Twelvemile Summit Steese Highway, Alaska

Mileage:  46,026

Another day dawned bright and beautiful with just a touch of crispness in the air.

So, we begin to head south.  We are in no particular hurry and our schedule allows us to explore a little more.  Our plan is to continue to travel on unfamiliar roads and to keep things interesting all the way back.

Gravel pits like this one are located intermittently along all the highways.  They are used for road and shoulder repairs and rest stops!

Driving cautiously, we made our way south on the rollercoaster that is the Elliott Highway.  We had decided to return to the Steese Highway.  We had a lot of fun there.  It is a scenic byway.  It is a good paved road for the first 80 miles so we can easily get the RV at least ½ of the way.  We wanted to see what might have missed.

As soon as we turned onto the Steese Highway the road conditions were much better, what a relief!  We parked the RV at a turnout and then moved it later in the afternoon to the Twelvemile Summit.

We packed a lunch and set off with the Jeep to go exploring.  We had our picnic at the North Fork Twelvemile Creek Bridge.

We are traveling in tundra and subarctic climates.  This is caribou country.  The slopes of these mountains are covered with lichen.  Caribou love to eat lichen!  Lichens are thought to be one of the oldest living things on earth and they can live for 1,000 years or more.  They grow only about one millimeter a year.  Late July through September is caribou migration time.  We did not see a single caribou today, but it is easy to imagine them traversing over these great slopes in tremendous herds.  The caribou traipse right through the town of Central as they make way to their wintering grounds.  There used to be a herd of about 500,000 that came through but now the numbers have dwindled to 5,000.

We took a 4WD trip to a summit where the brilliant blue skies and sunshine allowed for expansive views.  We are far above the tree line and it is wide open and you can see so far!   It was about 10 degrees chillier up there, VERY windy, and very awesome!  This part of the highway has been one of my favorite Alaska drives.

There are some abandoned and active gold mines along the creeks deep in the valley.  While mining here the remains of wooly mammoths and mastodons were discovered.

We stopped in the town of Central to get gas.  There is a bar/restaurant/grocery store/gas station combo.  There is also a Circle District Museum.  They had a small Saturday market there but we didn’t need any crocheted baby things or Beaver fur purses or headbands.  They had neat dog mushing sleds on display as well as rusty old mining and road construction equipment.

Old trucks!

We have an amazing “campsite.”