhoe Bay discovery in 1968. A few years prior, a cat trail had been blazed, but I dunno if they followed the same route or not. Once spring thaw occurred the following year, because of the lack of a properly-designed roadbed, much of the route resembled a canal. This was immediately prior to the rise of the environmental and Native land claims movements, so Hickel essentially had free reign to do this, but in later years it was regarded as a major boondoggle on his part. During his second governorship in the 1990s, Hickel tried to do much the same thing with the road to Cordova, which has been held off/debated/studied and re-studied damn near since the demise of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway decades before. Because the environmentalists had obviously gained a firm hold by this point, combined with NEPA and numerous other stumbling blocks, Hickel didn't get very far. Bruce Biers Kendall, who worked in the governor's office under Hickel and left under acrimony, claims that Hickel's defeat on this issue signaled the point where he "gave up" on being governor. As it concerns the Hickel Highway, however, this particular administration did pursue documenting grandfathered RS 2477 rights-of-way in Alaska, with the Hickel Highway being one of them.RadioKAOS (talk) 04:19, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

In popular culture?

For a section such as this, obviously you would include Ice Road Truckers, since it appears to me that people are adding stuff to the article based upon what they watch on the show. I've also seen merchandise for sale which mixes imagery of the show with that of the highway. Perhaps not so obvious: Ethan Daniel Davidson, a Michigan-based singer-songwriter who lived for a time in the Stearns Cabin in Wiseman and has often referred to that experience throughout his career, titled his first album Alaska 11 North, which was released in 1999. The album cover is a photo of a Dalton Highway roadsign (which reads, coincidentally enough, Alaska 11 North) and accompanying scenery.RadioKAOS (talk) 04:19, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Haul road

Haul road currently redirects to this article. As it is a generic term and the Dalton Highway just a specific example of one, I have nominated the redirect for discussion with a view to retargetting or deletion. Your comments in the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 April 24#Haul Road would be welcome. Thryduulf (talk) 10:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Also say what year it was officially opened to the public

Existed: 1974 – present... but also say what year it was officially opened to the public! Jidanni (talk) 01:26, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

There's a slight problem with that. You see, that would entail actually acknowledging the history of the subject, whereas the last several years' worth of traffic on here suggests a desire to turn this into little more than a coatrack article for Google Street View and/or Ice Road Truckers. You can't mention the Dalton Highway without mentioning the Hickel Highway, which is even more history that no one seems willing to go near. RadioKAOS  – Talk to me, Billy 04:02, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I remembering reading in a book (sorry, I can't remember where) that for a long time, it was actually illegal for people (outside the oil companies) to drive on it, thought it was rarely enforced. The road was still a state-maintained road, but many Alaskans felt that if they were paying for it, they should be able to drive on it. Don't know when all of this changed (I was hoping to find it on here).

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Yukon–Koyukuk

Just so everyone knows here, Yukon–Koyukuk is not a borough, it is part of the Unorganized Borough 2600:1700:6180:6290:60CB:CA76:257F:41DC (talk) 23:01, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Obsolete information

As I write this, it's August 18, 2024. I couldn't find (after a very brief search) the status on the paved distances of the road. (I drove most of it about 10 years ago, but turned around about 50-150 miles from Prudhoe.) What the Alaska Transportation (etc.) Department currently has on their website is quite dated. Apparently written in 2020 or possibly 2021. At that point two notable things were claimed: 1.) In 2015 there was a massive washout of "most" of the Northern part of the Highway. It was closed for 28 days.(This one, imho, deserves a section here.) 2.)They claimed that "the plan" was to complete the paving of the "last (~50) miles of the far Northern section in 2021. (Assuming no news is bad news, I'm wondering if this has been completed.) 3.) Since the far North section is about the worst, and since some of it is paved. It's clearly NOT the case (as some have claimed in comments) that it "can't be paved". [This doesn't address the questions of A) Is it worthwhile to pave? and B) Does a paved surface (in these conditions) reduce maintenance costs?]. Getting it paved requires construction of an asphalt "plant" since the (hot) asphalt can't be trucked from Fairbanks ('cuz it cools and solidifies)(according to DoT). This is common in the lower 48 on major highway construction jobs. The difference here is the relative lack of use (i.e. economic incentives), but I digress. Clearly, the FIRST THING that should be said about the Dalton Highway is that it is "mostly gravel". Why is this hidden away? BTW, alaskaitinerary.com has a 2024 post that claims the Dalton is 75% gravel and 25% asphalt paved. I'm not sure if they are a 'reliable source'.71.31.145.237 (talk) 15:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)