think of it as one of the world'slargest artificial veins the lifeblood itcarries: crude oil from the north shore of alaska all the way down the state to theice-free seaport valdez. built between 1974 and 1977 the alaska pipeline is an 800 mile long engineering marvel constructed in one of the harshest environments on earth costing eightbillion dollars and 32 lives. my mission:
shadow this wriggling steel serpentnorth to its frigid starting point by followingthe treacherous by-way scraped into the landscape right alongside. and try to make it inone piece. i don't just right about adventure i live it. especially wringing out the coolest cars on the line. let's see just how far these incredible machines can go. strap in it's time for epic drives. right now i'm standing in the yukonprovince of northern canada
and now i'm in the us. alaska actually and this is in starkwhat promises to be a really cool adventure. i'm gonna drive from the eastern edge ofalaska all the way to the top of the state past the arctic circle to the arcticocean. i'm gonna do it over some of the most treacherous anddangerous roads in all of north america this is gonna be a really fascinatingmulti day drive and waiting to take me is a brand new toyota4runner.
if you're gonna drive a forerunnerthrough alaska which model would you pick? well you might opt for the trailobviously or even better the new trd pro which has all theextra heavy-duty hardware you what in a really extreme environment. well we have neither today we've got the top of the line 4runner the creme puff the limited this one you won't see very often in alaska in fact this model is more suited to beverly hills on the other hand this might be a cooltest to
see just how good the 4runner is inany form because we're gonna push it through what are the most dangerousroads in north america: the dalton highway n the way to the arctic circle and if it can make it in this form then you know it can make it obviously in any form. this is gonna be really interesting prepare to get this pearlescent paint really dirty. i've come for the dalton highway ofcourse but before i get there i got some exploring and experiencesplanned. first up the tiny eastern enclave of toke population1400.
dog sled capital of the world sonaturally i meeting up with one of the town's starresidents champion musher hugh neff. since the year 2000 hugh and his pack at laughing eyes kennel have competed in 20 four major long-distance sled racesincluding 10 iditarods. in 2012 hugh won the grueling onethousand-mile yukon quest so how long can they run pretty much flat out when going right? what we do is basically a 6-7 hourrun and in that time were doing about 70-65-70 miles
and in that time were doing about 70 6570 miles but you can't really be going all out all time because they'll get tired. these guys get tired? but after awhile can imagine but they average over 100miles a day. so you're saying earlier can imagine but the average over 100miles a day sir so you're saying earlier mush dog you know. the husky yeah outta central casting much dark you know yet the husky yeah ata central casting yet these guys are not a yeah i tellthem that those dogs are beautiful those areprimarily siberians but their little bit
but a dog like walter can do two, three miles an hour faster than a dog that you're gonna see like in snow dogs. now that i've met the team hugh graciously invites me to return atdawn the next morning to join him in his hugh graciously invites me to return atdawn the next morning to join him in his exercise trust me slipping one of thesehigh octane puppies into a harness is like lighting the fuse on a keg ofdynamite that's a 400-pound quad plus a 185 pounds of me and locked brakes and still the team is shaking it loose. but then: mush nevermind the lack of snow
the quad makes a brilliant substitute for asled and at last the dogs are in thereelement every strand of dna now fully alive. from my perch in the back as they sprint and turn through these thick woods this is how it feels to witness pure canine joy. thank you that was a blast i hope you enjoyed it your team has spoiled me for any other kinda transportation. yeah it's powered by love really
and it's a lot of fun and they love what they do it's why we do it every year it's not about the races but just about being with the dogs really. absolute blast thank you. did you know the alaska has its ownnorth pole yep it's here all right unfortunatelythis morning the little shopping hamlet is closed. no partridge in a pear tree for me awwwell you can make it up to me later big guy.in fairbanks the riverboat discovery promises threehours of spectacular views,
local history, and even cold beer that'sworth a stop. from what the locals are telling me fairbanks weather doesn't get any better than this so i'm happy tosoak it up. the boat itself is pretty cool too thelatest venture in a family business what the locals are telling me fairbanksweather doesn't get but the boat itself is pretty cool too the latest venture in a family business stretching back 100 years. to find out more i moved to the wheel house to catch up to captain ryan binkley. is it fair to say river boating runs in your family's blood?
