Dempster Highway

Mile 286.

Looking north towards the pass into NWT.  It is in the center of the picture, where the mountain dips down.

There's actually quite a hill leading up to the pass, but it doesn't look like it due to the lack of trees to give perspective to the scene.

The white that is visible in the middle distance on the road is a truck hauling the last of the construction camp out.  The road had just been completed only days before I traveled on it.

Near Mile 289.
View from the top of the pass looking back south at the Dempster Hwy stretching off into the distance.
It can be seen in this picture just how much the road has climbed to reach this pass.

Notice that the Highway is built up quite high above the surrounding land.  This is so that the underlying permafrost does not melt.  If the road were not so "thick", the heat of the sun on the road surface would penetrate down and melt the permafrost, causing all sorts of problems with the road, leading to major potholes, bumps and dips.

Mile 289.  Just over the pass, looking north into NWT. (The clouds are gone because this picture was taken a few days later, on my return trip south).

A real lonely place to get a flat tire!  Fortunately, I traveled fully equipped to deal with just about any repair.

Altogether I had three flats on my trip up and back on the Dempster.

There aren't many highways on which you can repair a flat tire in the middle of the road without worrying about being run over! 

A small narrow mountain pass within the Richardson Mtns.

In the far, far distance is the great plain of the MacKenzie River basin, just peeking up in the far center of the picture.

No other vehicles at all along this stretch.