Elliott Highway (Fox to Manley)

Orig­i­nal­ly the Fox Road­house, this old-style build­ing has been ren­o­vat­ed to house a brew­ery and brew pub. Ten miles from Fair­banks, the brew­ery has at least a dozen house-made beers on tap, and a huge selec­tion of bot­tled brews, many of which can’t be found any­where else in town. There’s a large, open beer gar­den out back, ide­al for sum­mer nights. And the food’s great. 

The White Moun­tain Nation­al Recre­ation Area has over 200 miles of win­ter trails that are shared by dog mush­ers, ski­iers, ski­jor­ers, and snow machin­ers and sev­er­al cab­ins have been built along the White Moun­tain win­ter trails to pro­vide vis­i­tors with safe­ty and com­fort dur­ing their adventures.

Stop and fill up your water bot­tles at this fresh spring water tap.

This is a mod­er­ate­ly dif­fi­cult 5 mile long trail that begins and ends at the Wick­er­sham Dome Trail­head at Mile 28 Elliot High­way. This trail offers beau­ti­ful views of the Alas­ka Range and Denali (Mt. McKinley).

Sum­mit Trail fol­lows a ridge all the way from Elliot High­way to Beaver Creek. There is a shel­ter cab­in 8 miles from the trail head that is avail­able to hik­ers on a first-come, first-served basis.

There isn’t a much left of this old min­ing town, but at one time, it was home to 250 – 300 min­ers. The town, named for prospec­tor Nels Olnes, boast­ed gen­er­al stores, lodges, hotels and mail and tele­phone ser­vice. It was even a stop on the Tanana Val­ley Railroad.

Here you’ll find oppor­tu­ni­ties for swim­ming, fish­ing, boat­ing and camp­ing. Camp­sites are set among the trees and in open grassy areas. Explore fur­ther afield to find blue­ber­ry and cran­ber­ry bush­es along the path around the pond. 

This is a camp­ground locat­ed at Mile 11 of the Elliot High­way along the Chatani­ka Riv­er, just a 30 minute dri­ve north of Fair­banks. This camp­ground is part of the Low­er Chatani­ka State Recre­ation Area. Day guests can access the boat launch, pic­nic shel­ter, and day use park­ing area. Overnight guests can choose from 8 campsites.

Take a break here and look for the sign about the exper­i­men­tal trench­ing site in this area. This exper­i­ment is part of a project study­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty to con­struct a nat­ur­al gas pipeline to trans­port nat­ur­al gas from Alaska’s North Slope to mar­ket. This site will be mon­i­tored for 10 years to eval­u­ate the amount of fill sub­stance and to study the suc­cess of sev­er­al meth­ods of re-vegetation.

The White Moun­tains Nation­al Recre­ation Area is home to 200+-miles of trail tra­vers­ing a mil­lion acres of wilder­ness and a moun­tain range named for the dom­i­nant col­or of its lime­stone foun­da­tion. To get there, dri­ve 28 miles on the Elliott High­way from Fox (where it splits with the Steese) and look for signs mark­ing the trail­head. The trail­head is the start­ing point for both the Sum­mit Trail, and the Ski Loop Trail, a 5‑mile loop and a nice  ...more

This is your first good view of the Trans-Alas­ka Pipeline as it emerges from the hill­side. The pipeline car­ries crude oil from Prud­hoe Bay on the Arc­tic Ocean, 800-miles to its ter­mi­nus at Valdez.

Look for the large rock out­crop­pings. These are very pop­u­lar with tech­ni­cal rock climbers. A clos­er look at the Grape­fruit Rocks is just a short hike away.

Joy (Pop. 30). This rur­al com­mu­ni­ty is named for Joy Grif­fin, who home­stead­ed this area with her hus­band. Joy wrote Home Sweet Home­stead about her expe­ri­ences here.

The orig­i­nal cab­in was built in 1935 by Swedish trap­per and prospec­tor Fred Blixt but burned down in 1991. The cab­in was replaced in 1992 and is now wheelchair-accessible.

Liven­good (pop. 23) Nathaniel R. Hud­son and Jay Liven­good dis­cov­ered gold on Liven­good Creek in 1914. By 1915 there was a min­ing camp and post office. From 1915 — 1920, the claim yield­ed about $9.5 mil­lion in gold. A large-scale min­ing attempt in the late 1930s — 1940s failed and the post office was dis­con­tin­ued in 1957. There is active drilling in the area so do not tres­pass on min­ing claims.

The 414-mile-long Dal­ton High­way is Alaska’s only road to the Arc­tic. This high­way was built to sup­port the Prud­hoe Bay Oil­fields and is still used today by both com­mer­cial and recre­ation­al traf­fic. Make sure you are on the right high­way, the Elliot make a sharp turn left here.

Here you’ll find infor­mal camp­sites and a boat launch. You may notice an abun­dance of drag­on­flies in this area; their main source of food is mos­qui­toes. The Four-Spot Skim­mer Drag­on­fly was adopt­ed as the Alas­ka state insect in 1995.

There is no road access, but this 11-mile mod­er­ate to stren­u­ous hike is well worth the trip. The trail has spec­tac­u­lar views as it cross­es over Tolo­vana Hot Springs Dome. The hot springs has two hot tubs, 3 cab­ins as well as outhouses. 

In arc­tic and sub-arc­tic regions, the sub­soil con­sists of per­mafrost, which is per­ma­nent­ly frozen soil. Only veg­e­ta­tion with a very shal­low root sys­tem can grow in per­mafrost. Now you will start to see spruce trees again as you make the tran­si­tion from alpine to forest­ed terrain.

The Athabas­can Vil­lage of Minto (pop. 190) is 11 miles from here. Many of the vil­lage’s res­i­dent still live a tra­di­tion­al sub­sis­tence lifestyle by hunt­ing out on the Minto Flats.

A large pull­out pro­vides a panoram­ic view of the coun­try­side, as well as a nice infor­mal campsite.

For­est fires are endem­ic to this region, usu­al­ly occur­ring once every 100 to 200 years in any one place. New growth quick­ly takes root and pro­vides habi­tat and browse for many dif­fer­ent birds and ani­mals that might find it more dif­fi­cult to sur­vive in mature forests.

Three con­crete tubs offer a chance to soak in the sooth­ing min­er­al water. To make arrange­ments for a vis­it, con­tact the Hot Springs Bath­house where for $5 you can soak amid the splen­dor of grapes, Asian pears and flowers.

This is one of Alaska’s old­est orig­i­nal road­hous­es from the gold rush era. Stop in for a slice of home­made pie or a giant cin­na­mon roll and min­gle with the local min­ers, dog mush­ers, trap­pers and fishermen.