you've been doing this for generations. yeah my great grandfather came to alaska during the klondike gold rush of 1898 he was a boat builder and pilot all he did was transport miners and prospectors and their stuff. my grandfather his son followed him into that business after world war two he startedrecreating his experiences as a way to show this part of alaska topeople that are visiting now that first boat we passed was that part of your family's? yeah that was discovery 1 mygrandfather built up from scratch in his
backyard upriver here in 1955 and then over the years it's grown. inthe seventies we built the second vessel discovery 2 a little bigger so when it came time to build thisboat in 1986 we went to a shipyard just outside seattle to get it here we put it on a barge becauseit's not an ocean-going vessels on a bargetold the barge across the gulf of alaska around the aleutian chain up to them after the yukon and then shecame under her own power
only at the yukon tanhai gina riversright into town here and i was a preneed trip kinda the lastthe real star will check on the yukon river there were had been in eastern wheelers on theyukon river and there have been any sense as discovery 3 nears the dock a bushpilot lifts off from the river just a few yards away it's an iconic image around here an amazing one insixty alaskans is a licensed pilot i've always wantedto add a seaplane rating to my pilots
ticket so what better place than alaska to grabsome time in water wings. the next morning i head to the pond andfairbanks international airport to meet up with craig kenmonth: floatplane instructor and owner of a beautiful cessna 180. socraig the main thing i've only flown planes withwheels on them these have floats what's the thing i have to look out for mostly? well art it's a lot easier than wheel planes in a sense because you've got wide runways without cell lines. the mostdifficult part or the
most different part is going to begetting the float up to fly in speed so we're looking to find a optimum planeangle where we can accelerate along on the floats to obtain flying speed. little pullback on the stick to rotate andboop or a lot earlier. and you tell me this continental has300 horsepower? yes this is a a modified continental 520 engine and a 1956 cesna 180. this is going to be fun. yes it is. the 180 panel is old but familiar enough and the start-upprocedures
are straightforward once the prop isturning on the float plane though you gotta be thinking ahead no breaks you're always moving somewhere with thedelicious howl from the big continental craig and i climb out and head to a practice area about 20 miles north followed very quickly by my first droponto h20. i regard the absence of resultingshrapnel to be a relatively good sign up after a quick reset we're heading back upinto the air then turning around for another approach.
this one a touch and go yeah it'sdifferent from using a paved runway or grass strip but it's still flying. and even this sooninto my baptism the appeal float planes is surging through me. the complete freedom to put down onalmost any river or lake. a day uninteruppted fishing, or a private camp, the ability to get up and go
without the need of roads or evenairports the allure of a beautiful machine and beguiling listings. and come winter hey justswap the floats for skis. and no wonder these unique hard-workingaircraft are such well-loved almost essential vehicles in this ruggedand beautiful state. all too soon we're headed back formy final splash back to liquid. thanks for the day of flying craig, now let's hit the beach back on terra firma it's time to returnto my trusty 4runner,
but with the dalton highway now justmiles away. first i have one small modification inmind. you didn't really think i was going to drive the deadly dalton highway using tires better suited to rodeo drive did you? hmm black rims and beefy toyo open country meats now we're talking. as i pull out of fairbanks like aguidepost north the pipeline itself finally appearsshortly afterward i arrive at the start the dogged
james w dalton highway that i have hadcome in which the child heavy industrial traffic proceed withcaution there's the industrial travelling it goes bye bye asphalt. see you in a few days. about an hour into the dalton now and so far it isn't too bad no wonder the dirt part is pretty well rated i was wrong about sayinggoodbye to asphalt yes there is some not much it's actually worse than the dirt so lots of pitfalls here but so far i'm enjoying this.
the view is absolutely spectacular and i'm sure it's just as good for the vehicle. beautiful state, alaska. out here you don't look for servicestops because there aren't any instead you plan carefully to make the nextoasis. at the yukon river lies the yukon rivercamp food, lodging if you need it, and thatliquid gold called gasoline. the river itself provides it's own worthy detour.
so far i gotta say the ferocious dalton highway hasn't been that ferocious. we had a number of long stretchesof paved asphalt pretty good even the dirt is really well groomed you getpast this part in any way just about any vehicle i've even seen acouple mini-vans. you don't need a super suv like this 4runner then again i hear there's some tougher stuff up ahead.
more interesting but so far it's been fairly easy. then again careful what you wish for. before coldfoot camp i reached a majormilestone on my journey a spot further north than i've ever been even than iceland: the arctic circle. i find more reasons to stop while nomonuments or signposts here just a picture postcard panorama,pristine water, near incomparable silence.
