Some additional comments from someone who did live in AK and will again in 86 days, 4 hours, and 15 - 20 minutes...but who's counting:
- I've made 20+ round trips on the Alcan, but it's becoming aged history as the last trip was in the '90's. On the first several, one had to look up what "pavement" meant after getting on the Alcan...back then, one also had to really evaluate if the road from Northway on in to Tok counted as pavement even when it was allegedly "paved".
- As others have suggested, replace the tires. Your remaining tread depth doesn't inspire confidence....particularly if you want to explore the backroads (i.e. gravel) in AK and Canada.
- All-Season tires suck, particularly for the winter, IMNSHO. Get a good set of M&S and go with those. Choose your poison on the brand: I've never had much luck with Michelins, but suspect they're just as good as anything else. My rigs that reside in Alaska run on Firestones, Goodyears, and Toyo's. The two rigs that get switched for winter run on Blizzaks and Hakkapolitas (sp?).
- As pointed out above, for the "banana belt" around Anchorage, studded tires are the bees knees...but I'd go with good M&S. Studded tires aren't really required anywhere, but where they shine is at the polished ice intersections in Los Anchorage and environs.....that's such a small part of your likely driving that it certainly doesn't justify a special purpose purchase.
- Strangely enough, I never had a flat on a passenger vehicle on the Alcan. I had somewhere between 4-5 flats on large truck (duece-and-a-half on up to 18-wheelers) tires. Having dealt with a wide spectrum of resolutions on those (patching, dismounting, putting on a spare, waiting for the service truck etc), I learned that mounted spares are beautiful things. Had a brake line freeze up one time and it burned up a tire outside of Watson Lake. By the time I resolved the brake line issues (at circa -35 f, IIRC, but it was a long time ago), switching the wheel/tire was a comparative breeze....hate to think about the situation if I hadn't had a mounted spare.
- Lastly a bit of gratuitous advice, but (since I'm told that Los Anchorage is having another non-winter and next winter might be the same) remember that 4WD doesn't help at all when stopping on ice.
