We hiked a trail at Marion Creek Campground but only made it in about a mile. We were a bit unprepared with our shoes. The trail headed up from the cheek to a beautiful forest filled with blueberries, cranberries, and dozens of types of mushrooms and then started to get a bit mushy. Generally hiking in the boreal forest is like hiking on a mattress, but it got a bit boggy. There was a trail crew we passed working on a multi-year project to create a boardwalk over the mushy sections, and it was in its early stages. There was still a mile or so to go and we had not brought our waders. We were about an hour in, our shoes were soaked, and we hadn’t brought the pups (fortunately for Maggie especially). We hiked back out and cleaned up and got on the road.
Marion Creek is at the southern end of the Brooks Range and the mountains there were lower. As we drove the range grew in height with towering granite mountains 6-8k in height. We followed a river and the pipeline for a hundred miles until a rest stop before Antigun Pass made a note we were moving into Arctic Tundra, where no longer trees were present because the temperature and sunlight are neither high/long enough for trees to photosynthesize enough to create wood or bark. The pass and mountains are gorgeous.
We continued onward down the other side to the northern slope for an hour or so. We started looking for a campground about 100 miles north of Deadhorse, but things were scarce and what was available was filled with people decked out in camo and hunting gear. It turns out it was Caribou season.
We did find a huge pull out with space and I talked with a couple of hunters who had gotten a large bull. They said that 0-5 miles from the road is Archery tags only and ride was 5+ miles in. They were hunting with rifle and had hiked over 5 miles to get theirs. We talked for a bit and I found out one was from Palmer and the other was from Valdez. They educated me on the harvesting and pack out of the meat and rack. Pretty cool. We hadn’t seen caribou yet out here on the Dalton, and the hunting explained it.
Camp was nice and I enjoyed fighting the mosquitos and watching the sun make its way nearly horizontally across the tundra. One cool thing I found the next morning while out looking for a place to dig a hole was an already set up outhouse with a view. Bonus (shout out to Carl).
Here are some additional photos from the day.
https://www.overlandadventureexcursions.com/photos-albums/nggallery/album/20250812-dalton-highway-day-3