55 miles north of the arctic circle cold foot camp is welcome respite for every dalton traveler. it is literally the only community for along long way. you'll pay two hundred dollars a night stayhere and though the accommodations are spartan you'll love this place like shangri la for here is good food, fuel, a privateshower in your room and if you stay up past dark and that'safter midnight in early september cold foot may even treat you to theother-worldly magic show at the aurora borealis northern lights.
and then you go to bed hypnotized by thefireworks of a solar wind. the next morning not long after leaving cold foot i maketwo new sightings first a thick icing of snow falling acrossthe highway and the surrounding mountains and then hustling down the road directlyfrom our cameras a small brown bear. he doesn't hangaround for long but just by making an appearance he'squickly
elevated the thrill of today's drive this iswhy you come to alaska to be on the dalton highway have the road all to myself this incomparable view in every direction mountains just towering above me covered with snow nobody else here nothing like it. when i say nobody else around i mean it nobody nada nothing the next batch ofcivilization lies 250 miles more so if you want a hotlunch out here you break out the propane stove and theboil in bag meals. would you care that it's not four stardining
no you will not you'll cherish every bite because simply being out in the midst of this natural palace is to live like a king. despite brief snow and some rough patches of road in this weather i've hardly pushed the forerunner veryhard that said it's made a splendid chariot for the daltonsure i poked fun of the limited's plush leather interior andmyriad creature comforts but to be honest during the long drive isure haven't minded stuff like heated seats and satellite radio toss in thesmooth 4 liter v6,
secure full-time all-wheel drive with a locking center dif and low range and a burly chassis built for tough going you gotta damn sweet means of taming the arctic circle and beyond. here it's pretty vivid example of whatcan happen on the dalton highway with a moment's inattention it's notthat difficult road but there's no guardrail and there's no one here to help you. so alittle carelessness and you're upside down here. even when it's not snowing or
50 degrees below zero on the dalton you definitely need your wits about you to reach your destination safe. road is now oncoming big group of slide by not muchroom to spare accelerating past slow-moving respond to you get a deal clouds of dustflying rocks in a looming pitched just inches way badrain and mud and the stakes rise further. let's call a miracle winship to my onspeed on if you look old slow suddenlyyourself or more come alive as you near
the dalton highway terminates and this desolate regions version above well that's it the end of the dalton highway it's been anamazing drive and finally here actually deadhorse is in prudhoe bay and this is oil city. you wouldn'tbelieve it unless you see this giant corrugatedbuildings everywhere housing thousands of workers who come here towork on the oil fields and get the oil down the alaskan pipeline to valdez
but this is nice weather and in acouple months this is going to be some of the harshest working conditions on earth. i'm leaving before that but notbefore tomorrow i visit one more destinationjust a bit north from here i've been looking forward to the wholetrip. if you wanna visit the arctic ocean because i do, the only way to get there from prudhoe is through 23 miles of privately ownedoil land. and the only way to do that is to makea reservation and fill out security paperwork toprocure a ride on a special
ocean shuttle. once the bus arrivesyou're at the edge of the world nothing between you and russian tea rooms but miles and miles of ice and icy cold water. just how icy cold i had to find out for myself soi bared my sun deprived legs to the 33 degree air, and stepped in. well it wasn't bad for about a minute maybe two, but as leo dicaprio will tellyou wouldn't want to stay in this water long. my feet are like ice absolutely frozen
it's good to have these wool socks back on. some might view this arctic outpost asunworthy of serving as the destination for a difficult journey and uninspired even ugly colony boasting nothing but rough work androugher workers, but to my mind prudhoe bay stands asproudly as will a future base on the moon acity that shouldn't exist because of its impossibly challengingenvironment but one that does, through sheer human ingenuity,force of will,
and resources simply staggering intheir magnitude. leave politics aside for a moment.prudhoe, the dalton, and the pipeline are pyramidsof a modern age, and that alone merits the longchallenging drive to explore them. this is maurice my new pal. give me a heads up next time (laugh).
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