NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAY 68 - Top of the World Highway into Dawson City

Yep, here we go. This is the famous Top of the World Highway route. It starts over a in Tok, AK with the Taylor Highway and ends over at Whitehorse, CN in the Yukon.

500+ miles of rugged terrain!! 

We are only going to tackle about a hundred miles of it today. Leaving Walker Forks and going over to Dawson City, Yukon. That means crossing the border into Canada and taking a ferry across the Yukon River into Dawson City. It was really going to be an exciting day! 

Again, here's a glimpse of the road texture where that we will be on. 

Some of it is broken up pavement. 

Some of it is smoothly graded gravel.

Some of it is dusty dirty washboard with big pot holes and crumbling shoulders.

None of it has any guardrails!

All of it is an adventure that has been on our bucket list the entire time we came to Alaska.

Just look at this gorgeous terrain unfolding before our very eyes. We are driving along slowly and relishing every minute of it.

Soon we came to the turnoff for folks that are going to go up to Eagle on the rest of the Taylor Highway.  

This is the start of what is named the "Top of the World Highway", but the road really encompasses the loop all the way around from Tetlin Junction to Whitehorse. 504 miles total...

As we drove along, all of the trees disappeared. We were now traveling above the tree line. The hills were smooth and rolling along and we were traveling on the very top of the ridgeline. This is why you feel you are on the "top of the world". 

Up ahead we could see some white sections along the edges of the road. At first I thought maybe they were rocks?

Oh no, of course not! Silly me. They were

  *S*N*O*W*!!! 

YEP, MIDDLE OF JULY AND WE COULD REACH OUT AND TOUCH THE SNOW!

As we dipped down down down into some of the valleys, dropping in elevation, the trees came back into view, along with some shrubbery. We really didn't see any wildlife though.  The gravel roads in some of these areas smoothed out and it was pretty comfortable driving. We were up to about 35 to 40 mph in some sections. In most of the other sections we were down to about 10-15 mph.

We could look around and see sky in all directions...  we could see the panorama of 360°. The clouds were making a spectacular show with puffy ones in the middle and streaks from behind. The sun gleaming through all of them made it really dramatic. 

Again, we climbed in altitude and got above the tree line. This was really amazing terrain and we could see for miles and miles and miles.

The trees were gone again, and now it was just all of the beautiful low sculpture tundra grass and wildflowers blanketing the hills. It almost seemed like another world to us. We aren't used to this type of landscape back in Wisconsin where we are from. We drank it up with our eyes and felt it in our hearts.

This is where I felt like I should fling my arms wide and run in circles looking at the sky... belting out the theme to "The Sound of Music"?

(Incidentally, that was the first movie I ever saw inside of a movie theater when I was a child of 5)

Yep, we really are on top of the world! 

We were getting close to the boundary of the border between the United States and Canada. There was a little pull off to stop and get a few more photos.

The cloud formations were just amazing, and made it interesting backdrop for our motorhome.

I was snapping photos in every direction and trying to capture what we were seeing. But I guess, really, you have to be there to know what this felt like.

There was very little wind and it was a warm day. We were completely enjoying the sunshine and the blue sky and the puffy clouds and the amazing terrain.

It was time for us to say goodbye to Alaska. We didn't know it at the time, but we would be popping back into Hyder, Alaska on our way home. But for now, it was our big goodbye to the state at the boundary between Alaska and the Yukon.

We just couldn't get enough of the beautiful sunshine and the soft warm breeze as we were standing up at the top of the world. It really was a very different experience. Being able to stand there and rotate in 360°. Seeing this beautiful wild and mesmerizing terrain in all directions.

It's hard to believe there can be this many shades of colors of greens, blending into blues. Each layer of mountains in the distance was a different tone.

Off to the west, we spotted some caribou! They were silhouetted against the beautiful blue sky. There even were little babies in the herd!

I tried to zoom in the best I could, they were moving around and I think I was moving at the same time. Lol

They slowly turned and ambled off into the distance, over the hill and out of our range of sight. It was wonderful to see them roaming the range in the wild, rather than just alongside of the road.

With one last longing gaze, we crawled back into the motorhome and continued on our journey. 

We drove another 65 miles until we reached the iconic billboard of a building facade simile of Dawson City, to greet us to the area.

We have arrived.

This greeting structure was way up on the top of the hill yet. We needed to descend down to the Yukon River.

And the next step, of course, is to cross the river! No bridges here... Hmmmm???

We are very tired after our long day of driving one of the most rugged and scary roads for over 90 miles at the rate of about 10 to 15 miles an hour.   And now we have to wait for our turn to take the ferry across to Dawson City to our waiting campground.

Stay tuned to the next blog post as we put our motorhome on the ferry to get across the very fast moving Yukon River.

Here's the video that goes along with today's blog:

94 miles traveled today 

5,752 miles traveled so far