Typical point to point speeds on Alaska hwy trip

If you have the summer for your trip - don't hurry and don't plan on certain miles or speed per day. I think we checked out every area through B.C., Yukon and Alaska and we had plenty of time for the whole trip. We didn't make reservations except for 2 places which I mentioned in your other post. They were for July 4 weekend in Palmer, Alaska and 5 nights in Denali's Teklanika campground and those were only made about 3 weeks prior when we could better judge when we'd arrive.

I'd recommend not to overplan your trip. You'll have a better time and less stress.

Roughly it is about 45 to 55 hours of driving time, for most travelers to get from the US-Canadian Border to Fairbanks. So it really depends on how many of those hours do you wish to put in each day. From Dawson Creek to Fairbanks, used to be given as 1,523 miles, but it has been shortened since those days. So if a person is an early riser and gets on the road early, it will take them less days than someone starting to move later in the morning and stopping sooner in the afternoon. It takes basically the same amount of fuel, no matter how you set up your days drive.

I tend to plan on 10 driving days from here in south Florida to Fairbanks. With a few days in Whitehorse, and a couple of other stops the one way trip works out to be two to three weeks for us, most of the time. On our last trip north, 2011, we spent more time in central BC playing and sightseeing, so it took longer than normal for us to get to Alaska.

It is a very personal matter as to how many miles a day a traveler can make, a lot depends on the ages of the travelers, do they enjoy driving, where is the traveler wanting to spend their time, on the way or in northern Canada or Alaska. Some people are happy with 4 hours of driving a day and setting in a campsite for the other 20 hours of the day, some are not. There isn't a right or wrong way to do it, just figure out what works for you and your companions.

In 1966, I made the trip from Anchorage to south Texas in 6 days, 800 miles a day average. But I sure don't recommend that method of travel over the Alaska Hwy. I was in a car and traveling solo, plus I had a time frame to be in south Texas by, that had serious consequences if I missed that deadline.

If you're concerned about time, I would suggest you wait to do this trip until you need not worry about it.

In my '06 trip, we did round trip in 171 days from S. Texas. A friend, same year did S. Texas to Anchorage in 7 days.

Edit - the '06 trip ended up at 17k miles, or 100 miles a day.

In 2005 we made the trip from Seattle to Skagway in four weeks. I have no idea of how many miles we drove each day or our average speed. I just know we stopped MANY times and enjoyed ourselves. So many sights and so much wildlife to see! For us this was a once in a lifetime trip so we took our time and enjoyed everything. It took us almost five weeks to get back...

It took us nearly two days to go from Dawson City to Whitehorse last summer. At one construction zone on the North Klondike Highway, we had time to fix and eat lunch and take a short hike before the pilot car showed up. Admittedly, we did stop for photos fairly frequently, but then, why else would we drive all the way to Alaska?

In one area west of Beaver Creek and within sight of the Alaska border, we drove over broken slabs of asphalt at a speed under 5 MPH. But, as Sue has noted, we were able to maintain a fairly constant 62 MPH between Fort Nelson and Fort St. John when we weren't in a long line of oilfield vehicles.

So, there is no average day; every day is different. For our trip, if we divide total miles by total days, we averaged less than 125 miles per day. And that included lots of Interstate highway miles and long days of driving in the Lower 48.

tomseeley wrote:


All I'm asking now is: once you hit the road on any given day, while you're moving, ignoring meal, gas, potty, or sightseeing stops, about what avg mph have you experienced? I've tracked this in the lower 48 for us for a long time and even on interstates, which I know I won't even come close to in CA and AK, I can't do much better than average 50 mph over the road unless I'm averaging nothing but almost pure interstate.

We have a similar truck and trailer to yours and according to my GPS on last year's trip our moving average speed was 45 mph. This average is from Dawson Creek to Prince George via Whitehorse, Dawson City, Chicken, Tok, Whitehorse and the Cassiar Highway. This was the towing portions only and not including side trips with the empty truck.

We've towed our 25' fifth wheel across twice without incident. In 2010, the road had just opened after being flood damaged earlier in the summer.

http://yukonsights.ca/20110722_TopOfTheWorldHwy.html

http://yukonsights.ca/20100911_TopOfTheWorldHwy.html

In 2013 we took the truck and camper instead so we could explore the narrow backroads around Clinton and Forty Mile.
http://yukonsights.ca/20120905_ClintonCrk.html

This was one of our overnight spots in 2011

partsman01 wrote:
So looks like we will be doing the Alaska trip next year, how will towing a fifth wheel do on the top of the world highway?

Well partsman - you really have us (me!!) confused. In one post you claim you will not do the TOW! In another thread you give a lot of good advice on driving the TOW and here you are asking about driving the TOW!
Confused at best but also amused - sort of??

So looks like we will be doing the Alaska trip next year, how will towing a fifth wheel do on the top of the world highway?

Best advice I can give is to not expect an "average" on any given day.

Some days the travel will go well, other days you may hit construction zones with lengthy waits for a pilot car, another day the frost heaves will rattle your teeth if you try to make time, then next day you might have 100 miles of rough gravel or dirt road, and then next week the highway might be closed due to a washout or forest fire and you'll wait it out.

Some days we've managed 100 miles in only 5 hours.
Other days we've put in 12 hours for 500 miles.

With the camper or fifth wheel, we poke along at about 40 mph unless the road is rough, because you never know where the giant pothole or unmarked frost heave will be. With my little car, I'll zip along the same sections at 80 mph without a second thought because I can weave, dodge and bounce through without issue.

When you leave Dawson Creek, the first 300 miles are darn nice actually. Biggest issue is the industrial traffic for the gas wells in the area.

The next 200 will be variable, with you needing to be alert for wildlife.

Then the next 100 miles, the bison will muss you up now and then. If they don't want to move off the road, they don't move off the road.

North of Watson Lake, Yukon, the potholes and frost heaves become more common so you need to stay alert.