Jack doesn’t remember much of a back story on this but it happened a few years ago and no one died. It went off the road and rolled over. Yikes! (Click for a larger view.)
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The hill that drivers call “Koyukuk” is right next to the Koyukuk River and it’s one of the steepest on the Dalton. It’s about 30 miles south of Coldfoot. The video was taken last winter.
Jack happened to be there to document this huge mod being pushed up the hill by push trucks and also being steered from the back because it’s so long. If you look close you can see someone standing outside on the load as it goes up the hill – he’s steering the rear end as it goes around the curves. The guy doing the steering is one of the former owners of Carlile and he comes up the Dalton for these types of loads that need some special care. (Carlile was sold to Saltchuk Corporation a while ago.)
In case you are wondering, the truck is going pretty slow, about 5 miles an hour in 3rd gear. The last thing you ever want to do, Jack says, is change gears when you’re going that slow with that much weight since you’ll stop before you get it into a different gear. If you stop it’ll take a while to get going again and without the momentum you’re putting a lot of strain on the truck and there’s too much potential for breaking something. The years Jack spent in heavy haul were great years he says, but he doesn’t miss it.
Jack is driving a new truck, a Freightliner. He’s discussed this a little in the comments section of the About page. Jesse Aird asked: “Why the Freightliner? Hard to beat a W9.” Jack answered:
“Well, my bosses asked me if I wanted to try it out and I know a lot of owner operators have them up here and like them, so I did. Turns out the engine is great (DD16), there’s lots of room in the cab, and I don’t feel exhausted at the end of several trips in a row, maybe because of the comfortable seat. The truck rides better. I don’t care what brand it is as long as it’s comfortable and reliable.”
He added to Pete Wylie aka Straight Arrow: “There is something about the Freightliner that makes a better ride. It takes bumps better.”
So there you have it, why Jack is driving a Freightliner.
Happy New Year!
Here are the last of the photos from when Jack was leaving Prudhoe Bay on June 6th. There’s more info on the captions. Click on the first one and scroll to the right.
Here are more photos from when Jack was leaving Prudhoe on June 6th. There’s more info on the captions. Click on the first one and scroll to the right.
From Alaska Dispatch News:
DEADHORSE — Unprecedented flooding continues to interfere with daily operations on the North Slope oil patch after surging waters wiped away swaths of the Dalton Highway and isolated a section of Deadhorse, the jumping-off point for the sprawling industrial region.
“This is just epic,” said Mike Coffey, commander of the unified incident command, a response team consisting of the state, the North Slope Borough and oil companies. “People who have been here for decades say they’ve never seen anything like it.”
The state has estimated the costs of the damage and repairs since March at $5.1 million. The federal government may pay for much of that, since the icing and flooding on the highway has been declared a disaster, said Coffey, the director of state transportation maintenance and operations.
You can see more photos and get a lot of more info from the article: http://www.adn.com/article/20150521/epic-flooding-dalton-highway-hinders-north-slope-oil-operations
Photos from Joe Kemp of the Dalton Highway eroding because of the Sag River overflow near Prudhoe Bay.
Another jarring image from Alaska Department of Transportation. The road is definitely washed out now. Yikes!
http://dot.alaska.gov/nreg/dalton-updates/
And here is another link for tons of photos and videos from AK DOT & PF:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/akdotpf/sets/72157651922122696/with/16982351150/
Jack said “Holy Sh**!” when he looked at the Alaska Department of Transportation page today. Not because of the photos of the road flooding but when he saw this:
2015: Dalton Highway 401-414 Reconstruction, will start this summer and is a two year project. Construction contract award is $27 million. The scope of the project is to reconstruct the Dalton Highway from Mile Post 401-414, improvements include raising the grade seven feet, replacing culverts and surfacing the road.
2016: Dalton Highway 379-401 Reconstruction, scheduled for construction in 2016, estimated cost is $40-50 million. The scope of the project is to reconstruct the Dalton Highway from Mile Post 379-401, improvements including raising the grade seven feet, replacing culverts and surfacing the road.
This will raise the road 7 feet above the tundra, so when someone goes off the road, it will be a lot bigger deal. Here is the link for that Alaska DOT page: http://dot.alaska.gov/nreg/dalton-updates/
Here are two aerial photos of the flooding, both from the Alaska DOT webpage. Click on the photos for more info on the captions.
Here is a quick video from when Jack went through the cleared lane that the State of Alaska loader made after the avalanche on Atigun Pass. Don’t forget you can change the settings in the lower right hand corner if the video looks grainy.
The Jack Jessee Blog 