Top of the World Highway

The Top of the World Highway is really two highways, Yukon Highway 9 in Canada and the Taylor Highway in Alaska.  It is 175 miles long from the junction of the Taylor and Alaska Highway to Dawson City, Yukon.  The highway is open during the summer and becomes a snow-machine-only trek in the winter.

 

Four of our caravaners, including ourselves, had originally decided not to follow the other caravaners across the Top of the World Highway.  Some reasons include fear of damage to the motorhome, fear of the road conditions, fear of the weather conditions, etc.  All the fears were based on the responses of other travelers and the reputation the highway has acquired.  Well, one by one, all four of us decided we would go across the highway.  The alternative was to go back 700 miles the way we had come and those roads were not really good either. So taking the Top of the World Highway was the best choice to travel to Chicken, AK.  Buck and I decided we didn’t want to be the only “chickens” to go to Chicken.  So here we go.

Tuesday, July 14 at 5:00 AM we crossed the Yukon River on a ferry, the George Black Ferry.  All tow vehicles had to drive on the ferry separated from their motorhomes.  So I drove the truck and was taken over with another motorhome and some cars.  Buck drove onto the ferry later in our motorhome.  Another motorhome was also loaded with him.  When the ferry reached the shore, we were on the Top of the World Highway.  See pictures below.

Buck driving onto ferry.

Ferry Crossing.

Entering the Top of the World Road

Once we were both on the highway, we connected the truck to our motorhome and off we went.  We were told to expect animals along the road or even in the road.  So we had the camera ready.  Not even 1 mile from the ferry exit we saw animals on the road in the distance.  I grabbed the camera and was ready for some great pictures.  Well, guess what we saw!  Three baby coyotes were playing in the road.  Two of them ran after seeing us, but one seemed to enjoy the attention.  He sat and posed for our picture.  We even had to blow the horn to get him to leave the road.  As he did, we saw two additional pups over the ledge.  So the litter was 5 pups, for sure.  Like I haven’t seen a coyote before, here he is! 

The Top of the World Highway didn’t seem so bad.  There were sections that were paved, then sections followed that were completely dirt.  At first the road seemed wide enough, but as we continued, the road narrowed.  There were some steep inclines, hairpin curves, and muddy roads.  It had rained during the night in some sections.  We dealt with fog for a while; we couldn’t see more than two or three feet in front of us.  But later the fog lifted and we saw some beautiful views.  Below are pictures of our trip as we traveled the Top of the Road Highway.

On the Canadian section of the highway we did not meet a single vehicle.  That’s because the Alaska/Canadian border doesn’t open until 8:00 AM.  Once we crossed the border we began to meet some vehicles.  Most of the time there was space to meet, other times we pulled to the right as much as possible and then stopped to let the vehicle pass. Here’s pictures of the border crossing and our GPS Message that appeared soon after the crossing. 

If you can't read the message on the GPS, it states. "No legal route could be found!  Either there is no road connection available between your origin and destination, or your settings for weight, height, etc. in RV info need to be changed." Even that message was a little frightening!  

We had a friend take a picture of me in our truck after I crossed the ferry.  Compare the look of the truck before traveling the highway with the way our truck looked when we arrived in Chicken.

We're glad we traveled over the Top of the World Highway.  Our visit to Chicken was an interesting one.  Look for that blog soon!