The Top of the World Highway

From Dawson City, you take this little ferry across the river.  

And you're deposited on a road that looks like this.  

At times, the road is packed so hard and smooth it almost looks like pavement.  Often, it does not resemble pavement at all.  It's covered in gravel and dust and mud -- and rocks the size of grapes, limes, lemons, and occasionally grapefruits, some permanently mounted in the road, others loosely strewn about at random.  There are potholes and washboard sections, grooves and gaps and ditches.  This highway has it all. 

All of the Yukon seemed to be on fire at this point, so some of the early vistas were hard to make out. 

For the vast majority of the road, you're riding the spine of some tall hills and mountains, weaving from one to the next.  It's incredible. 

This next photo shows how the gravel and dirt tends to pile up and get thicker the closer you get to the shoulder. 

The early scenery had flora similar to a lot of my Yukon rides. 

But as I continued, the landscape changed and became more subtle -- and more grand, to my eye.  Yellows and bright greens were replaced with muted maroon, orange, and deep greens. 

Some reviews of the scenery on this highway thought it wasn't all that great.  I think those reviewers are nuts, or perhaps they've just been on some truly otherworldly roads and their perspective is a little skewed. 

I didn't photograph any of the worst sections of the road because I was more or less holding on for dear life, riding slowly with zero interest in stopping what little momentum I had.  The scariest sections were steep, winding declines in the road, where very large rocks were sprinkled in deep gravel, presumably to help bigger vehicles keep traction.  This strategy had the opposite effect on me and my bike. 

Here's a little mud. 

I saw maybe 12 or 15 vehicles total in the 3+ hours I slogged across the Top of the World Highway.  You can see the dust trail from one of those vehicles on the left along a typically winding section. 

Once I got closer to the Alaska border, the scenery became more dramatic, and the fight was well worth it. 

Notice the road on the top left of that last photo.  Another typical section of the latter half of the ride.  Now look to the top right of the next photo, and behold the northernmost border crossing in North America:

The line to cross was, of course, nonexistent. 

On windy or rainy or snowy days, traversing this highway seems insane.  Even in the relatively good weather I experienced, it was asking a lot of my bike.  What's more, once you cross the border, you still face 40 miles of nasty, muddy, pothole-ridden twists and turns on the road to Chicken, Alaska -- so you're most definitely not out of the woods once you hit US soil. 

It's a hell of a journey. 

Glad we made it.