Deadhorse is not a town in the usual sense. It is an industrial camp at the end of the Dalton Highway, a place of warehouses, trucks, workers' lodges and a single general store, serving the Prudhoe Bay oil field on the Arctic coastal plain of Alaska. About 414 miles of gravel and dirt road run north from Fairbanks, crossing the Yukon River, the Arctic Circle and the Brooks Range at Atigun Pass before the land flattens into tundra, and the whole way the Trans-Alaska Pipeline snakes beside you, sometimes above ground on its zigzag supports, sometimes buried.
The last stretch from Coldfoot is about 240 miles with very little in the way of services. Fuel is sold at Coldfoot and again here, but nowhere reliable between except the tiny community of Wiseman, so riders carry spare fuel and plan carefully. The road is mostly gravel, sometimes rough, treated with dust control that turns to slick mud in the rain, with heavy trucks that dominate the road. Give them room, ride with lights on, and expect stones thrown up by passing vehicles. Tyres, spare tubes and tools are not optional.
The landscape is the real reward. North of the Brooks Range the land spreads out in huge, flat expanses of tundra, with caribou, muskoxen, and in summer a carpet of small flowers. The sun does not set for weeks in midsummer, so riding at midnight is possible, and in winter it vanishes entirely. Mosquitoes in July can be savage, and weather can turn quickly from sunny to freezing rain, so bring layers and waterproofs.
Visitors need to know that Deadhorse sits inside a working oil field, and access to the Arctic Ocean itself is controlled. Independent travellers usually book a shuttle tour for the last few miles to the shore. Rooms and meals are available at a few lodges but are expensive and often full, so book ahead. The permanent population is only a few hundred, with workers rotating in from elsewhere. The best months are June to August, after the road has dried and before the snow returns.