This post is the last for our journey North. Today we arrived at Deadhorse and the end of the Dalton Highway. Tomorrow we will set foot in Prudhoe Bay, touch the Beaufort Sea, and swim in the Arctic Ocean. We have been traveling now for 72 days and have covered 10,700 miles to this point. It seems like yesterday that we started, yet we have done and seen much up to this point. And today is the end of this portion of the trip.
We drove around Deadhorse for a bit and stopped at the general store to get some stickers and mail some postcards at the post office. We did finally see some beautiful caribou (there is no hunting in this oil town).
The place reminded me of my time in Iraq and Afghanistan at the bases there. Connexes everywhere, industrial yards, big equipment. It was dusty, industrial, and was there for one thing, extracting oil. It was calculated that there were over 3 billion barrels of oil in the reserves up here and about half has been extracted. Initially the oil reserves 6-8k down were at 4000 psi, making extraction easier as it spewed from the Christmas trees (well valves at the top) and into an extensive piping structure that collected in the pump house where it was separated from water and debris and pumped into the Alaska pipeline for the 600 mile journey to Valdez. Today about half is left and the pressures are around 2k psi and fracking and other methods are being used to squeeze the oil from the wells. There is still another reserve a hundred miles to the east, but that is in a preserve and has not been exploited yet.
There are two places to eat in Deadhorse, Brooks Camp hotel and The Aurora Hotel. Both are cafeteria style with a planned buffet and salad bar. They were serving steaks and seafood and we decided it was a night to celebrate our final mile and the beginning of the first mile of our Pan American Highway. Dinner started at 4:30 so we found a place to park and cleaned up, took a nap, and relaxed in the 55 degree weather.
Brooks Camp Restaurant did not disappoint. Again, this reminded me of those years I was deployed where the work was long and hard for 12-14 hours per day and the highlights were the meal breaks where we could get good food and feel a bit normal life. We shared a huge steak (the size of a whole plate), ate a fresh salad, some huge fried shrimp, chicken cordon blue, and potatoes and mushrooms. We spent an hour in there, eating at a table, reminiscing of the journey so far, and planning for the next day.
Back at camp, we settled in for the night. We spotted a red fox running around camp. He was cautious of us, but while I was outside he got within 25 feet of the truck. Here are some additional photos for the day.
https://www.overlandadventureexcursions.com/photos-albums/nggallery/album/20250813-deadhorse-and-the-dalton-day-4