Prudhoe Bay

I left Toolik at 2pm and turned north onto the Dalton highway, the road conditions were much worse and i was having to concentrate a lot more, just a single track was in use in the center of the road and when oncoming trucks come along i had to pull over and come to a stop as it is so dangerous that if your tire touches the drifted snow it will pull your car off the side of the road. I kept plodding a long in the dark and arrived at Deadhorse and Prudhoe bay at around 7 pm i had a look at the Prudhoe bay hotel but didn’t stop for anything, the whole area is geared around the oil industry and all the buildings are tempory style units so it says hotel but looks like a shipping container.
I made my way over to the general store called Prudhoe Bay general Store and its run by Deborah and Joseph Bernard, they are so lovely, i was given a huge warm welcome and Deborah very kindly gave me some items including a thermal Prudhoe bay hat. Thank uou Deborah you were a light at the end of a very dark stretch of dangerous road, you provide such a good service to all the workers and i’m sure your happy face makes them feel a whole lot better being up their. You van contact Deborah at email deadhorsedeb@aol.com

I had a look at all the other pictures of adventures similar to mine but done in the summer months as they dont see people like me in the winter, i briefly spoke to another lady that run the post office downstairs called Luann and then i made the decision to drive back south to Coldfoot, o the drive back conditions were getting worse but i took it steady and things are going well, visibility through the Atigun pass was very bad and the climb to 4800 ft on the north side was ok, i met a group of trucker at the top who contacted me on the CB radio and asked if i could wait at the top as the south side was getting badly drifted with snow and only one track up was in operation, they sent me down first maybe as a guinepig or maybe they thought i would be faster, this mountain is much steeper than any european climb or decent like the mont blanc. i put the car into low range and with the auto box the car was making a good decent at a controlled speed of around 30 mph, a couple of time the cat lifted and slipped sideways over the snow drifts and all the trucks waiting for us to come down had fitted their snow chains for the climb up.
In coldfoot i stopped at the truck stop for a cup of tea with one of the truckers that i came down the way with and we chatted about what it was like to drive trucks in Europe and Scotland, i had a shower and moved the vehicle to a parking area and parked up for the night.
Tomorrow i will push on back to Fairbanks.